CHAPTER 583Word文档格式.docx

1、You know, we English are so dreadfully ignorant. You must forgive me if its necessary to explain. Then she turned to me. Mr. Van Busche Taylor is the distinguished American critic. If you havent read his book your education has been shamefully neglected, and you must repair the omission at once. Hes

2、 writing something about dear Charlie, and hes come to ask me if I can help him. Mr. Van Busche Taylor was a very thin man with a large, bald head, bony and shining; and under the great dome of his skull his face, yellow, with deep lines in it, looked very small. He was quiet and exceedingly polite.

3、 He spoke with the accent of New England, and there was about his demeanour a bloodless frigidity which made me ask myself why on earth he was busying himself with Charles Strickland. I had been slightly tickled at the gentleness which Mrs. Strickland put into her mention of her husbands name, and w

4、hile the pair conversed I took stock of the room in which we sat. Mrs. Strickland had moved with the times. Gone were the Morris papers and gone the severe cretonnes, gone were the Arundel prints that had adorned the walls of her drawing-room in Ashley Gardens; the room blazed with fantastic colour,

5、 and I wondered if she knew that those varied hues, which fashion had imposed upon her, were due to the dreams of a poor painter in a South Sea island. She gave me the answer herself. What wonderful cushions you have, said Mr. Van Busche Taylor. Do you like them? she said, smiling. Bakst, you know.

6、And yet on the walls were coloured reproductions of several of Stricklands best pictures, due to the enterprise of a publisher in Berlin. Youre looking at my pictures, she said, following my eyes. Of course, the originals are out of my reach, but its a comfort to have these. The publisher sent them

7、to me himself. Theyre a great consolation to me.They must be very pleasant to live with,Yes; theyre so essentially decorative.That is one of my profoundest convictions, said Mr. Van Busche Taylor. Great art is always decorative. Their eyes rested on a nude woman suckling a baby, while a girl was kne

8、eling by their side holding out a flower to the indifferent child. Looking over them was a wrinkled, scraggy hag. It was Stricklands version of the Holy Family. I suspected that for the figures had sat his household above Taravao, and the woman and the baby were Ata and his first son. I asked myself

9、 if Mrs. Strickland had any inkling of the facts. The conversation proceeded, and I marvelled at the tact with which Mr. Van Busche Taylor avoided all subjects that might have been in the least embarrassing, and at the ingenuity with which Mrs. Strickland, without saying a word that was untrue, insi

10、nuated that her relations with her husband had always been perfect. At last Mr. Van Busche Taylor rose to go. Holding his hostess hand, he made her a graceful, though perhaps too elaborate, speech of thanks, and left us. I hope he didnt bore you, she said, when the door closed behind him. Of course

11、its a nuisance sometimes, but I feel its only right to give people any information I can about Charlie. Theres a certain responsibility about having been the wife of a genius. She looked at me with those pleasant eyes of hers, which had remained as candid and as sympathetic as they had been more tha

12、n twenty years before. I wondered if she was making a fool of me. Of course youve given up your business, I said. Oh, yes, she answered airily. I ran it more by way of a hobby than for any other reason, and my children persuaded me to sell it. They thought I was overtaxing my strength. I saw that Mr

13、s. Strickland had forgotten that she had ever done anything so disgraceful as to work for her living. She had the true instinct of the nice woman that it is only really decent for her to live on other peoples money. Theyre here now, she said. I thought theyd, like to hear what you had to say about t

14、heir father. You remember Robert, dont you? Im glad to say hes been recommended for the Military Cross. She went to the door and called them. There entered a tall man in khaki, with the parsons collar, handsome in a somewhat heavy fashion, but with the frank eyes that I remembered in him as a boy. H

15、e was followed by his sister. She must have been the same age as was her mother when first I knew her, and she was very like her. She too gave one the impression that as a girl she must have been prettier than indeed she was. I suppose you dont remember them in the least, said Mrs. Strickland, proud

16、 and smiling. My daughter is now Mrs. Ronaldson. Her husbands a Major in the Gunners.Hes by way of being a pukka soldier, you know, said Mrs. Ronaldson gaily. Thats why hes only a Major. I remembered my anticipation long ago that she would marry a soldier. It was inevitable. She had all the graces o

17、f the soldiers wife. She was civil and affable, but she could hardly conceal her intimate conviction that she was not quite as others were. Robert was breezy. Its a bit of luck that I should be in London when you turned up, he said. Ive only got three days leave.s dying to get back, said his mother.

18、 Well, I dont mind confessing it, I have a rattling good time at the front. Ive made a lot of good pals. Its a first-rate life. Of course wars terrible, and all that sort of thing; but it does bring out the best qualities in a man, theres no denying that. Then I told them what I had learned about Ch

19、arles Strickland in Tahiti. I thought it unnecessary to say anything of Ata and her boy, but for the rest I was as accurate as I could be. When I had narrated his lamentable death I ceased. For a minute or two we were all silent. Then Robert Strickland struck a match and lit a cigarette. The mills o

20、f God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small, he said, somewhat impressively. Mrs. Strickland and Mrs. Ronaldson looked down with a slightly pious expression which indicated, I felt sure, that they thought the quotation was from Holy Writ. Indeed, I was unconvinced that Robert Strickland did n

21、ot share their illusion. I do not know why I suddenly thought of Stricklands son by Ata. They had told me he was a merry, light-hearted youth. I saw him, with my minds eye, on the schooner on which he worked, wearing nothing but a pair of dungarees; and at night, when the boat sailed along easily be

22、fore a light breeze, and the sailors were gathered on the upper deck, while the captain and the supercargo lolled in deck-chairs, smoking their pipes, I saw him dance with another lad, dance wildly, to the wheezy music of the concertina. Above was the blue sky, and the stars, and all about the deser

23、t of the Pacific Ocean. A quotation from the Bible came to my lips, but I held my tongue, for I know that clergymen think it a little blasphemous when the laity poach upon their preserves. My Uncle Henry, for twenty-seven years Vicar of Whitstable, was on these occasions in the habit of saying that the devil could always quote scripture to his purpose. He remembered the days when you could get thirteen Royal Natives for a shilling.