THE conscientious2 scribe cannot but be aware that the above sentence standing3 alone and without reference to previous matters, may not entirely4 explain itself. Anyone trying the experiment of using that sentence for practical social purposes; tossing that sentence lightly as a greeting to a passer-by; sending that sentence as a telegram to a total stranger; whispering that sentence hoarsely5 into the ear of the nearest policeman, and so on, will find that its insufficiency as a full and final statement is generally felt. With no morbid6 curiosity, with no exaggerated appetite for omniscience7, men will want to know more about this statement before acting8 upon it. And the only way of explaining it, and the unusual circumstances in which it came to be said, is to pursue the doubling and devious9 course of these narratives10, and return to a date very much earlier, when men now more than middle-aged11 were quite young.
[148]It was in the days when the Colonel was not the Colonel, but only Jimmy Crane, a restless youth tossed about by every wind of adventure, but as yet as incapable12 of discipline as of dressing13 for dinner. It was in days before Robert Owen Hood14, the lawyer, had ever begun to study the Law and had only got so far as to abolish it; coming down to the club every night with a new plan for a revolution to turn all earthly tribunals upside-down. It was in days before Wilding White settled down as a country parson, returning to the creed15 though not the conventions of his class and country; when he was still ready to change his religion once a week, turning up sometimes in the costume of a monk16 and sometimes of a mufti, and sometimes in what he declared to be the original vestments of a Druid, whose religion was shortly to be resumed by the whole British people. It was in days when their young friend Hilary Pierce, the aviator17, was still anticipating aviation by flying a small kite. In short, it was early in the lives even of the elders of the group that they had founded a small social club, in which their long friendships had flourished. The club had to have some sort of name, and the more thoughtful and detached among them, who saw the club steadily18 and saw it whole, considered the point with ripe reflection, and finally called their little society the Lunatic Asylum.
“We might all stick straws in our hair for dinner,[149] as the Romans crowned themselves with roses for the banquet,” observed Hood. “It would correspond to dressing for dinner; I don’t know what else we could do to vary the vulgar society trick of all wearing the same sort of white waistcoats.”
“All wearing strait-waistcoats, I suppose,” said Crane.
“We might each dine separately in a padded cell, if it comes to that,” said Hood; “but there seems to be something lacking in it considered as a social evening.”
Here Wilding White, who was then in a monastic phase, intervened eagerly. He explained that in some monasteries19 a monk of peculiar20 holiness was allowed to become a hermit21 in an inner cell, and proposed a similar arrangement at the club. Hood, with his more mellow22 rationalism, intervened with a milder amendment23. He suggested that a large padded chair should represent the padded cell, and be reserved like a throne for the loftiest of the lunatics.
“Do not,” he said gently and earnestly, “do not let us be divided by jealousies24 and petty ambitions. Do not let us dispute among ourselves which shall be dottiest in the domain25 of the dotty. Perhaps one will appear worthier26 than us all, more manifestly and magnificently weak in the head; for him let the padded throne stand empty.”
Jimmy Crane had said no more after his brief[150] suggestion, but was pacing the room like a polar bear, as he generally did when there came upon him a periodical impulse to go off after things like polar bears. He was the wildest of all those wild figures so far as the scale of his adventures was concerned, constantly vanishing to the ends of the earth nobody knew why, and turning up again nobody knew how. He had a hobby, even in his youth, that made his outlook seem even stranger than the bewildering successive philosophies of his friend White. He had an enthusiasm for the myths of savages27, and while White was balancing the relative claims of Buddhism28 and Brahmanism, Crane would boldly declare his preference for the belief that a big fish ate the sun every night, or that the whole cosmos29 was created by cutting up a giant. Moreover, there was with all this something indefinable but in some way more serious about Crane even in these days. There was much that was merely boyish about the blind impetuosity of Wilding White, with his wild hair and eager aquiline30 face. He was evidently one who might (as he said) learn the secret of Isis, but would be quite incapable of keeping it to himself. The long, legal face of Owen Hood had already learned to laugh at most things, if not to laugh loudly. But in Crane there was something more hard and militant31 like steel, and as he proved afterwards in the affair of the hat, he could keep a secret even when it was a joke. So that when he finally went off on[151] a long tour round the world, with the avowed32 intention of studying all the savages he could find, nobody tried to stop him. He went off in a startlingly shabby suit, with a faded sash instead of a waistcoat, and with no luggage in particular, except a large revolver slung33 round him in a case like a field-glass, and a big, green umbrella that he flourished resolutely34 as he walked.
“Well, he’ll come back a queerer figure than he went, I suppose,” said Wilding White.
