Campton looked at her in surprise. She spoke1 in a different voice; he wondered if she had had good news of her grandchildren. Then he saw that the furrows2 in her old face were as deep as ever, and that the change in her voice was simply an unconscious response to the general stirring of sap, the spring need to go on living, through everything and in spite of everything.
On se fait une raison, as Mme. Lebel would have said. Life had to go on, and new shirts had to be bought. No one knew why it was necessary, but every one felt that it was; and here were the horse-chestnuts once more actively3 confirming it. Habit laid its compelling grasp on the wires of the poor broken marionettes with which the Furies had been playing, and they responded, though with feebler flappings, to the accustomed jerk.
In Campton the stirring of the sap had been a cold and languid process, chiefly felt in his reluctance4 to go on with his relief work. He had tried to close his ears to the whispers of his own lassitude, vexed5, after the first impulse of self-dedication, to find that no vocation6 declared itself, that his task became each day more tedious as well as more painful. Theoretically, the pain ought to have stimulated7 him: perpetual immersion8 in that sea of anguish9 should have quickened his effort to help the poor creatures sinking under its waves. The woe10 of the war had had that effect on Adele Anthony, on young Boylston, on Mlle. Davril, on the greater number of his friends. But their ardour left him cold. He wanted to help, he wanted it, he was sure, as earnestly as they; but the longing11 was not an inspiration to him, and he felt more and more that to work listlessly was to work ineffectually.
“I give the poor devils so many boots and money-orders a day; you give them yourself, and so does Boylston,” he complained to Miss Anthony; who murmured: “Ah, Boylston——” as if that point of the remark were alone worth noticing.
“At his age too; it’s extraordinary, the way the boy’s got out of himself.”
“Or into himself, rather. He was a pottering boy before—now he’s a man, with a man’s sense of things.”
“Yes; but his patience, his way of getting into their minds, their prejudices, their meannesses, their miseries12! He doesn’t seem to me like the kind who was meant to be a missionary13.”
“Not a bit of it.... But he’s burnt up with shame at our not being in the war—as all the young Americans are.”
Campton made an impatient movement. “Benny Upsher again——! Can’t we let our government decide all that for us? What else did we elect it for, I wonder?”
“I wonder,” echoed Miss Anthony.
Talks of this kind were irritating and unprofitable, and Campton did not again raise the question. Miss Anthony’s vision was too simplifying to penetrate14 far into his doubts, and after nearly a year’s incessant15 contact with the most savage16 realities her mind still seemed at ease in its old formulas.
Simplicity17, after all, was the best safeguard in such hours. Mrs. Brant was as absorbed in her task as Adele Anthony. Since the Brant villa18 at Deauville had been turned into a hospital she was always on the road, in 218a refulgent19 new motor emblazoned with a Red Cross, carrying supplies, rushing down with great surgeons, hurrying back to committee meetings and conferences with the Service de Santé (for she and Mr. Brant were now among the leaders in American relief work in Paris), and throwing open the Avenue Marigny drawing-rooms for concerts, lectures and such sober philanthropic gaieties as society was beginning to countenance20.
On the day when Mme. Lebel told Campton that the horse-chestnuts were in blossom and he must buy some new shirts he was particularly in need of such incentives21. He had made up his mind to go to see Mrs. Brant about a concert for “The Friends of French Art” which was to be held in her house. Ever since George had asked him to see something of his mother Campton had used the pretext22 of charitable collaboration23 as the best way of getting over their fundamental lack of anything to say to each other.
The appearance of the Champs Elysées confirmed Mme. Lebel’s announcement. Everywhere the punctual rosy25 spikes26 were rising above unfolding green; and Campton, looking up at them, remembered once thinking how Nature had adapted herself to the scene in overhanging with her own pink lamps and green fans the lamps and fans of the cafés chantants beneath. The latter lights had long since been extinguished, the fans folded up; and as he passed the bent27 and broken arches of electric light, the iron chairs and dead plants in paintless boxes, all heaped up like the scenery of a bankrupt theatre, he felt the pang28 of Nature’s obstinate29 renewal30 in a world of death. Yet he also felt the stir of the blossoming trees in the form of a more restless discontent, a duller despair, a new sense of inadequacy31. How could war go on when spring had come?
