The opening chapter does not concern itself with Love--indeed that antagonist1 does not certainly appear until the third--and Mr. Lewisham is seen at his studies. It was ten years ago, and in those days he was assistant master in the Whortley Proprietary2 School, Whortley, Sussex, and his wages were forty pounds a year, out of which he had to afford fifteen shillings a week during term time to lodge3 with Mrs. Munday, at the little shop in the West Street. He was called "Mr." to distinguish him from the bigger boys, whose duty it was to learn, and it was a matter of stringent4 regulation that he should be addressed as "Sir."
He wore ready-made clothes, his black jacket of rigid5 line was dusted about the front and sleeves with scholastic6 chalk, and his face was downy and his moustache incipient7. He was a passable-looking youngster of eighteen, fair-haired, indifferently barbered, and with a quite unnecessary pair of glasses on his fairly prominent nose--he wore these to make himself look older, that discipline might be maintained. At the particular moment when this story begins he was in his bedroom. An attic8 it was, with lead-framed dormer windows, a slanting9 ceiling and a bulging10 wall, covered, as a number of torn places witnessed, with innumerable strata11 of florid old-fashioned paper.
To judge by the room Mr. Lewisham thought little of Love but much on Greatness. Over the head of the bed, for example, where good folks hang texts, these truths asserted themselves, written in a clear, bold, youthfully florid hand:--"Knowledge is Power," and "What man has done man can do,"--man in the second instance referring to Mr. Lewisham. Never for a moment were these things to be forgotten. Mr. Lewisham could see them afresh every morning as his head came through his shirt. And over the yellow-painted box upon which--for lack of shelves--Mr. Lewisham's library was arranged, was a "_Schema_." (Why he should not have headed it "Scheme," the editor of the _Church Times_, who calls his miscellaneous notes "_Varia_," is better able to say than I.) In this scheme, 1892 was indicated as the year in which Mr. Lewisham proposed to take his B.A. degree at the London University with "hons. in all subjects," and 1895 as the date of his "gold medal." Subsequently there were to be "pamphlets in the Liberal interest," and such like things duly dated. "Who would control others must first control himself," remarked the wall over the wash-hand stand, and behind the door against the Sunday trousers was a portrait of Carlyle.
These were no mere13 threats against the universe; operations had begun. Jostling Shakespeare, Emerson's Essays, and the penny Life of Confucius, there were battered14 and defaced school books, a number of the excellent manuals of the Universal Correspondence Association, exercise books, ink (red and black) in penny bottles, and an india-rubber stamp with Mr. Lewisham's name. A trophy15 of bluish green South Kensington certificates for geometrical drawing, astronomy, physiology16, physiography, and inorganic17 chemistry adorned18 his further wall. And against the Carlyle portrait was a manuscript list of French irregular verbs.
Attached by a drawing-pin to the roof over the wash-hand stand, which--the room being an attic--sloped almost dangerously, dangled19 a Time-Table. Mr. Lewisham was to rise at five, and that this was no vain boasting, a cheap American alarum clock by the books on the box witnessed. The lumps of mellow20 chocolate on the papered ledge12 by the bed-head indorsed that evidence. "French until eight," said the time-table curtly21. Breakfast was to be eaten in twenty minutes; then twenty-five minutes of "literature" to be precise, learning extracts (preferably pompous) from the plays of William Shakespeare--and then to school and duty. The time-table further prescribed Latin Composition for the recess22 and the dinner hour ("literature," however, during the meal), and varied23 its injunctions for the rest of the twenty-four hours according to the day of the week. Not a moment for Satan and that "mischief24 still" of his. Only three-score and ten has the confidence, as well as the time, to be idle.
But just think of the admirable quality of such a scheme! Up and busy at five, with all the world about one horizontal, warm, dreamy-brained or stupidly hullish, if roused, roused only to grunt25 and sigh and roll over again into oblivion. By eight three hours' clear start, three hours' knowledge ahead of everyone. It takes, I have been told by an eminent26 scholar, about a thousand hours of sincere work to learn a language completely--after three or four languages much less--which gives you, even at the outset, one each a year before breakfast. The gift of tongues--picked up like mushrooms! Then that "literature"--an astonishing conception! In the afternoon mathematics and the sciences. Could anything be simpler or more magnificent? In six years Mr. Lewisham will have his five or six languages, a sound, all-round education, a habit of tremendous industry, and be still but four-and-twenty. He will already have honour in his university and ampler means. One realises that those pamphlets in the Liberal interests will be no obscure platitudes27. Where Mr. Lewisham will be at thirty stirs the imagination. There will be modifications28 of the Schema, of course, as experience widens. But the spirit of it--the spirit of it is a devouring29 flame!
He was sitting facing the diamond-framed window, writing, writing fast, on a second yellow box that was turned on end and empty, and the lid was open, and his knees were conveniently stuck into the cavity. The bed was strewn with books and copygraphed sheets of instructions from his remote correspondence tutors. Pursuant to the dangling30 time-table he was, you would have noticed, translating Latin into English.
Imperceptibly the speed of his writing diminished. "_Urit me Glycerae nitor_" lay ahead and troubled him. "Urit me," he murmured, and his eyes travelled from his book out of window to the vicar's roof opposite and its ivied chimneys. His brows were knit at first and then relaxed. "_Urit me_!" He had put his pen into his mouth and glanced about for his dictionary. _Urare_?
Suddenly his expression changed. Movement dictionary-ward ceased. He was listening to a light tapping sound--it was a footfall--outside.
He stood up abruptly31, and, stretching his neck, peered through his unnecessary glasses and the diamond panes32 down into the street. Looking acutely downward he could see a hat daintily trimmed with pinkish white blossom, the shoulder of a jacket, and just the tips of nose and chin. Certainly the stranger who sat under the gallery last Sunday next the Frobishers. Then, too, he had seen her only obliquely33....
