The sitting-room was not a very large apartment, but it was furnished with unusual taste. There were books set in white enamelled bookcases—books that are permanent on the shelf, and not novels of a moment. There was chintz on the arm-chairs and green curtains hung over the window, and a few original black-and-white drawings and water-colours on the walls, papered in dark blue. The impression that the room gave to the visitor was one of peace and rest.
Humphrey was frankly8 disappointed in Tommy Pride. He had had a vague notion that everybody connected with a London newspaper was, of necessity, a person of fame. He knew the names of those who signed the articles in The Day, and he imagined he[65] would find himself in the company of the great immortals9. Somehow or other it had never crossed his mind that there were patient, toiling10 men—hundreds of them—who put out their best work day after day, year after year, without any hope of glory or fame, but simply for the necessities of life, as a bricklayer lays bricks—hundreds of men quite unknown outside the bounds of Fleet Street and the inner newspaper world.
"Well," Mrs Pride said to him; "so you're going to try your luck in London, Mr Quain?"
Humphrey nodded, and the conversation went into the channels of small talk. Beaver and he amused the Prides with recollections of Easterham and Mr Worthing, and Tommy Pride capped their recollections with some of his own.
"When I was on a little local paper once, we had a fellow named Smee, who thought he could write," said Tommy. "The editor was a hard, cruel sort of chap, without any sympathy for the finer side of literature—at least that was what Smee said. He used to sob11 all round the place, because he wanted to write great throbbing12 prose instead of borough-council meetings. One day Smee got his chance. The editor was ill, and there was a prisoner to be hanged in the county jail. Smee wrote the effort of his life. It went something in this way:—
"'Last Tuesday, under the blue vault13 of heaven, when the larks14 were singing their rhapsodies to the roseate dawn, at 8 A.M., like a sudden harbinger of horror, the black flag fluttered above the prison walls, showing that Alfred Trollop, aged15 forty-two, labourer, had suffered the last penalty of the law—viz., death.'"
"How's that for descriptive?" asked Tommy, smacking16 his lips. "'Viz., death.' A glorious touch, eh?" He leaned towards Humphrey. "Don't you bother about[66] fine writing, Quain, or you'll break your heart. We keep a stableful of fine writers, and turn 'em loose when we want any high falutin' done."
"Don't be so depressing, Tommy," Mrs Pride said. "Never mind what he says, Mr Quain—there's a chance for every one to do his best in Fleet Street."
"Dear optimistress," remarked Tommy, linking an arm in hers, "let's see what we have for supper."
They all went into the dining-room, and Humphrey was given the place of honour next to Mrs Pride. Beaver sat opposite, and Tommy was at the head of the table carving17 the joint18 of cold roast beef. "I'm a little out of form," he said, whimsically. "This is the first meal I've had at home for a week."
"I sometimes wish Tommy were a sub-editor," Mrs Pride confided19 to Humphrey; "then we should at least have the day to ourselves. But he says he could never sit down at a desk for eight hours a night."
"Not me," Tommy interposed, with his mouth full of beef. "If they want to make you a sub-editor, Quain, take several grains of cyanide of potassium rather than yield. You've got some freedom of thought and life as a reporter, but if you're a sub you're chained down with a string of rules. They make you wear a mental uniform."
"I thought a sub-editor held a more important position than a reporter," Humphrey said.
"So he does, only the reporters don't think so. The paper couldn't get on without the sub-editors. I should love to see The Day printed for just one issue with everything that the reporters wrote untouched. It would have to be a forty-two page paper. Because every reporter thinks his story is the best, and writes as much of it as he can.... I like the subs, they've saved my life over and over again. Next to the Agency men[67] they're the most useful people in the world, eh, Beaver?... Have some beer, Beaver. Pass him the jug20, Quain."
Beaver laughed. "It strikes me you people on the regular staff of the papers take yourselves much too seriously. You've all got swelled21 heads. For the sake of fine phrases you'll lose half the facts. Why don't you all understand that it's simply in the day's work to do your job and forget all about it."
"Lord knows," Tommy replied, "but we don't. We get obsessed22 with our jobs, and dream them, and spend hours taking trouble over them, and we know all the time that when they come cold and chilly23 at night through the sub's hands, they're lopped about and cut up to fit a space. We may pretend we don't care what happens to our writing, so long as we draw our money, but I think we all do in our secret hearts. We're born that way. The moment a man really doesn't care whether his story is printed or cut to shreds24, he's no good in a newspaper office. It means he's lost his enthusiasm."
