章节正文
TALES FROM TWO HEMISPHERES.
BY
HJALMAR HJORTH BOYSEN.
1877
CONTENTS
----
THE MAN WHO LOST HIS NAME
THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST
A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING
A SCIENTIFIC VAGABOND
TRULS, THE NAMELESS
ASATHOR'S VENGEANCE
TALES FROM TWO HEMISPHERES.
THE MAN WHO LOST HIS NAME.
ON the second day of June, 186--, a
young Norseman, Halfdan Bjerk by
name, landed on the pier at Castle
Garden. He passed through the straight
and narrow gate where he was asked his name,
birthplace, and how much money he had,--at
which he grew very much frightened.
"And your destination?"--demanded the
gruff-looking functionary at the desk.
"America," said the youth, and touched his
hat politely.
"Do you think I have time for joking?"
roared the official, with an oath.
The Norseman ran his hand through his hair,
smiled his timidly conciliatory smile, and tried
his best to look brave; but his hand trembled
and his heart thumped away at an alarmingly
quickened tempo.
"Put him down for Nebraska!" cried a stout
red-cheeked individual (inwrapped in the mingled
fumes of tobacco and whisky) whose function
it was to open and shut the gate.
"There aint many as go to Nebraska."
"All right, Nebraska."
The gate swung open and the pressure from
behind urged the timid traveler on, while an
extra push from the gate-keeper sent him flying
in the direction of a board fence, where he sat
down and tried to realize that he was now in
the land of liberty.
Halfdan Bjerk was a tall, slender-limbed youth
of very delicate frame; he had a pair of
wonderfully candid, unreflecting blue eyes, a smooth,
clear, beardless face, and soft, wavy light hair,
which was pushed back from his forehead without
parting. His mouth and chin were well
cut, but their lines were, perhaps, rather weak
for a man. When in repose, the ensemble of
his features was exceedinglypleasing and somehow
reminded one of Correggio's St. John. He
had left his native land because he was an
ardent republican" target="_blank" title="a.共和国的 n.共和论者">republican and was abstractly convinced
that man, generically and individually, lives
more happily in a republic than in a monarchy.
He had anticipated with keen pleasure the large,
freely breathing life he was to lead in a land
where every man was his neighbor's brother,
where no senseless traditions kept a jealous
watch over obsolete systems and shrines, and
no chilling prejudice blighted the spontaneous
blossoming of the soul.
Halfdan was an only child. His father, a
poor government official, had died during his
infancy, and his mother had given music lessons,
and kept boarders, in order to gain the means
to give her son what is called a learned education.
In the Latin school Halfdan had enjoyed
the reputation of being a bright youth, and at
the age of eighteen, he had entered the
university under the most promising auspices. He
could make very fair verses, and play all
imaginable instruments with equal ease, which
made him a favorite in society. Moreover, he
possessed that very old-fashioned accomplishment
of cutting silhouettes; and what was more,
he could draw the most charmingly fantastic
arabesques for embroidery patterns, and he even
dabbled in portrait and landscape painting.
Whatever he turned his hand to, he did well,
in fact, astonishingly well for a dilettante, and
yet not well enough to claim the title of an
artist. Nor did it ever occur to him to make
such a claim. As one of his fellow-students
remarked in a fit of jealousy, "Once when Nature
had made three geniuses, a poet, a musician,
and a painter, she took all the remaining odds
and ends and shook them together at random
and the result was Halfdan Bjerk." This agreeable
melange of accomplishments, however,
proved very attractive to the ladies, who invited
the possessor to innumerable afternoon
tea-parties, where they drew heavy drafts on
his unflagging patience, and kept him steadily
engaged with patterns and designs for embroidery,
leather flowers, and other dainty knickknacks.
