章节正文
things--and a letter for me. Here it is. Let me read it to you.
"My dear Miss Omar:
Once on a time there was a Luckless Pot, marred in the making,
that had the luck to be of service to a Pipkin.
It was a saucy Pipkin, though a very winning one, and it had all
the health and strength the poor Pot lacked--physically.
Morally--morally, that young Pipkin was in a most unwholesome
condition. Already its fair, smooth surface was scratched and
fouled. It was unmindful of the treasure of good it contained,
and its responsibility to keep that good intact. And it seemed
destined to crash itself to pieces among pots of baser metal.
What the Luckless Pot did was little--being ignorant of the art
by which diamonds may be attained easily and honestly--but it
gave the little Pipkin a chance.
What the Pipkin did with that chance the Pot learned to-night,
with such pleasure and satisfaction as made it impossible for him
not to share it with her. So while he sent Burnett out to the
conservatory to cut azaleas, he wrote her a note to try to convey
to her what he felt when, in that nicely polished, neatly
decorated and self-respecting Vessel on exhibition in Mrs. Gates'
red room, he recognized the poor little Pipkin of other days.
The Pot, as you know, was a sort of stranded bit of clay that had
never filled the use for which pots are created. He had little
human to interest him. The fate of the Pipkin, therefore, he had
often pondered on; and, in spite of improbabilities, had had
faith in a certain quality of brave sincerity the little thing
showed; a quality that shone through acquired faults like a star
in a murky sky.
This justification of his faith in the Pipkin may seem a small
matter to make so much of. And yet the Pot--that sleeps not well
o' nights, as is the case with damaged pots--will take to bed
with him to-night a pretty, pleasant thought due just to this.
But do not think the Pot an idealist. If he were, he might have
been tempted to mistake the Pipkin for a statelier, more
pretentious Vessel--a Vase, say, all graceful curves and embossed
sides, but shallow, perhaps, possibly lackingbreadth. No, the
Pipkin is a pipkin, made of common clay--even though it has the
uncommonsweetness and strength to overcome the tendencies of
clay--and fashioned for those common uses of life, deprivation of
which to anything that comes from the Potter's hands is the most
enduring, the most uncommon sorrow.
O pretty little Pipkin, thank the Potter, who made you as you
are, as you will be--a thing that can cheer and stay men's souls
by ministering to the human needs of them. For you, be sure, the
Potter's `a good fellow and 'twill all be well.'
For the Pot--he sails shortly, or rather, he is to be carted
abroad by some optimistic friends whose hopes he does not
share--to a celebratedrepair shop for damaged pots. Whether he
shall return, patched and mended into temporarysemblance of a
useful Vessel; whether he shall continue to be merely the same
old Luckless Pot, or whether he shall return at all, O Pipkin,
does not matter much.
But it has been well that, before we two behind the veil had
passed, we met again, and you left me such a fragrant memory.
LATIMER."
* * * * * * * * * *
O Maggie, Maggie, some day I hope to see that man and tell him
how sorely the Pipkin needed the Pot's letter!
IX.
It's all come so quick, Maggie, and it was over so soon that I
hardly remember the beginning.
Nobody on earth could have expected it less than I, when I came
off in the afternoon. I don't know what I was thinking of as I
came into my dressing-room, that used to be Gray's--the sight of
him seemed to cut me off from myself as with a knife--but it
wasn't of him.
It may have been that I was chuckling to myself at the thought of
Nancy Olden with a dressing-room all to herself. I can't ever
quite get used to that, you know, though I sail around there with
all the airs of the leading lady. Sometimes I see a twinkle in
Fred Obermuller's eye when I catch him watching me, and goodness
knows he's been glum enough of late, but it wasn't--
Yes, I'm going to tell you, but--it's rattled me a bit, Maggie.
I'm so--so sorry, and a little--oh, just a little, little bit
glad!
