Ovid had promised to return to Carmina in a minute. The minutes passed, and still Doctor Benjulia held him in talk.
Now that he was no longer seeking amusement, in his own dreary2 way, by mystifying Zo, the lines seemed to harden in the doctor’s fleshless face. A scrupulously3 polite man, he was always cold in his politeness. He waited to have his hand shaken, and waited to be spoken to. And yet, on this occasion, he had something to say. When Ovid opened the conversation, he changed the subject directly.
“Benjulia! what brings You to the Zoological Gardens?”
“One of the monkeys has got brain disease; and they fancy I might like to see the beast before they kill him. Have you been thinking lately of that patient we lost?”
Not at the moment remembering the patient, Ovid made no immediate4 reply. The doctor seemed to distrust his silence.
“You don’t mean to say you have forgotten the case?” he resumed. “We called it hysteria, not knowing what else it was. I don’t forgive the girl for slipping through our fingers; I hate to be beaten by Death, in that way. Have you made up your mind what to do, on the next occasion? Perhaps you think you could have saved her life if you had been sent for, now?”
“No, indeed, I am just as ignorant —”
“Give ignorance time,” Benjulia interposed, “and ignorance will become knowledge — if a man is in earnest. The proper treatment might occur to you to-morrow.”
He held to his idea with such obstinacy5 that Ovid set him right, rather impatiently. “The proper treatment has as much chance of occurring to the greatest ass1 in the profession,” he answered, “as it has of occurring to me. I can put my mind to no good medical use; my work has been too much for me. I am obliged to give up practice, and rest — for a time.”
Not even a formal expression of sympathy escaped Doctor Benjulia. Having been a distrustful friend so far, he became an inquisitive6 friend now. “You’re going away, of course,” he said. “Where to? On the Continent? Not to Italy — if you really want to recover your health!”
“What is the objection to Italy?”
The doctor put his great hand solemnly on his young friend’s shoulder. “The medical schools in that country are recovering their past reputation,” he said. “They are becoming active centres of physiological7 inquiry8. You will be dragged into it, to a dead certainty. They’re sure to try what they can strike out by collision with a man like you. What will become of that overworked mind of yours, when a lot of professors are searching it without mercy? Have you ever been to Canada?”
“No. Have you?”
“I have been everywhere. Canada is just the place for you, in this summer season. Bracing9 air; and steady-going doctors who leave the fools in Europe to pry10 into the secrets of Nature. Thousands of miles of land, if you like riding. Thousands of miles of water, if you like sailing. Pack up, and go to Canada.”
What did all this mean? Was he afraid that his colleague might stumble on some discovery which he was in search of himself? And did the discovery relate to his own special subject of brains and nerves? Ovid made an attempt to understand him.
“Tell me something about yourself, Benjulia,” he said. “Are you returning to your regular professional work?”
Benjulia struck his bamboo stick emphatically on the gravel11-walk. “Never! Unless I know more than I know now.”
This surely meant that he was as much devoted12 to his chemical experiments as ever? In that case, how could Ovid (who knew nothing of chemical experiments) be an obstacle in the doctor’s way? Baffled thus far, he made another attempt at inducing Benjulia to explain himself.
“When is the world to hear of your discoveries?” he asked.
The doctor’s massive forehead gathered ominously13 into a frown, “Damn the world!” That was his only reply.
Ovid was not disposed to allow himself to be kept in the dark in this way. “I suppose you are going on with your experiments?” he said.
The gloom of Benjulia’s grave eyes deepened: they stared with a stern fixedness14 into vacancy15. His great head bent16 slowly over his broad breast. The whole man seemed to be shut up in himself. “I go on a way of my own,” he growled17. “Let nobody cross it.”
After that reply, to persist in making inquiries18 would only have ended in needlessly provoking an irritable19 man. Ovid looked back towards Carmina. “I must return to my friends,” he said.
The doctor lifted his head, like a man awakened20. “Have I been rude?” he asked. “Don’t talk to me about my experiments. That’s my raw place, and you hit me on it. What did you say just now? Friends? who are your friends?” He rubbed his hand savagely22 over his forehead — it was a way he had of clearing his mind. “I know,” he went on. “I saw your friends just now. Who’s the young lady?” His most intimate companions had never heard him laugh: they had sometimes seen his thin-lipped mouth widen drearily23 into a smile. It widened now. “Whoever she is,” he proceeded, “Zo wonders why you don’t kiss her.”
