Long after the storm had broken and rolled away were we still sitting talking in the dim lamplight. In these hours I learned what dark confidences my friend had to give me as to his solitary1 and haunted past; learned more truly, also, than I had ever done as yet, the value of a moral courage that had enabled him, dogged by the cruelest hate of adversity, to emerge from the furnace noble and thrice refined.
He had been picked up, as a mere2 child drowning in the river, by the Thames police and had been ultimately consigned3 to a charity school, from which, in due course, he had been apprenticed4 to a printer. Thus far had his existence, emerging from profoundest gloom, run a straight and uneventful course—but before?
Into what deadly corner of a great city’s most secret burrows5 his young life had been first hemmed6 and then crushed out of shape who may say? When I had got him down again, unnerved but quiet now and wistful with apology over his outburst, he told me all that he knew.
“Thunder always seems to turn my brain a little, Renny, perhaps because it is associated in the depths of my mind with that strange young experience. The muttering sound of it brings a picture, as it were, before my eyes. I seem to see a confusion of wharfs7 and monstrous8 piles of blackness standing9 out against the sky; deadly water runs between, in which smudges of light palpitate and are splintered into arrows and come together again like drops of quicksilver.”
“And you are given something to drink?”
“It is poison; I know it as certainly as that it is my father who wishes to be quit of me. I can’t tell you how I know.”
“And before?”
“There is only the room and the window in the roof, and myself, a sickly cripple lying in bed, always alone and always fearful of something.”
“Duke, was the gentle woman your mother?”
“I feel that it must have been. But she went after a time. Perhaps he killed her as he wished to kill me.”
“Can you remember him at all?”
“Only through a dreadful impression of cruelty. I know that I am what I am by his act; though when made so, or under what provocation11, if any, is all a blank. It is the dog that haunts my memory most. That seems queer, doesn’t it? I suppose it was the type or symbol of all the hate I was the victim of, and I often feel as if some day I shall meet it once more—only once more—and measure conclusions with it on that little matter of the suffering it caused me.”
We fell silent for awhile. Then said I, softly: “Duke, with such a past for background, I think I can understand how Dolly must stand out in the front of your picture.”
“Yes,” he said, with a tender inflection in his voice. “But anyhow I have no quarrel with her sex. What should I have been without that other presence in the past? I have known only two women intimately. For their sake my right arm is at the service of all.”
His eyes shone upon me from the sallow, strong face. He looked like a crippled knight12 of errantry, fearless and dangerous to tamper13 with where his right of affection was questioned.
The week that followed was barren of active interest. It was a busy one at Great Queen street, and all personal matters must needs be relegated14 to the background. Occasionally I saw Dolly, but only in the course of official routine, and no opportunity occurred for us to exchange half a dozen words in private.
Nevertheless, there was in the dusty atmosphere of the place a sensation of warmth and romance that is scarcely habitual15 to the matter-of-fact of the workshop. Compromise with my heart as I might on the subject of Zyp’s ineffaceable image, I could not but be conscious that Ripley’s at present held a very pretty and tender sentiment for me. The sense of a certain proprietorship16 in it was an experience of happiness that made my days run rosily17, for all the perplexity in my soul. Yet love, such as I understood it in its spiritual exclusiveness, was absent; nor did I ever entertain for a moment the possibility of its awakening18 to existence in my breast.
So the week wore on and it was Saturday again, and to-morrow, for good or evil, the question must be put.
That evening, as Duke and I were sitting talking after supper, Jason’s voice came clamoring up the stairs and a moment after my brother burst into the room. He was in high spirits—flushed and boisterous19 as a young Antinous—and he flung himself into a chair and nodded royally to Duke.
“Renny’s chum, I suppose?” said he. “And that’s a distinction to be proud of, for all it’s his brother that says so. Glad to know you, Straw.”
Duke didn’t answer, but he returned the nod, striving to gloze over prejudice genially20 for my sake.
“Renny, old chap!” cried Jason, “I sha’n’t want my friend at court yet—not yet, by a long chalk, I hope. Look here.”
“There’s solid cash for you, my boy! Forty-three pounds to a penny, and a new pleasure to the pretty face of each of ’em.”
“Where on earth did you get it, Jason?”
“Won’t you be shocked, Barebones? Come with me some night and see for yourself.”
“Horrid, isn’t it?—the wailing23 baby and the deserted24 wife and the pistol in a garret—that’s what you are thinking of, eh? Oh, you dear thing! But we aren’t built alike, you and I.”
“Be quiet, can’t you?” I cried, angrily.
“Not a bit of it. I’m breezy as a weathercock to-night. I must talk, I tell you, and you always rouse the laughing imp10 in me. Where’s the harm of gambling, if you win? Eh, Jack25 Straw?”
“It’s no very good qualification for work, if that’s what you want to get, Mr. Trender.”
