"To-day I shall see her."
He inhabited one of the three flats at the extreme northern end of the Albany, Piccadilly, W.I. The flat was strangely planned. Its shape as a whole was that of a cube. Imagine the cube to be divided perpendicularly1 into two very unequal parts. The larger part, occupying nearly two-thirds of the entire cubic space, was the drawing-room, a noble chamber2, large and lofty. The smaller part was cut horizontally into two storeys. The lower storey comprised a very small hall, a fair bathroom, the tiniest staircase in London, and G.J.'s very small bedroom. The upper storey comprised a very small dining-room, the kitchen, and servants' quarters.
The door between the bedroom and the drawing room, left open in the night for ventilation, had been softly closed as usual during G.J.'s final sleep, and the bedroom was in absolute darkness save for a faint grey gleam over the valance of the window curtains. G.J. could think. He wondered whether he was in love. He hoped he was in love, and the fact that the woman who attracted him was a courtesan did not disturb him in the least.
He was nearing fifty years of age. He had casually3 known hundreds of courtesans in sundry4 capitals, a few of them very agreeable; also a number of women calling themselves, sometimes correctly, actresses, all of whom, for various reasons which need not be given, had proved very unsatisfactory. But he had never loved—unless it might be, mildly, Concepcion, and Concepcion was now a war bride. He wanted to love. He had never felt about any woman, not even about Concepcion, as he felt about the woman seen for a few minutes at the Marigny Theatre and then for five successive nights vainly searched for in all the chief music-halls of Paris. (A nice name, Christine! It suited her.) He had given her up—never expected to catch sight of her again; but she had remained a steadfast5 memory, sad and charming. The encounter in the Promenade6 in Leicester Square was such a piece of heavenly and incredible luck that it had, at the moment, positively7 made him giddy. The first visit to Christine's flat had beatified and stimulated8 him. Would the second? Anyhow, she was the most alluring9 woman—and yet apparently10 of dependable character!—he had ever met. No other consideration counted with him.
There was a soft knock; the door was pushed, and wavy11 reflections of the drawing-room fire played on the corner of the bedroom ceiling. Mrs. Braiding came in. G.J. had known it was she by the caressing12 quality of the knock. Mrs. Braiding was his cook and the wife of his "man". It was not her place to come in, but occasionally, because something had happened to Braiding, she did come in. She drew the curtains apart, and the day of Vigo Street, pale, dirty, morose13, feebly and perfunctorily took possession of the bedroom. Mrs. Braiding, having drawn14 the curtains, returned to the door and from the doorway15 said:
"Breakfast is practically ready, sir."
G.J. perceived that this was one of her brave, resigned mornings. Since August she had borne the entire weight of the war on her back, and sometimes the burden would overpower her, but never quite. G.J. switched on the light, arose from his bed, assumed his dressing-gown, and, gazing with accustomed pleasure round the bedroom, saw that it was perfect.
He had furnished his flat in the Regency style of the first decade of the nineteenth century, as matured by George Smith, "upholder extraordinary to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales". The Pavilion at Brighton had given the original idea to G.J., who saw in it the solution of the problem of combining the somewhat massive dignity suitable to a bachelor of middling age with the bright, unconquerable colours which the eternal twilight16 of London demands.
His dome17 bed was yellow as to its upper works, with crimson18 valances above and yellow valances below. The yellow-lined crimson curtains (of course never closed) had green cords and tassels19, and the counterpane was yellow. This bed was a modest sample of the careful and uncompromising reconstitution of a period which he had everywhere carried out in his abode20.
The drawing-room, with its moulded ceiling and huge recessed21 window, had presented an admirable field for connoisseurship22. Here the clash of rich primary colours, the perpendiculars23 which began with bronze girls' heads and ended with bronze girls' feet or animals' claws, the vast flat surfaces of furniture, the stiff curves of wood and a drapery, the morbid24 rage for solidity which would employ a candelabrum weighing five hundredweight to hold a single wax candle, produced a real and imposing25 effect of style; it was a style debased, a style which was shedding the last graces of French Empire in order soon to appeal to a Victoria determined26 to be utterly27 English and good; but it was a style. And G.J. had scamped no detail. Even the pictures were hung with thick tasselled cords of the Regency. The drawing-room was a triumph.
Do not conceive that G.J. had lost his head about furniture and that his notion of paradise was an endless series of second-hand28 shops. He had an admirable balance; and he held that a man might make a faultless interior for himself and yet not necessarily lose his balance. He resented being called a specialist in furniture. He regarded himself as an amateur of life, and, if a specialist in anything, as a specialist in friendships. Yet he was a solitary29 man (liking solitude30 without knowing that he liked it), and in the midst of the perfections which he had created he sometimes gloomily thought: "What in the name of God am I doing on this earth?"
