I
Throughout my student days I had not seen my uncle. I refrained from going to him in spite of an occasional regret that in this way I estranged2 myself from my aunt Susan, and I maintained a sulky attitude of mind towards him. And I don’t think that once in all that time I gave a thought to that mystic word of his that was to alter all the world for us. Yet I had not altogether forgotten it. It was with a touch of memory, dim transient perplexity if no more—why did this thing seem in some way personal?—that I read a new inscription3 upon the hoardings:
TONO-BUNGAY.
That was all. It was simple and yet in some way arresting. I found myself repeating the word after I had passed; it roused one’s attention like the sound of distant guns. “Tono”—what’s that? and deep, rich, unhurrying;—“bun—gay!”
Then came my uncle’s amazing telegram, his answer to my hostile note: “Come to me at once you are wanted three hundred a year certain tono-bungay.”
“By Jove!” I cried, “of course!
“It’s something—. A patent-medicine! I wonder what he wants with me.”
In his Napoleonic way my uncle had omitted to give an address. His telegram had been handed in at Farringdon Road, and after complex meditations6 I replied to Ponderevo, Farringdon Road, trusting to the rarity of our surname to reach him.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“192A, Raggett Street, E.C.”
The next day I took an unsanctioned holiday after the morning’s lecture. I discovered my uncle in a wonderfully new silk hat—oh, a splendid hat! with a rolling brim that went beyond the common fashion. It was decidedly too big for him—that was its only fault. It was stuck on the back of his head, and he was in a white waistcoat and shirt sleeves. He welcomed me with a forgetfulness of my bitter satire8 and my hostile abstinence that was almost divine. His glasses fell off at the sight of me. His round inexpressive eyes shone brightly. He held out his plump short hand.
“Here we are, George! What did I tell you? Needn’t whisper it now, my boy. Shout it—loud! spread it about! Tell every one! Tono—TONO—, TONO-BUNGAY!”
Raggett Street, you must understand, was a thoroughfare over which some one had distributed large quantities of cabbage stumps9 and leaves. It opened out of the upper end of Farringdon Street, and 192A was a shop with the plate-glass front coloured chocolate, on which several of the same bills I had read upon the hoardings had been stuck. The floor was covered by street mud that had been brought in on dirty boots, and three energetic young men of the hooligan type, in neck-wraps and caps, were packing wooden cases with papered-up bottles, amidst much straw and confusion. The counter was littered with these same swathed bottles, of a pattern then novel but now amazingly familiar in the world, the blue paper with the coruscating10 figure of a genially11 nude12 giant, and the printed directions of how under practically all circumstances to take Tono-Bungay. Beyond the counter on one side opened a staircase down which I seem to remember a girl descending13 with a further consignment14 of bottles, and the rest of the background was a high partition, also chocolate, with “Temporary Laboratory” inscribed15 upon it in white letters, and over a door that pierced it, “Office.” Here I rapped, inaudible amid much hammering, and then entered unanswered to find my uncle, dressed as I have described, one hand gripping a sheath of letters, and the other scratching his head as he dictated17 to one of three toiling18 typewriter girls. Behind him was a further partition and a door inscribed “ABSOLUTELY PRIVATE—NO ADMISSION,” thereon. This partition was of wood painted the universal chocolate, up to about eight feet from the ground, and then of glass. Through the glass I saw dimly a crowded suggestion of crucibles19 and glass retorts, and—by Jove!—yes!—the dear old Wimblehurst air-pump still! It gave me quite a little thrill—that air-pump! And beside it was the electrical machine—but something—some serious trouble—had happened to that. All these were evidently placed on a shelf just at the level to show.
“Come right into the sanctum,” said my uncle, after he had finished something about “esteemed consideration,” and whisked me through the door into a room that quite amazingly failed to verify the promise of that apparatus20. It was papered with dingy21 wall-paper that had peeled in places; it contained a fireplace, an easy-chair with a cushion, a table on which stood two or three big bottles, a number of cigar-boxes on the mantel, whisky Tantalus and a row of soda22 syphons. He shut the door after me carefully.
“Well, here we are!” he said. “Going strong! Have a whisky, George? No!—Wise man! Neither will I! You see me at it! At it—hard!”
“Hard at what?”
“Read it,” and he thrust into my hand a label—that label that has now become one of the most familiar objects of the chemist’s shop, the greenish-blue rather old-fashioned bordering, the legend, the name in good black type, very clear, and the strong man all set about with lightning flashes above the double column of skilful23 lies in red—the label of Tono-Bungay. “It’s afloat,” he said, as I stood puzzling at this. “It’s afloat. I’m afloat!” And suddenly he burst out singing in that throaty tenor24 of his—
“I’m afloat, I’m afloat on the fierce flowing tide,
The ocean’s my home and my bark is my bride!