“He couldn’t,” answered Hood, the lawyer, shaking his head. “I don’t believe all the devil-worship in Africa could make him any madder than he is.”
“But he’s going to America first, isn’t he?” said the other.
“Yes,” said Hood. “He’s going to America, but not to see the Americans. He would think the Americans very dull compared with the American Indians. Possibly he will come back in feathers and war-paint.”
“He’ll come back scalped, I suppose,” said White hopefully. “I suppose being scalped is all the rage in the best Red Indian society?”
“Then he’s working round by the South Sea Islands,” said Hood. “They don’t scalp people there; they only stew35 them in pots.”
“He couldn’t very well come back stewed,” said White, musing36. “Does it strike you, Owen, that we should hardly be talking nonsense like this if we[152] hadn’t a curious faith that a fellow like Crane will know how to look after himself?”
“Yes,” said Hood gravely. “I’ve got a very fixed37 fundamental conviction that Crane will turn up again all right. But it’s true that he may look jolly queer after going fantee for all that time.”
It became a sort of pastime at the club of the Lunatics to compete in speculations38 about the guise39 in which the maddest of their madmen would return, after being so long lost to civilization. And grand preparations were made as for a sort of Walpurgis Night of nonsense when it was known at last that he was really returning. Hood had received letters from him occasionally, full of queer mythologies40, and then a rapid succession of telegrams from places nearer and nearer home, culminating in the announcement that he would appear in the club that night. It was about five minutes before dinnertime that a sharp knock on the door announced his arrival.
“Bang all the gongs and the tom-toms,” cried Wilding White. “The Lord High Mumbo-Jumbo arrives riding on the nightmare.”
“We had better bring out the throne of the King of the Maniacs,” said Hood, laughing. “We may want it at last,” and he turned towards the big padded chair that still stood at the top of the table.
As he did so James Crane walked into the room. He was clad in very neat and well-cut evening[153] clothes, not too fashionable, and a little formal. His hair was parted on one side, and his moustache clipped rather close; he took a seat with a pleasant smile, and began talking about the weather.
He was not allowed, however, to confine his conversation to the weather. He had certainly succeeded in giving his old friends the only sort of surprise that they really had not expected; but they were too old friends for their friend to be able to conceal41 from them the meaning of such a change. And it was on that festive42 evening that Crane explained his position; a position which he maintained in most things ever afterwards, and one which is the original foundation of the affair that follows.
“I have lived with the men we call savages all over the world,” he said simply, “and I have found out one truth about them. And I tell you, my friends, you may talk about independence and individual self-expression till you burst. But I’ve always found, wherever I went, that the man who could really be trusted to keep his word, and to fight, and to work for his family, was the man who did a war-dance before the moon where the moon was worshipped, and wore a nose-ring in his nose where nose-rings were worn. I have had plenty of fun, and I won’t interfere43 with anyone else having it. But I believe I have seen what is the real making of mankind, and I have come back to my tribe.”
This was the first act of the drama which ended in[154] the remarkable44 appearance and disappearance45 of Mr. Enoch Oates, and it has been necessary to narrate46 it briefly47 before passing on to the second act. Ever since that time Crane had preserved at once his eccentric friends and his own more formal customs. And there were many among the newer members of the club who had never known him except as the Colonel, the grizzled, military gentleman whose severe scheme of black and white attire48 and strict politeness in small things formed the one foil of sharp contrast to that many-coloured Bohemia. One of these was Hilary Pierce, the young aviator; and much as he liked the Colonel, he never quite understood him. He had never known the old soldier in his volcanic49 youth, as had Hood and White, and therefore never knew how much of the fire remained under the rock or the snows. The singular affair of the hat, which has been narrated50 to the too patient reader elsewhere, surprised him more than it did the older men, who knew very well that the Colonel was not so old as he looked. And the impression increased with all the incidents which a fanatical love of truth has forced the chronicler to relate in the same connexion; the incident of the river and of the pigs and of the somewhat larger pet of Mr. Wilding White. There was talk of renaming the Lunatic Asylum as the League of the Long Bow, and of commemorating51 its performances in a permanent ritual. The Colonel was induced to wear a crown of cabbage[155] on state occasions, and Pierce was gravely invited to bring his pigs with him to dine at the club.
“You could easily bring a little pig in your large pocket,” said Hood. “I often wonder people do not have pigs as pets.”
“A pig in a poke52, in fact,” said Pierce. “Well, so long as you have the tact53 to avoid the indelicacy of having pork for dinner that evening, I suppose I could bring my pig in my pocket.”
