My father disliked the law. And I do not think it reconciled him to the idea of my being a barrister that afterwards I hoped to become a politician. "It isn't in our temperament2, Stephen," he said. "It's a pushing, bullying3, cramming4, base life. I don't see you succeeding there, and I don't see myself rejoicing even if you do succeed. You have to shout, and Strattons don't shout; you have to be smart and tricky5 and there's never been a smart and tricky Stratton yet; you have to snatch opportunities and get the better of the people and misrepresent the realities of every case you touch. You're a paid misrepresenter. They say you'll get a fellowship, Stephen. Why not stay up, and do some thinking for a year or so. There'll be enough to keep you. Write a little."
"The bar," I said, "is only a means to an end."
"If you succeed."
"If I succeed. One has to take the chances of life everywhere."
"And what is the end?"
"Constructive6 statesmanship."
"Not in that way," said my father, pouring himself a second glass of port, and turned over my high-sounding phrase with a faint hint of distaste; "Constructive Statesmanship. No. Once a barrister always a barrister. You'll only be a party politician.... Vulgar men.... Vulgar.... If you succeed that is...."
He criticized me but he did not oppose me, and already in the beginning of the summer we had settled that I should be called to the bar.
Now suddenly I wanted to go back upon all these determinations. I began to demand in the intellectual slang of the time "more actuality," and to amaze my father with talk about empire makers7 and the greatness of Lord Strathcona and Cecil Rhodes. Why, I asked, shouldn't I travel for a year in search of opportunity? At Oxford8 I had made acquaintance with a son of Pramley's, the big Mexican and Borneo man, and to him I wrote, apropos9 of a half-forgotten midnight talk in the rooms of some common friend. He wrote back with the suggestion that I should go and talk to his father, and I tore myself away from Mary and went up to see that great exploiter of undeveloped possibilities and have one of the most illuminating10 and humiliating conversations in the world. He was, I remember, a little pale-complexioned, slow-speaking man with a humorous blue eye, a faint, just perceptible northern accent and a trick of keeping silent for a moment after you had finished speaking, and he talked to me as one might talk to a child of eight who wanted to know how one could become a commander-in-chief. His son had evidently emphasized my union reputation, and he would have been quite willing, I perceived, to give me employment if I had displayed the slightest intelligence or ability in any utilizable11 direction. But quite dreadfully he sounded my equipment with me and showed me the emptiness of my stores.
"You want some way that gives you a chance of growing rich rapidly," he said. "Aye. It's not a bad idea. But there's others, you know, have tried that game before ye.
"You don't want riches just for riches but for an end. Aye! Aye! It's the spending attracts ye. You'd not have me think you'd the sin of avarice12. I'm clear on that about ye.
"Well," he explained, "it's all one of three things we do, you know—prospecting13 and forestalling14 and—just stealing, and the only respectable way is prospecting. You'd prefer the respectable way, I suppose?... I knew ye would. Well, let's see what chances ye have."
And he began to probe my practical knowledge. It was like an unfit man stripping for a medical inspection15. Did I know anything of oil, of rubber, of sugar, of substances generally, had I studied mineralogy or geology, had I any ideas of industrial processes, of technical chemistry, of rare minerals, of labor16 problems and the handling of alien labor, of the economics of railway management or of camping out in dry, thinly populated countries, or again could I maybe speak Spanish or Italian or Russian? The little dons who career about Oxford afoot and awheel, wearing old gowns and mortarboards, giggling17 over Spooner's latest, and being tremendous "characters" in the intervals18 of concocting19 the ruling-class mind, had turned my mind away from such matters altogether. I had left that sort of thing to Germans and east-end Jews and young men from the upper-grade board schools of Sheffield and Birmingham. I was made to realize appalling20 wildernesses21 of ignorance....
"You see," said old Pramley, "you don't seem to know anything whatever. It's a deeficulty. It'll stand in your way a little now, though no doubt you'd be quick at the uptake—after all the education they've given ye.... But it stands in your way, if ye think of setting out to do something large and effective, just immediately...."
Moreover it came out, I forget now how, that I hadn't clearly grasped the difference between cumulative22 and non-cumulative preference shares....
I remember too how I dined alone that evening in a mood between frantic23 exasperation24 and utter abasement25 in the window of the Mediated26 Universities Club, of which I was a junior member under the undergraduate rule. And I lay awake all night in one of the austere27 club bedrooms, saying to old Pramley a number of extremely able and penetrating28 things that had unhappily not occurred to me during the progress of our interview. I didn't go back to Burnmore for several days. I had set my heart on achieving something, on returning with some earnest of the great attack I was to make upon the separating great world between myself and Mary. I am far enough off now from that angry and passionate29 youngster to smile at the thought that my subjugation30 of things in general and high finance in particular took at last the form of proposing to go into the office of Bean, Medhurst, Stockton, and Schnadhorst upon half commission terms. I was awaiting my father's reply to this startling new suggestion when I got a telegram from Mary. "We are going to Scotland unexpectedly. Come down and see me." I went home instantly, and told my father I had come to talk things over with him. A note from Mary lay upon the hall-table as I came in and encountered my father. "I thought it better to come down to you," I said with my glance roving to find that, and then I met his eye. It wasn't altogether an unkindly eye, but I winced31 dishonestly.
