CHAPTER XII.

So the Angel was invested in a pair of nether¹ garments of the Vicar's, a shirt, ripped down the back (to accommodate the wings), socks, shoes—the Vicar's dress shoes—collar, tie, and light overcoat. But putting on the latter was painful, and reminded the Vicar that the bandaging was temporary. "I will ring for tea at once, and send Grummet down for Crump," said the Vicar. "And dinner shall be earlier." While the Vicar shouted his orders on the landing rails, the Angel surveyed himself in the cheval glass with immense delight. If he was a stranger to pain, he was evidently no stranger—thanks perhaps to dreaming—to the pleasure of incongruity².

 

They had tea in the drawing-room. The Angel sat on the music stool (music stool because of his wings). At first he wanted to lie on the hearthrug. He looked much less radiant in the Vicar's clothes, than he had done upon the moor³ when[Pg 46] dressed in saffron. His face shone still, the colour of his hair and cheeks was strangely bright, and there was a superhuman light in his eyes, but his wings under the overcoat gave him the appearance of a hunchback. The garments, indeed, made quite a terrestrial thing of him, the trousers were puckered⁴ transversely, and the shoes a size or so too large.

 

He was charmingly affable and quite ignorant of the most elementary facts of civilization. Eating came without much difficulty, and the Vicar had an entertaining time teaching him how to take tea. "What a mess it is! What a dear grotesque⁵ ugly world you live in!" said the Angel. "Fancy stuffing things into your mouth! We use our mouths just to talk and sing with. Our world, you know, is almost incurably⁶ beautiful. We get so very little ugliness, that I find all this ... delightful⁷."

 

Mrs Hinijer, the Vicar's housekeeper⁸, looked at the Angel suspiciously when she brought in the tea. She thought him rather a "queer customer." What she would have thought had she seen him in saffron no one can tell.

 

[Pg 47]

 

The Angel shuffled⁹ about the room with his cup of tea in one hand, and the bread and butter in the other, and examined the Vicar's furniture. Outside the French windows, the lawn with its array of dahlias and sunflowers glowed in the warm sunlight, and Mrs Jehoram's sunshade stood thereon like a triangle of fire. He thought the Vicar's portrait over the mantel very curious indeed, could not understand what it was there for. "You have yourself round," he said, apropos¹⁰ of the portrait, "Why want yourself flat?" and he was vastly amused at the glass fire screen. He found the oak chairs odd—"You're not square, are you?" he said, when the Vicar explained their use. "We never double ourselves up. We lie about on the asphodel when we want to rest."

 

"The chair," said the Vicar, "to tell you the truth, has always puzzled me. It dates, I think, from the days when the floors were cold and very dirty. I suppose we have kept up the habit. It's become a kind of instinct with us to sit on chairs. Anyhow, if I went to see one of my parishioners, and suddenly spread myself[Pg 48] out on the floor—the natural way of it—I don't know what she would do. It would be all over the parish in no time. Yet it seems the natural method of reposing¹¹, to recline. The Greeks and Romans——"

 

"What is this?" said the Angel abruptly¹².

 

"That's a stuffed kingfisher. I killed it."

 

"Killed it!"

 

"Shot it," said the Vicar, "with a gun."

 

"Shot! As you did me?"

 

"I didn't kill you, you see. Fortunately."

 

"Is killing¹³ making like that?"

 

"In a way."

 

"Dear me! And you wanted to make me like that—wanted to put glass eyes in me and string me up in a glass case full of ugly green and brown stuff?"

 

"You see," began the Vicar, "I scarcely understood——"

 

"Is that 'die'?" asked the Angel suddenly.

 

"That is dead; it died."

 

"Poor little thing. I must eat a lot. But you say you killed it. Why?"

 

"You see," said the Vicar, "I take an interest[Pg 49] in birds, and I (ahem) collect them. I wanted the specimen¹⁴——"

 

The Angel stared at him for a moment with puzzled eyes. "A beautiful bird like that!" he said with a shiver. "Because the fancy took you. You wanted the specimen!"

 

He thought for a minute. "Do you often kill?" he asked the Vicar.

1 nether   

adj.下部的，下面的；n.阴间；下层社会

参考例句：

• This terracotta army well represents his ambition yet to be realized in the nether-world.这一批兵马俑很可能代表他死后也要去实现的雄心。
• He was escorted back to the nether regions of Main Street.他被护送回中央大道南面的地方。

2 incongruity   

n.不协调，不一致

参考例句：

• She smiled at the incongruity of the question.面对这样突兀的问题，她笑了。
• When the particular outstrips the general,we are faced with an incongruity.当特别是超过了总的来讲，我们正面临着一个不协调。

3 moor   

n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊

参考例句：

• I decided to moor near some tourist boats.我决定在一些观光船附近停泊。
• There were hundreds of the old huts on the moor.沼地上有成百上千的古老的石屋。

4 puckered   

v.（使某物）起褶子或皱纹( pucker的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His face puckered , and he was ready to cry. 他的脸一皱，像要哭了。
• His face puckered, the tears leapt from his eyes. 他皱着脸，眼泪夺眶而出。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 grotesque   

adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物）

参考例句：

• His face has a grotesque appearance.他的面部表情十分怪。
• Her account of the incident was a grotesque distortion of the truth.她对这件事的陈述是荒诞地歪曲了事实。

6 incurably   

ad.治不好地

参考例句：

• But young people are incurably optimistic and women have a special knack of forgetting their troubles. 可是青年人，永远朝着愉快的事情想，女人们尤其容易忘记那些不痛快。
• For herself she wanted nothing. For father and myself she was incurably ambitious. 她为她自己并无所求，可为父亲和我，却有着无法遏制的野心。

7 delightful   

adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的

参考例句：

• We had a delightful time by the seashore last Sunday.上星期天我们在海滨玩得真痛快。
• Peter played a delightful melody on his flute.彼得用笛子吹奏了一支欢快的曲子。

8 housekeeper   

n.管理家务的主妇，女管家

参考例句：

• A spotless stove told us that his mother is a diligent housekeeper.炉子清洁无瑕就表明他母亲是个勤劳的主妇。
• She is an economical housekeeper and feeds her family cheaply.她节约持家，一家人吃得很省。

9 shuffled   

v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼

参考例句：

• He shuffled across the room to the window. 他拖着脚走到房间那头的窗户跟前。
• Simon shuffled awkwardly towards them. 西蒙笨拙地拖着脚朝他们走去。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 apropos   

adv.恰好地；adj.恰当的；关于

参考例句：

• I thought he spoke very apropos.我认为他说得很中肯。
• He arrived very apropos.他来得很及时。

11 reposing   

v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• His parents were now reposing in the local churchyard. 他的双亲现在长眠于本地教堂墓地。 来自辞典例句
• The picture shows a nude reposing on a couch. 这幅画表现的是一个人赤身体躺在长沙发上。 来自辞典例句

12 abruptly   

adv.突然地，出其不意地

参考例句：

• He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
• I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。

13 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

14 specimen   

n.样本，标本

参考例句：

• You'll need tweezers to hold up the specimen.你要用镊子来夹这标本。
• This specimen is richly variegated in colour.这件标本上有很多颜色。