And in return for all his exertions
they called him "sweet" and "beautiful," and
applied to him many other enthusiastic adjectives
seldom heard in connection with masculine
names. In the university, talents of this order
gained but slight recognition, and when Halfdan
had for three years been preparing himself
in vain for the examen philosophicum, he found
himself slowly and imperceptibly drifting into
the ranks of the so-called studiosi perpetui, who
preserve a solemn silence at the examination
tables, fraternize with every new generation of
freshmen, and at last become part of the fixed
furniture of their Alma Mater. In the larger
American colleges, such men are mercilessly
dropped or sent to a Divinity School; but the
European universities, whose tempers the centuries
have mellowed, harbor in their spacious
Gothic bosoms a tenderer heart for their
unfortunate sons. There the professors greet them
at the green tables with a good-humored smile
of recognition; they are treated with gentle
forbearance, and are allowed to linger on, until
they die or become tutors in the families of
remote clergymen, where they invariably fall
in love with the handsomest daughter, and thus
lounge into a modest prosperity.
If this had been the fate of our friend Bjerk,
we should have dismissed him here with a confident
"vale" on his life's pilgrimage. But,
unfortunately, Bjerk was inclined to hold the
government in some way responsible for his own
poor success as a student, and this, in connection
with an aesthetic enthusiasm for ancient Greece,
gradually convinced him that the republic was
the only form of government under which men
of his tastes and temperament were apt to flourish.
It was, like everything that pertained to
him, a cheerful, genialconviction, without the
slightest tinge of bitterness. The old institutions
were obsolete, rotten to the core, he said,
and needed a radical renovation. He could sit
for hours of an evening in the Students' Union,
and discourse over a glass of mild toddy, on the
benefits of universalsuffrage and trial by jury,
while the picturesqueness of his language, his
genial sarcasms, or occasional witty allusions
would call forth uproarious applause from
throngs of admiring freshmen. These were the
sunny days in Halfdan's career, days long to be
remembered. They came to an abrupt end
when old Mrs. Bjerk died, leaving nothing
behind her but her furniture and some trifling
debts. The son, who was not an eminently
practical man, underwent long hours of misery
in trying to settle up her affairs, and finally in
a moment of extreme dejection sold his entire
inheritance in a lump to a pawnbroker (reserving
for himself a few rings and trinkets) for the
modest sum of 250 dollars specie. He then
took formal leave of the Students' Union in a
brilliant speech, in which he traced the parallelisms
between the lives of Pericles and Washington,--
in his opinion the two greatest men
the world had ever seen,--expounded his theory
of democratic government, and explained the
causes of the rapid rise of the American Republic.
The next morning he exchanged half of
his worldly possessions for a ticket to New
York, and within a few days set sail for the
land of promise, in the far West.
II.
From Castle Garden, Halfdan made his way
up through Greenwich street, pursued by a
clamorous troop of confidence men and hotel
runners.
"Kommen Sie mit mir. Ich bin auch
Deutsch," cried one. "Voila, voila, je parle
Francais," shouted another, seizing hold of his
valise. "Jeg er Dansk. Tale Dansk,"[1] roared
a third, with an accent which seriously impeached
his truthfulness. In order to escape
from these importunate rascals, who were every
moment getting bolder, he threw himself into
the first street-car which happened to pass; he
sat down, gazed out of the windows and soon
became so thoroughly absorbed in the animated
scenes which moved as in a panorama before his
eyes, that he quite forgot where he was going.
The conductor called for fares, and received an
English shilling, which, after some ineffectual
expostulation, he pocketed, but gave no change.
At last after about an hour's journey, the car
stopped, the conductor called out "Central
Park," and Halfdan woke up with a start. He
dismounted with a timid, deliberate step, stared
in dim bewilderment at the long rows of palatial
residences, and a chill sense of loneliness
crept over him. The hopeless strangeness of
everything he saw, instead of filling him with
rapture as he had once anticipated, Sent a cold
shiver to his heart. It is a very large affair,
BY
HJALMAR HJORTH BOYSEN.
1877
CONTENTS
----
THE MAN WHO LOST HIS NAME
THE STORY OF AN OUTCAST
A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING
A SCIENTIFIC VAGABOND
TRULS, THE NAMELESS
ASATHOR'S VENGEANCE
TALES FROM TWO HEMISPHERES.
THE MAN WHO LOST HIS NAME.
ON the second day of June, 186--, a
young Norseman, Halfdan Bjerk by
name, landed on the pier at Castle
Garden. He passed through the straight
and narrow gate where he was asked his name,
birthplace, and how much money he had,--at
which he grew very much frightened.
"And your destination?"--demanded the
gruff-looking functionary at the desk.
"America," said the youth, and touched his
hat politely.
