The house — or ‘home’ as they preferred to name it at Biggleswick — was one of some two hundred others which ringed a pleasant Midland common. It was badly built and oddly furnished; the bed was too short, the windows did not fit, the doors did not stay shut; but it was as clean as soap and water and scrubbing could make it. The three-quarters of an acre of garden were mainly devoted7 to the culture of potatoes, though under the parlour window Mrs Jimson had a plot of sweet-smelling herbs, and lines of lank8 sunflowers fringed the path that led to the front door. It was Mrs Jimson who received me as I descended9 from the station fly — a large red woman with hair bleached10 by constant exposure to weather, clad in a gown which, both in shape and material, seemed to have been modelled on a chintz curtain. She was a good kindly11 soul, and as proud as Punch of her house.
‘We follow the simple life here, Mr Brand,’ she said. ‘You must take us as you find us.’
I assured her that I asked for nothing better, and as I unpacked12 in my fresh little bedroom with a west wind blowing in at the window I considered that I had seen worse quarters.
I had bought in London a considerable number of books, for I thought that, as I would have time on my hands, I might as well do something about my education. They were mostly English classics, whose names I knew but which I had never read, and they were all in a little flat-backed series at a shilling apiece. I arranged them on top of a chest of drawers, but I kept the Pilgrim’s Progress beside my bed, for that was one of my working tools and I had got to get it by heart.
Mrs Jimson, who came in while I was unpacking14 to see if the room was to my liking15, approved my taste. At our midday dinner she wanted to discuss books with me, and was so full of her own knowledge that I was able to conceal16 my ignorance.
‘We are all labouring to express our personalities,’ she informed me. ‘Have you found your medium, Mr Brand? is it to be the pen or the pencil? Or perhaps it is music? You have the brow of an artist, the frontal “bar of Michelangelo”, you remember!’
I told her that I concluded I would try literature, but before writing anything I would read a bit more.
It was a Saturday, so Jimson came back from town in the early afternoon. He was a managing clerk in some shipping17 office, but you wouldn’t have guessed it from his appearance. His city clothes were loose dark-grey flannels18, a soft collar, an orange tie, and a soft black hat. His wife went down the road to meet him, and they returned hand-in-hand, swinging their arms like a couple of schoolchildren. He had a skimpy red beard streaked19 with grey, and mild blue eyes behind strong glasses. He was the most friendly creature in the world, full of rapid questions, and eager to make me feel one of the family. Presently he got into a tweed Norfolk jacket, and started to cultivate his garden. I took off my coat and lent him a hand, and when he stopped to rest from his labours — which was every five minutes, for he had no kind of physique — he would mop his brow and rub his spectacles and declaim about the good smell of the earth and the joy of getting close to Nature.
Once he looked at my big brown hands and muscular arms with a kind of wistfulness. ‘You are one of the doers, Mr Brand,’ he said, ‘and I could find it in my heart to envy you. You have seen Nature in wild forms in far countries. Some day I hope you will tell us about your life. I must be content with my little corner, but happily there are no territorial20 limits for the mind. This modest dwelling21 is a watch-tower from which I look over all the world.’
After that he took me for a walk. We met parties of returning tennis-players and here and there a golfer. There seemed to be an abundance of young men, mostly rather weedy-looking, but with one or two well-grown ones who should have been fighting. The names of some of them Jimson mentioned with awe13. An unwholesome youth was Aronson, the great novelist; a sturdy, bristling22 fellow with a fierce moustache was Letchford, the celebrated23 leader-writer of the Critic. Several were pointed24 out to me as artists who had gone one better than anybody else, and a vast billowy creature was described as the leader of the new Orientalism in England. I noticed that these people, according to Jimson, were all ‘great’, and that they all dabbled26 in something ‘new’. There were quantities of young women, too, most of them rather badly dressed and inclining to untidy hair. And there were several decent couples taking the air like house-holders of an evening all the world Over. Most of these last were Jimson’s friends, to whom he introduced me. They were his own class — modest folk, who sought for a coloured background to their prosaic27 city lives and found it in this odd settlement.
At supper I was initiated28 into the peculiar29 merits of Biggleswick.
‘It is one great laboratory of thought,’ said Mrs Jimson. ‘It is glorious to feel that you are living among the eager, vital people who are at the head of all the newest movements, and that the intellectual history of England is being made in our studies and gardens. The war to us seems a remote and secondary affair. As someone has said, the great fights of the world are all fought in the mind.’