He watched her until she passed beyond the window frame. He strained to see impossibly round the corner....
Then he started, frowned, took his pen from his mouth. "This wandering attention!" he said. "The slightest thing! Where was I? Tcha!" He made a noise with his teeth to express his irritation34, sat down, and replaced his knees in the upturned box. "Urit me," he said, biting the end of his pen and looking for his dictionary.
It was a Wednesday half-holiday late in March, a spring day glorious in amber35 light, dazzling white clouds and the intensest blue, casting a powder of wonderful green hither and thither36 among the trees and rousing all the birds to tumultuous rejoicings, a rousing day, a clamatory insistent37 day, a veritable herald38 of summer. The stir of that anticipation39 was in the air, the warm earth was parting above the swelling40 seeds, and all the pine-woods were full of the minute crepitation of opening bud scales. And not only was the stir of Mother Nature's awakening41 in the earth and the air and the trees, but also in Mr. Lewisham's youthful blood, bidding him rouse himself to live--live in a sense quite other than that the Schema indicated.
He saw the dictionary peeping from under a paper, looked up "Urit me," appreciated the shining "nitor" of Glycera's shoulders, and so fell idle again to rouse himself abruptly.
"I _can't_ fix my attention," said Mr. Lewisham. He took off the needless glasses, wiped them, and blinked his eyes. This confounded Horace and his stimulating42 epithets43! A walk?
"I won't be beat," he said--incorrectly--replaced his glasses, brought his elbows down on either side of his box with resonant44 violence, and clutched the hair over his ears with both hands....
In five minutes' time he found himself watching the swallows curving through the blue over the vicarage garden.
"Did ever man have such a bother with himself as me?" he asked vaguely45 but vehemently46. "It's self-indulgence does it--sitting down's the beginning of laziness."
So he stood up to his work, and came into permanent view of the village street. "If she has gone round the corner by the post office, she will come in sight over the palings above the allotments," suggested the unexplored and undisciplined region of Mr. Lewisham's mind....
She did not come into sight. Apparently47 she had not gone round by the post office after all. It made one wonder where she had gone. Did she go up through the town to the avenue on these occasions?... Then abruptly a cloud drove across the sunlight, the glowing street went cold and Mr. Lewisham's imagination submitted to control. So "_Mater saeva cupidinum_," "The untamable mother of desires,"--Horace (Book II. of the Odes) was the author appointed by the university for Mr. Lewisham's matriculation--was, after all, translated to its prophetic end.
Precisely48 as the church clock struck five Mr. Lewisham, with a punctuality that was indeed almost too prompt for a really earnest student, shut his Horace, took up his Shakespeare, and descended49 the narrow, curved, uncarpeted staircase that led from his garret to the living room in which he had his tea with his landlady50, Mrs. Munday. That good lady was alone, and after a few civilities Mr. Lewisham opened his Shakespeare and read from a mark onward--that mark, by-the-bye, was in the middle of a scene--while he consumed mechanically a number of slices of bread and whort jam.
Mrs. Munday watched him over her spectacles and thought how bad so much reading must be for the eyes, until the tinkling51 of her shop-bell called her away to a customer. At twenty-five minutes to six he put the book back in the window-sill, dashed a few crumbs52 from his jacket, assumed a mortar-board cap that was lying on the tea-caddy, and went forth53 to his evening "preparation duty."
The West Street was empty and shining golden with the sunset. Its beauty seized upon him, and he forgot to repeat the passage from Henry VIII. that should have occupied him down the street. Instead he was presently thinking of that insubordinate glance from his window and of little chins and nose-tips. His eyes became remote in their expression....
The school door was opened by an obsequious54 little boy with "lines" to be examined.
Mr. Lewisham felt a curious change of atmosphere on his entry. The door slammed behind him. The hall with its insistent scholastic suggestions, its yellow marbled paper, its long rows of hat-pegs, its disreputable array of umbrellas, a broken mortar-board and a tattered55 and scattered56 _Principia_, seemed dim and dull in contrast with the luminous57 stir of the early March evening outside. An unusual sense of the greyness of a teacher's life, of the greyness indeed of the life of all studious souls came, and went in his mind. He took the "lines," written painfully over three pages of exercise book, and obliterated58 them with a huge G.E.L., scrawled59 monstrously60 across each page. He heard the familiar mingled61 noises of the playground drifting in to him through the open schoolroom door.
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antagonist
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| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
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proprietary
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| n.所有权，所有的；独占的；业主 | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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stringent
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| adj.严厉的；令人信服的；银根紧的 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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scholastic
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| adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的 | |
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incipient
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| adj.起初的，发端的，初期的 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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trophy
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| n.优胜旗，奖品，奖杯，战胜品，纪念品 | |
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physiology
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| n.生理学，生理机能 | |
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inorganic
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| adj.无生物的；无机的 | |
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adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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curtly
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| adv.简短地 | |
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recess
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| n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处） | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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platitudes
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| n.平常的话，老生常谈，陈词滥调( platitude的名词复数 )；滥套子 | |
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modifications
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| n.缓和( modification的名词复数 )；限制；更改；改变 | |
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devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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obliquely
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| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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herald
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| vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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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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epithets
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| n.（表示性质、特征等的）词语( epithet的名词复数 ) | |
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resonant
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| adj.(声音)洪亮的，共鸣的 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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tinkling
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| n.丁当作响声 | |
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crumbs
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| int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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obsequious
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| adj.谄媚的，奉承的，顺从的 | |
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55
tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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56
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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obliterated
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| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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59
scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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monstrously
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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