“Ripping song that is, George. Not so much a bark as a solution, but still—it does! Here we are at it! By-the-by! Half a mo’! I’ve thought of a thing.” He whisked out, leaving me to examine this nuclear spot at leisure while his voice became dictatorial25 without. The den1 struck me as in its large grey dirty way quite unprecedented26 and extraordinary. The bottles were all labelled simply A, B, C, and so forth27, and that dear old apparatus above, seen from this side, was even more patiently “on the shelf” than when it had been used to impress Wimblehurst. I saw nothing for it but to sit down in the chair and await my uncle’s explanations. I remarked a frock-coat with satin lapels behind the door; there was a dignified28 umbrella in the corner and a clothes-brush and a hat-brush stood on a side-table. My uncle returned in five minutes looking at his watch—a gold watch—“Gettin’ lunch-time, George,” he said. “You’d better come and have lunch with me!”
“How’s Aunt Susan?” I asked.
“All what?”
“Tono-Bungay.”
“What is Tono-Bungay?” I asked.
My uncle hesitated. “Tell you after lunch, George,” he said. “Come along!” and having locked up the sanctum after himself, led the way along a narrow dirty pavement, lined with barrows and swept at times by avalanche-like porters bearing burthens to vans, to Farringdon Street. He hailed a passing cab superbly, and the cabman was infinitely31 respectful. “Schäfer’s,” he said, and off we went side by side—and with me more and more amazed at all these things—to Schäfer’s Hotel, the second of the two big places with huge lace curtain-covered windows, near the corner of Blackfriars Bridge.
I will confess I felt a magic charm in our relative proportions as the two colossal32, pale-blue-and-red liveried porters of Schäfers’ held open the inner doors for us with a respectful salutation that in some manner they seemed to confine wholly to my uncle. Instead of being about four inches taller, I felt at least the same size as he, and very much slenderer. Still more respectful—waiters relieved him of the new hat and the dignified umbrella, and took his orders for our lunch. He gave them with a fine assurance.
He nodded to several of the waiters.
“They know me, George, already,” he said. “Point me out. Live place! Eye for coming men!”
The detailed33 business of the lunch engaged our attention for a while, and then I leant across my plate. “And NOW?” said I.
“It’s the secret of vigour. Didn’t you read that label?”
“Yes, but—”
“It’s selling like hot cakes.”
“And what is it?” I pressed.
“Well,” said my uncle, and then leant forward and spoke34 softly under cover of his hand, “It’s nothing more or less than...”
(But here an unfortunate scruple35 intervenes. After all, Tono-Bungay is still a marketable commodity and in the hands of purchasers, who bought it from—among other vendors—me. No! I am afraid I cannot give it away—)
“You see,” said my uncle in a slow confidential36 whisper, with eyes very wide and a creased37 forehead, “it’s nice because of the” (here he mentioned a flavouring matter and an aromatic38 spirit), “it’s stimulating39 because of” (here he mentioned two very vivid tonics40, one with a marked action on the kidney.) “And the” (here he mentioned two other ingredients) “makes it pretty intoxicating41. Cocks their tails. Then there’s” (but I touch on the essential secret.) “And there you are. I got it out of an old book of recipes—all except the” (here he mentioned the more virulent42 substance, the one that assails43 the kidneys), “which is my idea! Modern touch! There you are!”
Presently he was leading the way to the lounge—sumptuous45 piece in red morocco and yellow glazed46 crockery, with incredible vistas47 of settees and sofas and things, and there I found myself grouped with him in two excessively upholstered chairs with an earthenware48 Moorish49 table between us bearing coffee and Benedictine, and I was tasting the delights of a tenpenny cigar. My uncle smoked a similar cigar in an habituated manner, and he looked energetic and knowing and luxurious50 and most unexpectedly a little bounder, round the end of it. It was just a trivial flaw upon our swagger, perhaps that we both were clear our cigars had to be “mild.” He got obliquely51 across the spaces of his great armchair so as to incline confidentially52 to my ear, he curled up his little legs, and I, in my longer way, adopted a corresponding receptive obliquity53. I felt that we should strike an unbiased observer as a couple of very deep and wily and developing and repulsive54 persons.
“I want to let you into this”—puff—“George,” said my uncle round the end of his cigar. “For many reasons.”
His voice grew lower and more cunning. He made explanations that to my inexperience did not completely explain. I retain an impression of a long credit and a share with a firm of wholesale55 chemists, of a credit and a prospective56 share with some pirate printers, of a third share for a leading magazine and newspaper proprietor58.
“I played ’em off one against the other,” said my uncle. I took his point in an instant. He had gone to each of them in turn and said the others had come in.
