Then there were the meetings—amazingly futile6 gatherings7 of people who met in the rooms of hotels, the Caxton Hall at Westminster or the Memorial Hall in Farringdon Street. These meetings gave young Humphrey an insight into the petty little vanities of life. They were hot-beds of mutual8 admiration9. What[105] was their business and what did they achieve? Heaven only knows! They had been in existence for years; this was perhaps the seventh or eighth or twenty-sixth annual meeting of the Anti-Noise Society, and the world was not yet silent. Yet here were the old ladies and the old gentlemen and the secretary (in a frock coat) congratulating themselves on an excellent year's work, and passing votes of thanks to each other, as though they were giving lollipops10 to children. These meetings were all built on one scheme. They always began half an hour late, because there were so few people in the room. The reporters (and here Humphrey sometimes met Beaver11) sat at a green baize-covered table near the speakers, and were given all sorts of printed matter—enough to fill the papers they represented, and, occasionally, men and women would sidle up to them, and give their visiting-cards, and say, "Be sure and get the initials right," or, "Would you like to interview me on Slavery in Cochin-China?" Then the chairman (Sir Simon Sloper) arrived, whiskered and florid-faced, and every one clapped their hands; and the secretary read letters and telegrams of regret which he passed to the reporters' table; and then they read the balance-sheet and the annual report, and Miss Heggie Petty, with the clipped accent of Forfarshire, gave her district report, and W. Black-Smith, Esq. ("Please don't forget the hyphen in The Day"), delivered his district report, and then the secretary spoke12 again, and the treasurer13 reminded them with a sternly humorous manner, that the annual subscriptions14 were overdue15, and, finally, came the great event of the afternoon: Sir Simon Sloper rose to address the meeting. Everybody was hugely interested, except the reporters, to whom it was platitudinous16 and tediously stale: they had heard it all before, times without number, at all the silly little meetings of foolish people the Sir Simon Slopers had their moments of adulation and[106] their reward of a paragraph in the papers. Nothing vital, nothing of great and lasting17 importance, was ever done at these meetings, yet every day six or seven of them were held.
There were societies and counter societies: there was a society for the suppression of this, and a society for the encouragement of that; there was the Society for Sunday Entertainment, and the Society for Sunday Rest; every one seemed to be pulling in opposite directions, and every one imagined that his or her views were best for the people. Humphrey found the reflection of all this in the advertisement columns of The Day, where there were advertisements of lotions18 that grew hair on bald heads, or ointment19 that took away superfluous20 hair; medicines that made fat people thin, or pills that made thin people fat; tonics21 that toned down nervous, high-strung people, and phosphates that exhilarated those who were depressed22. Life was a terribly ailing23 thing viewed through the advertisement columns; one seemed to be living in an invalid24 world, suffering from lumbago and nervous debility. It was a nightmare of a world, where people were either too florid or too pale, too fat or too thin, too bald or too hairy, too tall or too short ... and yet the world went on unchangingly, just as it did after the meetings of all the little societies of men or women who met together to give moral medicine to the world.
It is necessary that you should see these things from the same point of view as Humphrey, to realize the effect of it all on the development of his character. For after a dose of such meetings, when the careful reports of speeches that seemed important enough at the time, were either cut down by the sub-editors to three lines, or left out of the paper altogether, he asked himself the question: Why?
Why do all these people hold meetings?
[107]
And the answer came to him with a shock: "They are doing it all for me. Everything that is going on is being done for me."
And as he realized that he was only an onlooker25, a creature apart, something almost inhuman26 without a soul for pity or gladness, a dweller27 on the outskirts28 of life, a great longing29 came over him to join in it all himself. It seemed that this gigantic game of love and passion and sudden death and great achievement, was worth learning, and those who did not learn it, and only looked on while the tumult30 was whirling about them, were but shadows that faded away with the sunset of years.
He wanted to join in. He saw, now, that he was drifting nowhere. He, too, wanted to share in the great game, playing a part that was not to be ignored, that was needful to the success of the game. Alone he brooded on it. Beaver chaffed him and asked him what was up. Impossible to explain the perplexities of his inmost mind to Beaver.
