章节正文
"Because I have ceased to believe--"
"But had it nothing to do with Lady Sunderbund?"
He stared at her in astonishment.
"If it means breaking with that woman," she said.
"You mean," he said, beginning for the first time to comprehend
her, "that you don't mind the poverty?"
"Poverty!" she cried. "I cared for nothing but the disgrace."
"Disgrace?"
"Oh, never mind, Ted! If it isn't true, if I've been
dreaming...."
Instead of a woman stunned by a life sentence of poverty, he
saw his wife rejoicing as if she had heard good news.
Their minds were held for a minute by the sound of some one
knocking at the house door; one of the girls opened the door,
there was a brief hubbub in the passage and then they heard a cry
of "Eleanor!" through the folding doors.
"There's Eleanor," he said, realizing he had told his wife
nothing of the encounter in Hyde Park.
They heard Eleanor's clear voice: "Where's Mummy? Or Daddy?"
and then: "Can't stay now, dears. Where's Mummy or Daddy?"
"I ought to have told you," said Scrope quickly. "I met Eleanor
in the Park. By accident. She's come up unexpectedly. To meet a
boy going to the front. Quite a nice boy. Son of Riverton the
doctor. The parting had made them understand one another. It's
all right, Ella. It's a little irregular, but I'd stake my life
on the boy. She's very lucky."
Eleanor appeared through the folding doors. She came to
business at once.
"I promised you I'd come back to supper here, Daddy," she said.
"But I don't want to have supper here. I want to stay out late."
She saw her mother look perplexed. "Hasn't Daddy told you?"
"But where is young Riverton?"
"He's outside."
Eleanor became aware of a broad chink in the folding doors that
was making the dining-room an auditorium for their dialogue. She
shut them deftly.
"I have told Mummy," Scrope explained. "Bring him in to supper.
We ought to see him."
Eleanor hesitated. She indicated her sisters beyond the folding
doors. "They'll all be watching us, Mummy," she said. "We'd be
uncomfortable. And besides
"But you can't go out and dine with him alone!"
"Oh, Mummy! It's our only chance."
"Customs are changing," said Scrope.
"But can they?" asked Lady Ella.
"I don't see why not."
The mother was still doubtful, but she was in no mood to cross
her husband that night. "It's an exceptional" target="_blank" title="a.异常的，特别的">exceptional occasion," said
Scrope, and Eleanor knew her point was won. She became radiant.
"I can be late?"
Scrope handed her his latch-key without a word.
"You dear kind things," she said, and went to the door. Then
turned and came back and kissed her father. Then she kissed her
mother. "It is so kind of you," she said, and was gone. They
listened to her passage through a storm of questions in the
dining-room.
"Three months ago that would have shocked me," said Lady Ella.
"You haven't seen the boy," said Scrope.
"But the appearances!"
"Aren't we rather breaking with appearances?" he said.
"And he goes to-morrow--perhaps to get killed," he added. "A
lad like a schoolboy. A young thing. Because of the political
foolery that we priests and teachers have suffered in the place
of the Kingdom of God, because we have allowed the religion of
Europe to become a lie; because no man spoke the word of God. You
see--when I see that--see those two, those children of one-and-
twenty, wrenched by tragedy, beginning with a parting.... It's
like a knife slashing at all our appearances and discretions....
Think of our lovemaking...."
The front door banged.
He had some idea of resuming their talk. But his was a
scattered mind now.
"It's a quarter to eight," he said as if in explanation.
"I must see to the supper," said Lady Ella.
(16)
There was an air of tension at supper as though the whole
family felt that momentous words impended. But Phoebe had emerged
victorious from her mathematical struggle, and she seemed to eat
with better appetite than she had shown for some time. It was a
cold meat supper; Lady Ella had found it impossible to keep up
the regular practice of a cooked dinner in the evening, and now
it was only on Thursdays that the Scropes, to preserve their
social tradition, dressed and dined; the rest of the week they
supped. Lady Ella never talked very much at supper; this evening
was no exception. Clementina talked of London University and
Bedford College; she had been making enquiries; Daphne described
some of the mistresses at her new school. The feeling that
something was expected had got upon Scrope's nerves. He talked a
little in a flat and obvious way, and lapsed into thoughtful
silences. While supper was being cleared away he went back into
his study.