"Do you think I have time for joking?"
roared the official, with an oath.
The Norseman ran his hand through his hair,
smiled his timidly conciliatory smile, and tried
his best to look brave; but his hand trembled
and his heart thumped away at an alarmingly
quickened tempo.
"Put him down for Nebraska!" cried a stout
red-cheeked individual (inwrapped in the mingled
fumes of tobacco and whisky) whose function
it was to open and shut the gate.
"There aint many as go to Nebraska."
"All right, Nebraska."
The gate swung open and the pressure from
behind urged the timid traveler on, while an
extra push from the gate-keeper sent him flying
in the direction of a board fence, where he sat
down and tried to realize that he was now in
the land of liberty.
Halfdan Bjerk was a tall, slender-limbed youth
of very delicate frame; he had a pair of
wonderfully candid, unreflecting blue eyes, a smooth,
clear, beardless face, and soft, wavy light hair,
which was pushed back from his forehead without
parting. His mouth and chin were well
cut, but their lines were, perhaps, rather weak
for a man. When in repose, the ensemble of
his features was exceedinglypleasing and somehow
reminded one of Correggio's St. John. He
had left his native land because he was an
ardent republican" target="_blank" title="a.共和国的 n.共和论者">republican and was abstractly convinced
that man, generically and individually, lives
more happily in a republic than in a monarchy.
He had anticipated with keen pleasure the large,
freely breathing life he was to lead in a land
where every man was his neighbor's brother,
where no senseless traditions kept a jealous
watch over obsolete systems and shrines, and
no chilling prejudice blighted the spontaneous
blossoming of the soul.
Halfdan was an only child. His father, a
poor government official, had died during his
infancy, and his mother had given music lessons,
and kept boarders, in order to gain the means
to give her son what is called a learned education.
In the Latin school Halfdan had enjoyed
the reputation of being a bright youth, and at
the age of eighteen, he had entered the
university under the most promising auspices. He
could make very fair verses, and play all
imaginable instruments with equal ease, which
made him a favorite in society. Moreover, he
possessed that very old-fashioned accomplishment
of cutting silhouettes; and what was more,
he could draw the most charmingly fantastic
arabesques for embroidery patterns, and he even
dabbled in portrait and landscape painting.
Whatever he turned his hand to, he did well,
in fact, astonishingly well for a dilettante, and
yet not well enough to claim the title of an
artist. Nor did it ever occur to him to make
such a claim. As one of his fellow-students
remarked in a fit of jealousy, "Once when Nature
had made three geniuses, a poet, a musician,
and a painter, she took all the remaining odds
and ends and shook them together at random
and the result was Halfdan Bjerk." This agreeable
melange of accomplishments, however,
proved very attractive to the ladies, who invited
the possessor to innumerable afternoon
tea-parties, where they drew heavy drafts on
his unflagging patience, and kept him steadily
engaged with patterns and designs for embroidery,
leather flowers, and other dainty knickknacks.
And in return for all his exertions
they called him "sweet" and "beautiful," and
applied to him many other enthusiastic adjectives
seldom heard in connection with masculine
names. In the university, talents of this order
gained but slight recognition, and when Halfdan
had for three years been preparing himself
in vain for the examen philosophicum, he found
himself slowly and imperceptibly drifting into
the ranks of the so-called studiosi perpetui, who
preserve a solemn silence at the examination
tables, fraternize with every new generation of
freshmen, and at last become part of the fixed
furniture of their Alma Mater. In the larger
American colleges, such men are mercilessly
dropped or sent to a Divinity School; but the
European universities, whose tempers the centuries
have mellowed, harbor in their spacious
Gothic bosoms a tenderer heart for their
unfortunate sons. There the professors greet them
at the green tables with a good-humored smile
of recognition; they are treated with gentle
forbearance, and are allowed to linger on, until
they die or become tutors in the families of
remote clergymen, where they invariably fall
in love with the handsomest daughter, and thus
lounge into a modest prosperity.
If this had been the fate of our friend Bjerk,
we should have dismissed him here with a confident
"vale" on his life's pilgrimage. But,
unfortunately, Bjerk was inclined to hold the
government in some way responsible for his own
poor success as a student, and this, in connection
with an aesthetic enthusiasm for ancient Greece,
gradually convinced him that the republic was
the only form of government under which men
of his tastes and temperament were apt to flourish.