“White’d find it rather a nuisance to bring his elephant in his pocket,” observed the Colonel.
Pierce glanced at him, and had again the feeling of incongruity54 at seeing the ceremonial cabbage adorning55 his comparatively venerable head. For the Colonel had just been married, and was rejuvenated56 in an almost jaunty57 degree. Somehow the philosophical58 young man seemed to miss something, and sighed. It was then that he made the remark which is the pivot59 of this precise though laborious60 anecdote61.
“Since the Colonel ate his hat,” he said, “the Lunatic Asylum has lacked a background.”
“Damn your impudence,” said the Colonel cheerfully. “Do you mean to call me a background to my face?”
“A dark background,” said Pierce soothingly62. “Do not resent my saying a dark background. I mean a grand, mysterious background like that of night; a sublime64 and even starry65 background.”
[156]“Starry yourself,” said Crane indignantly.
“It was against that background of ancient night,” went on the young man dreamily, “that the fantastic shapes and fiery66 colours of our carnival67 could really be seen. So long as he came here with his black coat and beautiful society manners there was a foil to our follies68. We were eccentric, but he was our centre. You cannot be eccentric without a centre.”
“I believe Hilary is quite right,” said Owen Hood earnestly. “I believe we have made a great mistake. We ought not to have all gone mad at once. We ought to have taken it in turns to go mad. Then I could have been shocked at his behaviour on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and he could have been shocked at my behaviour on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. But there is no moral value in going mad when nobody is shocked. If Crane leaves off being shocked, what are we to do?”
“I know what we want,” began Pierce excitedly.
“Not so easy to find nowadays,” said the old soldier. “Going to advertise?”
“I mean a stupid man,” explained Owen Hood. “I mean a man who’s conventional all through, not a humbug70 like Crane. I mean, I want a solid, serious business man, a hard-headed, practical man of affairs, a man to whom vast commercial interests are[157] committed. In a word, I want a fool; some beautiful, rounded, homogeneous fool, in whose blameless face, as in a round mirror, all our fancies may really be reflected and renewed. I want a very successful man, a very wealthy man, a man——”
“I know! I know!” cried young Pierce, almost waving his arms. “Enoch Oates!”
“Who’s Enoch Oates?” inquired White.
“Are the lords of the world so little known?” asked Hood.
“Enoch Oates is Pork, and nearly everything else; Enoch Oates is turning civilization into one vast sausage-machine. Didn’t I ever tell you how Hilary ran into him over that pig affair?”
“He’s the very man you want,” cried Hilary Pierce enthusiastically. “I know him, and I believe I can get him. Being a millionaire, he’s entirely ignorant. Being an American, he’s entirely in earnest. He’s got just that sort of negative Nonconformist conscience of New England that balances the positive money-getting of New York. If we want to surprise anybody we’ll surprise him. Let’s ask Enoch Oates to dinner.”
“I won’t have any practical jokes played on guests,” said the Colonel.
“Of course not,” replied Hood. “He’ll be only too pleased to take it seriously. Did you ever know an American who didn’t like seeing the Sights? And if you don’t know you’re a Sight with that cabbage[158] on your head, it’s time an American tourist taught you.”
“Besides, there’s a difference,” said Pierce. “I wouldn’t ask a fellow like that doctor, Horace Hunter——”
“Sir Horace Hunter,” murmured Hood reverently71.
“I wouldn’t ask him, because I really think him a sneak72 and a snob73, and my invitation could only be meant as an insult. But Oates is not a man I hate, nor is he hateful. That’s the curious part of it. He’s a simple, sincere sort of fellow, according to his lights, which are pretty dim. He’s a thief and a robber of course, but he doesn’t know it. I’m asking him because he’s different; but I don’t imagine he’s at all sorry to be different. There’s no harm in giving a man a good dinner and letting him be a background without knowing it.”
When Mr. Enoch Oates in due course accepted the invitation and presented himself at the club, many were reminded of that former occasion when a stiff and conventional figure in evening dress had first appeared like a rebuke74 to the revels75. But in spite of the stiff sameness of both those black and white costumes, there was a great deal of difference between the old background and the new background. Crane’s good manners were of that casual kind that are rather peculiarly English, and mark an aristocracy at its ease in the saddle. Curiously76 enough, if the American had one point in common[159] with a Continental77 noble of ancient lineage (whom his daughter might have married any day), it was that they would both be a little more on the defensive78, living in the midst of democracy. Mr. Oates was perfectly79 polite, but there was something a little rigid80 about him. He walked to his chair rather stiffly and sat down rather heavily. He was a powerful, ponderous81 man with a large sallow face, a little suggestive of a corpulent Red Indian. He had a ruminant eye, and equally ruminant manner of chewing an unlighted cigar. These were signs that might well have gone with a habit of silence. But they did not.