Thence he returned to the dining-room hearthrug as his family
resumed their various occupations.
He tried to speak in a casual conversational tone.
"I want to tell you all," he said, "of something that has
happened to-day."
He waited. Phoebe had begun to figure at a fresh sheet of
computations. Miriam bent her head closer over her work, as
though she winced at what was coming. Daphne and Clementina
looked at one another. Their eyes said "Eleanor!" But he was too
full of his own intention to read that glance. Only his wife
regarded him attentively.
"It concerns you all," he said.
He looked at Phoebe. He saw Lady Ella's hand go out and touch
the girl's hand gently to make her desist. Phoebe obeyed, with a
little sigh.
"I want to tell you that to-day I refused an income that would
certainly have exceeded fifteen hundred pounds a year."
Clementina looked up now. This was not what she expected. Her
expression conveyed protesting enquiry.
"I want you all to understand why I did that and why we are in
the position we are in, and what lies before us. I want you to
know what has been going on in my mind."
He looked down at the hearthrug, and tried to throw off a
memory of his Princhester classes for young women, that oppressed
him. His manner he forced to a more familiar note. He stuck his
hands into his trouser pockets.
"You know, my dears, I had to give up the church. I just simply
didn't believe any more in orthodox Church teaching. And I feel
I've never explained that properly to you. Not at all clearly. I
want to explain that now. It's a queer thing, I know, for me to
say to you, but I want you to understand that I am a religious
man. I believe that God matters more than wealth or comfort or
position or the respect of men, that he also matters more than
your comfort and prosperity. God knows I have cared for your
comfort and prosperity. I don't want you to think that in all
these changes we have been through lately, I haven't been aware
of all the discomfort into which you have come--the relative
discomfort. Compared with Princhester this is dark and crowded
and poverty-stricken. I have never felt crowded before, but in
this house I know you are horriblycrowded. It is a house that
seems almost contrived for small discomforts. This narrow passage
outside; the incessant going up and down stairs. And there are
other things. There is the blankness of our London Sundays. What
is the good of pretending? They are desolating. There's the
impossibility too of getting good servants to come into our
dug-out kitchen. I'm not blind to all these sordid consequences.
But all the same, God has to be served first. I had to come to
this. I felt I could not serve God any longer as a bishop in the
established church, because I did not believe that the
established church was serving God. I struggled against that
conviction--and I struggled against it largely for your sakes.
But I had to obey my conviction.... I haven't talked to you about
these things as much as I should have done, but partly at least
that is due to the fact that my own mind has been changing and
reconsidering, going forward and going back, and in that fluid
state it didn't seem fair to tell you things that I might
presently find mistaken. But now I begin to feel that I have
really thought out things, and that they are definite enough to
tell you....
He paused and resumed. "A number of things have helped to
change the opinions in which I grew up and in which you have
grown up. There were worries at Princhester; I didn't let you
know much about them, but there were. There was something harsh
and cruel in that atmosphere. I saw for the first time--it's a
lesson I'm still only learning--how harsh and greedy rich
people and employing people are to poor people and working
people, and how ineffective our church was to make things better.
That struck me. There were religious disputes in the diocese too,
and they shook me. I thought my faith was built on a rock, and I
found it was built on sand. It was slipping and sliding long
before the war. But the war brought it down. Before the war such
a lot of things in England and Europe seemed like a comedy or a
farce, a bad joke that one tolerated. One tried half consciously,
half avoiding the knowledge of what one was doing, to keep one's
own little circle and life civilized. The war shook all those
ideas of isolation, all that sort of evasion, down. The world is
the rightful kingdom of God; we had left its affairs to kings and
emperors and suchlike impostors, to priests and profit-seekers
and greedy men. We were genteel condoners. The war has ended
that. It thrusts into all our lives. It brings death so close--
A fortnight ago twenty-seven people were killed and injured
within a mile of this by Zeppelin bombs.... Every one loses some
one.... Because through all that time men like myself were going
through our priestly mummeries, abasing ourselves to kings and
politicians, when we ought to have been crying out: 'No! No!
