And now, spread before me for my survey and entertainment was the great city of St. Louis, and life itself as it was manifesting itself to me through this city. This was the most important and interesting thing to me, not my new position. Work? Well, that was important enough, considering the difficulty I had had in securing it. What was more, I was always driven by the haunting fear of losing this or any other position I had ever had, of not being able to find another (a left-over fear, perhaps, due to the impression that poverty had made on me in my extreme youth). Just the same, the city came first in my imagination and desires, and I now began to examine it with care, its principal streets, shops, hotels, its residence district. What a pleasure to walk about, to stare, to dream of better days and great things to come.
Just at this time St. Louis seemed to be upon the verge5 of change and improvement. An old section of mansions6 bordering on the business center was rapidly giving way to a rabble7 of small stores and cheap factories. Already several new buildings of the Chicago style of skyscraper8 were either contemplated9 or in process of construction. There was a new club, the Mercantile, the largest in the city, composed entirely10 of merchants in the downtown section, which had just been opened and about which the papers were making a great stir. There was a new depot11 contracted for, one of the finest in all the country, so I was told, which was to house all the roads entering the city. A new city hall was being talked of, an enormous thing-to-be. Out in the west end, where progress seemed the most vital, were new streets and truly magnificent residence “places,” parked and guarded areas these, in which were ranged many residences of the ultra-rich. The first time I saw one of these places I was staggered by its exclusive air and the beauty and even grandeur12 of some of the great houses in it—newly manufactured exclusiveness. Here were great gray or white or brownstone affairs, bright, almost gaudy13, with great verandas14, astonishing doorways15, flights of stone steps, heavily and richly draped windows, immense carriage-houses, parked and flowered lawns.
By degrees I came to know the trade and poor sections of the city. Here were long throbbing16 wholesale17 streets, crowded with successful companies; along the waterfront was a mill area backed up by wretched tenements18, as poor and grimy and dingy19 as any I have ever seen; elsewhere were long streets of middle-class families, all alike, all with white stone doorsteps or windowsills and tiny front yards.
The atmosphere of the Globe-Democrat after a time came to have a peculiar20 appeal for me because it was dominated so completely by the robust21 personality of McCullagh. He was so natural, unaffected, rugged22. As time passed he steadily23 grew in my estimation and by degrees, as I read his paper, his powerful, brilliant editorials, and saw how systematically24 and forcefully he managed all things in connection with himself and his men, the very air of St. Louis became redolent of him. He was a real force, a great man. So famous was he already that men came to St. Louis from the Southwest and elsewhere just to see him and his office. I often think of him in that small office, sitting waist-deep among his papers, his heavy head sunk on his pouter-like chest, his feet incased in white socks and low slipper-like shoes, his whole air one of complete mental and physical absorption in his work. A few years later he committed suicide, out of sheer weariness, I assume, tired of an inane25 world. Yet it was not until long after, when I was much better able to judge him and his achievements, that I understood what a really big thing he had done: built up a journal of national and even international significance in a region which, one would have supposed, could never have supported anything more than a mediocre26 panderer to trade interests. As Hazard had proudly informed me, the annual bill for telegraph news alone was $400,000: a sum which, in the light of subsequent journalistic achievements in America, may seem insignificant27 but which at that time meant a great deal. He seemed to have a desire to make the paper not only good (as that word is used in connection with newspapers) but great, and from my own memory and impression I can testify that it was both. It had catholicity and solidity in editorials and news. The whole of Europe, as well as America, was combed and reflected in order that his readers might be entertained and retained, and each day one could read news of curious as well as of scientific interest from all over the world. Its editorials were in the main wise and jovial28, often beautifully written by McCullagh himself. Of assumed Republican tendencies, it was much more a party leader than follower29, both in national and in State affairs. The rawest of raw youths, I barely sensed this at the time, and yet I felt something of the wonder and beauty of it all. I knew him to be a great man because I could feel it. There was something of dignity and force about all that was connected with him. Later it became a fact of some importance to me that I had been called to a paper of so much true worth, by a man so wise, so truly able.
The only inharmonious note at this time was my intense loneliness. In Chicago, in spite of the gradual breaking up of our home and the disintegration30 of the family, I had managed to build up that spiritual or imaginative support which comes to all of us from familiarity with material objects. I had known Chicago, its newspaper world, its various sections, its places of amusement, some dozen or two of newspaper men. Here I knew no one at all.