Mr. Oates’s conversation might not be brilliant, but it was continuous. Pierce and his friends had begun with some notion of dangling82 their own escapades before him like dancing dolls before a child; they had told him something of the affair of the Colonel and his cabbage, of the captain and his pigs, of the parson and his elephants; but they soon found that their hearer had not come there merely as a listener. What he thought of their romantic buffooneries it would be hard to say; probably he did not understand them, possibly he did not even hear them. Anyhow, his own monologue83 went on. He was a leisurely84 speaker. They found themselves revising much that they had heard about the snap and smartness and hurry of American talk. He spoke85 without haste or embarrassment86, his eye boring[160] into space, and he more than fulfilled Mr. Pierce’s hopes of somebody who would talk about business matters. His talk was a mild torrent87 of facts and figures, especially figures. In fact the background was doing all it could to contribute the required undertone of common commercial life. The background was justifying89 all their hopes that it would be practical and prosaic90. Only the background had rather the air of having become the foreground.
“When they put that up to me I saw it was the proposition,” Mr. Oates was saying. “I saw I’d got on to something better than my old regulation turnover91 of eighty-five thousand dollars on each branch. I reckoned I should save a hundred and twenty thousand dollars in the long run by scrapping92 the old plant, even if I had to drop another thirty thousand dollars on new works, where I’d get the raw material for a red cent. I saw right away that was the point to freeze on to; that I just got a chance to sell something I didn’t need to buy; something that could be sort of given away like old match-ends. I figured out it would be better by a long chalk to let the other guys rear the stock and sell me their refuse for next to nix, so I could get ahead with turning it into the goods. So I started in right away and got there at the first go-off with an increase of seven hundred and fifty-one thousand dollars.”
“Seven hundred and fifty-one thousand dollars,”[161] murmured Owen Hood. “How soothing63 it all seems.”
“I reckon those mutts didn’t get on to what they were selling me,” continued Mr. Oates, “or didn’t have the pep to use it that way themselves; for though it was the sure-enough hot tip, it isn’t everybody would have thought of it. When I was in pork, of course, I wanted the other guys out; but just now I wasn’t putting anything on pork, but only on just that part of a pig I wanted and they didn’t want. By notifying all your pig farmers I was able to import nine hundred and twenty-five thousand pigs’ ears this fall, and I guess I can get consignments93 all winter.”
Hood had some little legal experience with long-winded commercial witnesses, and he was listening by this time with a cocked eyebrow94 and an attention much sharper than the dreamy ecstasy95 with which the poetic96 Pierce was listening to the millionaire’s monologue, as if to the wordless music of some ever-murmuring brook97.
“Excuse me,” said Hood earnestly, “but did I understand you to say pigs’ ears?”
“That is so, Mr. Hood,” said the American with great patience and politeness. “I don’t know whether I gave you a sufficiently98 detailed99 description for you to catch on to the proposition, but——”
“Well,” murmured Pierce wistfully, “it sounded to me like a detailed description.”
[162]“Pardon me,” said Hood, checking him with a frown. “I really want to understand this proposition of Mr. Oates. Do I understand that you bought pigs’ ears cheap, when the pigs were cut up for other purposes, and that you thought you could use them for some purpose of your own?”
“Sure!” said Mr. Enoch Oates, nodding. “And my purpose was about the biggest thing in fancy goods ever done in the States. In the publicity100 line there’s nothing like saying you can do what folks say can’t be done. Flying in the face of proverbs instead of providence101, I reckon. It catches on at once. We got to work, and got out the first advertisement in no time; just a blank space with: ‘We Can Do It’ in the middle. Got folks wondering for a week what it was.”
“I hope, sir,” said Pierce in a low voice, “that you will not carry sound commercial principles so far as to keep us wondering for a week what it was.”
“Well,” said Oates, “we found we could subject the pigskin and bristles102 to a new gelat’nous process for making artificial silk, and we figured that publicity would do the rest. We came out with the second set of posters: ‘She Wants it Now.’... ‘The Most Wonderful Woman on Earth is waiting by the Old Fireside, hoping you’ll bring her home a Pig’s Whisper Purse.’”
