‘Thought you must all be dead here,’ said Admiral Blunt with a snort.
His remark was addressed not to the kind of butler which he wouldhave liked to see opening this front door, but to the young woman whosesurname he could never remember but whose Christian1 name was Amy.
‘Rung you up at least four times in the last week. Gone abroad, that’swhat they said.’
‘We have been abroad. We’ve only just come back.’
‘Matilda oughtn’t to go rampaging about abroad. Not at her time of life.
She’ll die of blood pressure or heart failure or something in one of thesemodern airplanes. Cavorting2 about, full of explosives put in them by theArabs or the Israelis or somebody or other. Not safe at all any longer.’
‘Her doctor recommended it to her.’
‘Oh well, we all know what doctors are.’
‘And she has really come back in very good spirits.’
‘Where’s she been, then?’
‘Oh, taking a Cure. In Germany or–I never can quite remember whetherit’s Germany or Austria. That new place, you know, the Golden Gasthaus.’
‘Ah yes, I know the place you mean. Costs the earth, doesn’t it?’
‘Well, it’s said to produce very remarkable3 results.’
‘Probably only a different way of killing4 you quicker,’ said AdmiralBlunt. ‘How did you enjoy it?’
‘Well, not really very much. The scenery was very nice, but–’
An imperious voice sounded from the floor above.
‘Amy. Amy! What are you doing, talking in the hall all this time? BringAdmiral Blunt up here. I’m waiting for him.’
‘Gallivanting about,’ said Admiral Blunt, after he had greeted his oldfriend. ‘That’s how you’ll kill yourself one of these days. You mark mywords–’
‘No, I shan’t. There’s no difficulty at all in travelling nowadays.’
‘Running about all those airports, ramps5, stairs, buses.’
‘Not at all. I had a wheelchair.’
‘A year or two ago when I saw you, you said you wouldn’t hear of such athing. You said you had too much pride to admit you needed one.’
‘Well, I’ve had to give up some of my pride, nowadays, Philip. Come andsit down here and tell me why you wanted to come and see me so muchall of a sudden. You’ve neglected me a great deal for the last year.’
‘Well, I’ve not been so well myself. Besides, I’ve been looking into a fewthings. You know the sort of thing. Where they ask your advice but don’tmean in the least to take it. They can’t leave the Navy alone. Keep onwanting to fiddle6 about with it, drat them.’
‘You look quite well to me,’ said Lady Matilda.
‘You don’t look so bad yourself, my dear. You’ve got a nice sparkle inyour eye.’
‘I’m deafer than when you saw me last. You’ll have to speak up more.’
‘All right. I’ll speak up.’
‘What do you want, gin and tonic7 or whisky or rum?’
‘You seem ready to dispense8 strong liquor of any kind. If it’s all the sameto you, I’ll have a gin and tonic.’
Amy rose and left the room.
‘And when she brings it,’ said the Admiral, ‘get rid of her again, willyou? I want to talk to you. Talk to you particularly is what I mean.’
Refreshment9 brought, Lady Matilda made a dismissive wave of the handand Amy departed with the air of one who is pleasing herself, not her em-ployer. She was a tactful young woman.
‘Nice girl,’ said the Admiral, ‘very nice.’
‘Is that why you asked me to get rid of her and see she shut the door? Sothat she mightn’t overhear you saying something nice about her?’
‘No. I wanted to consult you.’
‘What about? Your health or where to get some new servants or what togrow in the garden?’
‘I want to consult you very seriously. I thought perhaps you might beable to remember something for me.’
‘Dear Philip, how touching10 that you should think I can remember any-thing. Every year my memory gets worse. I’ve come to the conclusion oneonly remembers what’s called the “friends of one’s youth”. Even horridgirls one was at school with one remembers, though one doesn’t want to.
That’s where I’ve been now, as a matter of fact.’
‘Where’ve you been now? Visiting schools?’
‘No, no, no, I went to see an old school friend whom I haven’t seen forthirty–forty–fifty–that sort of time.’
‘What was she like?’
‘Enormously fat and even nastier and horrider than I remembered her.’
‘You’ve got very queer tastes, I must say, Matilda.’
‘Well, go on, tell me. Tell me what it is you want me to remember?’
‘I wondered if you remembered another friend of yours. Robert Shore-ham.’
‘Robbie Shoreham? Of course I do.’
‘The scientist feller. Top scientist.’
‘Of course. He wasn’t the sort of man one would ever forget. I wonderwhat put him into your head.’
‘Public need.’