It was, like everything that pertained to
him, a cheerful, genialconviction, without the
slightest tinge of bitterness. The old institutions
were obsolete, rotten to the core, he said,
and needed a radical renovation. He could sit
for hours of an evening in the Students' Union,
and discourse over a glass of mild toddy, on the
benefits of universalsuffrage and trial by jury,
while the picturesqueness of his language, his
genial sarcasms, or occasional witty allusions
would call forth uproarious applause from
throngs of admiring freshmen. These were the
sunny days in Halfdan's career, days long to be
remembered. They came to an abrupt end
when old Mrs. Bjerk died, leaving nothing
behind her but her furniture and some trifling
debts. The son, who was not an eminently
practical man, underwent long hours of misery
in trying to settle up her affairs, and finally in
a moment of extreme dejection sold his entire
inheritance in a lump to a pawnbroker (reserving
for himself a few rings and trinkets) for the
modest sum of 250 dollars specie. He then
took formal leave of the Students' Union in a
brilliant speech, in which he traced the parallelisms
between the lives of Pericles and Washington,--
in his opinion the two greatest men
the world had ever seen,--expounded his theory
of democratic government, and explained the
causes of the rapid rise of the American Republic.
The next morning he exchanged half of
his worldly possessions for a ticket to New
York, and within a few days set sail for the
land of promise, in the far West.
II.
From Castle Garden, Halfdan made his way
up through Greenwich street, pursued by a
clamorous troop of confidence men and hotel
runners.
"Kommen Sie mit mir. Ich bin auch
Deutsch," cried one. "Voila, voila, je parle
Francais," shouted another, seizing hold of his
valise. "Jeg er Dansk. Tale Dansk,"[1] roared
a third, with an accent which seriously impeached
his truthfulness. In order to escape
from these importunate rascals, who were every
moment getting bolder, he threw himself into
the first street-car which happened to pass; he
sat down, gazed out of the windows and soon
became so thoroughly absorbed in the animated
scenes which moved as in a panorama before his
eyes, that he quite forgot where he was going.
The conductor called for fares, and received an
English shilling, which, after some ineffectual
expostulation, he pocketed, but gave no change.
At last after about an hour's journey, the car
stopped, the conductor called out "Central
Park," and Halfdan woke up with a start. He
dismounted with a timid, deliberate step, stared
in dim bewilderment at the long rows of palatial
residences, and a chill sense of loneliness
crept over him. The hopeless strangeness of
everything he saw, instead of filling him with
rapture as he had once anticipated, Sent a cold
shiver to his heart. It is a very large affair,
- scientific [,saiən´tifik]
a.科学(上)的 (初中英语单词) - tobacco [tə´bækəu] n.烟草(叶)；卷烟 (初中英语单词)
