For a time Mr. Parham was extremely coy about Sir Bussy Woodcock’s invitation to assist at a séance.
Mr. Parham did not want to be drawn1 into this séance business. At the same time he did not want to fall out of touch with Sir Bussy Woodcock.
Sir Bussy Woodcock was one of those crude plutocrats with whom men of commanding intelligence, if they have the slightest ambition to be more than lookers-on at the spectacle of life, are obliged to associate nowadays. These rich adventurers are, under modern conditions, the necessary interpreters between high thought and low reality. It is regrettable that such difficult and debasing intervention2 should be unavoidable, but it seems to be so in this inexplicable3 world. Man of thought and man of action are mutually necessary — or, at any rate, the cooperation seems to be necessary to the man of thought. Plato, Confucius, Machiavelli had all to seek their princes. Nowadays, when the stuffing is out of princes, men of thought must do their best to use rich men.
Rich men amenable4 to use are hard to find and often very intractable when found. There was much in Sir Bussy, for example, that a fine intelligence, were it not equipped with a magnificent self-restraint, might easily have found insupportable. He was a short ruddy freckled5 man with a nose sculptured in the abrupt6 modern style and a mouth like a careless gash7; he was thickset, a thing irritating in itself to an associate of long slender lines, and he moved with an impulsive8 rapidity of movement that was startling often and testified always to a total lack of such inhibitions as are inseparable from a cultivated mind. His manners were — voracious9. When you talked to him he would jump suddenly into your pauses, and Mr. Parham, having long been accustomed to talk to muted undergraduates, had, if anything, developed his pauses. Half the good had gone from Mr. Parham if you robbed him of these significant silences. But Sir Bussy had no sense of significant silences. When you came to a significant silence, he would ask, “Meantersay?” in an entirely10 devastating11 manner. And he was always saying, “Gaw.” Continually he said it with a variety of intonations12, and it never seemed to be addressed to anyone in particular. It meant nothing, or, what was more annoying, it might mean anything.
The fellow was of lowly extraction. His father had driven a hansom cab in London, while his mother was a nurse in a consumption hospital at Hampstead — the “Bussy” came from one of her more interesting patients — and their son, already ambitious at fourteen, had given up a strenuous13 course of Extension Lectures for an all-time job with a garrulous14 advertisement contractor15, because, said he, there was “no GO in the other stuff.” The other “stuff,” if you please, was Wordsworth, the Reformation, Vegetable Morphology, and Economic History as interpreted by fastidious-minded and obscurely satirical young gentlemen from the elder universities.
Mr. Parham, tolerant, broad-minded, and deliberately16 quite modern, was always trying to forget these things. He never really forgot them, but whenever he and Sir Bussy were together he was always trying very hard to do so. Sir Bussy’s rise to wealth and power from such beginnings was one of the endless romances of modern business. Mr. Parham made a point of knowing as little about it as possible.
There the man was. In a little less than a quarter of a century, while Mr. Parham had been occupied chiefly with imperishable things — and marking examination papers upon them — Sir Bussy had become the master of a vast quantity of transitory but tangible17 phenomena18 which included a great advertising19 organization, an important part of the retail20 provision trade, a group of hotels, plantations21 in the tropics, cinema theatres, and many other things felt rather than known by Mr. Parham. Over these ephemerons Sir Bussy presided during those parts of his days that were withdrawn22 from social life, and occasionally even when he was existing socially he was summoned to telephones or indulged in inaudible asides to mysterious young men who sprang from nowhere on their account. As a consequence of these activities, always rather obscure to Mr. Parham, Sir Bussy lived in the midst of a quite terrific comfort and splendour surrounded by an obedience23 and a dignified24 obsequiousness25 that might have overawed a weaker or a vulgarer mind than Mr. Parham’s altogether. He appeared in a doorway26 at night, and marvellous chauffeurs27 sprang out of the darkness to the salute28 at his appearance; he said “Gaw,” and great butlers were ashamed. In a more luminous29 world things might have been different, but in this one Sir Bussy’s chauffeurs plainly regarded Mr. Parham as a rather unaccountable parcel which Sir Bussy was pleased to send about, and though the household manservants at Buntincombe, Carfex House, Marmion House, and the Hangar treated Mr. Parham as a gentleman, manifestly they did so rather through training than perception. A continual miracle, Sir Bussy was. He had acquired a colossal30 power of ordering people about, and it was evident to Mr. Parham that he had not the slightest idea what on the whole he wanted them to do. Meanwhile he just ordered them about. It was natural for Mr. Parham to think, “If I had the power he has, what wonderful things I could achieve.”
For instance, Sir Bussy might make history.
