章节正文
brought up by Mrs. Harley and then went to live with him at the
Seven Isles group. Surely you remember old Nelson - "
Remember old Nelson! Rather!
The letter went on to inform me further that old Nelson, at least,
remembered me, since some time after his flying visit to Makassar
he had written to the Mesmans asking for my address in London.
That old Nelson (or Nielsen), the note of whose personality was a
profound, echoless irresponsiveness to everything around him,
should wish to write, or find anything to write about to anybody,
was in itself a cause for no small wonder. And to me, of all
people! I waited with uneasyimpatience for whatever disclosure
could come from that naturally benighted intelligence, but my
impatience had time to wear out before my eyes beheld old Nelson's
trembling, painfully-formed handwriting, senile and childish at the
same time, on an envelopebearing a penny stamp and the postal mark
of the Notting Hill office. I delayed opening it in order to pay
the tribute of astonishment due to the event by flinging my hands
above my head. So he had come home to England, to be definitely
Nelson; or else was on his way home to Denmark, where he would
revert for ever to his original Nielsen! But old Nelson (or
Nielsen) out of the tropics seemed unthinkable. And yet he was
there, asking me to call.
His address was at a boarding-house in one of those Bayswater
squares, once of leisure, which nowadays are reduced to earning
their living. Somebody had recommended him there. I started to
call on him on one of those January days in London, one of those
wintry days composed of the four devilish elements, cold, wet, mud,
and grime, combined with a particular stickiness of atmosphere that
clings like an uncleangarment to one's very soul. Yet on
approaching his abode I saw, like a flicker far behind the soiled
veil of the four elements, the wearisome and splendid glitter of a
blue sea with the Seven Islets like minute specks swimming in my
eye, the high red roof of the bungalow crowning the very smallest
of them all. This visual reminiscence was profoundly disturbing.
I knocked at the door with a faltering hand.
Old Nelson (or Nielsen) got up from the table at which he was
sitting with a shabby pocket-book full of papers before him. He
took off his spectacles before shaking hands. For a moment neither
of us said a word; then, noticing me looking round somewhat
expectantly, he murmured some words, of which I caught only
"daughter" and "Hong Kong," cast his eyes down, and sighed.
His moustache, sticking all ways out, as of yore, was quite white
now. His old cheeks were softly rounded, with some colour in them;
strangely enough, that something childlike always noticeable in the
general contour of his physiognomy had become much more marked.
Like his handwriting, he looked childish and senile. He showed his
age most in his unintelligently furrowed, anxiousforehead and in
his round, innocent eyes, which appeared to me weak and blinking
and watery; or was it that they were full of tears? . . .
To discover old Nelson fully informed upon any matter whatever was
a new experience. And after the first awkwardness had worn off he
talked freely, with, now and then, a question to start him going
whenever he lapsed into silence, which he would do suddenly,
clasping his hands on his waistcoat in an attitude which would
recall to me the east verandah, where he used to sit talking
quietly and puffing out his cheeks in what seemed now old, very old
days. He talked in a reasonable somewhat anxious tone.
"No, no. We did not know anything for weeks. Out of the way like
that, we couldn't, of course. No mail service to the Seven Isles.
But one day I ran over to Banka in my big sailing-boat to see
whether there were any letters, and saw a Dutch paper. But it
looked only like a bit of marine news: English brig Bonito gone
ashore outside Makassar roads. That was all. I took the paper
home with me and showed it to her. 'I will never forgive him!' she
cries with her old spirit. 'My dear,' I said, 'you are a sensible
girl. The best man may lose a ship. But what about your health?'
I was beginning to be frightened at her looks. She would not let
me talk even of going to Singapore before. But, really, such a
sensible girl couldn't keep on objecting for ever. 'Do what you
like, papa,' she says. Rather a job, that. Had to catch a steamer
at sea, but I got her over all right. There, doctors, of course.
Fever. Anaemia. Put her to bed. Two or three women very kind to
her. Naturally in our papers the whole story came out before long.
She reads it to the end, lying on the couch; then hands the
newspaper back to me, whispers 'Heemskirk,' and goes off into a
faint."
He blinked at me for quite a long time, his eyes running full of
tears again.
"Next day," he began, without any emotion in his voice, "she felt
stronger, and we had a long talk. She told me everything."
Here old Nelson, with his eyes cast down, gave me the whole story
of the Heemskirk episode in Freya's words; then went on in his
rather jerky utterance, and looking up innocently:
"'My dear,' I said, 'you have behaved in the main like a sensible
girl.' 'I have been horrid,' she cries, 'and he is breaking his
heart over there.' Well, she was too sensible not to see she
wasn't in a state to travel. But I went. She told me to go. She
was being looked after very well. Anaemia. Getting better, they
said."
He paused.
"You did see him?" I murmured.