“I put up four hundred pounds,” said my uncle, “myself and my all. And you know—”
He assumed a brisk confidence. “I hadn’t five hundred pence. At least—”
For a moment he really was just a little embarrassed. “I did” he said, “produce capital. You see, there was that trust affair of yours—I ought, I suppose—in strict legality—to have put that straight first. Zzzz....
“It was a bold thing to do,” said my uncle, shifting the venue59 from the region of honour to the region of courage. And then with a characteristic outburst of piety60, “Thank God it’s all come right!
“And now, I suppose, you ask where do YOU come in? Well, fact is I’ve always believed in you, George. You’ve got—it’s a sort of dismal61 grit62. Bark your shins, rouse you, and you’ll go! You’d rush any position you had a mind to rush. I know a bit about character, George—trust me. You’ve got—” He clenched63 his hands and thrust them out suddenly, and at the same time said, with explosive violence, “Wooosh! Yes. You have! The way you put away that Latin at Wimblehurst; I’ve never forgotten it.
“Wo-oo-oo-osh! Your science and all that! Wo-oo-oo-osh! I know my limitations. There’s things I can do, and” (he spoke in a whisper, as though this was the first hint of his life’s secret) “there’s things I can’t. Well, I can create this business, but I can’t make it go. I’m too voluminous—I’m a boiler-over, not a simmering stick-at-it.You keep on hotting up and hotting up. Papin’s digester. That’s you, steady and long and piling up,—then, wo-oo-oo-oo-osh. Come in and stiffen64 these niggers. Teach them that wo-oo-oo-oo-osh. There you are! That’s what I’m after. You! Nobody else believes you’re more than a boy. Come right in with me and be a man. Eh, George? Think of the fun of it—a thing on the go—a Real Live Thing! Wooshing it up! Making it buzz and spin! Whoo-oo-oo.”—He made alluring65 expanding circles in the air with his hand. “Eh?”
His proposal, sinking to confidential undertones again, took more definite shape. I was to give all my time and energy to developing and organising. “You shan’t write a single advertisement, or give a single assurance” he declared. “I can do all that.” And the telegram was no flourish; I was to have three hundred a year. Three hundred a year. (“That’s nothing,” said my uncle, “the thing to freeze on to, when the time comes, is your tenth of the vendor’s share.”)
Three hundred a year certain, anyhow! It was an enormous income to me. For a moment I was altogether staggered. Could there be that much money in the whole concern? I looked about me at the sumptuous furniture of Schäfer’s Hotel. No doubt there were many such incomes.
My head was spinning with unwonted Benedictine and Burgundy.
“Let me go back and look at the game again,” I said. “Let me see upstairs and round about.”
I did.
“What do you think of it all?” my uncle asked at last.
“Well, for one thing,” I said, “why don’t you have those girls working in a decently ventilated room? Apart from any other consideration, they’d work twice as briskly. And they ought to cover the corks66 before labelling round the bottle.”
“Why?” said my uncle.
“Come and change it, George,” said my uncle, with sudden fervour “Come here and make a machine of it. You can. Make it all slick, and then make it woosh. I know you can. Oh! I know you can.”
II
I seem to remember very quick changes of mind after that lunch. The muzzy exaltation of the unaccustomed stimulants68 gave way very rapidly to a model of pellucid69 and impartial70 clairvoyance71 which is one of my habitual72 mental states. It is intermittent73; it leaves me for weeks together, I know, but back it comes at last like justice on circuit, and calls up all my impression, all my illusions, all my willful and passionate74 proceedings76. We came downstairs again into that inner room which pretended to be a scientific laboratory through its high glass lights, and indeed was a lurking77 place. My uncle pressed a cigarette on me, and I took it and stood before the empty fireplace while he propped78 his umbrella in the corner, deposited the new silk hat that was a little too big for him on the table, blew copiously79 and produced a second cigar.
It came into my head that he had shrunken very much in size since the Wimblehurst days, that the cannon80 ball he had swallowed was rather more evident and shameless than it had been, his skin less fresh and the nose between his glasses, which still didn’t quite fit, much redder. And just then he seemed much laxer in his muscles and not quite as alertly quick in his movements. But he evidently wasn’t aware of the degenerative nature of his changes as he sat there, looking suddenly quite little under my eyes.
“Well, George!” he said, quite happily unconscious of my silent criticism, “what do you think of it all?”
“Well,” I said, “in the first place—it’s a damned swindle!”
“Tut! tut!” said my uncle. “It’s as straight as—It’s fair trading!”
“So much the worse for trading,” I said.
“It’s the sort of thing everybody does. After all, there’s no harm in the stuff—and it may do good. It might do a lot of good—giving people confidence, f’rinstance, against an epidemic81. See? Why not? don’t see where your swindle comes in.”
“H’m,” I said. “It’s a thing you either see or don’t see.”