A spasm30 of pain crossed her husband’s face. ‘I wish I could feel it far away. After all, Ursula, it is the sacrifice of the young that gives people like us leisure and peace to think. Our duty is to do the best which is permitted to us, but that duty is a poor thing compared with what our young soldiers are giving! I may be quite wrong about the war . . . I know I can’t argue with Letchford. But I will not pretend to a superiority I do not feel.’
I went to bed feeling that in Jimson I had struck a pretty sound fellow. As I lit the candles on my dressing-table I observed that the stack of silver which I had taken out of my pockets when I washed before supper was top-heavy. It had two big coins at the top and sixpences and shillings beneath. Now it is one of my oddities that ever since I was a small boy I have arranged my loose coins symmetrically, with the smallest uppermost. That made me observant and led me to notice a second point. The English classics on the top of the chest of drawers were not in the order I had left them. Izaak Walton had got to the left of Sir Thomas Browne, and the poet Burns was wedged disconsolately31 between two volumes of Hazlitt. Moreover a receipted bill which I had stuck in the Pilgrim’s Progress to mark my place had been moved. Someone had been going through my belongings32.
A moment’s reflection convinced me that it couldn’t have been Mrs Jimson. She had no servant and did the housework herself, but my things had been untouched when I left the room before supper, for she had come to tidy up before I had gone downstairs. Someone had been here while we were at supper, and had examined elaborately everything I possessed33. Happily I had little luggage, and no papers save the new books and a bill or two in the name of Cornelius Brand. The inquisitor, whoever he was, had found nothing . . . The incident gave me a good deal of comfort. It had been hard to believe that any mystery could exist in this public place, where people lived brazenly34 in the open, and wore their hearts on their sleeves and proclaimed their opinions from the rooftops. Yet mystery there must be, or an inoffensive stranger with a kit-bag would not have received these strange attentions. I made a practice after that of sleeping with my watch below my pillow, for inside the case was Mary Lamington’s label. Now began a period of pleasant idle receptiveness. Once a week it was my custom to go up to London for the day to receive letters and instructions, if any should come. I had moved from my chambers35 in Park Lane, which I leased under my proper name, to a small flat in Westminster taken in the name of Cornelius Brand. The letters addressed to Park Lane were forwarded to Sir Walter, who sent them round under cover to my new address. For the rest I used to spend my mornings reading in the garden, and I discovered for the first time what a pleasure was to be got from old books. They recalled and amplified36 that vision I had seen from the Cotswold ridge37, the revelation of the priceless heritage which is England. I imbibed38 a mighty39 quantity of history, but especially I liked the writers, like Walton, who got at the very heart of the English countryside. Soon, too, I found the Pilgrim’s Progress not a duty but a delight. I discovered new jewels daily in the honest old story, and my letters to Peter began to be as full of it as Peter’s own epistles. I loved, also, the songs of the Elizabethans, for they reminded me of the girl who had sung to me in the June night.
In the afternoons I took my exercise in long tramps along the good dusty English roads. The country fell away from Biggleswick into a plain of wood and pasture-land, with low hills on the horizon. The Place was sown with villages, each with its green and pond and ancient church. Most, too, had inns, and there I had many a draught41 of cool nutty ale, for the inn at Biggleswick was a reformed place which sold nothing but washy cider. Often, tramping home in the dusk, I was so much in love with the land that I could have sung with the pure joy of it. And in the evening, after a bath, there would be supper, when a rather fagged Jimson struggled between sleep and hunger, and the lady, with an artistic42 mutch on her untidy head, talked ruthlessly of culture.
Bit by bit I edged my way into local society. The Jimsons were a great help, for they were popular and had a nodding acquaintance with most of the inhabitants. They regarded me as a meritorious43 aspirant44 towards a higher life, and I was paraded before their friends with the suggestion of a vivid, if Philistine45, past. If I had any gift for writing, I would make a book about the inhabitants of Biggleswick. About half were respectable citizens who came there for country air and low rates, but even these had a touch of queerness and had picked up the jargon46 of the place. The younger men were mostly Government clerks or writers or artists. There were a few widows with flocks of daughters, and on the outskirts47 were several bigger houses — mostly houses which had been there before the garden city was planted. One of them was brand-new, a staring villa40 with sham-antique timbering, stuck on the top of a hill among raw gardens. It belonged to a man called Moxon Ivery, who was a kind of academic pacificist and a great god in the place. Another, a quiet Georgian manor48 house, was owned by a London publisher, an ardent49 Liberal whose particular branch of business compelled him to keep in touch with the new movements. I used to see him hurrying to the station swinging a little black bag and returning at night with the fish for dinner.