I'd slammed the door behind me--the old place is out of repair
and the door won't shut except with a bang--and I had just
squatted down on the floor to unbutton my high shoes, when I
noticed the chintz curtains in front of the high dressing-box
waver. They must have moved just like that when I was behind them
months--it seems years--ago. But, you see, Topham had never
served an apprenticeship behind curtains, so he didn't suspect.
"Lordy, Nancy," I laughed to myself, "some one thinks you've
got a rose diamond and--"
nd at that moment he parted the curtains and came out.
Yes--Tom--Tom Dorgan.
My heart came beating up to my throat and then, just as I thought
I should choke, it slid down to my boots, sickening me. I didn't
say a word. I sat there, my foot in my lap, staring at him.
Oh, Maggie-girl, it isn't good to get your first glimpse after
all these months of the man you love crouched like a big bull in
a small space, poking his close-cropped black head out like a
turtle that's not sure something won't be thrown at it, and then
dragging his big bulk out and standing over you. He used to be
trim--Tom--and taut, but in those shapeless things, the old
trousers, the dirty white shirt, and the vest too big for him--
"Well," he said, "why don't you say something?"
Tom's voice--Mag, do you remember, the merry Irish boy's voice,
with its chuckles like a brook gurgling as it runs?
No--'tisn't the same voice. It's--it's changed, Maggie. It's
heavy and--and coarse--and--brutal. That's what it is. It sounds
like--like the knout, like--
"Nance--what in hell's--"
"I think I'm--frightened, Tom."
"Oh, the ladyfied airs of her! Ain't you going to faint, Miss
Olden?"
I got up.
"No--no. Sit down, Tom. Tell me about it. How--how did you get
here?"
He went to the door, opened it a bit and looked out cautiously.
Mag--Mag--it hurt me--that. Why, do you suppose?
"You're sure nobody'll come in?" he asked.
I turned the key in the lock, forgetting that it didn't really
lock.
"Oh, yes, I'm sure," I said. "Why?"
"Why! You have got slow. Just because I didn't say good-by to
them fellows up at the Pen, and--"
"Oh! You've escaped!"
"That's what. First jail-break in fifteen years. What d'ye think
of your Tommy, old girl, eh? Ain't he the gamest? Ain't you proud
of him?"
My God, Mag! Proud of him. He didn't know--he couldn't
see--himself. He, shut in like a wild beast, couldn't see what
this year has done for him. Oh, the change--the change in him! My
boy Tommy, with the gay, gallus manner, and the pretty, jolly
brogue, and the laughing mouth under his brown mustache. And this
man--his face is old, Mag, old--oh!--and hard--and--and tough,
cheap and tough. There's something in his eyes now and about his
shaven mouth--oh, Maggie, Maggie!
"Look here, Nance." He caught me by the shoulders, knocking up
my chin so that he could look down squarely at me. "What's your
graft? What's it to be between us? What've ye been doing all this
time? Out with it! I want to know."
I shook myself free and faced him.
"I've been--Tom Dorgan, I've been to hear the greatest actors
and actresses in the world say and do the finest things in the
world. I've watched princesses and kings--even if they're only
stage ones. I've read a new book every night--a great picture
book, in which the pictures move and speak--that's the stage, Tom
Dorgan. Much of it wasn't true, but a girl who's been brought up
by the Cruelty doesn't have to be told what's true and what's
false. I've met these people and lived with them--as one does who
thinks the same thoughts and feels what others feel. I know the
world now, Tom Dorgan, the real world of men and women--not the
little world of crooks, nor yet the littler one of fairy stories.
I've got a glimpse, too, of that other world where all the
scheming and lying and cheating is changed as if by magic into
something that deceives all right, but doesn't hurt. It's the
world of art and artists, Tom Dorgan, where people paint their
lies, or write them, or act them; where they lift money all right
from men's pockets, but lift their souls and their lives, too,
away from the things that trouble and bore and--and degrade.