Mrs. Brant, having reduced her household and given over her drawing-rooms to charity, received in her boudoir, a small room contrived32 by a clever upholsterer to simulate a seclusion33 of which she had never felt the need. Photographs strewed34 the low tables; and facing the door Campton saw George’s last portrait, in uniform, enclosed in an expensive frame. Campton had received the same photograph, and thrust it into a drawer; he thought a young man on a safe staff job rather ridiculous in uniform, and at the same time the sight filled him with a secret dread35.
Mrs. Brant was bidding goodbye to a lady in mourning whom Campton did not know. His approach through the carpeted antechamber had been unnoticed, and as he entered the room he heard Mrs. Brant say in French, apparently36 in reply to a remark of her visitor: “Bridge, chère Madame? No; not yet. I confess I haven’t the courage to take up my old life. We mothers with sons at the front....”
“Ah,” exclaimed the other lady, “there I don’t agree with you. I think one owes it to them to go on as if one were as little afraid as they are. That is what 220all my sons prefer.... Even,” she added, lowering her voice but lifting her head higher, “even, I’m sure, the one who is buried by the Marne.” With a flush on her handsome face she pressed Mrs. Brant’s hand and passed out.
Mrs. Brant had caught sight of Campton as she received the rebuke37. Her colour rose slightly, and she said with a smile: “So many women can’t get on without amusement.”
“No,” he agreed. There was a pause, and then he asked: “Who was it?”
“The Marquise de Tranlay—the widow.”
“Where are the sons she spoke of?”
“There are three left: one in the Chasseurs à Pied; the youngest, who volunteered at seventeen, in the artillery38 in the Argonne; the third, badly wounded, in hospital at Compiègne. And the eldest39 killed. I simply can’t understand....”
“Why,” Campton interrupted, “did you speak as if George were at the front? Do you usually speak of him in that way?”
Her silence and her deepening flush made him feel the unkindness of the question. “I didn’t mean ... forgive me,” he said. “Only sometimes, when I see women like that I’m——”
“Well?” she questioned.
He was silent in his turn, and she did not insist. They sat facing each other, each forgetting the purpose of their meeting. For the hundredth time he felt the uselessness of trying to carry out George’s filial injunction: between himself and George’s mother these months of fiery40 trial seemed to have loosed instead of tightening41 the links.
He wandered back to Montmartre through the bereft42 and beautiful city. The light lay on it in wide silvery washes, harmonizing the grey stone, the pale foliage43, and a sky piled with clouds which seemed to rebuild in translucid masses the monuments below. He caught himself once more viewing the details of the scene in the terms of his trade. River, pavements, terraces heavy with trees, the whole crowded sky-line from Notre Dame24 to the Panthéon, instead of presenting themselves in their bare reality, were transposed into a painter’s vision. And the faces around him became again the starting-point of rapid incessant combinations of line and colour, as if the visible world were once more at its old trick of weaving itself into magic designs. The reawakening of this instinct deepened Campton’s sense of unrest, and made him feel more than ever unfitted for a life in which such things were no longer of account, in which it seemed a disloyalty even to think of them.
He returned to the studio, having promised to deal with some office work which he had carried home the night before. The papers lay on the table; but he turned to the window and looked out over his budding lilacs at the new strange Paris. He remembered that it was almost a year since he had leaned in the same place, gazing down on the wise and frivolous44 old city in her summer dishabille while he planned his journey to Africa with George; and something George had once quoted from Faust came drifting through his mind: “Take care! You’ve broken my beautiful world! There’ll be splinters....” Ah, yes, splinters, splinters ... everybody’s hands were red with them! What retribution devised by man could be commensurate with the crime of destroying his beautiful world? Campton sat down to the task of collating45 office files.