[163]“I see you’re on the notion,” proceeded the unmoved American. “We called ’em Pig’s Whisper Purses after the smartest and most popular poster we ever had: ‘There was a Lady Loved a Swine.’ You know the nursery rhyme, I guess; featured a slap-up princess whispering in a pig’s ear. I tell you there isn’t a smart woman in the States now that can do without one of our pig-silk purses, and all because it upsets the proverb. Why, see here——”
Hilary Pierce had sprung wildly to his feet with a sort of stagger and clutched at the American’s arm.
“Found! Found!” he cried hysterically104. “Oh, sir, I implore105 you to take the chair! Do, do take the chair!”
“Take the chair!” repeated the astonished millionaire, who was already almost struggling in his grasp. “Really, gentlemen, I hadn’t supposed the proceedings106 were so formal as to require a chairman, but in any case——”
It could hardly be said, however, that the proceedings were formal. Mr. Hilary Pierce had the appearance of forcibly dragging Mr. Enoch Oates in the direction of the large padded arm-chair, that had always stood empty at the top of the club table, uttering cries which, though incoherent, appeared to be partly apologetic.
“No offence,” he gasped. “Hope no misunderstanding ... Honoris causa ... you, you alone[164] are worthy107 of that seat ... the club has found its king and justified108 its title at last.”
Here the Colonel intervened and restored order. Mr. Oates departed in peace; but Mr. Hilary Pierce was still simmering.
“And that is the end of our quiet, ordinary business man,” he cried. “Such is the behaviour of our monochrome and unobtrusive background.” His voice rose to a sort of wail109. “And we thought we were dotty! We deluded110 ourselves with the hope that we were pretty well off our chump! Lord have mercy on us! American big business rises to a raving111 idiocy112 compared with which we are as sane as the beasts of the field. The modern commercial world is far madder than anything we can do to satirize113 it.”
“Well,” said the Colonel good-humouredly, “we’ve done some rather ridiculous things ourselves.”
“Yes, yes,” cried Pierce excitedly, “but we did them to make ourselves ridiculous. That unspeakable man is wholly, serenely114 serious. He thinks those maniacal115 monkey tricks are the normal life of man. Your argument really answers itself. We did the maddest things we could think of, meaning them to look mad. But they were nothing like so mad as what a modern business man does in the way of business.”
“Perhaps it’s the American business man,” said[165] White, “who’s too keen to see the humour of it.”
“Nonsense,” said Crane. “Millions of Americans have a splendid sense of humour.”
“Then how fortunate are we,” said Pierce reverently, “through whose lives this rare, this ineffable116, this divine being has passed.”
“Passed away for ever, I suppose,” said Hood with a sigh. “I fear the Colonel must be our only background once more.”
Colonel Crane was frowning thoughtfully, and at the last words his frown deepened to disapproval117. He puffed118 at his smouldering cigar and then, removing it, said abruptly119:
“I suppose you fellows have forgotten how I came to be a background? I mean, why I rather approve of people being backgrounds.”
“I remember something you said a long time ago,” replied Hood. “Hilary must have been in long-clothes at that time.”
“I said I had found out something by going round the world,” said Crane. “You young people think I am an old Tory; but remember I am also an old traveller. Well, it’s part of the same thing. I’m a traditionalist because I’m a traveller. I told you when I came back to the club that I’d come back to the tribe. I told you that in all the tribes of the world, the best man was the man true to his tribe. I told you the best man was the man who wore a nose-ring where nose-rings were worn.”
[166]“I remember,” said Owen Hood.
“No, you forget,” said Crane rather gruffly. “You forget it when you talk about Enoch Oates the American. I’m no politician, thank God, and I shall look on with detachment if you dynamite120 him for being a millionaire. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t think half so much of money as old Normantowers, who thinks it’s too sacred to talk about. But you’re not dynamiting121 him for being a millionaire. You’re simply laughing at him for being an American. You’re laughing at him for being national and normal, for being a good citizen, a good tribesman, for wearing a nose-ring where nose-rings are worn.”
“I say ... Kuklux, you know,” remonstrated122 Wilding White in his hazy123 way. “Americans wouldn’t be flattered——”
“Do you suppose you haven’t got a nose-ring?” cried Crane so sharply that the clergyman started from his trance and made a mechanical gesture as if to feel for that feature. “Do you suppose a man like you doesn’t carry his nationality as plain as the nose on his face? Do you think a man as hopelessly English as you are wouldn’t be laughed at in America? You can’t be a good Englishman without being a good joke. The better Englishman you are the more of a joke you are; but still it’s better to be better. Nose-rings are funny to people who don’t wear ’em. Nations are funny to people who don’t[167] belong to ’em. But it’s better to wear a nose-ring than to be a cosmopolitan124 crank who cuts off his nose to spite his face.”