"You needn't sneer; it's made a different Nance out of me, Tom
Dorgan. And, oh, but I'm sorry for the pert little beggar we both
knew that lied and stole and hid and ran and skulked! She was
like a poor little ignorant traveler in a great country where
she'd sized up the world from the few fool crooks she was thrown
in with. She--"
"Aw, cut it!"
"Tom--does--doesn't it mean anything to you? Can't it mean lots
to both of us now that--"
"Cut it, I tell you! Think I killed one guard and beat the other
till I'd broke every bone in his body to come here and listen to
such guff? You've been having a high old time, eh, and you never
give a thought to me up there! I might 'a' rotted in that black
hole for all you'd care, you--"
"Don't! I did, Tom; I did." I was shivering at the name, but I
couldn't bear his thinking that way of me. "I went up once, but
they wouldn't let me see you. I wrote you, but they sent back the
letters. Mag went up, too, but had to come back. And that time I
brought you--"
My voice trailed off. In that minute I saw myself on the way up
to Sing Sing with the basket and all my hopes and all my schemes
for amusing him.
And this is what I'd have seen if they'd let me in--this big,
gruff, murdering beast!
Oh, yes--yes--beast is what he is, and it didn't make him look it
less that he believed me and--and began to think of me in a
different way.
"I thought you wouldn't go back on a feller, Nance. That's why I
come straight to you. It was my game to have you hide me for a
day or two, till you could make a strike somewhere and we'd light
out together. How're ye fixed? Pretty smart, eh? You look it, my
girl, you look--My eye, Nance, you look good enough to eat, and
I'm hungry for you!"
Maggie, if I'd had to die for it I couldn't have moved then.
You'd think a man would know when the woman he's holding in his
arms is fainting--sick at the touch of him. A woman would. It
wasn't my Tom that I'd known, that I'd worked with and played
with and--It was a great brute, whose mouth--who had no eyes, no
ears, no senses but--ah! . . .
He laughed when I broke away from him at last. He laughed! And I
knew then I'd have to tell him straight in words.
"Tom," I gasped, "you can have all I've got; and it's plenty
to get you out of the way. But--but you can't have--me--any more.
That's--done!"
Oh, the beast in his face! It must have looked like that when the
guard got his last glimpse of it.
"You're kiddin' me?" he growled.
I shook my head.
Then he ripped it out. Said the worst he could and ended with a
"My dear Miss Omar:
Once on a time there was a Luckless Pot, marred in the making,
that had the luck to be of service to a Pipkin.
It was a saucy Pipkin, though a very winning one, and it had all
the health and strength the poor Pot lacked--physically.
Morally--morally, that young Pipkin was in a most unwholesome
condition. Already its fair, smooth surface was scratched and
fouled. It was unmindful of the treasure of good it contained,
and its responsibility to keep that good intact. And it seemed
destined to crash itself to pieces among pots of baser metal.
What the Luckless Pot did was little--being ignorant of the art
by which diamonds may be attained easily and honestly--but it
gave the little Pipkin a chance.
What the Pipkin did with that chance the Pot learned to-night,
with such pleasure and satisfaction as made it impossible for him
not to share it with her. So while he sent Burnett out to the
conservatory to cut azaleas, he wrote her a note to try to convey
to her what he felt when, in that nicely polished, neatly
decorated and self-respecting Vessel on exhibition in Mrs. Gates'
red room, he recognized the poor little Pipkin of other days.
The Pot, as you know, was a sort of stranded bit of clay that had
never filled the use for which pots are created. He had little
human to interest him. The fate of the Pipkin, therefore, he had
often pondered on; and, in spite of improbabilities, had had
faith in a certain quality of brave sincerity the little thing
showed; a quality that shone through acquired faults like a star
in a murky sky.
This justification of his faith in the Pipkin may seem a small
matter to make so much of. And yet the Pot--that sleeps not well
o' nights, as is the case with damaged pots--will take to bed
with him to-night a pretty, pleasant thought due just to this.