- pressure [´preʃə] n.压榨 vt.对...施压力 (初中英语单词)
- delicate [´delikət] a.精美的；微妙的 (初中英语单词)
- forehead [´fɔrid] n.额，前部 (初中英语单词)
- republic [ri´pʌblik] n.共和国；共和政体 (初中英语单词)
- promising [´prɔmisiŋ] a.有希望的；有为的 (初中英语单词)
- moreover [mɔ:´rəuvə] ad.再者，此外，而且 (初中英语单词)
- old-fashioned [´əuld´feʃənd] a.老式的；过时的 (初中英语单词)
- painter [´peintə] n.画家；(油)漆工 (初中英语单词)
- attractive [ə´træktiv] a.有吸引力；诱人的 (初中英语单词)
- patience [´peiʃəns] n.忍耐(力)；耐心；坚韧 (初中英语单词)
- connection [kə´nekʃən] n.联系；关系；联运 (初中英语单词)
- recognition [,rekəg´niʃən] n.认出；认识；承认 (初中英语单词)
- solemn [´sɔləm] a.严肃的；隆重的 (初中英语单词)
- generation [,dʒenə´reiʃən] n.发生；世代；同龄人 (初中英语单词)
- linger [´liŋgə] v.逗留；留恋；拖延 (初中英语单词)
- modest [´mɔdist] a.谦虚的；朴素的 (初中英语单词)
- responsible [ri´spɔnsəbəl] a.尽责的；责任重大的 (初中英语单词)
- enthusiasm [in´θju:ziæzəm] n.热心；狂热；爱好 (初中英语单词)
- cheerful [´tʃiəful] a.快乐的；高兴的 (初中英语单词)
- conviction [kən´vikʃən] n.定罪；确信，信服 (初中英语单词)
- universal [,ju:ni´və:səl] a.宇宙的；普遍的 (初中英语单词)
- occasional [ə´keiʒənəl] a.偶然的；临时的 (初中英语单词)
- career [kə´riə] n.经历；生涯；职业 (初中英语单词)
- extreme [ik´stri:m] a.尽头的 n.极端 (初中英语单词)
- formal [´fɔ:məl] a.正式的；外表的 (初中英语单词)
- accent [´æksənt, æk´sent] n.重音；口音 vt.重读 (初中英语单词)
- seriously [´siəriəsli] ad.严肃；严重，重大 (初中英语单词)
- thoroughly [´θʌrəli] ad.完全地，彻底地 (初中英语单词)
- conductor [kən´dʌktə] n.指导者；向导者 (初中英语单词)
- repose [ri´pəuz] v.&n.(使)休息；安息 (高中英语单词)
- exceedingly [ik´si:diŋli] ad.非常地，极度地 (高中英语单词)
- pleasing [´pli:ziŋ] a.使人愉快的；合意的 (高中英语单词)
- prejudice [´predʒədis] n.偏见；不利 vt.损害 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- portrait [´pɔ:trit] n.肖像；相片；雕像 (高中英语单词)
- landscape [´lændskeip] n.风景；景色；风景画 (高中英语单词)
- jealousy [´dʒeləsi] n.妒忌；猜忌 (高中英语单词)
- innumerable [i´nju:mərəbəl] a.无数的，数不清的 (高中英语单词)
- dainty [´deinti] a.秀丽的 n.美味 (高中英语单词)
- enthusiastic [inθju:zi´æstik] a.热情的，热心的 (高中英语单词)
- so-called [´sou ´kɔ:ld] a.所谓的，号称的 (高中英语单词)
- invariably [in´veəriəbli] ad.不变地；永恒地 (高中英语单词)
- temperament [´tempərəmənt] n.气质；性格 (高中英语单词)
- bitterness [´bitənis] n.苦味；辛酸；苦难 (高中英语单词)
- rotten [´rɔtn] a.腐烂的；腐朽的 (高中英语单词)
- radical [´rædikəl] a.根本的；主要的 (高中英语单词)
- discourse [´diskɔ:s] n.论文；演说；说教 (高中英语单词)
- suffrage [´sʌfridʒ] n.投票(权)，选举权 (高中英语单词)
- applause [ə´plɔ:z] n.鼓掌；欢呼；称赞 (高中英语单词)
- abrupt [ə´brʌpt] a.突然的；粗鲁的 (高中英语单词)
- shilling [´ʃiliŋ] n.先令 (高中英语单词)
- deliberate [di´libəreit] a.慎重的；故意的 (高中英语单词)
- hopeless [´həupləs] a.无望的，无可救药的 (高中英语单词)
- republican [ri´pʌblikən] a.共和国的 n.共和论者 (英语四级单词)
- senseless [´sensləs] a.无知觉的；愚蠢的 (英语四级单词)
- reputation [repju´teiʃən] n.名誉；名声；信誉 (英语四级单词)
- embroidery [im´brɔidəri] n.刺绣(品) (英语四级单词)
- divinity [di´viniti] n.神性，神；神学 (英语四级单词)
- pilgrimage [´pilgrimidʒ] n.朝圣；远游；人生历程 (英语四级单词)
- genial [´dʒi:niəl] a.愉快的；和蔼的 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- worldly [´wə:ldli] a.现世的；世俗的 (英语四级单词)
- timidly [´timidli] ad.胆怯地 (英语六级单词)
- ensemble [ɑ:n´sɑ:mbəl] n.全体；合唱团 (英语六级单词)
- individually [,indi´vidʒuəli] adv.个别地 (英语六级单词)
- bewilderment [bi´wildəmənt] n.为难；狼狈；迷惑 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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