This being by far the longest speech the Colonel had ever delivered since the day he returned from his tropical travels long ago, his old friends looked at him with a certain curiosity; even his old friends hardly understood how much he had been roused in defence of a guest and of his own deep delicacies125 about the point of hospitality. He went on with undiminished warmth:
“Well, it’s like that with poor Oates. He has, as we see it, certain disproportions, certain insensibilities, certain prejudices that stand out in our eyes like deformities. They offend you; they offend me, possibly rather more than they do you. You young revolutionists think you’re very liberal and universal; but the only result is that you’re narrow and national without knowing it. We old fogeys know our tastes are narrow and national; but we know they are only tastes. And we know, at any rate I know, that Oates is far more likely to be an honest man, a good husband and a good father, because he stinks126 of the rankest hickory patch in the Middle West, than if he were some fashionable New Yorker pretending to be an English aristocrat127 or playing the æsthete in Florence.”
“Don’t say a good husband,” pleaded Pierce with a faint shudder128. “It reminds me of the grand slap-up[168] advertisement of the Pig’s Whisper. How do you feel about that, my dear Colonel? The Most Wonderful Woman on Earth Waiting by the Old Fireside——”
“It makes my flesh creep,” replied Crane. “It chills me to the spine129. I feel I would rather die than have anything to do with it. But that has nothing to do with my point. I don’t belong to the tribe who wear nose-rings; nor to the tribe who talk through their noses.”
“Well, aren’t you a little thankful for that?” asked White.
“I’m thankful I can be fair in spite of it,” answered Crane. “When I put a cabbage on my head, I didn’t expect people not to stare at it. And I know that each one of us in a foreign land is a foreigner, and a thing to be stared at.”
“What I don’t understand about him,” said Hood, “is the sort of things he doesn’t mind having stared at. How can people tolerate all that vulgar, reeking130, gushing131 commercial cant132 everywhere? How can a man talk about the Old Fireside? It’s obscene. The police ought to interfere.”
“And that’s just where you’re wrong,” said the Colonel. “It’s vulgar enough and mad enough and obscene enough if you like. But it’s not cant. I have travelled amongst these wild tribes, for years on end; and I tell you emphatically it is not cant. And if you want to know, just ask your extraordinary[169] American friend about his own wife and his own relatively133 Old Fireside. He won’t mind. That’s the extraordinary part of it.”
“What does all this really mean, Colonel?” asked Hilary Pierce.
“It means, my boy,” answered the Colonel, “that I think you owe our guest an apology.”
So it came about that there was an epilogue, as there had been a prologue134, to the drama of the entrance and exit of Mr. Enoch B. Oates; an epilogue which in its turn became a prologue to the later dramas of the League of the Long Bow. For the words of the Colonel had a certain influence on the Captain, and the actions of the Captain had a certain influence on the American millionaire; and so the whole machinery135 of events was started afresh by that last movement over the nuts and wine, when Colonel Crane had stirred moodily136 in his seat and taken his cigar out of his mouth.
Hilary Pierce was an aimable and even excessively optimistic young man by temperament137, in spite of his pugnacity138; he would really have been the last man in the world to wish to hurt the feelings of a harmless stranger; and he had a deep and almost secret respect for the opinions of the older soldier. So, finding himself soon afterwards passing the great gilded139 gateways140 of the highly American hotel that was the London residence of the American,[170] he paused a moment in hesitation141 and then went in and gave his name to various overpowering officials in uniforms that might have been those of the German General Staff. He was relieved when the large American came out to meet him with a simple and lumbering142 affability, and offered his large limp hand as if there had never been a shadow of misunderstanding. It was somehow borne in upon Pierce that his own rather intoxicated143 behaviour that evening had merely been noted144 down along with the architectural styles and the mellow mediævalism of the pig-sty, as part of the fantasies of a feudal145 land. All the antics of the Lunatic Asylum had left the American traveller with the impression that similar parlour games were probably being played that evening in all the parlours of England. Perhaps there was something, after all, in Crane’s suggestion that every nation assumes that every other nation is a sort of mild mad-house.
Mr. Enoch Oates received his guest with great hospitality and pressed on him cocktails146 of various occult names and strange colours, though he himself partook of nothing but a regimen of tepid147 milk.