This specimen24 of Benjulia’s attempts at pleasantry was not exactly to Ovid’s taste. He shifted the topic to his little sister. “You were always fond of Zo,” he said.
Benjulia looked thoroughly25 puzzled. Fondness for anybody was, to all appearance, one of the few subjects on which he had not qualified26 himself to offer an opinion. He gave his head another savage21 rub, and returned to the subject of the young lady. “Who is she?” he asked again.
“My cousin,” Ovid replied as shortly as possible.
“Your cousin? A girl of Lady Northlake’s?”
“No: my late uncle’s daughter.”
Benjulia suddenly came to a standstill. “What!” he cried, “has that misbegotten child grown up to be a woman?”’
Ovid started. Words of angry protest were on his lips, when he perceived Teresa and Zo on one side of him, and the keeper of the monkeys on the other. Benjulia dismissed the man, with the favourable27 answer which Zo had already reported. They walked on again. Ovid was at liberty to speak.
“Do you know what you said of my cousin, just now?” he began.
His tone seemed to surprise the doctor. “What did I say?” he asked.
“You used a very offensive word. You called Carmina a ‘misbegotten child.’ Are you repeating some vile28 slander29 on the memory of her mother?”
Benjulia came to another standstill. “Slander?” he repeated — and said no more.
Ovid’s anger broke out. “Yes!” he replied. “Or a lie, if you like, told of a woman as high above reproach as your mother or mine!”
“You are hot,” the doctor remarked, and walked on again. “When I was in Italy —” he paused to calculate, “when I was at Rome, fifteen years ago, your cousin was a wretched little rickety child. I said to Robert Graywell, ‘Don’t get too fond of that girl; she’ll never live to grow up.’ He said something about taking her away to the mountain air. I didn’t think, myself, the mountain air would be of any use. It seems I was wrong. Well! it’s a surprise to me to find her —” he waited, and calculated again, “to find her grown up to be seventeen years old.” To Ovid’s ears, there was an inhuman30 indifference31 in his tone as he said this, which it was impossible not to resent, by looks, if not in words. Benjulia noticed the impression that he had produced, without in the least understanding it. “Your nervous system’s in a nasty state,” he remarked; “you had better take care of yourself. I’ll go and look at the monkey.”
His face was like the face of the impenetrable sphinx; his deep bass32 voice droned placidly33. Ovid’s anger had passed by him like the passing of the summer air. “Good-bye!” he said; “and take care of those nasty nerves. I tell you again — they mean mischief34.”
Not altogether willingly, Ovid made his apologies. “If I have misunderstood you, I beg your pardon. At the same time, I don’t think I am to blame. Why did you mislead me by using that detestable word?”
“Wasn’t it the right word?”
“The right word — when you only wanted to speak of a poor sickly child! Considering that you took your degree at Oxford35 —”
“You could expect nothing better from the disadvantages of my education,” said the doctor, finishing the sentence with the grave composure that distinguished36 him. “When I said ‘misbegotten,’ perhaps I ought to have said ‘half-begotten’? Thank you for reminding me. I’ll look at the dictionary when I get home.”
Ovid’s mind was not set at ease yet. “There’s one other thing,” he persisted, “that seems unaccountable.” He started, and seized Benjulia by the arm. “Stop!” he cried, with a sudden outburst of alarm.
“Well?” asked the doctor, stopping directly. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” said Ovid, recoiling37 from a stain on the gravel walk, caused by the remains38 of an unlucky beetle39, crushed under his friend’s heavy foot. “You trod on the beetle before I could stop you.”
Benjulia’s astonishment40 at finding an adult male human being (not in a lunatic asylum) anxious to spare the life of a beetle, literally41 struck him speechless. His medical instincts came to his assistance. “You had better leave London at once,” he suggested. “Get into pure air, and be out of doors all day long.” He turned over the remains of the beetle with the end of his stick. “The common beetle,” he said; “I haven’t damaged a Specimen.”
Ovid returned to the subject, which had suffered interruption through his abortive42 little act of mercy. “You knew my uncle in Italy. It seems strange, Benjulia, that I should never have heard of it before.”