He went into the drawing-room, and there, by the fire and in front of a formidable blue chair whose arms developed into the grinning heads of bronze lions, stood the lacquered table consecrated31 to his breakfast tray; and his breakfast tray, with newspaper and correspondence, had been magically placed thereon as though by invisible hands. And on one arm of the easy-chair lay the rug which, because a dressing-gown does not button all the way down, he put over his knees while breakfasting in winter. Yes, he admitted with pleasure that he was "well served". Before eating he opened the piano—a modern instrument concealed32 in an ingeniously confected Regency case—and played with taste a Bach prelude33 and fugue.
His was not the standardised and habituated kind of musical culture which takes a Bach prelude and fugue every morning before breakfast with or without a glass of Lithia water or fizzy saline. He did, however, customarily begin the day at the piano, and on this particular morning he happened to play a Bach prelude and fugue.
And as he played he congratulated himself on not having gone to seek Christine in the Promenade on the previous night, as impatience34 had tempted35 him to do. Such a procedure would have been an error in worldliness and bad from every point of view. He had wisely rejected the temptation.
In the deep blue arm-chair, with the rug over his knees and one hand on a lion's head, he glanced first at the opened Times, because of the war. Among the few letters was one with the heading of the Reveille Motor Horn Company Ltd.
G.J. like his father, had been a solicitor36. When he was twenty-five his father, a widower37, had died and left him a respectable fortune and a very good practice. He sold half the practice to an incoming partner, and four years later he sold the other half of the practice to the same man. At thirty he was free, and this result had been attained38 through his frank negative answer to the question, "The law bores me—is there any reason why I should let it continue to bore me?" There was no reason. Instead of the law he took up life. Of business preoccupations naught39 remained but his investments. He possessed40 a gift for investing money. He had helped the man who had first put the Reveille Motor Horn on the market. He had had a mighty41 holding of shares in the Reveille Syndicate Limited, which had so successfully promoted the Reveille Motor Horn Company Limited. And in the latter, too, he held many shares. The Reveille Motor Horn Company had prospered42 and had gone into the manufacture of speedometers, illuminating43 outfits44, and all manner of motor-car accessories.
On the outbreak of war G.J. had given himself up for lost. "This is the end," he had said, as a member of the sore-shaken investing public. He had felt sick under the region of the heart. In particular he had feared for his Reveille shares. No one would want to buy expensive motor horns in the midst of the greatest war that the world, etc., etc.
Still the Reveille Company, after sustaining the shock, had somehow continued to do a pretty good business. It had patriotically45 offered its plant and services to the War Office, and had been repulsed46 with contumely and ignominy. The War Office had most caustically47 intimated to the Reveille Company that it had no use and never under any conceivable circumstances could have any use whatever for the Reveille Company, and that the Reveille Company was a forward and tedious jackanapes, unworthy even of an articulate rebuff. Now the autograph letter with the Reveille note-heading was written by the managing director (who represented G.J.'s interests on the Board), and it stated that the War Office had been to the Reveille Company, and implored48 it to enlarge itself, and given it vast orders at grand prices for all sorts of things that it had never made before. The profits of 1915 would be doubled, if not trebled—perhaps quadrupled. G.J. was relieved, uplifted; and he sniggered at his terrible forebodings of August and September. Ruin? He was actually going to make money out of the greatest war that the world, etc. etc. And why not? Somebody had to make money, and somebody had to pay for the war in income tax. For the first time the incubus49 of the war seemed lighter50 upon G.J. And also he need feel no slightest concern about the financial aspect of any possible developments of the Christine adventure. He had a very clear and undeniable sensation of positive happiness.
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1
perpendicularly
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| adv. 垂直地, 笔直地, 纵向地 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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steadfast
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| adj.固定的，不变的，不动摇的；忠实的；坚贞不移的 | |
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promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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alluring
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| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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12
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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tassels
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| n.穗( tassel的名词复数 )；流苏状物；（植物的）穗；玉蜀黍的穗状雄花v.抽穗， （玉米）长穗须( tassel的第三人称单数 )；使抽穗， （为了使作物茁壮生长）摘去穗状雄花；用流苏装饰 | |
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abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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recessed
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| v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的过去式和过去分词 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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connoisseurship
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| n.鉴赏家（或鉴定家、行家）身份，鉴赏（或鉴定）力 | |
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perpendiculars
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| n.垂直的，成直角的( perpendicular的名词复数 )；直立的 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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consecrated
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| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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32
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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solicitor
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| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
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widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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38
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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39
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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40
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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41
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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42
prospered
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| 成功，兴旺( prosper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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43
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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44
outfits
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| n.全套装备( outfit的名词复数 )；一套服装；集体；组织v.装备，配置设备，供给服装( outfit的第三人称单数 ) | |
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45
patriotically
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| 爱国地；忧国地 | |
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46
repulsed
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| v.击退( repulse的过去式和过去分词 )；驳斥；拒绝 | |
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47
caustically
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| adv.刻薄地；挖苦地；尖刻地；讥刺地 | |
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48
implored
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| 恳求或乞求（某人）( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
incubus
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| n.负担；恶梦 | |
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50
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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