Tommy's voice fell. He knew well enough that that was the state of affairs to which he had come. All the long, long years of work had left him emotionless. He had exhausted25 his enthusiasm, and the whole business seemed stale to him. He felt out of place in this new world of newspaperdom, peopled with energetic, hopeful young men who came out of nowhere, and captured at once the prizes which were so hardly won in his day. He felt himself being nudged out of it all, by the pushful enthusiastic army of young men who had marched down on Fleet Street. All round him he saw signs of the coming change—the old penny papers were talking of changing their price to a halfpenny; the older men in journalism26 were being pensioned off, or dismissed, or[68] "put on space"—which means that they were not paid a regular salary but at so much a column for what they wrote. The spirit of change was working everywhere: some of the solid writers who found that they could not comply with the modern demands of journalism, migrated back to the provinces and became editors or leader-writers on papers in Manchester, Birmingham or Sheffield. And, at the back of all this change, the figure of Ferrol hovered27.... Ferrol sweeping28 irresistibly29 over the old traditions of Fleet Street.... Ferrol threatening to acquire this paper and that paper, to start weeklies and monthlies, to extend his power even to the provinces, so that everywhere the shadow brooded.
And they would want young men, keen, shrewd young men, and so the day would come when he would fade away from the life of Fleet Street. And then—"Tommy and I are going to retire soon," Mrs Pride said, with a fond glance at her husband, "aren't we, Tommy?"
"She means to the workhouse, Beaver," Tommy remarked, with a grin.
"We're going to have a cottage in the country, and Tommy's going to write his book."
"No," said Beaver, incredulously.
"Do you write books, Mr Pride?" Humphrey asked.
"I? Lord, no! Not now. I once had an idea of writing books. I was just about your age. I believe I've even got the first chapter somewhere. But I've never written it. Whenever the missis and I get very depressed30, we cheer ourselves up by talking of that book, and writing it in the country. By the way, do you know that deep down in the heart of every newspaper man there's a longing31 to write one book, and to live on two pounds a week in the country?"
[69]
"That'll do, Tommy," Mrs Pride interposed. "I won't have you spoil Mr Quain's evening any more. You're making him quite depressed. Don't pay any attention to him, Mr Quain, and have some cheese."
After supper they went back to the sitting-room, and Mrs Pride played to them, and Beaver sang in a shaky bass32 voice. Humphrey had never heard Beaver sing before. There was something grotesque33 about the singing. It took Humphrey by surprise. Beaver was the sort of man who, somehow or other, one imagined would sing in a high treble. He sang on and on, right through the portfolio34 of the "World's Favourite Songs," including "The Anchor's Weighed," "John Peel," "The Heart Bowed Down," and the rest of them. Pride sat in the arm-chair by the fireside, smoking a pipe, and nodding to the old melodies, while Humphrey gravitated to the book-shelves, and looked at some of the books.
He seemed to have left Easterham and his aunt far behind him in dim ages. A new feeling of responsibility came over him, as he sat there thinking of the morrow when his battle with Fleet Street was to begin. The future rested with him alone, and it gave him a delicious thrill of individuality to think of it.
It was as if he had suddenly become merged35 with some one else within him, who was constantly saying to him: "You are Humphrey Quain.... You are Humphrey Quain. Take charge of yourself now.... I have finished with you." He had an odd sense of not fully36 knowing this strange new Self with which he was faced. He wondered, too, whether Beaver or Pride had ever passed through the same sensation that was passing through him now. This was the beginning of that introspection when the presence of his Self became[70] dominant37 in his mind, shaping as something to be looked at and examined and questioned, that was to lead to much bitterness and unhappiness in the years to come.
The evening came to an end, but before they left Pride took Humphrey aside. "Beaver said you might like a few hints," he said. "I don't think I can help you much. I think you know your way about. But there are two important things to remember: Don't be a genius, and don't be a fool. I'll tell you more in the morning."
On the way back to Guilford Street Beaver eulogized Pride. He was one of the best reporters in Fleet Street—one of the safest, Beaver meant. Never let his paper down. Worth his salary on any paper.
"I suppose he gets a pretty big salary?" Humphrey asked.
"Who? Pride—no! I don't think he gets very much. He's not a show man, you see. Of course, dear old Tommy hasn't got a cent to spare. He's got a girl of thirteen at boarding-school, and that takes a good bit of keeping up."
"Why was he so discouraging?"
"Oh! that's his way. He pretends he's a pessimist38."
Humphrey went to bed that night full of thoughts of the morning. And in the tumult39 of his thoughts he wondered how he should avoid becoming as Tommy Pride, with all his thirty years of work as nothing, and all the high ambitions sacrificed to Fleet Street. Was that to be his end too—a reporter for ever, and at the finish of it, nothing but the husks of enthusiasm. He thought of Pride's wistful desire for a cottage in the country and two pounds a week. And he fell asleep while thinking how he was going to find a better end to his work than that.
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1
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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beaver
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| n.海狸，河狸 | |
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hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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buxom
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| adj.（妇女）丰满的，有健康美的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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immortals
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| 不朽的人物( immortal的名词复数 )； 永生不朽者 | |
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toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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larks
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| n.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的名词复数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了v.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的第三人称单数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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smacking
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| 活泼的，发出响声的，精力充沛的 | |
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carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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jug
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| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
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swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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shreds
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| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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portfolio
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| n.公事包；文件夹；大臣及部长职位 | |
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merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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pessimist
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| n.悲观者；悲观主义者；厌世 | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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