"Oh, yes; I did see him," he started again, talking in that
reasonable voice as though he were arguing a point. "I did see
him. I came upon him. Eyes sunk an inch into his head; nothing
but skin on the bones of his face, a skeleton in dirty white
clothes. That's what he looked like. How Freya . . . But she
never did - not really. He was sitting there, the only live thing
for miles along that coast, on a drift-log washed up on the shore.
They had clipped his hair in the hospital, and it had not grown
again. He stared, holding his chin in his hand, and with nothing
on the sea between him and the sky but that wreck. When I came up
to him he just moved his head a bit. 'Is that you, old man?' says
he - like that.
"If you had seen him you would have understood at once how
impossible it was for Freya to have ever loved that man. Well,
well. I don't say. She might have - something. She was lonely,
you know. But really to go away with him! Never! Madness. She
was too sensible . . . I began to reproach him gently. And by and
by he turns on me. 'Write to you! What about? Come to her! What
with? If I had been a man I would have carried her off, but she
made a child, a happy child, of me. Tell her that the day the only
thing I had belonging to me in the world perished on this reef I
discovered that I had no power over her. . . Has she come here with
you?' he shouts, blazing at me suddenly with his hollow eyes. I
shook my head. Come with me, indeed! Anaemia! 'Aha! You see?
Go away, then, old man, and leave me alone here with that ghost,'
he says, jerking his head at the wreck of his brig.
"Mad! It was getting dusk. I did not care to stop any longer all
by myself with that man in that lonely place. I was not going to
tell him of Freya's illness. Anaemia! What was the good? Mad!
And what sort of husband would he have made, anyhow, for a sensible
girl like Freya? Why, even my little property I could not have
left them. The Dutch authorities would never have allowed an
Englishman to settle there. It was not sold then. My man Mahmat,
you know, was looking after it for me. Later on I let it go for a
tenth of its value to a Dutch half-caste. But never mind. It was
nothing to me then. Yes; I went away from him. I caught the
return mail-boat. I told everything to Freya. 'He's mad,' I said;
'and, my dear, the only thing he loved was his brig.'
"'Perhaps,' she says to herself, looking straight away - her eyes
were nearly as hollow as his - 'perhaps it is true. Yes! I would
never allow him any power over me.'"
Old Nelson paused. I sat fascinated, and feeling a little cold in
that room with a blazing fire.
"So you see," he continued, "she never really cared for him. Much
too sensible. I took her away to Hong Kong. Change of climate,
they said. Oh, these doctors! My God! Winter time! There came
ten days of cold mists and wind and rain. Pneumonia. But look
here! We talked a lot together. Days and evenings. Who else had
she? . . . She talked a lot to me, my own girl. Sometimes she
would laugh a little. Look at me and laugh a little - "
I shuddered. He looked up vaguely, with a childish, puzzled
moodiness.
"She would say: 'I did not really mean to be a bad daughter to
you, papa.' And I would say: 'Of course, my dear. You could not
have meant it.' She would lie quiet and then say: 'I wonder?'
And sometimes, 'I've been really a coward,' she would tell me. You
know, sick people they say things. And so she would say too:
'I've been conceited, headstrong, capricious. I sought my own
gratification. I was selfish or afraid.' . . . But sick people,
you know, they say anything. And once, after lying silent almost
all day, she said: 'Yes; perhaps, when the day came I would not
have gone. Perhaps! I don't know,' she cried. 'Draw the curtain,
papa. Shut the sea out. It reproaches me with my folly.'" He
gasped and paused.
"So you see," he went on in a murmur. "Very ill, very ill indeed.
Pneumonia. Very sudden." He pointed his finger at the carpet,
while the thought of the poor girl, vanquished in her struggle with
three men's absurdities, and coming at last to doubt her own self,
held me in a very anguish of pity.
"You see yourself," he began again in a downcast manner. "She
could not have really . . . She mentioned you several times. Good
friend. Sensible man. So I wanted to tell you myself - let you
know the truth. A fellow like that! How could it be? She was
lonely. And perhaps for a while . . . Mere nothing. There could
never have been a question of love for my Freya - such a sensible
girl - "
"Man!" I cried, rising upon him wrathfully, "don't you see that she
died of it?"
He got up too. "No! no!" he stammered, as if angry. "The doctors!
Pneumonia. Low state. The inflammation of the . . . They told me.
Pneu - "
He did not finish the word. It ended in a sob. He flung his arms
out in a gesture of despair, giving up his ghastlypretence with a
low, heartrending cry:
"And I thought that she was so sensible!"
End
Seven Isles group. Surely you remember old Nelson - "
Remember old Nelson! Rather!
The letter went on to inform me further that old Nelson, at least,
remembered me, since some time after his flying visit to Makassar
he had written to the Mesmans asking for my address in London.