His bell rang, and he started up, as much surprised as if the simplest events had become unusual. It would be natural enough that Dastrey or Boylston should drop in—or even Adele Anthony—but his heart beat as if it might be George. He limped to the door, and found Mrs. Talkett.
She said: “May I come in?” and did so without waiting for his answer. The rapidity of her entrance surprised him less than the change in her appearance. But for the one glimpse of her dishevelled elegance46, when she had rushed into Mrs. Brant’s drawing-room on the day after war was declared, he had seen her only in a nursing uniform, as absorbed in her work as if it had been a long-thwarted vocation. Now she stood before him in raiment so delicately springlike that it seemed an emanation of the day. Care had dropped 223from her with her professional garb47, and she smiled as though he must guess the reason.
In ordinary times he would have thought: “She’s in love——” but that explanation was one which seemed to belong to other days. It reminded him, however, how little he knew of Mrs. Talkett, who, after René Davril’s death, had vanished from his life as abruptly49 as she had entered it. Allusions50 to “the Talketts,” picked up now and again at Adele Anthony’s, led him to conjecture52 an invisible husband in the background; but all he knew of Mrs. Talkett was what she had told him of her “artistic” yearnings, and what he had been able to divine from her empty questioning eyes, from certain sweet inflections when she spoke of her wounded soldiers, and from the precise and finished language with which she clothed her unfinished and imprecise thoughts. All these indications made up an image not unlike that of the fashion-plate torn from its context of which she had reminded him at their first meeting; and he looked at her with indifference53, wondering why she had come.
With an abrupt48 gesture she pulled the pin from her heavily-plumed hat, tossed it on the divan54, and said: “Dear Master, I just want to sit with you and have you talk to me.” She dropped down beside her hat, clasped her thin hands about her thin knee, and broke out, as if she had already forgotten that she wanted him to talk to her: “Do you know, I’ve made up my 224mind to begin to live again—to live my own life, I mean, to be my real me, after all these dreadful months of exile from myself. I see now that that is my real duty—just as it is yours, just as it is that of every artist and every creator. Don’t you feel as I do? Don’t you agree with me? We must save Beauty for the world; before it is too late we must save it out of this awful wreck55 and ruin. It sounds ridiculously presumptuous56, doesn’t it, to say ‘we’ in talking of a great genius like you and a poor little speck57 of dust like me? But after all there is the same instinct in us, the same craving58, the same desire to realize Beauty, though you do it so magnificently and so—so objectively, and I ...” she paused, unclasped her hands, and lifted her lovely bewildered eyes, “I do it only by a ribbon in my hair, a flower in a vase, a way of looping a curtain, or placing a lacquer screen in the right light. But I oughtn’t to be ashamed of my limitations, do you think I ought? Surely every one ought to be helping59 to save Beauty; every one is needed, even the humblest and most ignorant of us, or else the world will be all death and ugliness. And after all, ugliness is the only real death, isn’t it?” She drew a deep breath and added: “It has done me good already to sit here and listen to you.”
Campton, a few weeks previously60, would have been amused, or perhaps merely irritated. But in the interval61 he had become aware in himself of the same 225irresistible craving to “live,” as she put it, and as he had heard it formulated62, that very day, by the mourning mother who had so sharply rebuked63 Mrs. Brant. The spring was stirring them all in their different ways, secreting64 in them the sap which craved65 to burst into bridge-parties, or the painting of masterpieces, or a consciousness of the need for new shirts.