But do not think the Pot an idealist. If he were, he might have
been tempted to mistake the Pipkin for a statelier, more
pretentious Vessel--a Vase, say, all graceful curves and embossed
sides, but shallow, perhaps, possibly lackingbreadth. No, the
Pipkin is a pipkin, made of common clay--even though it has the
uncommonsweetness and strength to overcome the tendencies of
clay--and fashioned for those common uses of life, deprivation of
which to anything that comes from the Potter's hands is the most
enduring, the most uncommon sorrow.
O pretty little Pipkin, thank the Potter, who made you as you
are, as you will be--a thing that can cheer and stay men's souls
by ministering to the human needs of them. For you, be sure, the
Potter's `a good fellow and 'twill all be well.'
For the Pot--he sails shortly, or rather, he is to be carted
abroad by some optimistic friends whose hopes he does not
share--to a celebratedrepair shop for damaged pots. Whether he
shall return, patched and mended into temporarysemblance of a
useful Vessel; whether he shall continue to be merely the same
old Luckless Pot, or whether he shall return at all, O Pipkin,
does not matter much.
But it has been well that, before we two behind the veil had
passed, we met again, and you left me such a fragrant memory.
LATIMER."
* * * * * * * * * *
O Maggie, Maggie, some day I hope to see that man and tell him
how sorely the Pipkin needed the Pot's letter!
IX.
It's all come so quick, Maggie, and it was over so soon that I
hardly remember the beginning.
Nobody on earth could have expected it less than I, when I came
off in the afternoon. I don't know what I was thinking of as I
came into my dressing-room, that used to be Gray's--the sight of
him seemed to cut me off from myself as with a knife--but it
wasn't of him.
It may have been that I was chuckling to myself at the thought of
Nancy Olden with a dressing-room all to herself. I can't ever
quite get used to that, you know, though I sail around there with
all the airs of the leading lady. Sometimes I see a twinkle in
Fred Obermuller's eye when I catch him watching me, and goodness
knows he's been glum enough of late, but it wasn't--
Yes, I'm going to tell you, but--it's rattled me a bit, Maggie.
I'm so--so sorry, and a little--oh, just a little, little bit
glad!
I'd slammed the door behind me--the old place is out of repair
and the door won't shut except with a bang--and I had just
squatted down on the floor to unbutton my high shoes, when I
noticed the chintz curtains in front of the high dressing-box
waver. They must have moved just like that when I was behind them
months--it seems years--ago. But, you see, Topham had never
served an apprenticeship behind curtains, so he didn't suspect.
"Lordy, Nancy," I laughed to myself, "some one thinks you've
got a rose diamond and--"
nd at that moment he parted the curtains and came out.
Yes--Tom--Tom Dorgan.
My heart came beating up to my throat and then, just as I thought
I should choke, it slid down to my boots, sickening me. I didn't
say a word. I sat there, my foot in my lap, staring at him.
Oh, Maggie-girl, it isn't good to get your first glimpse after
all these months of the man you love crouched like a big bull in
a small space, poking his close-cropped black head out like a
turtle that's not sure something won't be thrown at it, and then
dragging his big bulk out and standing over you. He used to be
trim--Tom--and taut, but in those shapeless things, the old
trousers, the dirty white shirt, and the vest too big for him--
"Well," he said, "why don't you say something?"
Tom's voice--Mag, do you remember, the merry Irish boy's voice,
with its chuckles like a brook gurgling as it runs?
No--'tisn't the same voice. It's--it's changed, Maggie. It's
heavy and--and coarse--and--brutal. That's what it is. It sounds
like--like the knout, like--
"Nance--what in hell's--"
"I think I'm--frightened, Tom."
"Oh, the ladyfied airs of her! Ain't you going to faint, Miss
Olden?"
I got up.
"No--no. Sit down, Tom. Tell me about it. How--how did you get
here?"
