It turned a most fortunate blunder, this blundering discovery of the aged8 inn, for it was here I met the Jolly Doctor who, by saving me from my fate of a drunkard, a fate to which I was hopelessly surrendered, will dwell ever in my thoughts as a greatest benefactor9.
There is that about an appetite for alcohol I can not understand. In my personal instance there is reason to believe it was inherited. And yet my own father never touched a drop and lived and died the uncompromising enemy of the bowl. It was from my grandsire, doubtless, I had any hankering after rum, for I have heard a sigh or two of how that dashing military gentleman so devoted10 himself to it that he fairly perished for very faithfulness as far away as eighty odd long years.
Once when my father and I were roaming the snow-filled woods with our guns—I was a lad of twelve—having heard little of that ancestor, I asked him what malady11 carried off my grandsire. My father did not reply at once, but stalked silently ahead, rifle caught under arm, the snow crunching12 beneath his heavy boots. Then he flung a sentence over his shoulder.
“Poor whiskey more than anything else,” said my father.
Even at the unripe13 age of twelve I could tell how the subject was unpleasant to my parent and did not press it. I saved my curiosity until evening when my mother and I were alone. My mother, to whom I re-put the query14, informed me in whispers how she had been told—for she never met him, he being dead and gone before her day—my grandsire threw away his existence upon the bottle.
The taste for strong waters so developed in my grandsire would seem like a quartz-ledge to have “dipped” beneath my father to strike the family surface with all its old-time richness in myself. I state this the more secure of its truth because I was instantly and completely a drunkard, waiving15 every preliminary stage as a novice16, from the moment of my first glass.
It was my first day of the tavern when I met the Jolly Doctor. The tavern was his home—for he lived a perilous17 bachelor—and had been many years; and when, being in a shaken state, I sent down from the apartments I had taken and requested the presence of a physician, he came up to me. He had me right and on my feet in the course of a few hours, and then I began to look him in the face and make his acquaintance.
As I abode18 in the tavern for a considerable space, we put in many friendly hours together. The Jolly Doctor was a round, strong, active body of a man, virile19 and with an atmosphere almost hypnotic. His forehead was good, his jaw20 hard, his nose arched, while his gray-blue eyes, half sour, half humorous and deeply wise of the world, gleamed in his head with the shine of beads21.
One evening while we were together about the fireplace of my parlor22, I was for having up a bottle of sherry.
“Before you give the order,” said the Jolly Doctor, restraining me with a friendly yet semiprofessional gesture, “let me say a word. Let me ask whether you have an intention or even a hope of one day—no matter how distant—quitting alcohol?” Without pausing for my answer, the Jolly Doctor went on. “You are yet a young man; I suppose you have seen thirty years. It has been my experience, albeit23 I’m but fifteen years your senior and not therefore as old as a hill, that no man uproots24 a habit after he has reached middle age. While climbing, mentally, physically25, nervously26, the slope of his years and adding to, not taking from, his strength, a man may so far re-draw himself as to make or break an appetite—the appetite of strong drink—if you will. But let him attain27 the summit of his strength, reach as it were the crest28 of his days and begin to travel down the easy long descent toward the grave, and every chance of change has perished beyond his reach. You are thirty; and to make it short, my friend, you must, considering what bottle tendencies lie latent within you, stop now and stop hard, or you are lost forever.”
To say I was impressed is not to exaggerate. I was frank enough to confess, however, that privately30 I held no hope of change. Several years before, I had become convinced, after a full survey of myself and the close study of my inclinations31, that I was born to live and die, like my grandsire, the victim of drink. I was its thrall32, bound to it as I lay in my cradle; there existed no gate of escape. This I told; not joyously33, I promise you, or as one reciting good fortune; not argumentatively and as reason for the forthcoming of asked-for wine; but because it was true and made, as I held it, a reason for going in this matter of tipple34 with freest rein35 since dodge36 or balk37 my fate I might not.
At the close my Jolly Doctor shook his head in negative.
“No man knows his destiny,” said he, “until the game’s played out. Come, let me prescribe for you. The drug I have in mind has cured folk; I should add, too, that for some it carries neither power nor worth. Still, it will do no harm, and since we may have a test of its virtues38 within three days; at the worst you will be called upon to surrender no more than seventy-two hours to sobriety.” This last was delivered like a cynic.