‘Funny you should say that,’ said Lady Matilda. ‘I thought the same my-self the other day.’
‘You thought what?’
‘That he was needed. Or someone like him–if there is anyone like him.’
‘There isn’t. Now listen, Matilda. People talk to you a bit. They tell youthings. I’ve told you things myself.’
‘I’ve always wondered why, because you can’t believe that I’ll under-stand them or be able to describe them. And that was even more the casewith Robbie than with you.’
‘I don’t tell you naval11 secrets.’
‘Well, he didn’t tell me scientific secrets. I mean, only in a very generalway.’
‘Yes, but he used to talk to you about them, didn’t he?’
‘Well, he liked saying things that would astonish me sometimes.’
‘All right, then, here it comes. I want to know if he ever talked to you, inthe days when he could talk properly, poor devil, about something calledProject B.’
‘Project B.’ Matilda Cleckheaton considered thoughtfully. ‘Soundsvaguely familiar,’ she said. ‘He used to talk about Project this or that some-times, or Operation that or this. But you must realize that none of it evermade any kind of sense to me, and he knew it didn’t. But he used to like–oh, how shall I put it?–astonishing me rather, you know. Sort of describingit the way that a conjuror12 might describe how he takes three rabbits out ofa hat without your knowing how he did it. Project B? Yes, that was a goodlong time ago…He was wildly excited for a bit. I used to say to him some-times “How’s Project B going on?”’
‘I know, I know, you’ve always been a tactful woman. You can alwaysremember what people were doing or interested in. And even if you don’tknow the first thing about it you’d show an interest. I described a newkind of naval gun to you once and you must have been bored stiff. But youlistened as brightly as though it was the thing you’d been waiting to hearabout all your life.’
‘As you tell me, I’ve been a tactful woman and a good listener, even ifI’ve never had much in the way of brains.’
‘Well, I want to hear a little more what Robbie said about Project B.’
‘He said–well, it’s very difficult to remember now. He mentioned it aftertalking about some operation that they used to do on people’s brains. Youknow, the people who were terribly melancholic13 and who were thinkingof suicide and who were so worried and neurasthenic that they had awfulanxiety complexes. Stuff like that, the sort of thing people used to talk of inconnection with Freud. And he said that the side effects were impossible. Imean, the people were quite happy and meek14 and docile15 and didn’t worryany more, or want to kill themselves, but they–well I mean they didn’tworry enough and therefore they used to get run over and all sorts ofthings like that because they weren’t thinking of any danger and didn’t no-tice it. I’m putting it badly but you do understand what I mean. And any-way, he said, that was going to be the trouble, he thought, with Project B.’
‘Did he describe it at all more closely than that?’
‘He said I’d put it into his head,’ said Matilda Cleckheaton unexpectedly.
‘What? Do you mean to say a scientiest–a top-flight scientist like Robbieactually said to you that you had put something into his scientific brain?
You don’t know the first thing about science.’
‘Of course not. But I used to try and put a little common sense intopeople’s brains. The cleverer they are, the less common sense they have. Imean, really, the people who matter are the people who thought of simplethings like perforations on postage stamps, or like somebody Adam, orwhatever his name was–No–MacAdam in America who put black stuff onroads so that farmers could get all their crops from farms to the coast andmake a better profit. I mean, they do much more good than all the high-powered scientists do. Scientists can only think of things for destroyingyou. Well, that’s the sort of thing I said to Robbie. Quite nicely, of course,as a kind of joke. He’d been just telling me that some splendid things hadbeen done in the scientific world about germ warfare16 and experimentswith biology and what you can do to unborn babies if you get at themearly enough. And also some peculiarly nasty and very unpleasant gasesand saying how silly people were to protest against nuclear bombs be-cause they were really a kindness compared to some of the other thingsthat had been invented since then. And so I said it’d be much more to thepoint if Robbie, or someone clever like Robbie, could think of somethingreally sensible. And he looked at me with that, you know, little twinkle hehas in his eye sometimes and said, “Well what would you consider sens-ible?” And I said, “Well, instead of inventing all these germ warfares andthese nasty gases, and all the rest of it, why don’t you just invent some-thing that makes people feel happy?” I said it oughtn’t to be any more dif-ficult to do. I said, “You’ve talked about this operation where, I think yousaid, they took out a bit of the front of your brain or maybe the back ofyour brain. But anyway it made a great difference in people’s dispositions17.