Mr. Parham was a lifelong student and exponent31 of history and philosophy. He had produced several studies — mainly round and about Richelieu and going more deeply into the mind of Richelieu than anyone has ever done before — and given short special courses upon historical themes; he had written a small volume of essays; he was general editor of Fosdyke’s popular “Philosophy of History” series, and he would sometimes write reviews upon works of scholarly distinction, reviews that appeared (often shockingly cut and mutilated) in the Empire, the Weekly Philosopher, and the Georgian Review. No one could deal with a new idea struggling to take form and wave it out of existence again more neatly32 and smilingly than Mr. Parham. And loving history and philosophy as he did, it was a trouble to his mind to feel how completely out of tune33 was the confusion of current events with anything that one could properly call fine history or fine philosophy. The Great War he realized was History, though very lumpish, brutalized, and unmanageable, and the Conference of Versailles was history also — in further declination. One could still put that Conference as a drama between this Power and that, talk of the conflict for “ascendency,” explain the “policy” of this or that man or this or that foreign office subtly and logically.
But from about 1919 onward35 everything had gone from bad to worse. Persons, events, had been deprived of more and more significance. Discordance36, a disarray37 of values, invaded the flow of occurrence. Take Mr. Lloyd George, for example. How was one to treat a man like that? After a climax38 of the Versailles type the proper way was to culminate39 and let the historians get to work, as Woodrow Wilson indeed had done, and as Lincoln or Sulla or C?sar or Alexander did before him. They culminated40 and rounded off, inconvenient41 facts fell off them bit by bit, and more and more surely could they be treated HISTORICALLY. The reality of history broke through superficial appearance; the logic34 of events was made visible.
But now, where were the Powers and what were the forces? In the face of such things as happen today this trained historian felt like a skilled carver who was asked to cut up soup. Where were the bones?— any bones? A man like Sir Bussy ought to be playing a part in a great struggle between the New Rich and the Older Oligarchy42; he ought to be an Equestrian43 pitted against the Patricians44. He ought to round off the Close of Electoral Democracy. He ought to embody45 the New Phase in British affairs — the New Empire. But did he? Did he stand for anything at all? There were times when Mr. Parham felt that if he could not make Sir Bussy stand for something, something definitely, formally and historically significant, his mind would give way altogether.
Surely the ancient and time-honoured processes of history were going on still — surely they were going on. Or what could be going on? Security and predominance — in Europe, in Asia, in finance — were gravely discussed by Mr. Parham and his kindred souls in the more serious weekly and monthly reviews. There were still governments and foreign offices everywhere, and they went through the motions of a struggle for world ascendency according to the rules, decently and in order. Nothing of the slightest importance occurred now between the Powers that was not strictly46 confidential47. Espionage48 had never been so universal, conscientious49, and respected, and the double cross of Christian50 diplomacy51 ruled the skies from Washington to Tokio. Britain and France, America, Germany, Moscow cultivated navies and armies and carried on high dignified diplomacies and made secret agreements with and against each other just as though there had never been that stupid talk about “a war to end war.” Bolshevik Moscow, after an alarming opening phase, had settled down into the best tradition of the Czar’s Foreign Office. If Mr. Parham had been privileged to enjoy the intimacy52 of statesmen like Sir Austen Chamberlain and Mr. Winston Churchill or M. Poincaré, and if he could have dined with some of them, he felt sure that after dinner, with the curtains drawn and the port and the cigars moving with a pensive53 irregularity like chess pieces upon the reflective mahogany, things would be said, a tone would be established that would bring him back warmly and comfortably again into his complete belief in history as he had learnt it and taught it.
But somehow, in spite of his vivid illuminating54 books and able and sometimes quite important articles, such social occasions did not come to his assistance.
Failing such reassurances55, a strange persuasion56 in his mind arose and gathered strength, that round and about the present appearances of historical continuity something else quite different and novel and not so much menacing as dematerializing these appearances was happening. It is hard to define what this something else was. Essentially57 it was a vast and increasing inattention. It was the way everybody was going on, as if all the serious things in life were no longer serious. And as if other things were. And in the more recent years of Mr. Parham’s life it had been, in particular, Sir Bussy.
One night Mr. Parham asked himself a heart-searching question. It was doubtful to him afterwards whether he had had a meditation58 or a nightmare, whether he had thought or dreamt he thought. Suppose, so it was put to him, that statesmen, diplomatists, princes, professors of economics, military and naval59 experts, and in fact all the present heirs of history, were to bring about a situation, complex, difficult, dangerous, with notes, counter notes, utterances60 — and even ultimatums61 — rising towards a declaration of war about some “question.” And suppose — oh, horror!— suppose people in general, and Sir Bussy in particular, just looked at it and said, “Gaw,” or “Meantersay?” and turned away. Turned away and went on with the things they were doing, the silly things unfit for history! What would the heirs of history do? Would the soldiers dare to hold a pistol at Sir Bussy, or the statesmen push him aside? Suppose he refused to be pushed aside and resisted in some queer circumventing62 way of his own. Suppose he were to say, “Cut all this right out — now.” And suppose they found they had to cut it out!
