There is an interval1 of two years and a half and the story resumes with a much maturer Mr. Lewisham, indeed no longer a youth, but a man, a legal man, at any rate, of one-and-twenty years. Its scene is no longer little Whortley embedded2 among its trees, ruddy banks, parks and common land, but the grey spaciousness3 of West London.
And it does not resume with Ethel at all. For that promised second letter never reached him, and though he spent many an afternoon during his first few months in London wandering about Clapham, that arid4 waste of people, the meeting that he longed for never came. Until at last, after the manner of youth, so gloriously recuperative in body, heart, and soul, he began to forget.
The quest of a "crib" had ended in the unexpected fruition of Dunkerley's blue paper. The green-blue certificates had, it seemed, a value beyond mural decoration, and when Lewisham was already despairing of any employment for the rest of his life, came a marvellous blue document from the Education Department promising5 inconceivable things. He was to go to London and be paid a guinea a week for listening to lectures--lectures beyond his most ambitious dreams! Among the names that swam before his eyes was Huxley--Huxley and then Lockyer! What a chance to get! Is it any wonder that for three memorable6 years the Career prevailed with him?
You figure him on his way to the Normal School of Science at the opening of his third year of study there. (They call the place the Royal College of Science in these latter days.) He carried in his right hand a shiny black bag, well stuffed with text-books, notes, and apparatus7 for the, forthcoming session; and in his left was a book that the bag had no place for, a book with gilt8 edges, and its binding9 very carefully protected by a brown paper cover.
The lapse10 of time had asserted itself upon his upper lip in an inaggressive but indisputable moustache, in an added inch or so of stature11, and in his less conscious carriage. For he no longer felt that universal attention he believed in at eighteen; it was beginning to dawn on him indeed that quite a number of people were entirely12 indifferent to the fact of his existence. But if less conscious, his carriage was decidedly more confident--as of one with whom the world goes well.
His costume was--with one exception--a tempered black,--mourning put to hard uses and "cutting up rusty13." The mourning was for his mother, who had died more than a year before the date when this story resumes, and had left him property that capitalized at nearly a hundred pounds, a sum which Lewisham hoarded14 jealously in the Savings15 Bank, paying only for such essentials as university fees, and the books and instruments his brilliant career as a student demanded. For he was having a brilliant career, after all, in spite of the Whortley check, licking up paper certificates indeed like a devouring16 flame.
(Surveying him, Madam, your eye would inevitably17 have fallen to his collar--curiously shiny, a surface like wet gum. Although it has practically nothing to do with this story, I must, I know, dispose of that before I go on, or you will be inattentive. London has its mysteries, but this strange gloss18 on his linen19! "Cheap laundresses always make your things blue," protests the lady. "It ought to have been blue-stained, generously frayed20, and loose about the button, fretting21 his neck. But this gloss ..." You would have looked nearer, and finally you would have touched--a charnel-house surface, dank and cool! You see, Madam, the collar was a patent waterproof22 one. One of those you wash over night with a tooth-brush, and hang on the back of your chair to dry, and there you have it next morning rejuvenesced. It was the only collar he had in the world, it saved threepence a week at least, and that, to a South Kensington "science teacher in training," living on the guinea a week allowed by a parental23 but parsimonious24 government, is a sum to consider. It had come to Lewisham as a great discovery. He had seen it first in a shop window full of indiarubber goods, and it lay at the bottom of a glass bowl In which goldfish drifted discontentedly to and fro. And he told himself that he rather liked that gloss.)
But the wearing of a bright red tie would have been unexpected--a bright red tie after the fashion of a South-Western railway guard's! The rest of him by no means dandiacal, even the vanity of glasses long since abandoned. You would have reflected.... Where had you seen a crowd--red ties abundant and in some way significant? The truth has to be told. Mr. Lewisham had become a Socialist25!
That red tie was indeed but one outward and visible sign of much inward and spiritual development. Lewisham, in spite of the demands of a studious career, had read his Butler's Analogy through by this time, and some other books; he had argued, had had doubts, and called upon God for "Faith" in the silence of the night--"Faith" to be delivered immediately if Mr. Lewisham's patronage26 was valued, and which nevertheless was not so delivered.... And his conception of his destiny in this world was no longer an avenue of examinations to a remote Bar and political eminence27 "in the Liberal interest (D.V.)" He had begun to realise certain aspects of our social order that Whortley did not demonstrate, begun to feel something of the dull stress deepening to absolute wretchedness and pain, which is the colour of so much human life in modern London. One vivid contrast hung in his mind symbolical28. On the one hand were the coalies of the Westbourne Park yards, on strike and gaunt and hungry, children begging in the black slush, and starving loungers outside a soup kitchen; and on the other, Westbourne Grove29, two streets further, a blazing array of crowded shops, a stirring traffic of cabs and carriages, and such a spate30 of spending that a tired student in leaky boots and graceless clothes hurrying home was continually impeded31 in the whirl of skirts and parcels and sweetly pretty womanliness. No doubt the tired student's own inglorious sensations pointed32 the moral. But that was only one of a perpetually recurring33 series of vivid approximations.