There is no righteousness in the world, there is no right
government, except it be the kingdom of God.'"
He paused and looked at them. They were all listening to him
now. But he was still haunted by a dread of preaching in his own
family. He dropped to the conversational note again.
"You see what I had in mind. I saw I must come out of this, and
preach the kingdom of God. That was my idea. I don't want to
force it upon you, but I want you to understand why I acted as I
did. But let me come to the particular thing that has happened
to-day. I did not think when I made my final decision to leave
the church that it meant such poverty as this we are living in--
permanently. That is what I want to make clear to you. I thought
there would be a temporary dip into dinginess, but that was all.
There was a plan; at the time it seemed a right and reasonable
plan; for setting up a chapel in London, a very plain and simple
undenominational chapel, for the simple preaching of the world
kingdom of God. There was some one who seemed prepared to meet
all the immediate demands for such a chapel."
"Was it Lady Sunderbund?" asked Clementina.
Scrope was pulled up abruptly. "Yes," he said. "It seemed at
first a quite hopeful project."
"We'd have hated that," said Clementina, with a glance as if
for assent, at her mother. "We should all have hated that."
"Anyhow it has fallen through."
"We don't mind that," said Clementina, and Daphne echoed her
"But had it nothing to do with Lady Sunderbund?"
He stared at her in astonishment.
"If it means breaking with that woman," she said.
"You mean," he said, beginning for the first time to comprehend
her, "that you don't mind the poverty?"
"Poverty!" she cried. "I cared for nothing but the disgrace."
"Disgrace?"
"Oh, never mind, Ted! If it isn't true, if I've been
dreaming...."
Instead of a woman stunned by a life sentence of poverty, he
saw his wife rejoicing as if she had heard good news.
Their minds were held for a minute by the sound of some one
knocking at the house door; one of the girls opened the door,
there was a brief hubbub in the passage and then they heard a cry
of "Eleanor!" through the folding doors.
"There's Eleanor," he said, realizing he had told his wife
nothing of the encounter in Hyde Park.
They heard Eleanor's clear voice: "Where's Mummy? Or Daddy?"
and then: "Can't stay now, dears. Where's Mummy or Daddy?"
"I ought to have told you," said Scrope quickly. "I met Eleanor
in the Park. By accident. She's come up unexpectedly. To meet a
boy going to the front. Quite a nice boy. Son of Riverton the
doctor. The parting had made them understand one another. It's
all right, Ella. It's a little irregular, but I'd stake my life
on the boy. She's very lucky."
Eleanor appeared through the folding doors. She came to
business at once.
"I promised you I'd come back to supper here, Daddy," she said.
"But I don't want to have supper here. I want to stay out late."
She saw her mother look perplexed. "Hasn't Daddy told you?"
"But where is young Riverton?"
"He's outside."
Eleanor became aware of a broad chink in the folding doors that
was making the dining-room an auditorium for their dialogue. She
shut them deftly.
"I have told Mummy," Scrope explained. "Bring him in to supper.
We ought to see him."
Eleanor hesitated. She indicated her sisters beyond the folding
doors. "They'll all be watching us, Mummy," she said. "We'd be
uncomfortable. And besides
"But you can't go out and dine with him alone!"
"Oh, Mummy! It's our only chance."
"Customs are changing," said Scrope.
"But can they?" asked Lady Ella.
"I don't see why not."
The mother was still doubtful, but she was in no mood to cross
her husband that night. "It's an exceptional" target="_blank" title="a.异常的，特别的">exceptional occasion," said
Scrope, and Eleanor knew her point was won. She became radiant.
"I can be late?"