“I’d like to know what sort of trading isn’t a swindle in its way. Everybody who does a large advertised trade is selling something common on the strength of saying it’s uncommon82. Look at Chickson—they made him a baronet. Look at Lord Radmore, who did it on lying about the alkali in soap! Rippin’ ads those were of his too!”
“You don’t mean to say you think doing this stuff up in bottles and swearing it’s the quintessence of strength and making poor devils buy it at that, is straight?”
“Why not, George? How do we know it mayn’t be the quintessence to them so far as they’re concerned?”
“There’s Faith. You put Faith in ’em.... I grant our labels are a bit emphatic84. Christian85 Science, really. No good setting people against the medicine. Tell me a solitary86 trade nowadays that hasn’t to be—emphatic. It’s the modern way! Everybody understands it—everybody allows for it.”
“But the world would be no worse and rather better, if all this stuff of yours was run down a conduit into the Thames.”
“Don’t see that, George, at all. ’Mong other things, all our people would be out of work. Unemployed87! I grant you Tono-Bungay may be—not quite so good a find for the world as Peruvian bark, but the point is, George—it makes trade! And the world lives on trade. Commerce! A romantic exchange of commodities and property. Romance. ’Magination. See? You must look at these things in a broad light. Look at the wood—and forget the trees! And hang it, George! we got to do these things! There’s no way unless you do. What do you mean to do—anyhow?”
“There’s ways of living,” I said, “Without either fraud or lying.”
“You’re a bit stiff, George. There’s no fraud in this affair, I’ll bet my hat. But what do you propose to do? Go as chemist to some one who is running a business, and draw a salary without a share like I offer you. Much sense in that! It comes out of the swindle as you call it—just the same.”
“Some businesses are straight and quiet, anyhow; supply a sound article that is really needed, don’t shout advertisements.”
“No, George. There you’re behind the times. The last of that sort was sold up ‘bout five years ago.”
“Well, there’s scientific research.”
“And who pays for that? Who put up that big City and Guilds88 place at South Kensington? Enterprising business men! They fancy they’ll have a bit of science going on, they want a handy Expert ever and again, and there you are! And what do you get for research when you’ve done it? Just a bare living and no outlook. They just keep you to make discoveries, and if they fancy they’ll use ’em they do.”
“One can teach.”
“How much a year, George? How much a year? I suppose you must respect Carlyle! Well, you take Carlyle’s test—solvency. (Lord! what a book that French Revolution of his is!) See what the world pays teachers and discoverers and what it pays business men! That shows the ones it really wants. There’s a justice in these big things, George, over and above the apparent injustice89. I tell you it wants trade. It’s Trade that makes the world go round! Argosies! Venice! Empire!”
My uncle suddenly rose to his feet.
“You think it over, George. You think it over! And come up on Sunday to the new place—we got rooms in Gower Street now—and see your aunt. She’s often asked for you, George often and often, and thrown it up at me about that bit of property—though I’ve always said and always will, that twenty-five shillings in the pound is what I’ll pay you and interest up to the nail. And think it over. It isn’t me I ask you to help. It’s yourself. It’s your aunt Susan. It’s the whole concern. It’s the commerce of your country. And we want you badly. I tell you straight, I know my limitations. You could take this place, you could make it go! I can see you at it—looking rather sour. Woosh is the word, George.”
And he smiled endearingly.
III
I didn’t succumb90 without a struggle to my uncle’s allurements91. Indeed, I held out for a week while I contemplated92 life and my prospects93. It was a crowded and muddled94 contemplation. It invaded even my sleep.
My interview with the Registrar95, my talk with my uncle, my abrupt96 discovery of the hopeless futility97 of my passion for Marion, had combined to bring me to sense of crisis. What was I going to do with life?
I remember certain phases of my indecisions very well.
I remember going home from our talk. I went down Farringdon Street to the Embankment because I thought to go home by Holborn and Oxford98 Street would be too crowded for thinking.... That piece of Embankment from Blackfriars to Westminster still reminds me of that momentous99 hesitation100.
You know, from first to last, I saw the business with my eyes open, I saw its ethical101 and moral values quite clearly. Never for a moment do I remember myself faltering102 from my persuasion103 that the sale of Tono-Bungay was a thoroughly104 dishonest proceeding75. The stuff was, I perceived, a mischievous105 trash, slightly stimulating, aromatic and attractive, likely to become a bad habit and train people in the habitual use of stronger tonics and insidiously106 dangerous to people with defective107 kidneys. It would cost about sevenpence the large bottle to make, including bottling, and we were to sell it at half a crown plus the cost of the patent medicine stamp. A thing that I will confess deterred108 me from the outset far more than the sense of dishonesty in this affair, was the supreme109 silliness of the whole concern. I still clung to the idea that the world of men was or should be a sane110 and just organisation111, and the idea that I should set myself gravely, just at the fine springtime of my life, to developing a monstrous112 bottling and packing warehouse113, bottling rubbish for the consumption of foolish, credulous114 and depressed115 people, had in it a touch of insanity116. My early beliefs still clung to me. I felt assured that somewhere there must be a hitch117 in the fine prospect57 of ease and wealth under such conditions; that somewhere, a little overgrown, perhaps, but still traceable, lay a neglected, wasted path of use and honour for me.