I soon got to know a surprising lot of people, and they were the rummiest birds you can imagine. For example, there were the Weekeses, three girls who lived with their mother in a house so artistic that you broke your head whichever way you turned in it. The son of the family was a conscientious50 objector who had refused to do any sort of work whatever, and had got quodded for his pains. They were immensely proud of him and used to relate his sufferings in Dartmoor with a gusto which I thought rather heartless. Art was their great subject, and I am afraid they found me pretty heavy going. It was their fashion never to admire anything that was obviously beautiful, like a sunset or a pretty woman, but to find surprising loveliness in things which I thought hideous51. Also they talked a language that was beyond me. This kind of conversation used to happen. — MISS WEEKES: ‘Don’t you admire Ursula Jimson?’ SELF: ‘Rather!’ MISS W.: ‘She is so John-esque in her lines.’ SELF: ‘Exactly!’ MISS W.: ‘And Tancred, too — he is so full of nuances.’ SELF: ‘Rather!’ MISS W.: ‘He suggests one of Degousse’s countrymen.’ SELF: ‘Exactly!’
They hadn’t much use for books, except some Russian ones, and I acquired merit in their eyes for having read Leprous Souls. If you talked to them about that divine countryside, you found they didn’t give a rap for it and had never been a mile beyond the village. But they admired greatly the sombre effect of a train going into Marylebone station on a rainy day.
But it was the men who interested me most. Aronson, the novelist, proved on acquaintance the worst kind of blighter. He considered himself a genius whom it was the duty of the country to support, and he sponged on his wretched relatives and anyone who would lend him money. He was always babbling52 about his sins, and pretty squalid they were. I should like to have flung him among a few good old-fashioned full-blooded sinners of my acquaintance; they would have scared him considerably53. He told me that he sought ‘reality’ and ‘life’ and ‘truth’, but it was hard to see how he could know much about them, for he spent half the day in bed smoking cheap cigarettes, and the rest sunning himself in the admiration54 of half-witted girls. The creature was tuberculous in mind and body, and the only novel of his I read, pretty well turned my stomach. Mr Aronson’s strong point was jokes about the war. If he heard of any acquaintance who had joined up or was even doing war work his merriment knew no bounds. My fingers used to itch55 to box the little wretch’s ears.
Letchford was a different pair of shoes. He was some kind of a man, to begin with, and had an excellent brain and the worst manners conceivable. He contradicted everything you said, and looked out for an argument as other people look for their dinner. He was a double-engined, high-speed pacificist, because he was the kind of cantankerous56 fellow who must always be in a minority. If Britain had stood out of the war he would have been a raving57 militarist, but since she was in it he had got to find reasons why she was wrong. And jolly good reasons they were, too. I couldn’t have met his arguments if I had wanted to, so I sat docilely58 at his feet. The world was all crooked59 for Letchford, and God had created him with two left hands. But the fellow had merits. He had a couple of jolly children whom he adored, and he would walk miles with me on a Sunday, and spout60 poetry about the beauty and greatness of England. He was forty-five; if he had been thirty and in my battalion61 I could have made a soldier out of him.
There were dozens more whose names I have forgotten, but they had one common characteristic. They were puffed62 up with spiritual pride, and I used to amuse myself with finding their originals in the Pilgrim’s Progress. When I tried to judge them by the standard of old Peter, they fell woefully short. They shut out the war from their lives, some out of funk, some out of pure levity63 of mind, and some because they were really convinced that the thing was all wrong. I think I grew rather popular in my role of the seeker after truth, the honest colonial who was against the war by instinct and was looking for instruction in the matter. They regarded me as a convert from an alien world of action which they secretly dreaded64, though they affected65 to despise it. Anyhow they talked to me very freely, and before long I had all the pacifist arguments by heart. I made out that there were three schools. One objected to war altogether, and this had few adherents66 except Aronson and Weekes, C.O., now languishing67 in Dartmoor. The second thought that the Allies’ cause was tainted68, and that Britain had contributed as much as Germany to the catastrophe69. This included all the adherents of the L.D.A. — or League of Democrats70 against Aggression71 — a very proud body. The third and much the largest, which embraced everybody else, held that we had fought long enough and that the business could now be settled by negotiation72, since Germany had learned her lesson. I was myself a modest member of the last school, but I was gradually working my way up to the second, and I hoped with luck to qualify for the first. My acquaintances approved my progress. Letchford said I had a core of fanaticism73 in my slow nature, and that I would end by waving the red flag.