Lewisham had a strong persuasion34, an instinct it may be, that human beings should not be happy while others near them were wretched, and this gay glitter of prosperity had touched him with a sense of crime. He still believed people were responsible for their own lives; in those days he had still to gauge35 the possibilities of moral stupidity in himself and his fellow-men. He happened upon "Progress and Poverty" just then, and some casual numbers of the "Commonweal," and it was only too easy to accept the theory of cunning plotting capitalists and landowners, and faultless, righteous, martyr36 workers. He became a Socialist forthwith. The necessity to do something at once to manifest the new faith that was in him was naturally urgent. So he went out and (historical moment) bought that red tie!
"Blood colour, please," said Lewisham meekly37 to the young lady at the counter.
"_What_ colour?" said the young lady at the counter, sharply.
"A bright scarlet38, please," said Lewisham, blushing. And he spent the best part of the evening and much of his temper in finding out how to tie this into a neat bow. It was a plunge39 into novel handicraft--for previously40 he had been accustomed to made-up ties.
So it was that Lewisham proclaimed the Social Revolution. The first time that symbol went abroad a string of stalwart policemen were walking in single file along the Brompton Road. In the opposite direction marched Lewisham. He began to hum. He passed the policemen with a significant eye and humming the _Marseillaise_....
But that was months ago, and by this time the red tie was a thing of use and wont41.
He turned out of the Exhibition Road through a gateway42 of wrought43 iron, and entered the hall of the Normal School. The hall was crowded with students carrying books, bags, and boxes of instruments, students standing44 and chattering45, students reading the framed and glazed46 notices of the Debating Society, students buying note-books, pencils, rubber, or drawing pins from the privileged stationer. There was a strong representation of new hands, the paying students, youths and young men in black coats and silk hats or tweed suits, the scholar contingent47, youngsters of Lewisham's class, raw, shabby, discordant48, grotesquely49 ill-dressed and awe-stricken; one Lewisham noticed with a sailor's peaked cap gold-decorated, and one with mittens50 and very genteel grey kid gloves; and Grummett the perennial51 Official of the Books was busy among them.
"Der Zozalist!" said a wit.
Lewisham pretended not to hear and blushed vividly52. He often wished he did not blush quite so much, seeing he was a man of one-and-twenty. He looked studiously away from the Debating Society notice-board, whereon "G.E. Lewisham on Socialism" was announced for the next Friday, and struggled through the hall to where the Book awaited his signature. Presently he was hailed by name, and then again. He could not get to the Book for a minute or so, because of the hand-shaking and clumsy friendly jests of his fellow-"men."
He was pointed out to a raw hand, by the raw hand's experienced fellow-townsman, as "that beast Lewisham--awful swat. He was second last year on the year's work. Frightful53 mugger. But all these swats have a touch of the beastly prig. Exams--Debating Society--more Exams. Don't seem to have ever heard of being alive. Never goes near a Music Hall from one year's end to the other."
Lewisham heard a shrill54 whistle, made a run for the lift and caught it just on the point of departure. The lift was unlit and full of black shadows; only the sapper who conducted it was distinct. As Lewisham peered doubtfully at the dim faces near him, a girl's voice addressed him by name.
"Is that you, Miss Heydinger?" he answered. "I didn't see, I hope you have had a pleasant vacation."
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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embedded
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| a.扎牢的 | |
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spaciousness
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| n.宽敞 | |
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arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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hoarded
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| v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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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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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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gloss
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| n.光泽，光滑；虚饰；注释；vt.加光泽于；掩饰 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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frayed
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| adj.磨损的v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fretting
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| n. 微振磨损 adj. 烦躁的, 焦虑的 | |
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waterproof
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| n.防水材料；adj.防水的；v.使...能防水 | |
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parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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parsimonious
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| adj.吝啬的，质量低劣的 | |
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socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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patronage
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| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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symbolical
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| a.象征性的 | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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spate
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| n.泛滥，洪水，突然的一阵 | |
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impeded
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| 阻碍，妨碍，阻止( impede的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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recurring
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| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
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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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gauge
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| v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器 | |
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martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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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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chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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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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contingent
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| adj.视条件而定的；n.一组，代表团，分遣队 | |
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discordant
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| adj.不调和的 | |
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grotesquely
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| adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
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mittens
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| 不分指手套 | |
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perennial
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| adj.终年的；长久的 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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