Scrope handed her his latch-key without a word.
"You dear kind things," she said, and went to the door. Then
turned and came back and kissed her father. Then she kissed her
mother. "It is so kind of you," she said, and was gone. They
listened to her passage through a storm of questions in the
dining-room.
"Three months ago that would have shocked me," said Lady Ella.
"You haven't seen the boy," said Scrope.
"But the appearances!"
"Aren't we rather breaking with appearances?" he said.
"And he goes to-morrow--perhaps to get killed," he added. "A
lad like a schoolboy. A young thing. Because of the political
foolery that we priests and teachers have suffered in the place
of the Kingdom of God, because we have allowed the religion of
Europe to become a lie; because no man spoke the word of God. You
see--when I see that--see those two, those children of one-and-
twenty, wrenched by tragedy, beginning with a parting.... It's
like a knife slashing at all our appearances and discretions....
Think of our lovemaking...."
The front door banged.
He had some idea of resuming their talk. But his was a
scattered mind now.
"It's a quarter to eight," he said as if in explanation.
"I must see to the supper," said Lady Ella.
(16)
There was an air of tension at supper as though the whole
family felt that momentous words impended. But Phoebe had emerged
victorious from her mathematical struggle, and she seemed to eat
with better appetite than she had shown for some time. It was a
cold meat supper; Lady Ella had found it impossible to keep up
the regular practice of a cooked dinner in the evening, and now
it was only on Thursdays that the Scropes, to preserve their
social tradition, dressed and dined; the rest of the week they
supped. Lady Ella never talked very much at supper; this evening
was no exception. Clementina talked of London University and
Bedford College; she had been making enquiries; Daphne described
some of the mistresses at her new school. The feeling that
something was expected had got upon Scrope's nerves. He talked a
little in a flat and obvious way, and lapsed into thoughtful
silences. While supper was being cleared away he went back into
his study.
Thence he returned to the dining-room hearthrug as his family
resumed their various occupations.
He tried to speak in a casual conversational tone.
"I want to tell you all," he said, "of something that has
happened to-day."
He waited. Phoebe had begun to figure at a fresh sheet of
computations. Miriam bent her head closer over her work, as
though she winced at what was coming. Daphne and Clementina
looked at one another. Their eyes said "Eleanor!" But he was too
full of his own intention to read that glance. Only his wife
regarded him attentively.
"It concerns you all," he said.
He looked at Phoebe. He saw Lady Ella's hand go out and touch
the girl's hand gently to make her desist. Phoebe obeyed, with a
little sigh.
"I want to tell you that to-day I refused an income that would
certainly have exceeded fifteen hundred pounds a year."
Clementina looked up now. This was not what she expected. Her
expression conveyed protesting enquiry.
"I want you all to understand why I did that and why we are in
the position we are in, and what lies before us. I want you to
know what has been going on in my mind."
He looked down at the hearthrug, and tried to throw off a
memory of his Princhester classes for young women, that oppressed
him. His manner he forced to a more familiar note. He stuck his
hands into his trouser pockets.
"You know, my dears, I had to give up the church. I just simply
didn't believe any more in orthodox Church teaching. And I feel
I've never explained that properly to you. Not at all clearly. I
want to explain that now. It's a queer thing, I know, for me to
say to you, but I want you to understand that I am a religious
man. I believe that God matters more than wealth or comfort or
position or the respect of men, that he also matters more than
your comfort and prosperity. God knows I have cared for your
comfort and prosperity. I don't want you to think that in all
these changes we have been through lately, I haven't been aware
of all the discomfort into which you have come--the relative
discomfort. Compared with Princhester this is dark and crowded
and poverty-stricken. I have never felt crowded before, but in
this house I know you are horriblycrowded. It is a house that
seems almost contrived for small discomforts. This narrow passage
outside; the incessant going up and down stairs. And there are
other things. There is the blankness of our London Sundays. What
is the good of pretending? They are desolating. There's the
impossibility too of getting good servants to come into our
dug-out kitchen. I'm not blind to all these sordid consequences.