Spiritual pride and vanity, as I have said, were at the bottom of most of them, and, try as I might, I could find nothing very dangerous in it all. This vexed74 me, for I began to wonder if the mission which I had embarked75 on so solemnly were not going to be a fiasco. Sometimes they worried me beyond endurance. When the news of Messines came nobody took the slightest interest, while I was aching to tooth every detail of the great fight. And when they talked on military affairs, as Letchford and others did sometimes, it was difficult to keep from sending them all to the devil, for their amateur cocksureness would have riled Job. One had got to batten down the recollection of our fellows out there who were sweating blood to keep these fools snug76. Yet I found it impossible to be angry with them for long, they were so babyishly innocent. Indeed, I couldn’t help liking them, and finding a sort of quality in them. I had spent three years among soldiers, and the British regular, great follow that he is, has his faults. His discipline makes him in a funk of red-tape and any kind of superior authority. Now these people were quite honest and in a perverted77 way courageous78. Letchford was, at any rate. I could no more have done what he did and got hunted off platforms by the crowd and hooted79 at by women in the streets than I could have written his leading articles.
All the same I was rather low about my job. Barring the episode of the ransacking80 of my effects the first night, I had not a suspicion of a clue or a hint of any mystery. The place and the people were as open and bright as a Y.M.C.A. hut. But one day I got a solid wad of comfort. In a corner of Letchford’s paper, the Critic, I found a letter which was one of the steepest pieces of invective81 I had ever met with. The writer gave tongue like a beagle pup about the prostitution, as he called it, of American republicanism to the vices82 of European aristocracies. He declared that Senator La Follette was a much-misunderstood patriot83, seeing that he alone spoke84 for the toiling85 millions who had no other friend. He was mad with President Wilson, and he prophesied86 a great awakening87 when Uncle Sam got up against John Bull in Europe and found out the kind of standpatter he was. The letter was signed ‘John S. Blenkiron’ and dated ‘London, 3 July’.
The thought that Blenkiron was in England put a new complexion88 on my business. I reckoned I would see him soon, for he wasn’t the man to stand still in his tracks. He had taken up the role he had played before he left in December 1915, and very right too, for not more than half a dozen people knew of the Erzerum affair, and to the British public he was only the man who had been fired out of the Savoy for talking treason. I had felt a bit lonely before, but now somewhere within the four corners of the island the best companion God ever made was writing nonsense with his tongue in his old cheek.
There was an institution in Biggleswick which deserves mention. On the south of the common, near the station, stood a red-brick building called the Moot4 Hall, which was a kind of church for the very undevout population. Undevout in the ordinary sense, I mean, for I had already counted twenty-seven varieties of religious conviction, including three Buddhists89, a Celestial90 Hierarch, five Latter-day Saints, and about ten varieties of Mystic whose names I could never remember. The hall had been the gift of the publisher I have spoken of, and twice a week it was used for lectures and debates. The place was managed by a committee and was surprisingly popular, for it gave all the bubbling intellects a chance of airing their views. When you asked where somebody was and were told he was ‘at Moot,’ the answer was spoken in the respectful tone in which you would mention a sacrament.
I went there regularly and got my mind broadened to cracking point. We had all the stars of the New Movements. We had Doctor Chirk, who lectured on ‘God’, which, as far as I could make out, was a new name he had invented for himself. There was a woman, a terrible woman, who had come back from Russia with what she called a ‘message of healing’. And to my joy, one night there was a great buck91 nigger who had a lot to say about ‘Africa for the Africans’. I had a few words with him in Sesutu afterwards, and rather spoiled his visit. Some of the people were extraordinarily92 good, especially one jolly old fellow who talked about English folk songs and dances, and wanted us to set up a Maypole. In the debates which generally followed I began to join, very coyly at first, but presently with some confidence. If my time at Biggleswick did nothing else it taught me to argue on my feet.