On my side, I not only thanked the Jolly Doctor for his concern, but hastened to assure him I would willingly make pact39 to abstain40 from alcohol not three days, but three weeks or three months, were it necessary to pleasure his experiment. My bent41 for drink was in that degree peculiar42 that I was not so much its disciple43 who must worship constantly and every day, as one of those who are given to sprees. Often and of choice I was a stranger to so much as the odor of rum for weeks on end. Then would come other weeks of tumult44 and riot and drunkenness. The terms of trial for his medicine would be easily and comfortably undergone by me. He had my promise of three days free of rum.
The Jolly Doctor went to his room; returning, he placed on the table a little bottle of liquid, reddish in color and bitter of taste.
“Red cinchona, it is,” said the Jolly Doctor; “cinchona rubra, or rather the fluid extract of that bark. It is not a tincture; there is no alcohol about it. The remedy is well known and I oft marvel45 it has had no wider vogue46. As I’ve told you, and on the principle, probably, that one man’s poison is another man’s food, it does not always cure. However, we will give you a teaspoonful47 once in three hours and observe the effect in your particular case.”
There shall be little more related on this point of dypsomania and its remedy. I took the prescription48 for a trio of days. At the expiration49 I sate50 me solemnly down and debated within myself whether or no I craved51 strong drink, with the full purpose of calling for it if I did. Absolutely, the anxiety was absent; and since I had resolved not to force the bottle upon myself, but to give the Jolly Doctor and his drug all proper show to gain a victory, I made no alcohol demands. All this was years ago, and from that hour until now, when I write these lines, I’ve neither taken nor wanted alcohol. I’ve gone freely where it was, and abode for hours at tables when others poured and tossed it off; for myself I’ve craved none and taken none.
Toward the last of my stay, there came to dwell at the hostelry a goodly circle; one for a most part chance-sown. For days it had been snowing with a free, persistent52 hand; softly, industriously53, indomitably fell the flakes54, straight down and unflurried of a wind, until the cold light element lay about the tavern for a level depth of full three feet. It was the sort of weather in which one should read Whittier’s Snow-Bound.
Our circle, as snow-pent and held within door we drew about the tavern fire, offered a chequered citizenry. On the earliest occasion of our comradeship, while the snow sifted55 about the old-fashioned panes56 and showed through them with the whiteness of milk, I cast my eye over the group to collect for myself a mental picture of my companions.
At the right hand of the Jolly Doctor, solid in his arm chair, sat a Red Nosed Gentleman. He showed prosperous of this world’s goods and owned to a warm weakness for burgundy. He was particular to keep ever a bottle at his elbow, and constantly supported his interest in what was current with a moderate glass.
In sharpest contrast to the Red Nosed Gentleman there should be mentioned a gray old gentleman of sour and forbidding eye. The Jolly Doctor, who had known him for long, gave me in a whisper his story. This Sour Gentleman, like the Red Nosed Gentleman, had half retired57 from the cares of business. The Red Nosed Gentleman in his later days had been a stock speculator, as in sooth had the Sour Gentleman, and each would still on occasion carry a few thousand shares for a week or two and then swoop58 on a profit with quite the eagerness of any hawk59 on any hen.
Not to be overlooked, in a corner nearest the chimney was a seamed white old figure, tall and spare, yet with vigorous thews still strung in the teeth of his all but four score years. He was referred to during our amiable60 captivity61, and while we sate snow-locked about the mighty62 fire-place, as the Old Cattleman.
Half comrade and half ward29, our Old Cattleman had with him a taciturn, grave individual, to whom he gave the title of “Sioux Sam,” and whose father, he informed us, had been a French trader from St. Louis, while his mother was a squaw of the tribe that furnished the first portion of his name.
As we brought arm chairs about the fire-place on our first snow-bound evening, moved possibly by the Red Nosed Gentleman’s burgundy, which that florid person had urged upon his attention, the Jolly Doctor set the little community a good story-telling example.
“This story, I should premise,” said the Jolly Doctor, mollifying certain rawnesses of his throat with a final glass of the Red Nosed Gentleman’s burgundy, “belongs to no experience of my own. I shall tell it as it was given me. It speaks broadly of the west and of the folk of cows and the Indians, and was set uppermost in my memory by the presence of our western friends.” Here the Jolly Doctor indicated the Old Cattleman and that product of the French fur trader and his Indian wife, Sioux Sam, by a polite wave of his glass. Then tossing off the last of his burgundy he, without tedious preliminary, struck into his little history.