They’d become quite different. They hadn’t worried any more or theyhadn’t wanted to commit suicide. But,” I said, “well, if you can changepeople like that just by taking a little bit of bone or muscle or nerve ortinkering up a gland18 or taking out a gland or putting in more of a gland,” Isaid, “if you can make all that difference in people’s dispositions, whycan’t you invent something that will make people pleasant or just sleepyperhaps? Supposing you had something, not a sleeping draught19, but justsomething that people sat down in a chair and had a nice dream. Twenty-four hours or so and just woke up to be fed now and again.” I said it wouldbe a much better idea.’
‘And is that what Project B was?’
‘Well, of course he never told me what it was exactly. But he was excitedwith an idea and he said I’d put it into his head, so it must have beensomething rather pleasant I’d put into his head, mustn’t it? I mean, Ihadn’t suggested any ideas to him of any nastier ways for killing peopleand I didn’t want people even –you know–to cry, like tear gas or anythinglike that. Perhaps laughing–yes, I believe I mentioned laughing gas. I saidwell if you have your teeth out, they give you three sniffs20 of it and youlaugh, well, surely, surely you could invent something that’s as useful asthat but would last a little longer. Because I believe laughing gas only lastsabout fifty seconds, doesn’t it? I know my brother had some teeth outonce. The dentist’s chair was very near the window and my brother waslaughing so much, when he was unconscious, I mean, that he stretched hisleg right out and put it through the dentist’s window and all the glass fellin the street, and the dentist was very cross about it.’
‘Your stories always have such strange side- kicks,’ said the Admiral.
‘Anyway, this is what Robbie Shoreham had chosen to get on with, fromyour advice.’
‘Well, I don’t know what it was exactly. I mean, I don’t think it wassleeping or laughing. At any rate, it was something. It wasn’t really ProjectB. It had another name.’
‘What sort of a name?’
‘Well, he did mention it once I think, or twice. The name he’d given it.
Rather like Benger’s Food,’ said Aunt Matilda, considering thoughtfully.
‘Some soothing21 agent for the digestion22?’
‘I don’t think it had anything to do with the digestion. I rather think itwas something you sniffed23 or something, perhaps it was a gland. Youknow we talked of so many things that you never quite knew what he wastalking about at the moment. Benger’s Food. Ben–Ben–it did begin withBen. And there was a pleasant word associated with it.’
‘Is that all you can remember about it?’
‘I think so. I mean, this was just a talk we had once and then, quite along time afterwards, he told me I’d put something into his head for Pro-ject Ben something. And after that, occasionally, if I remembered, I’d askhim if he was still working on Project Ben and then sometimes he’d bevery exasperated24 and say no, he’d come up against a snag and he was put-ting it all aside now because it was in–in–well, I mean the next eight wordswere pure jargon25 and I couldn’t remember them and you wouldn’t under-stand them if I said them to you. But in the end, I think–oh dear, oh dear,this is all about eight or nine years ago–in the end he came one day and hesaid, “Do you remember Project Ben?” I said, “Of course I remember it.
Are you still working on it?” And he said no, he was determined26 to lay itall aside. I said I was sorry. Sorry if he’d given it up and he said, “Well, it’snot only that I can’t get what I was trying for. I know now that it could begot27. I know where I went wrong. I know just what the snag was, I knowjust how to put that snag right again. I’ve got Lisa working on it with me.
Yes, it could work. It’d require experimenting on certain things but itcould work.” “Well,” I said to him, “what are you worrying about?” And hesaid, “Because I don’t know what it would really do to people.” I saidsomething about his being afraid it would kill people or maim28 them forlife or something. “No,” he said, “it’s not like that.” He said, it’s a–oh, ofcourse, now I remember. He called it Project Benvo. Yes. And that’s be-cause it had to do with benevolence29.’
‘Benevolence!’ said the Admiral, highly surprised. ‘Benevolence? Do youmean charity?’
‘No, no, no. I think he meant simply that you could make people bene-volent. Feel benevolent30.’
‘Peace and good will towards men?’
‘Well, he didn’t put it like that.’
‘No, that’s reserved for religious leaders. They preach that to you and ifyou did what they preach it’d be a very happy world. But Robbie, I gather,was not preaching. He proposed to do something in his laboratory to bringabout this result by purely31 physical means.’
‘That’s the sort of thing. And he said you can never tell when things arebeneficial to people or when they’re not. They are in one way, they’re notin another. And he said things about–oh, penicillin32 and sulphonamidesand heart transplants and things like pills for women, though we hadn’tgot “The Pill” then. But you know, things that seem all right and they’rewonder-drugs or wonder-gases or wonder-something or other, and thenthere’s something about them that makes them go wrong as well as right,and then you wish they weren’t there and had never been thought of.