The first big effort I made was on a full-dress occasion, when Launcelot Wake came down to speak. Mr Ivery was in the chair — the first I had seen of him — a plump middle-aged93 man, with a colourless face and nondescript features. I was not interested in him till he began to talk, and then I sat bolt upright and took notice. For he was the genuine silver-tongue, the sentences flowing from his mouth as smooth as butter and as neatly94 dovetailed as a parquet95 floor. He had a sort of man-of-the-world manner, treating his opponents with condescending96 geniality97, deprecating all passion and exaggeration and making you feel that his urbane98 statement must be right, for if he had wanted he could have put the case so much higher. I watched him, fascinated, studying his face carefully; and the thing that struck me was that there was nothing in it — nothing, that is to say, to lay hold on. It was simply nondescript, so almightily commonplace that that very fact made it rather remarkable99.
Wake was speaking of the revelations of the Sukhomhnov trial in Russia, which showed that Germany had not been responsible for the war. He was jolly good at the job, and put as clear an argument as a first-class lawyer. I had been sweating away at the subject and had all the ordinary case at my fingers’ ends, so when I got a chance of speaking I gave them a long harangue100, with some good quotations101 I had cribbed out of the Vossische Zeitung, which Letchford lent me. I felt it was up to me to be extra violent, for I wanted to establish my character with Wake, seeing that he was a friend of Mary and Mary would know that I was playing the game. I got tremendously applauded, far more than the chief speaker, and after the meeting Wake came up to me with his hot eyes, and wrung102 my hand. ‘You’re coming on well, Brand,’ he said, and then he introduced me to Mr Ivery. ‘Here’s a second and a better Smuts,’ he said.
Ivery made me walk a bit of the road home with him. ‘I am struck by your grip on these difficult problems, Mr Brand,’ he told me. ‘There is much I can tell you, and you may be of great value to our cause.’ He asked me a lot of questions about my past, which I answered with easy mendacity. Before we parted he made me promise to come one night to supper.
Next day I got a glimpse of Mary, and to my vexation she cut me dead. She was walking with a flock of bare-headed girls, all chattering103 hard, and though she saw me quite plainly she turned away her eyes. I had been waiting for my cue, so I did not lift my hat, but passed on as if we were strangers. I reckoned it was part of the game, but that trifling104 thing annoyed me, and I spent a morose105 evening.
The following day I saw her again, this time talking sedately106 with Mr Ivery, and dressed in a very pretty summer gown, and a broad-brimmed straw hat with flowers in it. This time she stopped with a bright smile and held out her hand. ‘Mr Brand, isn’t it?’ she asked with a pretty hesitation107. And then, turning to her companion —‘This is Mr Brand. He stayed with us last month in Gloucestershire.’
Mr Ivery announced that he and I were already acquainted. Seen in broad daylight he was a very personable fellow, somewhere between forty-five and fifty, with a middle-aged figure and a curiously108 young face. I noticed that there were hardly any lines on it, and it was rather that of a very wise child than that of a man. He had a pleasant smile which made his jaw109 and cheeks expand like indiarubber. ‘You are coming to sup with me, Mr Brand,’ he cried after me. ‘On Tuesday after Moot. I have already written.’ He whisked Mary away from me, and I had to content myself with contemplating110 her figure till it disappeared round a bend of the road.
Next day in London I found a letter from Peter. He had been very solemn of late, and very reminiscent of old days now that he concluded his active life was over. But this time he was in a different mood. ‘I think,’ he wrote, ‘that you and I will meet again soon, my old friend. Do you remember when we went after the big black-maned lion in the Rooirand and couldn’t get on his track, and then one morning we woke up and said we would get him today? — and we did, but he very near got you first. I’ve had a feel these last days that we’re both going down into the Valley to meet with Apolyon, and that the devil will give us a bad time, but anyhow we’ll be together.’
I had the same kind of feel myself, though I didn’t see how Peter and I were going to meet, unless I went out to the Front again and got put in the bag and sent to the same Boche prison. But I had an instinct that my time in Biggleswick was drawing to a close, and that presently I would be in rougher quarters. I felt quite affectionate towards the place, and took all my favourite walks, and drank my own health in the brew111 of the village inns, with a consciousness of saying goodbye. Also I made haste to finish my English classics, for I concluded I wouldn’t have much time in the future for miscellaneous reading.
The Tuesday came, and in the evening I set out rather late for the Moot Hall, for I had been getting into decent clothes after a long, hot stride. When I reached the place it was pretty well packed, and I could only find a seat on the back benches. There on the platform was Ivery, and beside him sat a figure that thrilled every inch of me with affection and a wild anticipation112. ‘I have now the privilege,’ said the chairman, ‘of introducing to you the speaker whom we so warmly welcome, our fearless and indefatigable113 American friend, Mr Blenkiron.’
It was the old Blenkiron, but almightily changed. His stoutness114 had gone, and he was as lean as Abraham Lincoln. Instead of a puffy face, his cheek-bones and jaw stood out hard and sharp, and in place of his former pasty colour his complexion had the clear glow of health. I saw now that he was a splendid figure of a man, and when he got to his feet every movement had the suppleness115 of an athlete in training. In that moment I realized that my serious business had now begun. My senses suddenly seemed quicker, my nerves tenser, my brain more active. The big game had started, and he and I were playing it together.
I watched him with strained attention. It was a funny speech, stuffed with extravagance and vehemence116, not very well argued and terribly discursive117. His main point was that Germany was now in a fine democratic mood and might well be admitted into a brotherly partnership118 — that indeed she had never been in any other mood, but had been forced into violence by the plots of her enemies. Much of it, I should have thought, was in stark119 defiance120 of the Defence of the Realm Acts, but if any wise Scotland Yard officer had listened to it he would probably have considered it harmless because of its contradictions. It was full of a fierce earnestness, and it was full of humour — long-drawn American metaphors121 at which that most critical audience roared with laughter. But it was not the kind of thing that they were accustomed to, and I could fancy what Wake would have said of it. The conviction grew upon me that Blenkiron was deliberately122 trying to prove himself an honest idiot. If so, it was a huge success. He produced on one the impression of the type of sentimental123 revolutionary who ruthlessly knifes his opponent and then weeps and prays over his tomb.
Just at the end he seemed to pull himself together and to try a little argument. He made a great point of the Austrian socialists124 going to Stockholm, going freely and with their Government’s assent125, from a country which its critics called an autocracy126, while the democratic western peoples held back. ‘I admit I haven’t any real water-tight proof,’ he said, ‘but I will bet my bottom dollar that the influence which moved the Austrian Government to allow this embassy of freedom was the influence of Germany herself. And that is the land from which the Allied127 Pharisees draw in their skirts lest their garments be defiled128!’
He sat down amid a good deal of applause, for his audience had not been bored, though I could see that some of them thought his praise of Germany a bit steep. It was all right in Biggleswick to prove Britain in the wrong, but it was a slightly different thing to extol129 the enemy. I was puzzled about his last point, for it was not of a piece with the rest of his discourse130, and I was trying to guess at his purpose. The chairman referred to it in his concluding remarks. ‘I am in a position,’ he said, ‘to bear out all that the lecturer has said. I can go further. I can assure him on the best authority that his surmise131 is correct, and that Vienna’s decision to send delegates to Stockholm was largely dictated132 by representations from Berlin. I am given to understand that the fact has in the last few days been admitted in the Austrian Press.’
A vote of thanks was carried, and then I found myself shaking hands with Ivery while Blenkiron stood a yard off, talking to one of the Misses Weekes. The next moment I was being introduced.
‘Mr Brand, very pleased to meet you,’ said the voice I knew so well. ‘Mr Ivery has been telling me about you, and I guess we’ve got something to say to each other. We’re both from noo countries, and we’ve got to teach the old nations a little horse-sense.’
Mr Ivery’s car — the only one left in the neighbourhood — carried us to his villa, and presently we were seated in a brightly-lit dining-room. It was not a pretty house, but it had the luxury of an expensive hotel, and the supper we had was as good as any London restaurant. Gone were the old days of fish and toast and boiled milk. Blenkiron squared his shoulders and showed himself a noble trencherman.
‘A year ago,’ he told our host, ‘I was the meanest kind of dyspeptic. I had the love of righteousness in my heart, but I had the devil in my stomach. Then I heard stories about the Robson Brothers, the star surgeons way out west in White Springs, Nebraska. They were reckoned the neatest hands in the world at carving133 up a man and removing devilments from his intestines134. Now, sir, I’ve always fought pretty shy of surgeons, for I considered that our Maker135 never intended His handiwork to be reconstructed like a bankrupt Dago railway. But by that time I was feeling so almighty136 wretched that I could have paid a man to put a bullet through my head. “There’s no other way,” I said to myself. “Either you forget your religion and your miserable137 cowardice138 and get cut up, or it’s you for the Golden Shore.” So I set my teeth and journeyed to White Springs, and the Brothers had a look at my duodenum. They saw that the darned thing wouldn’t do, so they sidetracked it and made a noo route for my noo-trition traffic. It was the cunningest piece of surgery since the Lord took a rib25 out of the side of our First Parent. They’ve got a mighty fine way of charging, too, for they take five per cent of a man’s income, and it’s all one to them whether he’s a Meat King or a clerk on twenty dollars a week. I can tell you I took some trouble to be a very rich man last year.’
All through the meal I sat in a kind of stupor139. I was trying to assimilate the new Blenkiron, and drinking in the comfort of his heavenly drawl, and I was puzzling my head about Ivery. I had a ridiculous notion that I had seen him before, but, delve140 as I might into my memory, I couldn’t place him. He was the incarnation of the commonplace, a comfortable middle-class sentimentalist, who patronized pacificism out of vanity, but was very careful not to dip his hands too far. He was always damping down Blenkiron’s volcanic141 utterances142. ‘Of course, as you know, the other side have an argument which I find rather hard to meet . . . ’ ‘I can sympathize with patriotism143, and even with jingoism144, in certain moods, but I always come back to this difficulty.’ ‘Our opponents are not ill-meaning so much as ill-judging,’— these were the sort of sentences he kept throwing in. And he was full of quotations from private conversations he had had with every sort of person — including members of the Government. I remember that he expressed great admiration for Mr Balfour.
Of all that talk, I only recalled one thing clearly, and I recalled it because Blenkiron seemed to collect his wits and try to argue, just as he had done at the end of his lecture. He was speaking about a story he had heard from someone, who had heard it from someone else, that Austria in the last week of July 1914 had accepted Russia’s proposal to hold her hand and negotiate, and that the Kaiser had sent a message to the Tsar saying he agreed. According to his story this telegram had been received in Petrograd, and had been re-written, like Bismarck’s Ems telegram, before it reached the Emperor. He expressed his disbelief in the yarn145. ‘I reckon if it had been true,’ he said, ‘we’d have had the right text out long ago. They’d have kept a copy in Berlin. All the same I did hear a sort of rumour146 that some kind of message of that sort was published in a German paper.’
Mr Ivery looked wise. ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘I happen to know that it has been published. You will find it in the Wieser Zeitung.’
‘You don’t say?’ he said admiringly. ‘I wish I could read the old tombstone language. But if I could they wouldn’t let me have the papers.’
‘Oh yes they would.’ Mr Ivery laughed pleasantly. ‘England has still a good share of freedom. Any respectable person can get a permit to import the enemy press. I’m not considered quite respectable, for the authorities have a narrow definition of patriotism, but happily I have respectable friends.’
Blenkiron was staying the night, and I took my leave as the clock struck twelve. They both came into the hall to see me off, and, as I was helping147 myself to a drink, and my host was looking for my hat and stick, I suddenly heard Blenkiron’s whisper in my ear. ‘London . . . the day after tomorrow,’ he said. Then he took a formal farewell. ‘Mr Brand, it’s been an honour for me, as an American citizen, to make your acquaintance, sir. I will consider myself fortunate if we have an early reunion. I am stopping at Claridge’s Ho-tel, and I hope to be privileged to receive you there.’