“But what am I in all this?” Mrs. Talkett rushed on, sparing him the trouble of a reply. “Nothing but the match that lights the flame! Sometimes I imagine that I might put what I mean into poetry ... I have scribbled66 a few things, you know ... but that’s not what I was going to tell you. It’s you, dear Master, who must set us the example of getting back to our work, our real work, whatever it is. What have you done in all these dreadful months—the real You? Nothing! And the world will be the poorer for it ever after. Master, you must paint again—you must begin to-day!”
Campton gave an uneasy laugh. “Oh—paint!” He waved his hand toward the office files of “The Friends of French Art.” “There’s my work.”
“Not the real you. It’s your dummy’s work—just as my nursing has been mine. Oh, one did one’s best—but all the while beauty and art and the eternal things were perishing! And what will the world be like without them?”
“But your son will.” She looked at him profoundly. “You know I know your son—we’re friends. And I’m sure he would feel as I feel—he would tell you to go back to your painting.”
For months past any allusion51 to George had put Campton on his guard, stiffening68 him with improvised69 defences. But this appeal of Mrs. Talkett’s found him unprepared, demoralized by the spring sweetness, and by his secret sense of his son’s connivance70 with it. What was war—any war—but an old European disease, an ancestral blood-madness seizing on the first pretext to slake71 its frenzy72? Campton reminded himself again that he was the son of free institutions, of a country in no way responsible for the centuries of sinister73 diplomacy74 which had brought Europe to ruin, and was now trying to drag down America. George was right, the Brants were right, this young woman through whose lips Campton’s own secret instinct spoke was right.
He was silent so long that she rose with the anxious frown that appeared to be her way of blushing, and faltered75 out: “I’m boring you—I’d better go.”
“Wait—let me do you like that!” Campton cried. It had never before occurred to him that she was paintable; but as she stood there with uplifted arm the long line flowing from her wrist to her hip79 suddenly wound itself about him like a net.
“Do you mind?” he queried82; and hardly hearing her faltered out: “Mind? When it was what I came for!” he dragged forth83 an easel, flung on it the first canvas he could lay hands on (though he knew it was the wrong shape and size), and found himself instantly transported into the lost world which was the only real one.
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1
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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2
furrows
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| n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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immersion
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| n.沉浸；专心 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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refulgent
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| adj.辉煌的，灿烂的 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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incentives
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| 激励某人做某事的事物( incentive的名词复数 )； 刺激； 诱因； 动机 | |
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pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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collaboration
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| n.合作，协作；勾结 | |
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dame
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| n.女士 | |
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rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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spikes
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| n.穗( spike的名词复数 )；跑鞋；（防滑）鞋钉；尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 )；偷偷地给某人的饮料加入（更多）酒精（ 或药物）；把尖状物钉入；打乱某人的计划 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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inadequacy
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| n.无法胜任，信心不足 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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seclusion
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| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
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34
strewed
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| v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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38
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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tightening
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| 上紧，固定，紧密 | |
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bereft
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| adj.被剥夺的 | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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44
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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45
collating
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| v.校对( collate的现在分词 )；整理；核对；整理（文件或书等） | |
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46
elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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48
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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49
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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50
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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51
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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52
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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53
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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54
divan
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| n.长沙发；（波斯或其他东方诗人的）诗集 | |
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55
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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56
presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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57
speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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58
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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59
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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60
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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61
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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62
formulated
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| v.构想出( formulate的过去式和过去分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示 | |
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63
rebuked
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| 责难或指责( rebuke的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
secreting
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| v.（尤指动物或植物器官）分泌( secrete的现在分词 )；隐匿，隐藏 | |
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65
craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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68
stiffening
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| n. (使衣服等)变硬的材料, 硬化 动词stiffen的现在分词形式 | |
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improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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70
connivance
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| n.纵容；默许 | |
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71
slake
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| v.解渴，使平息 | |
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72
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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73
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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75
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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76
cataract
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| n.大瀑布，奔流，洪水，白内障 | |
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77
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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78
slanted
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| 有偏见的； 倾斜的 | |
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79
hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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80
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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81
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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82
queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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