“Yes; I knew your uncle; and,” he added with especial emphasis, “I knew his wife.”
“Well?”
“Well, I can’t say I felt any particular interest in either of them. Nothing happened afterwards to put me in mind of the acquaintance till you told me who the young lady was, just now.
“Surely my mother must have reminded you?”
“Not that I can remember. Women in her position don’t much fancy talking of a relative who has married”— he stopped to choose his next words. “I don’t want to be rude; suppose we say married beneath him?”
Reflection told Ovid that this was true. Even in conversation with himself (before the arrival in England of Robert’s Will), his mother rarely mentioned her brother — and still more rarely his family. There was another reason for Mrs. Gallilee’s silence, known only to herself. Robert was in the secret of her debts, and Robert had laid her under heavy pecuniary43 obligations. The very sound of his name was revolting to his amiable44 sister: it reminded her of that humiliating sense, known in society as a sense of gratitude45.
Carmina was still waiting — and there was nothing further to be gained by returning to the subject of her mother with such a man as Benjulia. Ovid held out his hand to say good-bye.
Taking the offered hand readily enough, the doctor repeated his odd question —“I haven’t been rude, have I?”— with an unpleasant appearance of going through a form purely46 for form’s sake. Ovid’s natural generosity47 of feeling urged him to meet the advance, strangely as it had been made, with a friendly reception.
“I am afraid it is I who have been rude,” he said. “Will you go back with me, and be introduced to Carmina?”
Benjulia made his acknowledgments in his own remarkable48 way. “No, thank you,” he said, quietly, “I’d rather see the monkey.”
1 ass | |
n.驴;傻瓜,蠢笨的人 | |
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2 dreary | |
adj.令人沮丧的,沉闷的,单调乏味的 | |
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3 scrupulously | |
adv.一丝不苟地;小心翼翼地,多顾虑地 | |
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4 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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5 obstinacy | |
n.顽固;(病痛等)难治 | |
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6 inquisitive | |
adj.求知欲强的,好奇的,好寻根究底的 | |
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7 physiological | |
adj.生理学的,生理学上的 | |
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8 inquiry | |
n.打听,询问,调查,查问 | |
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9 bracing | |
adj.令人振奋的 | |
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10 pry | |
vi.窥(刺)探,打听;vt.撬动(开,起) | |
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11 gravel | |
n.砂跞;砂砾层;结石 | |
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12 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
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13 ominously | |
adv.恶兆地,不吉利地;预示地 | |
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14 fixedness | |
n.固定;稳定;稳固 | |
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15 vacancy | |
n.(旅馆的)空位,空房,(职务的)空缺 | |
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16 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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17 growled | |
v.(动物)发狺狺声, (雷)作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 );低声咆哮着说 | |
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18 inquiries | |
n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 );疑问;探究;打听 | |
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19 irritable | |
adj.急躁的;过敏的;易怒的 | |
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20 awakened | |
v.(使)醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 );(使)觉醒;弄醒;(使)意识到 | |
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21 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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22 savagely | |
adv. 野蛮地,残酷地 | |
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23 drearily | |
沉寂地,厌倦地,可怕地 | |
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24 specimen | |
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25 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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26 qualified | |
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27 favourable | |
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28 vile | |
adj.卑鄙的,可耻的,邪恶的;坏透的 | |
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29 slander | |
n./v.诽谤,污蔑 | |
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30 inhuman | |
adj.残忍的,不人道的,无人性的 | |
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31 indifference | |
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32 bass | |
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33 placidly | |
adv.平稳地,平静地 | |
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34 mischief | |
n.损害,伤害,危害;恶作剧,捣蛋,胡闹 | |
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35 Oxford | |
n.牛津(英国城市) | |
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36 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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37 recoiling | |
v.畏缩( recoil的现在分词 );退缩;报应;返回 | |
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38 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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39 beetle | |
n.甲虫,近视眼的人 | |
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40 astonishment | |
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41 literally | |
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实 | |
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42 abortive | |
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43 pecuniary | |
adj.金钱的;金钱上的 | |
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44 amiable | |
adj.和蔼可亲的,友善的,亲切的 | |
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45 gratitude | |
adj.感激,感谢 | |
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46 purely | |
adv.纯粹地,完全地 | |
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47 generosity | |
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48 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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