"Look here, old man," said Lucas, "there's no use in all this gloom. You might think Lucas & Enwright had never put up a building in their lives. Just as well to dwell now and then on what they have done instead of on what they haven't done. We're fairly busy, you know. Besides——"
"Quite right! Quite right!" George willingly agreed, swinging his stick and gazing straight ahead. And he thought: "This chap has got his head screwed on. He's miles wiser than I am, and he's really nice. I could never be nice like that."
In a moment they were at the turbulent junction10 of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford11 Street, where crowds of Londoners, deeply unconscious of their own vulgarity, and of the marvellous distinction of Bedford Square, and of the moral obligation to harmonize socks with neckties, were preoccupying12 themselves with omnibuses and routes, and constituting the spectacle of London. The high-heeled, demure creatures were lost in this crowd, and Lucas and George were lost in it.
"Well," said Lucas, halting on the pavement. "You're going down to the cathedral."
"It'll please the old cock," answered George, anxious to disavow any higher motive13. "You aren't coming?"
Lucas shook his head. "I shall just go and snatch a hasty".... 'Cup of tea' was the unuttered end of the sentence.
"Puffin's?"
Lucas nodded. Puffin's was a cosy14 house of sustenance15 in a half-new street on the site of the razed16 slums of St. Giles's. He would not frequent the orthodox tea-houses, which were all alike and which had other serious disadvantages. He adventured into the unusual, and could always demonstrate that what he found was subtly superior to anything else.
"That affair still on?" George questioned.
"It's not off."
"She's a nice little thing—that I will say."
"It all depends," Lucas replied sternly. "I don't mind telling you she wasn't so jolly nice on Tuesday."
"However——" he said.
As George walked alone down Charing19 Cross Road, he thought: "That girl will have to look out,"—meaning that in his opinion Lucas was not a man to be trifled with. Lucas was a wise and an experienced man, and knew the world. And what he did could not be other than right. This notion comforted George, who had a small affair of his own, which he had not yet even mentioned to Lucas. Delicacy20 as well as diffidence had prevented him from doing so. It was a very different affair from any of Lucas's, and he did not want Lucas to misesteem it; neither did he want Lucas to be under the temptation to regard him as a ninny.
Not the cathedral alone had induced George to leave the office early. The dissembler had reflected that if he called in a certain conventional tea-shop near Cambridge Circus at a certain hour he would probably meet Marguerite Haim. He knew that she had an appointment with one of her customers, a firm of bookbinders, that afternoon, and that on similar occasions she had been to the tea-shop. In fact he had already once deliciously taken tea with her therein. To-day he was disappointed, to the extent of the tea, for he met her as she was coming out of the shop. Their greetings were rather punctilious22, but beneath superficial formalities shone the proofs of intimacy23. They had had large opportunities to become intimate, and they had become intimate. The immediate24 origin of and excuse for the intimacy was a lampshade. George had needed a lampshade for his room, and she had offered to paint one. She submitted sketches25. But George also could paint a bit. Hence discussions, conferences, rival designs, and, lastly, an agreement upon a composite design. Before long, the lampshade craze increasing in virulence26, they had between them re-lampshaded the entire house. Then the charming mania27 expired; but it had done its work. During the summer holiday George had written twice to Marguerite, and he had thought pleasurably about her the whole time. He had hoped that she would open the door for him upon his return, and that when he saw her again he would at length penetrate28 the baffling secret of her individuality. She had opened the door for him, exquisitely29, but the secret had not yielded itself. It was astonishing to George, how that girl could combine the candours of honest intimacy with a profound reserve.
"Were you going in there for tea?" she asked, looking up at him gravely.
"No," he said. "I don't want any tea. I have to wend my way to the Roman Catholic Cathedral—you know, the new one, near Victoria. I suppose you wouldn't care to see it?"
A strange phrase, he thought! What did she mean?
"Would you mind walking?" she suggested.
So they walked. She had her usual serious expression, as it were full of the consciousness of duty. It made him think how reliable she would always be. She held herself straight and independently, and her appearance was very simple and very trim. He considered it wrong that a girl with such beautiful lips should have to consult callous32 bookbinders and accept whatever they chose to say. To him she was like a lovely and valiant33 martyr34. The spectacle of her was touching35. However, he could not have dared to hint at these sentiments. He had to pretend that her exposure to the stresses of the labour-market was quite natural and right. Always he was careful in his speech with her. When he got to know people he was apt to be impatient and ruthless; for example, to John Orgreave and his wife, and to his mother and stepfather, and sometimes even to Everard Lucas. He would bear them down. But he was restrained from such freedoms with Enwright, and equally with Marguerite Haim. She did not intimidate36 him, but she put him under a spell.
Crossing Piccadilly Circus he had a glimpse of the rising walls and the scaffolding of the new restaurant. He pointed21 to the building without a word. She nodded and smiled.