And back in Chicago there had been Alice and N—— and K——, whereas here whom had I? Alice was a living pain for years, for in my erratic31 way I was really fond of her. I am of that peculiar disposition32, which will not let memories of old ties and old pleasures die easily. I suffer for things which might not give another a single ache or pain. Alice came very close to me, and now she was gone. Without any reasonable complaint, save that I was slightly weary, did not care for her as much as I had, and that my mind was full of the world outside and my future, I had left her. It had not been more than four weeks since I had visited her in her little parlor33 in Chicago, sipping34 of those delights which only youth and ecstatic imagination can conjure35; now I was three hundred miles away from her kisses and the warmth of her hands. At the same time there was this devil or angel of ambition which quite in spite of myself was sweeping36 me onward37. I fancied some vast Napoleonic ending for myself, which of course was moonshine. I could not have gone back to Chicago then if I had wished; it was not spiritually possible. Something within kept saying “On—on!” Besides, it would have done no good. The reaction would have been more irritating than the pain it satisfied. As it was, I could only walk about the city in this chilling November weather and speculate about myself and Alice and N—— and K—— and my own future. What an odd beginning, I often thought to myself. Scandalous, perhaps, in one so young: three girls in as many years, two of them deeply and seriously wounded by me.
“I shall write to her,” I thought. “I will ask her to come down here. I can’t stand this. She is too lovely and precious to me. It is cruel to leave her so.”
There is this to be said for me in regard to my not writing to her: I was uncertain as to the financial practicability of it. In Chicago I had been telling her of my excellent position, boasting that I was making more than I really was. So long as I was there and not married the pretense38 could easily be sustained. Here, three hundred miles away, where she would and could not come unless I was prepared to support her, it was a different matter. To ask her now meant a financial burden which I did not feel able, or at least willing, to assume. No doubt I could have starved her on twenty dollars a week; had I been desperately39 swayed by love I would have done so. I could even have had her, had I so chosen, on conditions which did not involve marriage; but I could not bring myself to do this. I did not think it quite fair. I felt that she would have a just claim to my continuing the relation with her.... And outside was the wide world. I told myself that I would marry her if I had money. If she had not been of a soft yielding type she could easily have entrapped40 me, but she had not chosen to do so. Anyhow, here I was, and here I stayed, meditating41 on the tragedy of it all.
By this time of course it is quite obvious that I was not an ethically42 correct and moral youth, but a sentimental43 boy of considerable range of feeling who, facing the confusing evidences of life, was not prepared to accept anything as final. I did not know then whether I believed that the morality and right conduct preached by the teachers of the world were important or not. The religious and social aphorisms44 of the day had been impressed upon me, but they did not stick. Something whispered to me that apart from theory there was another way which the world took and which had little in common with the strait and narrow path of the doctrinaires. Not all men swindle in little things, or lie or cheat, but how few fail to compromise in big ones. Perhaps I would not have deliberately45 lied about anything, at least not in important matters, and I would not now under ordinary circumstances after the one experience in Chicago have stolen. Beyond this I could not have said how I would have acted under given circumstances. Women were not included in my moral speculations46 as among those who were to receive strict justice—not pretty women. In that, perhaps, I was right: they did not always wish it. I was anxious to meet with many of them, as many as I might, and I would have conducted myself as joyously47 as their own consciences would permit. That I was to be in any way punished for this, or that the world would severely48 censure49 me for it, I did not yet believe. Other boys did it; they were constantly talking about it. The world—the world of youth at least—seemed to be concerned with libertinage50. Why should not I be?
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1
boon
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| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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wheezing
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| v.喘息，发出呼哧呼哧的喘息声( wheeze的现在分词 )；哮鸣 | |
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reverently
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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rabble
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| n.乌合之众，暴民；下等人 | |
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skyscraper
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| n.摩天大楼 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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depot
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| n.仓库，储藏处；公共汽车站；火车站 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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gaudy
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| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
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verandas
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| 阳台，走廊( veranda的名词复数 ) | |
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doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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tenements
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| n.房屋，住户，租房子( tenement的名词复数 ) | |
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dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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systematically
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| adv.有系统地 | |
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inane
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| adj.空虚的，愚蠢的，空洞的 | |
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mediocre
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| adj.平常的，普通的 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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follower
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| n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒 | |
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disintegration
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| n.分散，解体 | |
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erratic
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| adj.古怪的，反复无常的，不稳定的 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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sipping
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
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conjure
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| v.恳求，祈求；变魔术，变戏法 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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pretense
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| n.矫饰，做作，借口 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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entrapped
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| v.使陷入圈套，使入陷阱( entrap的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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meditating
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| a.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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ethically
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| adv.在伦理上，道德上 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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44
aphorisms
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| 格言，警句( aphorism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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speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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49
censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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50
libertinage
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| n.放荡，自由观点 | |
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