My inclination118 to refuse the whole thing increased rather than diminished at first as I went along the Embankment. In my uncle’s presence there had been a sort of glamour119 that had prevented an outright120 refusal. It was a revival121 of affection for him I felt in his presence, I think, in part, and in part an instinctive122 feeling that I must consider him as my host. But much more was it a curious persuasion he had the knack123 of inspiring—a persuasion not so much of his integrity and capacity as of the reciprocal and yielding foolishness of the world. One felt that he was silly and wild, but in some way silly and wild after the fashion of the universe. After all, one must live somehow. I astonished him and myself by temporising.
“No,” said I, “I’ll think it over!”
And as I went along the embankment the first effect was all against my uncle. He shrank—for a little while he continued to shrink—in perspective until he was only a very small shabby little man in a dirty back street, sending off a few hundred bottles of rubbish to foolish buyers. The great buildings on the right of us, the Inns and the School Board place—as it was then—Somerset House, the big hotels, the great bridges, Westminster’s outlines ahead, had an effect of grey largeness that reduced him to the proportions of a busy black beetle124 in a crack in the floor.
And then my eye caught the advertisements on the south side of “Sorber’s Food,” of “Cracknell’s Ferric Wine,” very bright and prosperous signs, illuminated125 at night, and I realised how astonishingly they looked at home there, how evidently part they were in the whole thing.
I saw a man come charging out of Palace Yard—the policeman touched his helmet to him—with a hat and a bearing astonishingly like my uncle’s. After all,—didn’t Cracknell himself sit in the House?
Tono-Bungay shouted at me from a hoarding4 near Adelphi Terrace; I saw it afar off near Carfax Street; it cried out again upon me in Kensington High Street, and burst into a perfect clamour; six or seven times I saw it as I drew near my diggings. It certainly had an air of being something more than a dream.
Yes, I thought it over—thoroughly enough.... Trade rules the world. Wealth rather than trade! The thing was true, and true too was my uncle’s proposition that the quickest way to get wealth is to sell the cheapest thing possible in the dearest bottle. He was frightfully right after all. Pecunia non olet,—a Roman emperor said that. Perhaps my great heroes in Plutarch were no more than such men, fine now only because they are distant; perhaps after all this Socialism to which I had been drawn126 was only a foolish dream, only the more foolish because all its promises were conditionally127 true. Morris and these others played with it wittingly; it gave a zest128, a touch of substance, to their aesthetic129 pleasures. Never would there be good faith enough to bring such things about. They knew it; every one, except a few young fools, knew it. As I crossed the corner of St. James’s Park wrapped in thought, I dodged130 back just in time to escape a prancing131 pair of greys. A stout132, common-looking woman, very magnificently dressed, regarded me from the carriage with a scornful eye. “No doubt,” thought I, “a pill-vendor’s wife....”
Running through all my thoughts, surging out like a refrain, was my uncle’s master-stroke, his admirable touch of praise: “Make it all slick—and then make it go Woosh. I know you can! Oh! I know you can!”
IV
Ewart as a moral influence was unsatisfactory. I had made up my mind to put the whole thing before him, partly to see how he took it, and partly to hear how it sounded when it was said. I asked him to come and eat with me in an Italian place near Panton Street where one could get a curious, interesting, glutting133 sort of dinner for eighteen-pence. He came with a disconcerting black-eye that he wouldn’t explain. “Not so much a black-eye,” he said, “as the aftermath of a purple patch.... What’s your difficulty?”
“I’ll tell you with the salad,” I said.
But as a matter of fact I didn’t tell him. I threw out that I was doubtful whether I ought to go into trade, or stick to teaching in view of my deepening socialist134 proclivities135; and he, warming with the unaccustomed generosity136 of a sixteen-penny Chianti, ran on from that without any further inquiry137 as to my trouble.
His utterances138 roved wide and loose.
“The reality of life, my dear Ponderevo,” I remember him saying very impressively and punctuating139 with the nut-crackers as he spoke, “is Chromatic140 Conflict ... and Form. Get hold of that and let all these other questions go. The Socialist will tell you one sort of colour and shape is right, the Individualist another. What does it all amount to? What does it all amount to? Nothing! I have no advice to give anyone,—except to avoid regrets. Be yourself, seek after such beautiful things as your own sense determines to be beautiful. And don’t mind the headache in the morning.... For what, after all, is a morning, Ponderevo? It isn’t like the upper part of a day!”