Well, that’s the sort of thing that he seemed to be trying to get over to me.
It was all rather difficult to understand. I said, “Do you mean you don’tlike to take the risk?” and he said, “You’re quite right. I don’t like to takethe risk. That’s the trouble because, you see, I don’t know in the least whatthe risk will be. That’s what happens to us poor devils of scientists. Wetake the risks and the risks are not in what we’ve discovered, it’s the risksof what the people we’ll have to tell about it will do with what we’ve dis-covered.” I said, “Now you’re talking about nuclear weapons again andatom bombs,” and he said, “Oh, to Hell with nuclear weapons and atomicbombs. We’ve gone far beyond that.”
‘“But if you’re going to make people nice-tempered and benevolent,” Isaid, “what have you got to worry about?” And he said, “You don’t under-stand, Matilda. You’ll never understand. My fellow scientists in all probab-ility would not understand either. And no politicians would ever under-stand. And so, you see, it’s too big a risk to be taken. At any rate one wouldhave to think for a long time.”
‘“But,” I said, “you could bring people out of it again, just like laughinggas, couldn’t you? I mean, you could make people benevolent just for ashort time, and then they’d get all right again–or all wrong again–it de-pends which way you look at it, I should have thought.” And he said, “No.
This will be, you see, permanent. Quite permanent because it affects the–”
and then he went into jargon again. You know, long words and numbers.
Formulas, or molecular33 changes– something like that. I expect really itmust be something like what they do to cretins. You know, to make themstop being cretins, like giving them thyroid or taking it away from them. Iforget which it is. Something like that. Well, I expect there’s some nicelittle gland somewhere and if you take it away or smoke it out, or do some-thing drastic to it–but then, the people are permanently–’
‘Permanently benevolent? You’re sure that’s the right word? Benevol-ence?’
‘Yes, because that’s why he nicknamed it Benvo.’
‘But what did his colleagues think, I wonder, about his backing out?’
‘I don’t think he had many who knew. Lisa what’s-her-name, the Aus-trian girl; she’d worked on it with him. And there was one young mancalled Leadenthal or some name like that, but he died of tuberculosis34. Andhe rather spoke35 as though the other people who worked with him weremerely assistants who didn’t know exactly what he was doing or tryingfor. I see what you’re getting at,’ said Matilda suddenly. ‘I don’t think heever told anybody, really. I mean, I think he destroyed his formulas ornotes or whatever they were and gave up the whole idea. And then he hadhis stroke and got ill, and now, poor dear, he can’t speak very well. He’sparalysed one side. He can hear fairly well. He listens to music. That’s hiswhole life now.’
‘His life’s work’s ended, you think?’
‘He doesn’t even see friends. I think it’s painful to him to see them. Healways makes some excuse.’
‘But he’s alive,’ said Admiral Blunt. ‘He’s alive still. Got his address?’
‘It’s in my address book somewhere. He’s still in the same place. NorthScotland somewhere. But–oh, do understand–he was such a wonderfulman once. He isn’t now. He’s just almost dead. For all intents and pur-poses.’
‘There’s always hope,’ said Admiral Blunt. ‘And belief,’ he added. ‘Faith.’
‘And benevolence, I suppose,’ said Lady Matilda.
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收听单词发音
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1
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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2
cavorting
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| v.跳跃( cavort的现在分词 ) | |
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3
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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ramps
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| resources allocation and multiproject scheduling 资源分配和多项目的行程安排 | |
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6
fiddle
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| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
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7
tonic
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| n./adj.滋补品，补药，强身的，健体的 | |
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dispense
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| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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9
refreshment
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| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
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10
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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11
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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12
conjuror
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| n.魔术师，变戏法者 | |
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13
melancholic
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| 忧郁症患者 | |
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meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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15
docile
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| adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的 | |
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16
warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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17
dispositions
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| 安排( disposition的名词复数 )； 倾向； （财产、金钱的）处置； 气质 | |
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gland
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| n.腺体，(机)密封压盖，填料盖 | |
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19
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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sniffs
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的第三人称单数 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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22
digestion
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| n.消化，吸收 | |
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sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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27
begot
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| v.为…之生父( beget的过去式 )；产生，引起 | |
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28
maim
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| v.使残废，使不能工作，使伤残 | |
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29
benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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30
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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31
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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32
penicillin
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| n.青霉素，盘尼西林 | |
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molecular
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| adj.分子的；克分子的 | |
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tuberculosis
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| n.结核病，肺结核 | |
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35
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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