"I don't know," he said, "I've got the hump."
They were having breakfast in the common sitting-room31.
"Haven't they printed your stuff?"
"It isn't that," Humphrey said.
"Well, what's up?" demanded the insistent32 Beaver.
"Everything!" said Humphrey, gloomily, looking round the room. The bulrushes were still there. "Everything. This ... I feel as we used to feel at Easterham!"
"I know what's the matter with you," said Beaver, folding his napkin, and pushing back his chair from the table. He regarded Humphrey with tremendous wisdom, and bit his nails. "You've got the hump," he said smiling at his inspiration. "Too many late hours."
"I suppose so."
"Well, look here, don't you get brooding. You want[108] company. I vote we have lunch together to-day. You come and call for me at the office, at one."
"Right you are, I will if I can," Humphrey replied.
All the morning he remained in the same mood, grappling with the new aspect of things that had come to him. Alone he brooded on it: he heard Rivers running through the programme of the day's events—the King going to Windsor, a new battleship being launched, a murderer to be tried at the Old Bailey, a society scandal in the Law Courts—the usual panorama33 of every day, at which Rivers told his men to look. And it was a great thing for the people of Windsor that the King was coming; there would be flags and guards of honour, and the National Anthem34; and the reputation of a ship-building firm, and the anxiety of thousands rested on the successful launch of the battleship, and a weary woman in a squalid slum was waiting tremblingly for the issue of the murder trial; but all these things, of such great import to those who played in the game, were not shared by those who looked on. And as Humphrey listened to Rivers, he realized that though they all moved with life, they were not of it.
He remembered a story that Willoughby told of a Salvation35 Army meeting in the Albert Hall, when General Booth had walked up and down the platform speaking of the glories of salvation, and, suddenly, he pointed36 a finger at the table below. "Are you saved?" he asked, with his finger shaking at a man who was looking up at him. "Me?" said the man, looking about him confusedly, and then, with a touch of indignation at being suddenly dragged into the game, "Me? I'm a reporter!"
He remembered that story now, and all that it expressed. At the time Willoughby told it, he thought it was a good joke, but now he saw the cruel irony37 of it.
And, in this frame of mind, as he was at grips with[109] himself, he went to call for Beaver. A light glimmered38 in the darkness of his mind, and the Joy and Spirit of Life itself, playing, instead of the Pipes of Pan, the keys of a typewriter, smiled upon him, and gave him the vision of a girlish face in a halo of fair hair that seemed threaded with gold as the sunlight touched it.
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1
undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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playwrights
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| n.剧作家( playwright的名词复数 ) | |
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3
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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4
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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7
gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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8
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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10
lollipops
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| n.棒糖，棒棒糖( lollipop的名词复数 )；（用交通指挥牌让车辆暂停以便儿童安全通过马路的）交通纠察 | |
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11
beaver
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| n.海狸，河狸 | |
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12
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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13
treasurer
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| n.司库，财务主管 | |
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14
subscriptions
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| n.（报刊等的）订阅费( subscription的名词复数 )；捐款；（俱乐部的）会员费；捐助 | |
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15
overdue
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| adj.过期的，到期未付的；早该有的，迟到的 | |
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platitudinous
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| adj.平凡的，陈腐的 | |
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17
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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18
lotions
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| n.洗液，洗剂，护肤液( lotion的名词复数 ) | |
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ointment
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| n.药膏，油膏，软膏 | |
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superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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21
tonics
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| n.滋补品( tonic的名词复数 )；主音；奎宁水；浊音 | |
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22
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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ailing
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| v.生病 | |
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invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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onlooker
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| n.旁观者，观众 | |
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inhuman
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| adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的 | |
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dweller
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| n.居住者，住客 | |
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outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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31
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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32
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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33
panorama
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| n.全景，全景画，全景摄影，全景照片[装置] | |
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34
anthem
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| n.圣歌，赞美诗，颂歌 | |
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35
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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36
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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37
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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38
glimmered
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| v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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