"Talking is better for all sorts of things," said my father, and wanted to know if the weather had been as hot in London as it had been in Burnmore.
Mary's note was in pencil, scribbled32 hastily. I was to wait after eleven that night near the great rose bushes behind the pavilion. Long before eleven I was there, on a seat in a thick shadow looking across great lakes of moonlight towards the phantom33 statuary of the Italianate garden and the dark laurels34 that partly masked the house. I waited nearly an hour, an hour of stillness and small creepings and cheepings and goings to and fro among the branches.
In the bushes near by me a little green glow-worm shared my vigil.
And then, wrapped about in a dark velvet35 cloak, still in her white dinner dress, with shining, gleaming, glancing stones about her dear throat, warm and wonderful and glowing and daring, Mary came flitting out of the shadows to me.
"My dear," she whispered, panting and withdrawing a little from our first passionate embrace, "Oh my dear!... How did I come? Twice before, when I was a girl, I got out this way. By the corner of the conservatory36 and down the laundry wall. You can't see from here, but it's easy—easy. There's a tree that helps. And now I have come that way to you. You!...
"Oh! love me, my Stephen, love me, dear. Love me as if we were never to love again. Am I beautiful, my dear? Am I beautiful in the moonlight? Tell me!...
"Perhaps this is the night of our lives, dear! Perhaps never again will you and I be happy!...
"But the wonder, dear, the beauty! Isn't it still? It's as if nothing really stood solid and dry. As if everything floated....
"Everyone in all the world has gone to sleep to-night and left the world to us. Come! Come this way and peep at the house, there. Stoop—under the branches. See, not a light is left! And all its blinds are drawn37 and its eyes shut. One window is open, my little window, Stephen! but that is in the shadow where that creeper makes everything black.
"Along here a little further is night-stock. Now—Now! Sniff38, Stephen! Sniff! The scent39 of it! It lies—like a bank of scented40 air.... And Stephen, there! Look!... A star—a star without a sound, falling out of the blue! It's gone!"
There was her dear face close to mine, soft under the soft moonlight, and the breath of her sweet speech mingled41 with the scent of the night-stock....
That was indeed the most beautiful night of my life, a night of moonlight and cool fragrance42 and adventurous43 excitement. We were transported out of this old world of dusty limitations; it was as if for those hours the curse of man was lifted from our lives. No one discovered us, no evil thing came near us. For a long time we lay close in one another's arms upon a bank of thyme. Our heads were close together; her eyelashes swept my cheek, we spoke44 rarely and in soft whispers, and our hearts were beating, beating. We were as solemn as great mountains and as innocent as sleeping children. Our kisses were kisses of moonlight. And it seemed to me that nothing that had ever happened or could happen afterwards, mattered against that happiness....
It was nearly three when at last I came back into my father's garden. No one had missed me from my room and the house was all asleep, but I could not get in because I had closed a latch45 behind me, and so I stayed in the little arbor46 until day, watching the day break upon long beaches of pale cloud over the hills towards Alfridsham. I slept at last with my head upon my arms upon the stone table, until the noise of shooting bolts and doors being unlocked roused me to watch my chance and slip back again into the house, and up the shuttered darkened staircase to my tranquil47, undisturbed bedroom.
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1
prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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bullying
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| v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈 | |
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4
cramming
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| n.塞满，填鸭式的用功v.塞入( cram的现在分词 )；填塞；塞满；（为考试而）死记硬背功课 | |
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tricky
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| adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的 | |
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constructive
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| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
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makers
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| n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式） | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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apropos
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| adv.恰好地；adj.恰当的；关于 | |
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illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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utilizable
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| adj.可利用的 | |
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avarice
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| n.贪婪；贪心 | |
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prospecting
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| n.探矿 | |
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forestalling
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| v.先发制人，预先阻止( forestall的现在分词 ) | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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giggling
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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19
concocting
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| v.将（尤指通常不相配合的）成分混合成某物( concoct的现在分词 )；调制；编造；捏造 | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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wildernesses
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| 荒野( wilderness的名词复数 )； 沙漠； （政治家）在野； 不再当政（或掌权） | |
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cumulative
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| adj.累积的，渐增的 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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exasperation
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| n.愤慨 | |
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abasement
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| n.滥用 | |
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mediated
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| 调停，调解，斡旋( mediate的过去式和过去分词 )； 居间促成； 影响…的发生； 使…可能发生 | |
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austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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29
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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subjugation
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| n.镇压，平息，征服 | |
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31
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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33
phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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laurels
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| n.桂冠，荣誉 | |
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35
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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36
conservatory
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| n.温室，音乐学院；adj.保存性的，有保存力的 | |
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37
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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38
sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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39
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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40
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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41
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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42
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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43
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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44
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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45
latch
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| n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁 | |
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46
arbor
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| n.凉亭；树木 | |
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47
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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