点击收听单词发音
1 hoary | |
adj.古老的;鬓发斑白的 | |
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2 tavern | |
n.小旅馆,客栈;小酒店 | |
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3 desultory | |
adj.散漫的,无方法的 | |
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4 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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5 secluded | |
adj.与世隔绝的;隐退的;偏僻的v.使隔开,使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
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6 dubious | |
adj.怀疑的,无把握的;有问题的,靠不住的 | |
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7 bosom | |
n.胸,胸部;胸怀;内心;adj.亲密的 | |
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8 aged | |
adj.年老的,陈年的 | |
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9 benefactor | |
n. 恩人,行善的人,捐助人 | |
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10 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
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11 malady | |
n.病,疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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12 crunching | |
v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 );嘎吱作响;(快速大量地)处理信息;数字捣弄 | |
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13 unripe | |
adj.未成熟的;n.未成熟 | |
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14 query | |
n.疑问,问号,质问;vt.询问,表示怀疑 | |
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15 waiving | |
v.宣布放弃( waive的现在分词 );搁置;推迟;放弃(权利、要求等) | |
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16 novice | |
adj.新手的,生手的 | |
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17 perilous | |
adj.危险的,冒险的 | |
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18 abode | |
n.住处,住所 | |
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19 virile | |
adj.男性的;有男性生殖力的;有男子气概的;强有力的 | |
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20 jaw | |
n.颚,颌,说教,流言蜚语;v.喋喋不休,教训 | |
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21 beads | |
n.(空心)小珠子( bead的名词复数 );水珠;珠子项链 | |
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22 parlor | |
n.店铺,营业室;会客室,客厅 | |
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23 albeit | |
conj.即使;纵使;虽然 | |
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24 uproots | |
v.把(某物)连根拔起( uproot的第三人称单数 );根除;赶走;把…赶出家园 | |
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25 physically | |
adj.物质上,体格上,身体上,按自然规律 | |
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26 nervously | |
adv.神情激动地,不安地 | |
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27 attain | |
vt.达到,获得,完成 | |
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28 crest | |
n.顶点;饰章;羽冠;vt.达到顶点;vi.形成浪尖 | |
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29 ward | |
n.守卫,监护,病房,行政区,由监护人或法院保护的人(尤指儿童);vt.守护,躲开 | |
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30 privately | |
adv.以私人的身份,悄悄地,私下地 | |
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31 inclinations | |
倾向( inclination的名词复数 ); 倾斜; 爱好; 斜坡 | |
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32 thrall | |
n.奴隶;奴隶制 | |
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33 joyously | |
ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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34 tipple | |
n.常喝的酒;v.不断喝,饮烈酒 | |
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35 rein | |
n.疆绳,统治,支配;vt.以僵绳控制,统治 | |
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36 dodge | |
v.闪开,躲开,避开;n.妙计,诡计 | |
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37 balk | |
n.大方木料;v.妨碍;不愿前进或从事某事 | |
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38 virtues | |
美德( virtue的名词复数 ); 德行; 优点; 长处 | |
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39 pact | |
n.合同,条约,公约,协定 | |
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40 abstain | |
v.自制,戒绝,弃权,避免 | |
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41 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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42 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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43 disciple | |
n.信徒,门徒,追随者 | |
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44 tumult | |
n.喧哗;激动,混乱;吵闹 | |
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45 marvel | |
vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异;n.令人惊异的事 | |
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46 Vogue | |
n.时髦,时尚;adj.流行的 | |
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47 teaspoonful | |
n.一茶匙的量;一茶匙容量 | |
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48 prescription | |
n.处方,开药;指示,规定 | |
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49 expiration | |
n.终结,期满,呼气,呼出物 | |
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50 sate | |
v.使充分满足 | |
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51 craved | |
渴望,热望( crave的过去式 ); 恳求,请求 | |
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52 persistent | |
adj.坚持不懈的,执意的;持续的 | |
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53 industriously | |
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54 flakes | |
小薄片( flake的名词复数 ); (尤指)碎片; 雪花; 古怪的人 | |
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55 sifted | |
v.筛( sift的过去式和过去分词 );筛滤;细查;详审 | |
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56 panes | |
窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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57 retired | |
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的 | |
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58 swoop | |
n.俯冲,攫取;v.抓取,突然袭击 | |
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59 hawk | |
n.鹰,骗子;鹰派成员 | |
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60 amiable | |
adj.和蔼可亲的,友善的,亲切的 | |
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61 captivity | |
n.囚禁;被俘;束缚 | |
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62 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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