He paused impressively.
“Isn’t it! And it’s my bedrock wisdom in the matter! Take it or leave it, my dear George; take it or leave it.”... He put down the nut-crackers out of my reach and lugged142 a greasy-looking note-book from his pocket. “I’m going to steal this mustard pot,” he said.
I made noises of remonstrance143.
“Only as a matter of design. I’ve got to do an old beast’s tomb.
“Wholesale grocer. I’ll put it on his corners,—four mustard pots. I dare say he’d be glad of a mustard plaster now to cool him, poor devil, where he is. But anyhow,—here goes!”
V
It came to me in the small hours that the real moral touchstone for this great doubting of mind was Marion. I lay composing statements of my problem and imagined myself delivering them to her—and she, goddess-like and beautiful; giving her fine, simply-worded judgment144.
“You see, it’s just to give one’s self over to the Capitalistic System,” I imagined myself saying in good Socialist jargon145; “it’s surrendering all one’s beliefs. We may succeed, we may grow rich, but where would the satisfaction be?”
Then she would say, “No! That wouldn’t be right.”
“But the alternative is to wait!”
Then suddenly she would become a goddess. She would turn upon me frankly146 and nobly, with shining eyes, with arms held out. “No,” she would say, “we love one another. Nothing ignoble147 shall ever touch us. We love one another. Why wait to tell each other that, dear? What does it matter that we are poor and may keep poor?”
But indeed the conversation didn’t go at all in that direction. At the sight of her my nocturnal eloquence148 became preposterous149 and all the moral values altered altogether. I had waited for her outside the door of the Parsian-robe establishment in Kensington High Street and walked home with her thence. I remember how she emerged into the warm evening light and that she wore a brown straw hat that made her, for once not only beautiful but pretty.
“I like that hat,” I said by way of opening; and she smiled her rare delightful150 smile at me.
“I love you,” I said in an undertone, as we jostled closer on the pavement.
She shook her head forbiddingly, but she still smiled. Then—“Be sensible!”
The High Street pavement is too narrow and crowded for conversation and we were some way westward151 before we spoke again.
“Look here,” I said; “I want you, Marion. Don’t you understand? I want you.”
“Now!” she cried warningly.
I do not know if the reader will understand how a passionate lover, an immense admiration152 and desire, can be shot with a gleam of positive hatred153. Such a gleam there was in me at the serene154 self-complacency of that “Now!” It vanished almost before I felt it. I found no warning in it of the antagonisms155 latent between us.
“Marion,” I said, “this isn’t a trifling156 matter to me. I love you; I would die to get you.... Don’t you care?”
“But what is the good?”
“You don’t care,” I cried. “You don’t care a rap!”
“You know I care,” she answered. “If I didn’t—If I didn’t like you very much, should I let you come and meet me—go about with you?”
“Well then,” I said, “promise to marry me!”
“If I do, what difference will it make?”
We were separated by two men carrying a ladder who drove between us unawares.
“Marion,” I asked when we got together again, “I tell you I want you to marry me.”
“We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“We can’t marry—in the street.”
“We could take our chance!”
“I wish you wouldn’t go on talking like this. What is the good?”
She suddenly gave way to gloom. “It’s no good marrying” she said. “One’s only miserable157. I’ve seen other girls. When one’s alone one has a little pocket-money anyhow, one can go about a little. But think of being married and no money, and perhaps children—you can’t be sure....”
She poured out this concentrated philosophy of her class and type in jerky uncompleted sentences, with knitted brows, with discontented eyes towards the westward glow—forgetful, it seemed, for a moment even of me.
“What is the good?” she began.
“Would you marry on three hundred a year?”
She looked at me for a moment. “That’s six pounds a week,” she said. “One could manage on that, easily. Smithie’s brother—No, he only gets two hundred and fifty. He married a typewriting girl.”
“Will you marry me if I get three hundred a year?”
She looked at me again, with a curious gleam of hope.
“If!” she said.
I held out my hand and looked her in the eyes. “It’s a bargain,” I said.
She hesitated and touched my hand for an instant. “It’s silly,” she remarked as she did so. “It means really we’re—” She paused.
“Yes?” said I.
“Engaged. You’ll have to wait years. What good can it do you?”
“Not so many years.” I answered.
For a moment she brooded.
Then she glanced at me with a smile, half-sweet, half-wistful, that has stuck in my memory for ever.
“I like you!” she said. “I shall like to be engaged to you.”
And, faint on the threshold of hearing, I caught her ventured “dear!” It’s odd that in writing this down my memory passed over all that intervened and I feel it all again, and once again I’m Marion’s boyish lover taking great joy in such rare and little things.