Pierce fell into the confidence of Mr. Enoch Oates with a silent swiftness that made his brain reel with bewilderment. He was staggered like a man who had fallen suddenly through fifteen floors of a sky-scraper and found himself in somebody’s bedroom. At the lightest hint of the sort of thing to which[171] Crane had alluded148, the American opened himself with an expansiveness that was like some gigantic embrace. All the interminable tables of figures and calculations in dollars had for the moment disappeared; yet Oates was talking in the same easy and natural nasal drawl, very leisurely and a little monotonous149, as he said:
“I’m married to the best and brightest woman God ever made, and I tell you it’s her and God between them that have made me, and I reckon she had the hardest part of it. We had nothing but a few sticks when I started; and it was the way she stood by that gave me the heart to risk even those on my own judgment150 of how things were going in the Street. I counted on a rise in Pork, and if it hadn’t risen I’d have been broke and I dare say in the jug151. But she’s just wonderful. You should see her.”
He produced her photograph with a paralysing promptitude; it represented a very regal lady dressed up to the nines, probably for the occasion, with very brilliant eyes and an elaborate load of light hair.
“‘I believe in your star, Enoch,’ she said; ‘you stick to Pork,’” said Oates, with tender reminiscence, “and so we saw it through.”
Pierce, who had been speculating with involuntary irreverence152 on the extreme difficulty of conducting a love-affair or a sentimental153 conversation in which one party had to address the other as Enoch, felt[172] quite ashamed of his cynicism when the Star of Pork shone with such radiance in the eyes of his new friend.
“It was a terrible time, but I stuck to Pork, sometimes feeling she could see clearer than I could; and of course she was right, and I’ve never known her wrong. Then came my great chance of making the combination and freezing out competition; and I was able to give her the sort of things she ought to have and let her take the lead as she should. I don’t care for society much myself; but I’m often glad on a late night at the office to ring her up and hear she’s enjoying it.”
He spoke with a ponderous simplicity154 that seemed to disarm155 and crush the criticism of a more subtle civilization. It was one of those things that are easily seen to be absurd; but even after they are seen to be absurd, they are still there. It may be, after all, that that is the definition of the great things.
“I reckon that’s what people mean by the romance of business,” continued Oates, “and though my business got bigger and bigger, it made me feel kinda pleased there had been a romance at the heart of it. It had to get bigger, because we wanted to make the combination water-tight all over the world. I guess I had to fix things up a bit with your politicians. But Congress men are alike all the world over, and it didn’t trouble me any.”
[173]There was a not uncommon156 conviction among those acquainted with Captain Hilary Pierce that that ingenious young man was cracked. He did a great many things to justify88 the impression; and in one sense certainly had never shown any reluctance157 to make a fool of himself. But if he was a lunatic, he was none the less a very English lunatic. And the notion of talking about his most intimate affections, suddenly, to a foreigner in an hotel, merely because the conversation had taken that turn, was something that he found quite terrifying. And yet an instinct, an impulse running through all these developments, told him that a moment had come and that he must seize some opportunity that he hardly understood.
“Look here,” he said rather awkwardly, “I want to tell you something.”
He looked down at the table as he continued.
“You said just now you were married to the best woman in the world. Well, curiously enough, so am I. It’s a coincidence that often happens. But it’s a still more curious coincidence that, in our own quiet way, we went in for Pork too. She kept pigs at the back of the little country inn where I met her; and at one time it looked as if the pigs might have to be given up. Perhaps the inn as well. Perhaps the wedding as well. We were quite poor, as poor as you were when you started; and to the poor those extra modes of livelihood158 are often life. We might[174] have been ruined; and the reason was, I gather, that you had gone in for Pork. But after all ours was the real pork; pork that walked about on legs. We made the bed for the pig and filled the inside of the pig; you only bought and sold the name of the pig. You didn’t go to business with a live little pig under your arm or walk down Wall Street followed by a herd159 of swine. It was a phantom160 pig, the ghost of a pig, that was able to kill our real pig and perhaps us as well. Can you really justify the way in which your romance nearly ruined our romance? Don’t you think there must be something wrong somewhere?”
“Well,” said Oates after a very long silence, “that’s a mighty161 big question and will take a lot of discussing.”
But the end to which their discussion led must be left to reveal itself when the prostrate162 reader has recovered sufficient strength to support the story of The Unthinkable Theory of Professor Green, which those who would endure to the end may read at some later date.