He went to the door, opened it a bit and looked out cautiously.
Mag--Mag--it hurt me--that. Why, do you suppose?
"You're sure nobody'll come in?" he asked.
I turned the key in the lock, forgetting that it didn't really
lock.
"Oh, yes, I'm sure," I said. "Why?"
"Why! You have got slow. Just because I didn't say good-by to
them fellows up at the Pen, and--"
"Oh! You've escaped!"
"That's what. First jail-break in fifteen years. What d'ye think
of your Tommy, old girl, eh? Ain't he the gamest? Ain't you proud
of him?"
My God, Mag! Proud of him. He didn't know--he couldn't
see--himself. He, shut in like a wild beast, couldn't see what
this year has done for him. Oh, the change--the change in him! My
boy Tommy, with the gay, gallus manner, and the pretty, jolly
brogue, and the laughing mouth under his brown mustache. And this
man--his face is old, Mag, old--oh!--and hard--and--and tough,
cheap and tough. There's something in his eyes now and about his
shaven mouth--oh, Maggie, Maggie!
"Look here, Nance." He caught me by the shoulders, knocking up
my chin so that he could look down squarely at me. "What's your
graft? What's it to be between us? What've ye been doing all this
time? Out with it! I want to know."
I shook myself free and faced him.
"I've been--Tom Dorgan, I've been to hear the greatest actors
and actresses in the world say and do the finest things in the
world. I've watched princesses and kings--even if they're only
stage ones. I've read a new book every night--a great picture
book, in which the pictures move and speak--that's the stage, Tom
Dorgan. Much of it wasn't true, but a girl who's been brought up
by the Cruelty doesn't have to be told what's true and what's
false. I've met these people and lived with them--as one does who
thinks the same thoughts and feels what others feel. I know the
world now, Tom Dorgan, the real world of men and women--not the
little world of crooks, nor yet the littler one of fairy stories.
I've got a glimpse, too, of that other world where all the
scheming and lying and cheating is changed as if by magic into
something that deceives all right, but doesn't hurt. It's the
world of art and artists, Tom Dorgan, where people paint their
lies, or write them, or act them; where they lift money all right
from men's pockets, but lift their souls and their lives, too,
away from the things that trouble and bore and--and degrade.
"You needn't sneer; it's made a different Nance out of me, Tom
Dorgan. And, oh, but I'm sorry for the pert little beggar we both
knew that lied and stole and hid and ran and skulked! She was
like a poor little ignorant traveler in a great country where
she'd sized up the world from the few fool crooks she was thrown
in with. She--"
"Aw, cut it!"
"Tom--does--doesn't it mean anything to you? Can't it mean lots
to both of us now that--"
"Cut it, I tell you! Think I killed one guard and beat the other
till I'd broke every bone in his body to come here and listen to
such guff? You've been having a high old time, eh, and you never
give a thought to me up there! I might 'a' rotted in that black
hole for all you'd care, you--"
"Don't! I did, Tom; I did." I was shivering at the name, but I
couldn't bear his thinking that way of me. "I went up once, but
they wouldn't let me see you. I wrote you, but they sent back the
letters. Mag went up, too, but had to come back. And that time I
brought you--"
My voice trailed off. In that minute I saw myself on the way up
to Sing Sing with the basket and all my hopes and all my schemes
for amusing him.
And this is what I'd have seen if they'd let me in--this big,
gruff, murdering beast!
Oh, yes--yes--beast is what he is, and it didn't make him look it
less that he believed me and--and began to think of me in a
different way.
"I thought you wouldn't go back on a feller, Nance. That's why I
come straight to you. It was my game to have you hide me for a
day or two, till you could make a strike somewhere and we'd light
out together. How're ye fixed? Pretty smart, eh? You look it, my
girl, you look--My eye, Nance, you look good enough to eat, and
I'm hungry for you!"
Maggie, if I'd had to die for it I couldn't have moved then.