But all the same, God has to be served first. I had to come to
this. I felt I could not serve God any longer as a bishop in the
established church, because I did not believe that the
established church was serving God. I struggled against that
conviction--and I struggled against it largely for your sakes.
But I had to obey my conviction.... I haven't talked to you about
these things as much as I should have done, but partly at least
that is due to the fact that my own mind has been changing and
reconsidering, going forward and going back, and in that fluid
state it didn't seem fair to tell you things that I might
presently find mistaken. But now I begin to feel that I have
really thought out things, and that they are definite enough to
tell you....
He paused and resumed. "A number of things have helped to
change the opinions in which I grew up and in which you have
grown up. There were worries at Princhester; I didn't let you
know much about them, but there were. There was something harsh
and cruel in that atmosphere. I saw for the first time--it's a
lesson I'm still only learning--how harsh and greedy rich
people and employing people are to poor people and working
people, and how ineffective our church was to make things better.
That struck me. There were religious disputes in the diocese too,
and they shook me. I thought my faith was built on a rock, and I
found it was built on sand. It was slipping and sliding long
before the war. But the war brought it down. Before the war such
a lot of things in England and Europe seemed like a comedy or a
farce, a bad joke that one tolerated. One tried half consciously,
half avoiding the knowledge of what one was doing, to keep one's
own little circle and life civilized. The war shook all those
ideas of isolation, all that sort of evasion, down. The world is
the rightful kingdom of God; we had left its affairs to kings and
emperors and suchlike impostors, to priests and profit-seekers
and greedy men. We were genteel condoners. The war has ended
that. It thrusts into all our lives. It brings death so close--
A fortnight ago twenty-seven people were killed and injured
within a mile of this by Zeppelin bombs.... Every one loses some
one.... Because through all that time men like myself were going
through our priestly mummeries, abasing ourselves to kings and
politicians, when we ought to have been crying out: 'No! No!
There is no righteousness in the world, there is no right
government, except it be the kingdom of God.'"
He paused and looked at them. They were all listening to him
now. But he was still haunted by a dread of preaching in his own
family. He dropped to the conversational note again.
"You see what I had in mind. I saw I must come out of this, and
preach the kingdom of God. That was my idea. I don't want to
force it upon you, but I want you to understand why I acted as I
did. But let me come to the particular thing that has happened
to-day. I did not think when I made my final decision to leave
the church that it meant such poverty as this we are living in--
permanently. That is what I want to make clear to you. I thought
there would be a temporary dip into dinginess, but that was all.
There was a plan; at the time it seemed a right and reasonable
plan; for setting up a chapel in London, a very plain and simple
undenominational chapel, for the simple preaching of the world
kingdom of God. There was some one who seemed prepared to meet
all the immediate demands for such a chapel."
"Was it Lady Sunderbund?" asked Clementina.
Scrope was pulled up abruptly. "Yes," he said. "It seemed at
first a quite hopeful project."
"We'd have hated that," said Clementina, with a glance as if
for assent, at her mother. "We should all have hated that."
"Anyhow it has fallen through."