In the Mall, where the red campanile of the cathedral was first descried37, George began to get excited. And he perceived that Marguerite sympathetically responded to his excitement. She had never even noticed the campanile before, and the reason was that the cathedral happened not to be on the route between Alexandra Grove38 and her principal customers. Suddenly, out of Victoria Street, they came up against the vast form of the Byzantine cathedral. It was hemmed39 in by puny40 six-story blocks of flats, as ancient cathedrals also are hemmed in by the dwellings41 of townsfolk. But here, instead of the houses having gathered about the cathedral, the cathedral had excavated42 a place for itself amid the houses. Tier above tier the expensively curtained windows of dark drawing-rooms and bedrooms inhabited by thousands of the well-to-do blinked up at the colossal43 symbol that dwarfed44 them all. George knew that he was late. If the watchman's gate was shut for the night he would look a fool. But his confidence in his magic power [pg 26] successfully to run risks sustained him in a gallant45 and assured demeanour. The gate in the hoarding46 that screened the west front was open. With a large gesture he tipped the watchman a shilling, and they passed in like princes. The transition to the calm and dusty interior was instantaneous and almost overwhelming. Immense without, the cathedral seemed still more immense within. On one side of the nave47 was a steam-engine; on the other some sort of a mill; and everywhere lay in heaps the wild litter of construction, among which moved here and there little parties of aproned pygmies engaged silently and industriously48 on sub-contracts; the main army of labourers had gone. The walls rose massively clear out of the white-powdered confusion into arches and high domes49; and the floor of the choir50, and a loftier floor beyond that, also rose clear. Perspectives ended in shadow and were illimitable, while the afternoon light through the stone grille of the western windows made luminous51 spaces in the gloom.
The sensation of having the mysterious girl at his elbow in that wonder-striking interior was magnificent.
He murmured, with pride:
"Do you know this place has the widest nave of any cathedral in the world? It's a much bigger cathedral than St. Paul's. In fact I'm not sure if it isn't the biggest in England."
"You know," he said again, "in the whole of the nineteenth century only one cathedral was built in England."
"Which was that?"
"Truro.... And you could put Truro inside this and leave a margin52 all round. Mr. Enwright says this is the last cathedral that ever will be built, outside America."
They gazed, more and more aware of a solemn miracle.
"It's marvellous—marvellous!" he breathed.
After a few moments, glancing at her, a strong impulse to be confidential53 mastered him. He was obliged to tell that girl.
"I say, we've lost that competition—for the Law Courts."
He smiled, but the smile had no effect.
"Oh!" She positively54 started.
He saw that her eyes had moistened, and he looked quickly away, as though he had seen something that he ought not to have seen. She cared! She cared a great deal! She was shocked by the misfortune to the firm, by the injustice55 to transcendent merit! She knew nothing whatever about any design in the competition. But it was her [pg 27] religion that the Lucas & Enwright design was the best, and by far the best. He had implanted the dogma, and he felt that she was ready to die for it. Mystery dropped away from her. Her soul stood bare to him. He was so happy and so proud that the intensity56 of his feeling dismayed him. But he was enheartened too, and courage to surmount57 a thousand failures welled up in him as from an unimagined spring.
"I wonder who that is?" she said quietly and ordinarily, as if a terrific event had not happened.
On the highest floor, at the other extremity58 of the cathedral, in front of the apse, a figure had appeared in a frock-coat and a silk hat. The figure stood solitary59, gazing around in the dying light.
"By Jove! It's Bentley! It's the architect!"
George literally60 trembled. He literally gave a sob61. The vision of Bentley within his masterpiece, of Bentley whom Enwright himself worshipped, was too much for him. Renewed ambition rushed through him in electric currents. All was not wrong with the world of architecture. Bentley had succeeded. Bentley, beginning life as an artisan, had succeeded supremely62. And here he stood on the throne of his triumph. Genius would not be denied. Beauty would conquer despite everything. What completed the unbearable63 grandeur64 of the scene was that Bentley had cancer of the tongue, and was sentenced to death. Bentley's friends knew it; the world of architecture knew it; Bentley knew it.... "Shall I tell her?" George thought. He looked at her; he looked at the vessel65 which he had filled with emotion. He could not speak. A highly sensitive decency66, an abhorrence67 of crudity68, restrained him. "No," he decided69, "I can't tell her now. I'll tell her some other time."
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1
consulate
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| n.领事馆 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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salons
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| n.（营业性质的）店( salon的名词复数 )；厅；沙龙（旧时在上流社会女主人家的例行聚会或聚会场所）；（大宅中的）客厅 | |
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dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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demure
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| adj.严肃的；端庄的 | |
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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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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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junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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preoccupying
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| v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的现在分词 ) | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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14
cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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sustenance
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| n.食物，粮食；生活资料；生计 | |
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razed
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| v.彻底摧毁，将…夷为平地( raze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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scowled
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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charing
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| n.炭化v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的现在分词 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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punctilious
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| adj.谨慎的，谨小慎微的 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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virulence
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| n.毒力，毒性；病毒性；致病力 | |
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mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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28
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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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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callous
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| adj.无情的，冷淡的，硬结的，起老茧的 | |
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valiant
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| adj.勇敢的，英勇的；n.勇士，勇敢的人 | |
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martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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intimidate
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| vt.恐吓，威胁 | |
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descried
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| adj.被注意到的，被发现的，被看到的 | |
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38
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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hemmed
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| 缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 )； 包围 | |
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40
puny
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| adj.微不足道的，弱小的 | |
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dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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42
excavated
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| v.挖掘( excavate的过去式和过去分词 )；开凿；挖出；发掘 | |
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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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44
dwarfed
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| vt.（使）显得矮小（dwarf的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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45
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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46
hoarding
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| n.贮藏；积蓄；临时围墙；囤积v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的现在分词 ) | |
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47
nave
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| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
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48
industriously
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49
domes
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| n.圆屋顶( dome的名词复数 )；像圆屋顶一样的东西；圆顶体育场 | |
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50
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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51
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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52
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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53
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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54
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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55
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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56
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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57
surmount
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| vt.克服；置于…顶上 | |
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58
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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59
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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61
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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62
supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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63
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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64
grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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65
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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66
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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67
abhorrence
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| n.憎恶；可憎恶的事 | |
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68
crudity
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| n.粗糙，生硬；adj.粗略的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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