Well, what would become then of our historical inheritance? Where would the Empire be, the Powers, our national traditions and policies? It was an alien idea, this idea that the sawdust was running out of the historical tradition, so alien indeed that it surely never entered Mr. Parham’s mind when it was fully63 awake. There was really nothing to support it there, no group of concepts to which it could attach itself congenially, and yet, once it had secured its footing, it kept worrying at Mr. Parham’s serenity64 like a silly tune that has established itself in one’s brain. “They won’t obey — when the time comes they won’t obey”; that was the refrain. The generals would say, “Haw,” but the people would say, “Gaw!” And Gaw would win! In the nightmare, anyhow, Gaw won. Life after that became inconceivable to Mr. Parham. Chaos65!
In which somehow, he felt, Sir Bussy might still survive, transfigured, perhaps, but surviving. Horribly. Triumphantly66.
Mr. Parham came vividly67 and certainly awake and lay awake until dawn.
The muse68 of History might tell of the rise of dynasties, the ascendency of this power or that, of the onset69 of nationalism with Macedonia, of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, of the age-long struggles of Islam and Christendom and of Latin and Greek Christianity, of the marvellous careers of Alexander and C?sar and Napoleon, unfolding the magic scroll70 of their records, seeking to stir up Sir Bussy to play his part, his important if subservient71 part in this continuing drama of hers, and Sir Bussy would reflect almost sleepily over the narrative72, would seem to think nothing of the narrative, would follow some train of thought of his own into regions inaccessible73 to Mr. Parham, and would say, “Gaw.”
Gaw!
Mr. Parham was becoming neurasthenic. . . .
And then, to add to his troubles, there was this damned nonsense now about going to a séance and taking mediums seriously, them and their nasty, disreputable, and irritatingly inexplicable phenomena.
About dawn Mr. Parham was thinking very seriously of giving up Sir Bussy. But he had thought of that several times before and always with a similar result. Finally he went to a séance, he went to a series of séances with Sir Bussy, as this narrative will in due course relate.
收听单词发音 |
1
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
intervention
|
|
| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
inexplicable
|
|
| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
amenable
|
|
| adj.经得起检验的；顺从的；对负有义务的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
freckled
|
|
| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
abrupt
|
|
| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
gash
|
|
| v.深切，划开；n.(深长的)切(伤)口；裂缝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
impulsive
|
|
| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
voracious
|
|
| adj.狼吞虎咽的，贪婪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
devastating
|
|
| adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
intonations
|
|
| n.语调，说话的抑扬顿挫( intonation的名词复数 )；（演奏或唱歌中的）音准 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
strenuous
|
|
| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
garrulous
|
|
| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
contractor
|
|
| n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
deliberately
|
|
| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
tangible
|
|
| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
phenomena
|
|
| n.现象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
advertising
|
|
| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
retail
|
|
| v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
plantations
|
|
| n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
withdrawn
|
|
| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
obedience
|
|
| n.服从，顺从 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
dignified
|
|
| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
obsequiousness
|
|
| 媚骨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
doorway
|
|
| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
chauffeurs
|
|
| n.受雇于人的汽车司机( chauffeur的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
salute
|
|
| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
luminous
|
|
| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
colossal
|
|
| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
exponent
|
|
| n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
neatly
|
|
| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
tune
|
|
| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
logic
|
|
| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
onward
|
|
| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
discordance
|
|
| n.不调和，不和，不一致性；不整合；假整合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
disarray
|
|
| n.混乱，紊乱，凌乱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
climax
|
|
| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
culminate
|
|
| v.到绝顶，达于极点，达到高潮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
culminated
|
|
| v.达到极点( culminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
inconvenient
|
|
| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
oligarchy
|
|
| n.寡头政治 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
equestrian
|
|
| adj.骑马的；n.马术 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
patricians
|
|
| n.（古罗马的）统治阶层成员( patrician的名词复数 )；贵族，显贵 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
embody
|
|
| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
strictly
|
|
| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
confidential
|
|
| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
espionage
|
|
| n.间谍行为，谍报活动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
conscientious
|
|
| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
Christian
|
|
| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
diplomacy
|
|
| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
intimacy
|
|
| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
pensive
|
|
| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
illuminating
|
|
| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
reassurances
|
|
| n.消除恐惧或疑虑( reassurance的名词复数 )；恢复信心；使人消除恐惧或疑虑的事物；使人恢复信心的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
persuasion
|
|
| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
essentially
|
|
| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
meditation
|
|
| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
naval
|
|
| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
utterances
|
|
| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
ultimatums
|
|
| 最后通牒( ultimatum的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
circumventing
|
|
| v.设法克服或避免（某事物），回避( circumvent的现在分词 )；绕过，绕行，绕道旅行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
serenity
|
|
| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
chaos
|
|
| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
triumphantly
|
|
| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
vividly
|
|
| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
muse
|
|
| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
onset
|
|
| n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
scroll
|
|
| n.卷轴，纸卷；(石刻上的)漩涡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
subservient
|
|
| adj.卑屈的，阿谀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
narrative
|
|
| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
inaccessible
|
|
| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |