“It’s a pity Pups never went into politics,” Joel whispered, as they drove through the old leafy village, with its pleasant houses among which a few of the lonely white houses of the Colonial period still remained. “The people around here worship him: he could have anything he wanted if he ran for office.”
It was the first time he had spoken of his father: with a feeling of sharp surprise, the other youth now remembered that he had not seen Mr. Pierce since his arrival: he wondered where he was, but did not ask. He also now remembered that Joel’s references to his father had often been marked by a note of resignation and regret — the tone a person uses when he speaks of someone who has possessed2 talents and wasted opportunities, and whose life has come to nothing.
Their road led northward3 from the village: they sped swiftly along a paved highway bordered by trees and fields and woods, by houses here and there, and presently by the solid masonry4 of a wall that marked the boundaries of another great estate. It was the Paston place, and presently they turned in to an entrance flanked by stone-markers, and began to drive along a road arched by tall leafy trees. Night had come, the moon was not yet well up, but from time to time there was beside the road the gleam of steel, and at times as they passed a cleared space he could plainly see the rail pattern of a tiny railway, complete in all respects — with roadbed, rock-ballast, grades, and cuts, embankments, even tunnels, but all so small in scale that it suggested a gigantic toy more than anything else. He asked what it was and Joel answered:
“It’s Hunter’s railway.”
“HUNTER’S railway?” he asked in a puzzled tone. “But why does he need a railway here? What does he use it for?”
“Oh, he really doesn’t need it for anything,” Joel whispered. “It’s of no use to anyone. He just likes to play with it.”
“Play with it? But — but what is it? . . . Isn’t it a real railway?”
“Yes, of course,” Joel answered, laughing at his astonishment5. “It’s really quite marvellous — complete in every way — with tunnels, stations, bridges, signals, round-houses, and everything else a regular railway has. Only everything is on a very small scale — like a toy.”
“But the engine — the locomotive? . . . How does that run? Do you wind it up, as you do a toy, or run it by electricity, or how?”
“Oh, no,” Joel answered. “It’s a regular locomotive — not over two or three feet high, I should say — but runs by steam, just like a real locomotive. . . . It’s really quite a fascinating thing,” he whispered. “You ought to see it some time.”
“But — but how does he run it? Is he able to get into anything as small as that?”
“He can, yes,” said Joel, laughing again. “But usually he just runs along by the side. It’s pretty cramped6 quarters for a grown man.”
“A grown MAN! . . . Do you mean that Mr. Paston built this little railway for himself?”
“But, of COURSE!” Joel turned, and looked at his friend with a surprised stare. “Whom did you think I was talking about?”
“Why, I— I thought when you said —‘Hunter’ you meant one of his children — a boy — some child in his family who —”
“No, not at all,” Joel whispered, laughing again at the astonished and bewildered look upon his companion’s face. “It may be for a child, but the child is Hunter Paston himself. . . . You see,” he said more quietly and seriously after a brief pause, “he’s crazy about all kinds of machinery7 — locomotives, aeroplanes, motor-boats, motor-cars, steam-yachts — he loves anything that has an engine in it — he always has been that way since he was a boy — and it’s such a pity, too,” he whispered, in the same regretful tone he had used when speaking of his father —“It’s a shame he was never able to do anything with it. . . . If he hadn’t had all this money, he would have made a SWELL9 mechanic — he really would.”
But now there was a row of lights through the trees, the murmurous11 hum of many voices, the glittering shapes of parked machinery. They were approaching the Paston house: it was a rather gloomy-looking mansion12 of old brown stone, square in shape and immensely solid and imposing13 in its grimy magnificence, and of that style of architecture which was borrowed from France, but which went through curious and indefinable transformations14 on the way, so that any native grace and lightness which the style may once have had was lost: it was lumpish, ugly and involved, and somehow looked like one of the children of the New York Post Office.
A broad veranda15 ran around the house on all four sides, and on the side that faced the river, a large number of the friends and guests of the Paston family were now assembled. Seated on the great lawns that swept away before the house on the riverside there was another larger audience composed of the people of the near-by town, and people employed on the Paston estate and the other great estates in the vicinity.
But over both groups, not only the wealthier and smaller group upon the porch, but the larger one spread out upon the lawn, there was evident a spirit of gay, happy, eager and child-like elation16 and expectancy17 that united everyone in a curiously18 moving and high-hearted way. From the dark sweep and mystery of the lawn there rose the murmur10 of hundreds of excited and happy voices, all talking at once, and little bursts of laughter, sudden stirs and flurries of eager and mysterious interest.
The same spirit, the same feeling — a spirit and a feeling of plain democracy, warm friendliness19, simple, eager hope and expectancy — animated20 the people on the porch. They were, as a group, fine-looking people: many of the young men were tall, handsome, strong and comely-looking, the girls were lovely, and many of the women were beautiful. Most of them also had a look of dignity, assurance, and character. They represented, he knew, that small group of the fabulously21 wealthy whose names were household words throughout the nation — and yet, whether it was due to the innate22 democracy of the occasion, the almost childish pleasure and anticipation23 which the Fourth of July and its fireworks renewed in them, and the grand and natural warmth and spaciousness24 of the scene — their native earth, or whether the quality of their lives was really warm and free and friendly, there was nothing at all arrogant25, haughty26, cold or insolently27 “societyfied” about these people. Their gathering28 together here upon the front porch of this gloomy old Victorian house had exactly the same quality that these summer front-porch gatherings29 had always had for him everywhere in little towns; with a feeling of incredulous recognition he found that the scene was instantly familiar to him, and he almost expected to hear old familiar voices — his father’s voice among them, as he had heard it on the porch at home so many times, and now so long ago.
Everyone in the crowd knew the Pierce family and instantly welcomed them in an eager, laughing, and excited babel of affectionate greeting. Rosalind and Joel and Mrs. Pierce went about among the crowd shaking hands and greeting people all about them, and when the greetings were over, simply and naturally found their place among those persons to whom each was most akin8 by virtue30 of friendship, age, or temperament31 — Mrs. Pierce among men and women of her own generation and among the older people, and Joel, Rosalind, George Thornton, and Carl Seaholm among the younger people of the gathering.
Joel introduced him quickly, casually32, with his infinite grace and consideration, to several people — to several of his younger friends and to certain of the older ones who were obviously among the best-liked and most respected people there. He was introduced to Mrs. Paston, a tall and beautiful young woman, very slender, blond, and lovely-looking: a kind of exquisite33 blond icicle, and with no more human warmth or passion than an icicle of any sort would have. She gave him a few cool words of greeting, a swift cool clasp of her swift cool hand, a swift, glacial, yet not unfriendly smile, and so dismissed him, not unkindly, turning with the same cool, smiling and glacial detachment to her other guests.
Suddenly the fireworks started. Far away, at the end of the great lawn, in the obscuring darkness of the night, and among the obscuring shadows of the shrubs34 and trees above the hill that swept down towards the river, there was a terrific detonation35 — the deafening36 bang and flare37 of a gigantic rocket that whizzed up into the air in a small hurtling point of light, and exploded, illuminating38 heaven with a constellation39 of enchanted40 falling stars. There was a long-drawn “Oh-h!” of excitement, eagerness, and expectant joy from the crowd gathered on the lawn, the same from the people gathered on the porch, who quickly scrambled41 into chairs; and instantly from all the people there was utter silence, a thrilled and fascinated attentiveness42, broken now and then by gasps43 of wonder, joy, surprise and rapture44, as one giant rocket followed another in unending series, in constantly growing magnificence, until the whole universe of night was blooming with flowers of fire, alive with constellations45 of enchanted stars — green, red, and yellow, blue and violet and gold — that burst softly in the night with spreading glory, falling slowly to the earth like some great parachuted blossom, and cracking, puffing46, bursting softly, to flower, spread, again develop in great blooms of star-enchanted fire.
Everything had the same familiar quality of America that he had always remembered and known as a child. It brought back to him again the quiet voices of people on their summer porches, the street-car grinding to a halt on the corner of the hill above his father’s house, his father’s voice in darkness on the porch, and the red lifted flare of his cigar, and those Thursday nights in summer when his father took him on the street-car to the little park along the river three miles away, where there were outdoor moving-pictures on an island; later, fireworks and across the river the great flare, the receding47 thunder of a train. Now, curiously, that whole memory came back to him with all its vivid and unutterable poignancy48: he could remember the little artificial lake there at the park — that lake just three feet deep that had seemed so vast and thrilling to him, and the boat-house with lake-water lapping at the piers49, the clank of oarlocks and the dull bump and dry knocking of the boats together as they collided in the darkness, and the people, gathered there in darkness, with their dim faces upturned to the great silver dance and flicker50 of the moving-picture screen which was set on a little island on the lake — an island that was dense51 with trees and foliage52, and that had seemed to him as mysterious and illimitable as the jungle. And opposite the island, on the shore, looking over the heads of the people in the boats, the greater part of the audience sat on wooden benches, all thirsty, silent, and insatiate, the petals53 of five hundred dim white faces all lifted to the flickering54 magic of the screen.
It all came back to him now as he sat there on the porch of this splendid mansion with Mrs. Pierce and Joel and the other guests, and though the place was splendid, wealthy and luxurious55 beyond dreams, the happy, warm, and friendly gaiety of the people, their eager looking-forward to fireworks and the Fourth of July, something free and warm and simple in their relation, recalled again those glorious expeditions of his youth to the little park upon the river, and the crowded streetcars going home, and friendly voices, laughter, and the slamming of a door, and then his father’s voice upon the porch and sleep and silence — it all came back now in tones of unutterable brightness, and the Hudson River lay below him in the great fall and hush56 of evening light that fell across America, and even as he thought these things, a train rushed by below them on the bank of the river, was hurled57 instantly past in a projectile58 flight — a thunderbolted speed, was hurled past them citywards, and was gone at once, leaving nothing behind it but the sound of its departure, a handful of lost echoes in the hills, and the river, the mysterious river, the Hudson River in the great fall and hush of evening light, and all somehow was just as it had always been, and just as he had known he would find it, as it would always be.
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1
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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9
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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10
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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murmurous
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| adj.低声的 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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14
transformations
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| n.变化( transformation的名词复数 )；转换；转换；变换 | |
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15
veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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elation
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| n.兴高采烈，洋洋得意 | |
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17
expectancy
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| n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额 | |
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18
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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fabulously
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| 难以置信地，惊人地 | |
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innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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spaciousness
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| n.宽敞 | |
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arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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insolently
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| adv.自豪地，自傲地 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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detonation
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| n.爆炸；巨响 | |
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36
deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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37
flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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constellation
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| n.星座n.灿烂的一群 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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41
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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42
attentiveness
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| [医]注意 | |
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43
gasps
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| v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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44
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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45
constellations
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| n.星座( constellation的名词复数 )；一群杰出人物；一系列（相关的想法、事物）；一群（相关的人） | |
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46
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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47
receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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48
poignancy
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| n.辛酸事，尖锐 | |
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49
piers
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| n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 )；（常设有娱乐场所的）突堤；柱子；墙墩 | |
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50
flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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51
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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52
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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53
petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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54
flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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55
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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56
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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57
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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projectile
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| n.投射物，发射体；adj.向前开进的；推进的；抛掷的 | |
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