You'd think a man would know when the woman he's holding in his
arms is fainting--sick at the touch of him. A woman would. It
wasn't my Tom that I'd known, that I'd worked with and played
with and--It was a great brute, whose mouth--who had no eyes, no
ears, no senses but--ah! . . .
He laughed when I broke away from him at last. He laughed! And I
knew then I'd have to tell him straight in words.
"Tom," I gasped, "you can have all I've got; and it's plenty
to get you out of the way. But--but you can't have--me--any more.
That's--done!"
Oh, the beast in his face! It must have looked like that when the
guard got his last glimpse of it.
"You're kiddin' me?" he growled.
I shook my head.
Then he ripped it out. Said the worst he could and ended with a
- responsibility [ri,spɔnsə´biliti]
n.责任(心)；职责；任务 (初中英语单词) - ignorant [´ignərənt] a.无知的，愚昧的 (初中英语单词)
- satisfaction [,sætis´fækʃən] n.满意；满足 (初中英语单词)
- nicely [naisli] ad.恰好地；谨慎地 (初中英语单词)
- vessel [´vesəl] n.容器；船；脉管 (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- graceful [´greisfəl] a.优美的，流畅的 (初中英语单词)
- shallow [´ʃæləu] a.肤浅的；表面的 (初中英语单词)
- overcome [,əuvə´kʌm] vt.战胜，克服 (初中英语单词)
- shortly [´ʃɔ:tli] ad.立刻，马上；不久 (初中英语单词)
- celebrated [´selibreitid] a.著名的 (初中英语单词)
- repair [ri´peə] v.&n.修理，修补 (初中英语单词)
- twinkle [´twiŋkl] vi.&n.闪烁；眨眼 (初中英语单词)
- throat [θrəut] n.咽喉；嗓子；出入口 (初中英语单词)
- glimpse [glimps] n.&v.瞥见 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- beggar [´begə] n.乞丐 (初中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- exhibition [eksi´biʃ(ə)n] n.展览；显示；表演 (高中英语单词)
- breadth [bredθ] n.宽度，幅面，广度 (高中英语单词)
- sweetness [´swi:tnis] n.甜蜜；芳香；亲切 (高中英语单词)
- temporary [´tempərəri] a.暂时的 n.临时工 (高中英语单词)
- fragrant [´freigrənt] a.芳香的，芬芳的 (高中英语单词)
- cruelty [´kru:əlti] n.残忍；残酷行为 (高中英语单词)
- amusing [ə´mju:ziŋ] a.有趣的 (高中英语单词)
- winning [´winiŋ] n.&a.胜利(的) (英语四级单词)
- sincerity [sin´seriti] n.真诚；诚意 (英语四级单词)
- uncommon [ʌn´kɔmən] a.非常的，非凡的，罕见的 (英语四级单词)
- semblance [´sembləns] n.外表；伪装；相似 (英语四级单词)
- sickening [´sikəniŋ, ´sikniŋ] a.引起疾病的 (英语四级单词)
- mustache [mə´stɑ:ʃ] n.髭，小胡子 (英语四级单词)
- squarely [´skwɛəli] ad.成方形地；正直地 (英语四级单词)
- intact [in´tækt] a.未动过的，完整的 (英语六级单词)
- justification [,dʒʌstifi´keiʃən] n.辩护；根据；缘故 (英语六级单词)
- lacking [´lækiŋ] a.缺少的，没有的 (英语六级单词)
- sorely [´sɔ:li] ad.痛苦地；剧烈地 (英语六级单词)
- chintz [tʃints] n.&a.擦光印花布(的) (英语六级单词)
- apprenticeship [ə´prentisʃip] n.学徒工身份 (英语六级单词)
- beating [´bi:tiŋ] n.敲；搅打；失败 (英语六级单词)
- shapeless [´ʃeiplis] a.无定形的；不成样的 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
京公网安备 11011202003401号