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1
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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2
trickles
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| n.细流( trickle的名词复数 )；稀稀疏疏缓慢来往的东西v.滴( trickle的第三人称单数 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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3
stagnant
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| adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的 | |
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moot
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| v.提出；adj.未决议的；n.大会；辩论会 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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6
lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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lank
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| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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bleached
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| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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12
unpacked
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| v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的过去式和过去分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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13
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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14
unpacking
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| n.取出货物，拆包[箱]v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的现在分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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15
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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18
flannels
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| 法兰绒男裤； 法兰绒( flannel的名词复数 ) | |
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19
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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territorial
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| adj.领土的，领地的 | |
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21
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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22
bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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rib
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| n.肋骨，肋状物 | |
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26
dabbled
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| v.涉猎( dabble的过去式和过去分词 )；涉足；浅尝；少量投资 | |
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prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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28
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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29
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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30
spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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disconsolately
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| adv.悲伤地，愁闷地；哭丧着脸 | |
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32
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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brazenly
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| adv.厚颜无耻地；厚脸皮地肆无忌惮地 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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36
amplified
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| 放大，扩大( amplify的过去式和过去分词 )； 增强； 详述 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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38
imbibed
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| v.吸收( imbibe的过去式和过去分词 )；喝；吸取；吸气 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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40
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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41
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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42
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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43
meritorious
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| adj.值得赞赏的 | |
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44
aspirant
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| n.热望者；adj.渴望的 | |
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45
philistine
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| n.庸俗的人；adj.市侩的，庸俗的 | |
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46
jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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47
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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48
manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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49
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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50
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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51
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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52
babbling
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| n.胡说，婴儿发出的咿哑声adj.胡说的v.喋喋不休( babble的现在分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密 | |
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53
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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54
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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55
itch
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| n.痒，渴望，疥癣；vi.发痒，渴望 | |
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56
cantankerous
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| adj.爱争吵的，脾气不好的 | |
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57
raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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58
docilely
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| adv.容易教地，易驾驶地，驯服地 | |
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59
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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60
spout
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| v.喷出，涌出；滔滔不绝地讲；n.喷管；水柱 | |
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61
battalion
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| n.营；部队；大队(的人) | |
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62
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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63
levity
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| n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变 | |
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64
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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65
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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66
adherents
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| n.支持者，拥护者( adherent的名词复数 )；党羽；徒子徒孙 | |
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67
languishing
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| a. 衰弱下去的 | |
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68
tainted
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| adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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69
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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70
democrats
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| n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 ) | |
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71
aggression
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| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
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72
negotiation
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| n.谈判，协商 | |
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73
fanaticism
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| n.狂热，盲信 | |
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74
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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75
embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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76
snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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77
perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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78
courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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79
hooted
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| （使）作汽笛声响，作汽车喇叭声( hoot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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80
ransacking
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| v.彻底搜查( ransack的现在分词 )；抢劫，掠夺 | |
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81
invective
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| n.痛骂，恶意抨击 | |
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82
vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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83
patriot
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| n.爱国者，爱国主义者 | |
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84
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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85
toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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86
prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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87
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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88
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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89
Buddhists
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| n.佛教徒( Buddhist的名词复数 ) | |
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90
celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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91
buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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92
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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93
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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94
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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95
parquet
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| n.镶木地板 | |
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96
condescending
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| adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
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97
geniality
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| n.和蔼，诚恳；愉快 | |
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urbane
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| adj.温文尔雅的，懂礼的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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100
harangue
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| n.慷慨冗长的训话，言辞激烈的讲话 | |
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101
quotations
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| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
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102
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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103
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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104
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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105
morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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sedately
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| adv.镇静地，安详地 | |
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107
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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108
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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109
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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110
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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111
brew
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| v.酿造，调制 | |
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112
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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113
indefatigable
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| adj.不知疲倦的，不屈不挠的 | |
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stoutness
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| 坚固，刚毅 | |
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suppleness
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| 柔软； 灵活； 易弯曲； 顺从 | |
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vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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discursive
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| adj.离题的，无层次的 | |
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partnership
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| n.合作关系，伙伴关系 | |
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stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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metaphors
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| 隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 ) | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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socialists
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| 社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
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assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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autocracy
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| n.独裁政治，独裁政府 | |
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allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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defiled
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| v.玷污( defile的过去式和过去分词 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
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extol
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| v.赞美，颂扬 | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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intestines
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| n.肠( intestine的名词复数 ) | |
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maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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almighty
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| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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stupor
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| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
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delve
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| v.深入探究，钻研 | |
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volcanic
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| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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utterances
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| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
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patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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jingoism
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| n.极端之爱国主义 | |
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yarn
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| n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事 | |
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rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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