VI
At last I went to the address my uncle had given me in Gower Street, and found my aunt Susan waiting tea for him.
Directly I came into the room I appreciated the change in outlook that the achievement of Tono-Bungay had made almost as vividly159 as when I saw my uncle’s new hat. The furniture of the room struck upon my eye as almost stately. The chairs and sofa were covered with chintz which gave it a dim, remote flavour of Bladesover; the mantel, the cornice, the gas pendant were larger and finer than the sort of thing I had grown accustomed to in London. And I was shown in by a real housemaid with real tails to her cap, and great quantities of reddish hair. There was my aunt too looking bright and pretty, in a blue-patterned tea-wrap with bows that seemed to me the quintessence of fashion. She was sitting in a chair by the open window with quite a pile of yellow-labelled books on the occasional table beside her. Before the large, paper-decorated fireplace stood a three-tiered cake-stand displaying assorted160 cakes, and a tray with all the tea equipage except the teapot, was on the large centre-table. The carpet was thick, and a spice of adventure was given it by a number of dyed sheep-skin mats.
“Hel-lo!” said my aunt as I appeared. “It’s George!”
“Shall I serve the tea now, Mem?” said the real housemaid, surveying our greeting coldly.
“Not till Mr. Ponderevo comes, Meggie,” said my aunt, and grimaced161 with extraordinary swiftness and virulence162 as the housemaid turned her back.
“Meggie she calls herself,” said my aunt as the door closed, and left me to infer a certain want of sympathy.
“You’re looking very jolly, aunt,” said I.
“What do you think of all this old Business he’s got?” asked my aunt.
“I suppose there is a business somewhere?”
“Haven’t you seen it?”
“‘Fraid I’d say something AT it George, if I did. So he won’t let me. It came on quite suddenly. Brooding he was and writing letters and sizzling something awful—like a chestnut164 going to pop. Then he came home one day saying Tono-Bungay till I thought he was clean off his onion, and singing—what was it?”
“‘I’m afloat, I’m afloat,’” I guessed.
“The very thing. You’ve heard him. And saying our fortunes were made. Took me out to the Ho’burm Restaurant, George,—dinner, and we had champagne165, stuff that blows up the back of your nose and makes you go So, and he said at last he’d got things worthy166 of me—and we moved here next day. It’s a swell167 house, George. Three pounds a week for the rooms. And he says the Business’ll stand it.”
She looked at me doubtfully.
“Either do that or smash,” I said profoundly.
We discussed the question for a moment mutely with our eyes. My aunt slapped the pile of books from Mudie’s.
“I’ve been having such a Go of reading, George. You never did!”
“What do you think of the business?” I asked.
“It’s been a time,” she went on. “The flapping about! Me sitting doing nothing and him on the go like a rocket. He’s done wonders. But he wants you, George—he wants you. Sometimes he’s full of hope—talks of when we’re going to have a carriage and be in society—makes it seem so natural and topsy-turvy, I hardly know whether my old heels aren’t up here listening to him, and my old head on the floor.... Then he gets depressed. Says he wants restraint. Says he can make a splash but can’t keep on. Says if you don’t come in everything will smash—But you are coming in?”
She paused and looked at me.
“Well—”
“You don’t say you won’t come in!”
“There’s no law against selling quack medicine that I know of,” said my aunt. She thought for a minute and became unusually grave. “It’s our only chance, George,” she said. “If it doesn’t go...”
There came the slamming of a door, and a loud bellowing170 from the next apartment through the folding doors. “Here-er Shee Rulk lies Poo Tom Bo—oling.”
“Silly old Concertina! Hark at him, George!” She raised her voice. “Don’t sing that, you old Walrus171, you! Sing ‘I’m afloat!’”
One leaf of the folding doors opened and my uncle appeared.
“Hullo, George! Come along at last? Gossome tea-cake, Susan?”
“Thought it over George?” he said abruptly.
“Yes,” said I.
“Coming in?”
I paused for a last moment and nodded yes.
“Ah!” he cried. “Why couldn’t you say that a week ago?”
“I’ve had false ideas about the world,” I said. “Oh! they don’t matter now! Yes, I’ll come, I’ll take my chance with you, I won’t hesitate again.”
And I didn’t. I stuck to that resolution for seven long years.