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1
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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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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hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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omniscience
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| n.全知，全知者，上帝 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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devious
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| adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的 | |
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narratives
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| 记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分 | |
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11
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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12
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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13
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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14
hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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15
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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16
monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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17
aviator
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| n.飞行家，飞行员 | |
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18
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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19
monasteries
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| 修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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20
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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21
hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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22
mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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23
amendment
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| n.改正，修正，改善，修正案 | |
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24
jealousies
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| n.妒忌( jealousy的名词复数 )；妒羡 | |
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25
domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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26
worthier
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| 应得某事物( worthy的比较级 )； 值得做某事； 可尊敬的； 有（某人或事物）的典型特征 | |
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27
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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28
Buddhism
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| n.佛教（教义） | |
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29
cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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30
aquiline
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| adj.钩状的，鹰的 | |
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31
militant
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| adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士 | |
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32
avowed
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| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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33
slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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34
resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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35
stew
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| n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑 | |
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36
musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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37
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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38
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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39
guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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40
mythologies
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| 神话学( mythology的名词复数 )； 神话（总称）； 虚构的事实； 错误的观点 | |
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41
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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42
festive
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| adj.欢宴的，节日的 | |
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43
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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44
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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45
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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46
narrate
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| v.讲，叙述 | |
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47
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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48
attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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49
volcanic
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| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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50
narrated
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| v.故事( narrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
commemorating
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| v.纪念，庆祝( commemorate的现在分词 ) | |
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52
poke
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| n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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53
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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54
incongruity
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| n.不协调，不一致 | |
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55
adorning
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| 修饰，装饰物 | |
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56
rejuvenated
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| 更生的 | |
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57
jaunty
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| adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意 | |
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58
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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59
pivot
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| v.在枢轴上转动；装枢轴，枢轴；adj.枢轴的 | |
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60
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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61
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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62
soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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63
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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64
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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65
starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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66
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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67
carnival
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| n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演 | |
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68
follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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69
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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70
humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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71
reverently
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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72
sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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73
snob
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| n.势利小人，自以为高雅、有学问的人 | |
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74
rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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75
revels
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| n.作乐( revel的名词复数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉v.作乐( revel的第三人称单数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
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76
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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77
continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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78
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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80
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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81
ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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82
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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83
monologue
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| n.长篇大论，（戏剧等中的）独白 | |
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84
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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85
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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86
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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87
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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88
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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89
justifying
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| 证明…有理( justify的现在分词 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护） | |
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90
prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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91
turnover
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| n.人员流动率，人事变动率；营业额，成交量 | |
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92
scrapping
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| 刮，切除坯体余泥 | |
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93
consignments
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| n.托付货物( consignment的名词复数 )；托卖货物；寄售；托运 | |
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94
eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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95
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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96
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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97
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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98
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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99
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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100
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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101
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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102
bristles
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| 短而硬的毛发，刷子毛( bristle的名词复数 ) | |
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103
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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104
hysterically
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| ad. 歇斯底里地 | |
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105
implore
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| vt.乞求，恳求，哀求 | |
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106
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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107
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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108
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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109
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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110
deluded
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| v.欺骗，哄骗( delude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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111
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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idiocy
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| n.愚蠢 | |
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113
satirize
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| v.讽刺 | |
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114
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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115
maniacal
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| adj.发疯的 | |
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116
ineffable
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| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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117
disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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118
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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119
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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120
dynamite
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| n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破) | |
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121
dynamiting
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| v.（尤指用于采矿的）甘油炸药( dynamite的现在分词 )；会引起轰动的人[事物]；增重 | |
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122
remonstrated
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| v.抗议( remonstrate的过去式和过去分词 )；告诫 | |
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hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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delicacies
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| n.棘手( delicacy的名词复数 )；精致；精美的食物；周到 | |
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stinks
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| v.散发出恶臭( stink的第三人称单数 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透 | |
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127
aristocrat
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| n.贵族，有贵族气派的人，上层人物 | |
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128
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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reeking
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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gushing
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| adj.迸出的；涌出的；喷出的；过分热情的v.喷，涌( gush的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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cant
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| n.斜穿，黑话，猛扔 | |
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relatively
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| adv.比较...地，相对地 | |
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prologue
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| n.开场白，序言；开端，序幕 | |
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135
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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moodily
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| adv.喜怒无常地；情绪多变地；心情不稳地；易生气地 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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138
pugnacity
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| n.好斗，好战 | |
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gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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140
gateways
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| n.网关( gateway的名词复数 )；门径；方法；大门口 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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142
lumbering
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| n.采伐林木 | |
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143
intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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cocktails
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| n.鸡尾酒( cocktail的名词复数 )；餐前开胃菜；混合物 | |
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tepid
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| adj.微温的，温热的，不太热心的 | |
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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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jug
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| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
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irreverence
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| n.不尊敬 | |
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153
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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154
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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disarm
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| v.解除武装，回复平常的编制，缓和 | |
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156
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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157
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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158
livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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159
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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prostrate
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| v.拜倒，平卧，衰竭；adj.拜倒的，平卧的，衰竭的 | |
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