“Work? Hang the dirty rubbish! Work’s for the poor in pocket and in spirit. I want to see life; to feel the sun of enjoyment26 down to my very finger-tips. You two may work, if you like, with your codes of cranky morals. You may go back to your mill every Monday morning with a guilty sense of relief that another weekly dissipation on Hampstead heath is over and done with. That don’t do for me. The shops here aren’t all iron-ware and stationery27. There’s color and glitter and music and rich food and laughter everywhere around, and I want my share of it. When I’m poor I’ll work; only—I don’t ever intend to be poor again.”
“Well, we don’t any of us intend to, for the matter of that,” said Duke.
“Oh, but you go the wrong way about it. You’re hampered28 in the beginning with the notion that you were made to work, and that if you do it in fine manly29 fashion your wages will be paid you in full some day. Why, what owls30 you are not to see that those wages that you think you are storing up so patiently are all the time being spent by such as me! Here’s happiness at your elbow, in the person of Jason Trender—not up in the skies there. But it’s your nature and luckily that’s my gain. You wouldn’t know how to enjoy ten thousand a year if you had it.”
“You think not?”
“Toward others, you mean?”
“Of course I do, and that’s not the way to make out life.”
“Not your way?”
“Mine? Mine’s to be irresponsible and independent—to act upon every impulse and always have a cat by me to claw out the chestnuts32.”
“A high ideal, isn’t it?”
“Don’t fire that nonsense at me. Ideal, indeed! A cant33 term, Jack Straw, for a sort of religious mania34. No ideal ever sparkled like a bottle of champagne35. I’ve been drinking it for the first time lately and learning to play euchre. I’ve not proved such a bad pupil.”
“Champagne’s heaven!” he cried. “I never want any better. Come out with me to-morrow and taste it. Let’s have a jaunt37!”
Duke shook his head.
“We shouldn’t agree in our notions of pleasure,” said he.
“Then, come you, Renny, and I’ll swear to show you more fun in a day than you’ve known in all your four years of London.”
“I can’t, Jason. I’ve got another engagement.”
“Who with?”
“Never mind. But I can’t come.”
“Oh, rubbish! You’ll have to tell me or else we go together.”
“Neither the one nor the other.”
For a moment he looked threatening. “I’m not fond of these mysteries,” he said. Then his face cleared again.
“Well,” he cried, “it’s a small matter for me, and, after all, you don’t know what you miss. You don’t keep whisky here, I suppose?”
“No, we don’t drink grog, either of us.”
“So I should have thought. Then I’ll make for livelier quarters”—and crying good-night to us, he went singing out of the room.
The moment I heard the outer door shut on him, I turned to Duke.
“Don’t hold me responsible for him,” I said. “You see what he is.”
“Renny,” said Duke, gravely, “I see that friendship is impossible to him, and can understand in a measure what he made you suffer.”
“Yet, I think, it’s true that he’s of the sort whom fortune always favors.”
He smiled and we both fell silent. Presently Duke said from the darkness:
“Where has he put up in London?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t say. I’m not particularly anxious to find out as long as he keeps away from here.”
“Ah, as long as he does,” said my companion, and sunk into a pondering fit again.
“Get off early to-morrow,” he said, suddenly. “What time have you arranged to—to meet Dolly?”
“Half-past nine, Duke.”
“Not before? Well, be punctual, there’s a good fellow. She’s worth an effort.”
I watched him, as he rose with a stifled39 sigh and busied himself over lighting40 our bedroom candle. In the gusty41 dance of the flame his eyes seemed to change and glint red like beads42 of garnet. I had no notion why, but a thrill ran through me and with it a sudden impulse to seize him by the hand and exclaim: “Thank God, we’re friends, Duke!”
He startled a little and looked full in my face, and then I knew what had moved me.
Friends were we; but heaven pity the man who made him his enemy!
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1
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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2
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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3
consigned
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| v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的过去式和过去分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃 | |
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4
apprenticed
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| 学徒，徒弟( apprentice的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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5
burrows
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| n.地洞( burrow的名词复数 )v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的第三人称单数 )；翻寻 | |
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6
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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7
wharfs
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| 码头，停泊处 | |
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8
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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9
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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10
imp
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| n.顽童 | |
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11
provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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12
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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13
tamper
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| v.干预，玩弄，贿赂，窜改，削弱，损害 | |
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14
relegated
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| v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 )；使降职；转移；把…归类 | |
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15
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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16
proprietorship
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| n.所有（权）；所有权 | |
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17
rosily
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| adv.带玫瑰色地，乐观地 | |
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18
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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19
boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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20
genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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21
jingling
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| 叮当声 | |
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22
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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23
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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24
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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25
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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26
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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27
stationery
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| n.文具；(配套的)信笺信封 | |
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28
hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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29
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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30
owls
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| n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 ) | |
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31
humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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32
chestnuts
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| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
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33
cant
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| n.斜穿，黑话，猛扔 | |
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34
mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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35
champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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36
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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37
jaunt
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| v.短程旅游；n.游览 | |
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38
baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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39
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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40
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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41
gusty
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| adj.起大风的 | |
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42
beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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