《时间机器 The Time Machine》
《隐身人 The Invisible Man》
《The Sleeper Awakes》
《时间机器 The Time Machine》
《隐身人 The Invisible Man》
《The Sleeper Awakes》
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1
den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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estranged
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| adj.疏远的，分离的 | |
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inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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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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vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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satire
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| n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品 | |
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stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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coruscating
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| v.闪光，闪烁( coruscate的现在分词 ) | |
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genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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nude
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| adj.裸体的；n.裸体者，裸体艺术品 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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consignment
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| n.寄售；发货；委托；交运货物 | |
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inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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dictate
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| v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令 | |
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dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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18
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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crucibles
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| n.坩埚，严酷的考验（ crucible的名词复数 ） | |
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apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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dictatorial
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| adj. 独裁的，专断的 | |
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unprecedented
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| adj.无前例的，新奇的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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larky
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| adj.爱闹玩的 | |
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bucked
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| adj.快v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的过去式和过去分词 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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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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scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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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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creased
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| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的过去式和过去分词 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹； 皱皱巴巴 | |
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aromatic
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| adj.芳香的，有香味的 | |
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stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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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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intoxicating
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| a. 醉人的,使人兴奋的 | |
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virulent
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| adj.有毒的，有恶意的，充满敌意的 | |
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assails
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| v.攻击( assail的第三人称单数 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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45
sumptuous
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| adj.豪华的，奢侈的，华丽的 | |
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46
glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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47
vistas
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| 长条形景色( vista的名词复数 )； 回顾； 展望； （未来可能发生的）一系列情景 | |
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48
earthenware
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| n.土器，陶器 | |
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49
moorish
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| adj.沼地的，荒野的，生[住]在沼地的 | |
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50
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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51
obliquely
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| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
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52
confidentially
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| ad.秘密地，悄悄地 | |
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53
obliquity
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| n.倾斜度 | |
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54
repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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55
wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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56
prospective
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| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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57
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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58
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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59
venue
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| n.犯罪地点，审判地，管辖地，发生地点，集合地点 | |
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60
piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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61
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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62
grit
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| n.沙粒，决心，勇气；v.下定决心，咬紧牙关 | |
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63
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
stiffen
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| v.(使)硬，(使)变挺，(使)变僵硬 | |
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alluring
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| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
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66
corks
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| n.脐梅衣；软木( cork的名词复数 )；软木塞 | |
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cork
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| n.软木，软木塞 | |
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68
stimulants
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| n.兴奋剂( stimulant的名词复数 )；含兴奋剂的饮料；刺激物；激励物 | |
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69
pellucid
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| adj.透明的，简单的 | |
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70
impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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71
clairvoyance
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| n.超人的洞察力 | |
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72
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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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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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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78
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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copiously
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| adv.丰富地，充裕地 | |
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cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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81
epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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82
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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84
emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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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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unemployed
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| adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的 | |
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guilds
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| 行会，同业公会，协会( guild的名词复数 ) | |
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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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succumb
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| v.屈服，屈从；死 | |
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allurements
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| n.诱惑( allurement的名词复数 )；吸引；诱惑物；有诱惑力的事物 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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muddled
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| adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子 | |
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registrar
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| n.记录员，登记员；(大学的)注册主任 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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futility
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| n.无用 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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105
mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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106
insidiously
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| 潜在地，隐伏地，阴险地 | |
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defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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108
deterred
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| v.阻止，制止( deter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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113
warehouse
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| n.仓库；vt.存入仓库 | |
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114
credulous
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| adj.轻信的，易信的 | |
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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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insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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117
hitch
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| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
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118
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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119
glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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123
knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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124
beetle
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| n.甲虫，近视眼的人 | |
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125
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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126
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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conditionally
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| adv. 有条件地 | |
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128
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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aesthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
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130
dodged
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| v.闪躲( dodge的过去式和过去分词 )；回避 | |
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prancing
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| v.（马）腾跃( prance的现在分词 ) | |
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glutting
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| v.吃得过多( glut的现在分词 )；（对胃口、欲望等）纵情满足；使厌腻；塞满 | |
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134
socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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proclivities
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| n.倾向，癖性( proclivity的名词复数 ) | |
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generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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utterances
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| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
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punctuating
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| v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的现在分词 )；不时打断某事物 | |
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chromatic
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| adj.色彩的，颜色的 | |
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apprehend
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| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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lugged
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| vt.用力拖拉（lug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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remonstrance
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| n抗议，抱怨 | |
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144
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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145
jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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146
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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ignoble
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| adj.不光彩的，卑鄙的；可耻的 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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149
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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150
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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151
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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152
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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153
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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154
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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155
antagonisms
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| 对抗，敌对( antagonism的名词复数 ) | |
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156
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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158
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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159
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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160
assorted
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| adj.各种各样的，各色俱备的 | |
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161
grimaced
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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162
virulence
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| n.毒力，毒性；病毒性；致病力 | |
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163
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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164
chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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165
champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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166
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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167
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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168
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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169
quack
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| n.庸医；江湖医生；冒充内行的人；骗子 | |
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170
bellowing
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的现在分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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171
walrus
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| n.海象 | |
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