"We don't mind that," said Clementina, and Daphne echoed her
- beginning [bi´giniŋ]
n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词) - sentence [´sentəns] n.判决 vt.宣判；处刑 (初中英语单词)
- poverty [´pɔvəti] n.贫穷(乏，瘠)；不足 (初中英语单词)
- encounter [in´kauntə] vt.&n.偶然相遇；冲突 (初中英语单词)
- tragedy [´trædʒidi] n.悲剧；惨案；灾难 (初中英语单词)
- appetite [´æpitait] n.欲望；食欲 (初中英语单词)
- preserve [pri´zə:v] v.保藏 n.保藏物 (初中英语单词)
- tradition [trə´diʃən] n.传统；惯例；传说 (初中英语单词)
- exception [ik´sepʃən] n.例外；反对，异议 (初中英语单词)
- obvious [´ɔbviəs] a.明显的；显而易见的 (初中英语单词)
- intention [in´tenʃən] n.意图；打算；意义 (初中英语单词)
- gently [´dʒentli] ad.温和地；静静地 (初中英语单词)
- income [´inkʌm] n.收入，所得 (初中英语单词)
- properly [´prɔpəli] ad.适当地；严格地 (初中英语单词)
- wealth [welθ] n.财富，财产 (初中英语单词)
- prosperity [prɔ´speriti] n.繁荣；成功；幸运 (初中英语单词)
- lately [´leitli] ad.近来，不久前 (初中英语单词)
- bishop [´biʃəp] n.主教 (初中英语单词)
- conviction [kən´vikʃən] n.定罪；确信，信服 (初中英语单词)
- partly [´pɑ:tli] ad.部分地；不完全地 (初中英语单词)
- definite [´definit] a.确定的，明确的 (初中英语单词)
- atmosphere [´ætməsfiə] n.大气；空气；气氛 (初中英语单词)
- greedy [´gri:di] a.贪婪的；馋的 (初中英语单词)
- circle [´sə:kəl] n.圆圈 v.环绕；盘旋 (初中英语单词)
- haunted [´hɔ:tid] a.常出现鬼的，闹鬼的 (初中英语单词)
- chapel [´tʃæpəl] n.小教堂 (初中英语单词)
- abruptly [ə´brʌptli] ad.突然地；粗鲁地 (初中英语单词)
- rejoicing [ri´dʒɔisiŋ] n.高兴；欢呼 (高中英语单词)
- irregular [i´regjulə] a.不规则的；不正当的 (高中英语单词)
- doubtful [´dautful] a.怀疑的，可疑的 (高中英语单词)
- phoebe [´fi:bi] n.月亮女神 (高中英语单词)
- casual [´kæʒuəl] a.偶然的；临时的 (高中英语单词)
- crowded [´kraudid] a.充(拥)满了的 (高中英语单词)
- mistaken [mis´teikən] mistake的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
- comedy [´kɔmidi] n.喜剧；喜剧场面 (高中英语单词)
- civilized [´sivilaizd] a.先进的；文明的 (高中英语单词)
- fortnight [´fɔ:tnait] n.两星期 (高中英语单词)
- temporary [´tempərəri] a.暂时的 n.临时工 (高中英语单词)
- assent [ə´sent] vi.&n.同意，赞成 (高中英语单词)
- unexpectedly [´ʌniks´pektidli] ad.意外地；突然地 (英语四级单词)
- parting [´pɑ:tiŋ] a.&n.分离(的) (英语四级单词)
- exceptional [ik´sepʃənəl] a.异常的，特别的 (英语四级单词)
- tension [´tenʃən] n.紧张；压力；拉力 (英语四级单词)
- sordid [´sɔ:did] a.(指环境等)肮脏的 (英语四级单词)
- setting [´setiŋ] n.安装；排字；布景 (英语四级单词)
- hopeful [´həupfəl] a.有希望的，激励人的 (英语四级单词)
- mathematical [,mæθə´mætikəl] a.数学的；精确的 (英语六级单词)
- daphne [´dæfni] n.瑞香 (英语六级单词)
- orthodox [´ɔ:θədɔks] a.正统的；正统的；习惯的 (英语六级单词)
- discomfort [dis´kʌmfət] n.不适；不安；困难 (英语六级单词)
- horribly [´hɔrəbli] ad.恐怖地 (英语六级单词)
- incessant [in´sesənt] a.不断的，不停的 (英语六级单词)
- isolation [,aisə´leiʃən] n.隔离，孤立 (英语六级单词)
- rightful [´raitfəl] a.正义的；合法的 (英语六级单词)
- genteel [dʒen´ti:l] a.有教养的；文雅的 (英语六级单词)
- righteousness [raitʃəsnis] n.正直；正当；正义 (英语六级单词)
- preaching [´pri:tʃiŋ] n.说教 a.说教的 (英语六级单词)
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