That old Nelson (or Nielsen), the note of whose personality was a
profound, echoless irresponsiveness to everything around him,
should wish to write, or find anything to write about to anybody,
was in itself a cause for no small wonder. And to me, of all
people! I waited with uneasyimpatience for whatever disclosure
could come from that naturally benighted intelligence, but my
impatience had time to wear out before my eyes beheld old Nelson's
trembling, painfully-formed handwriting, senile and childish at the
same time, on an envelopebearing a penny stamp and the postal mark
of the Notting Hill office. I delayed opening it in order to pay
the tribute of astonishment due to the event by flinging my hands
above my head. So he had come home to England, to be definitely
Nelson; or else was on his way home to Denmark, where he would
revert for ever to his original Nielsen! But old Nelson (or
Nielsen) out of the tropics seemed unthinkable. And yet he was
there, asking me to call.
His address was at a boarding-house in one of those Bayswater
squares, once of leisure, which nowadays are reduced to earning
their living. Somebody had recommended him there. I started to
call on him on one of those January days in London, one of those
wintry days composed of the four devilish elements, cold, wet, mud,
and grime, combined with a particular stickiness of atmosphere that
clings like an uncleangarment to one's very soul. Yet on
approaching his abode I saw, like a flicker far behind the soiled
veil of the four elements, the wearisome and splendid glitter of a
blue sea with the Seven Islets like minute specks swimming in my
eye, the high red roof of the bungalow crowning the very smallest
of them all. This visual reminiscence was profoundly disturbing.
I knocked at the door with a faltering hand.
Old Nelson (or Nielsen) got up from the table at which he was
sitting with a shabby pocket-book full of papers before him. He
took off his spectacles before shaking hands. For a moment neither
of us said a word; then, noticing me looking round somewhat
expectantly, he murmured some words, of which I caught only
"daughter" and "Hong Kong," cast his eyes down, and sighed.
His moustache, sticking all ways out, as of yore, was quite white
now. His old cheeks were softly rounded, with some colour in them;
strangely enough, that something childlike always noticeable in the
general contour of his physiognomy had become much more marked.
Like his handwriting, he looked childish and senile. He showed his
age most in his unintelligently furrowed, anxiousforehead and in
his round, innocent eyes, which appeared to me weak and blinking
and watery; or was it that they were full of tears? . . .
To discover old Nelson fully informed upon any matter whatever was
a new experience. And after the first awkwardness had worn off he
talked freely, with, now and then, a question to start him going
whenever he lapsed into silence, which he would do suddenly,
clasping his hands on his waistcoat in an attitude which would
recall to me the east verandah, where he used to sit talking
quietly and puffing out his cheeks in what seemed now old, very old
days. He talked in a reasonable somewhat anxious tone.
"No, no. We did not know anything for weeks. Out of the way like
that, we couldn't, of course. No mail service to the Seven Isles.
But one day I ran over to Banka in my big sailing-boat to see
whether there were any letters, and saw a Dutch paper. But it
looked only like a bit of marine news: English brig Bonito gone
ashore outside Makassar roads. That was all. I took the paper
home with me and showed it to her. 'I will never forgive him!' she
cries with her old spirit. 'My dear,' I said, 'you are a sensible
girl. The best man may lose a ship. But what about your health?'
I was beginning to be frightened at her looks. She would not let
me talk even of going to Singapore before. But, really, such a
sensible girl couldn't keep on objecting for ever. 'Do what you
like, papa,' she says. Rather a job, that. Had to catch a steamer
at sea, but I got her over all right. There, doctors, of course.
Fever. Anaemia. Put her to bed. Two or three women very kind to
her. Naturally in our papers the whole story came out before long.
She reads it to the end, lying on the couch; then hands the
newspaper back to me, whispers 'Heemskirk,' and goes off into a
faint."
He blinked at me for quite a long time, his eyes running full of
tears again.
"Next day," he began, without any emotion in his voice, "she felt
stronger, and we had a long talk. She told me everything."
Here old Nelson, with his eyes cast down, gave me the whole story
of the Heemskirk episode in Freya's words; then went on in his
rather jerky utterance, and looking up innocently:
"'My dear,' I said, 'you have behaved in the main like a sensible
girl.' 'I have been horrid,' she cries, 'and he is breaking his
heart over there.' Well, she was too sensible not to see she
wasn't in a state to travel. But I went. She told me to go. She
was being looked after very well. Anaemia. Getting better, they
said."
He paused.
"You did see him?" I murmured.
"Oh, yes; I did see him," he started again, talking in that
reasonable voice as though he were arguing a point. "I did see
him. I came upon him. Eyes sunk an inch into his head; nothing
but skin on the bones of his face, a skeleton in dirty white
clothes. That's what he looked like. How Freya . . . But she
never did - not really. He was sitting there, the only live thing
for miles along that coast, on a drift-log washed up on the shore.
They had clipped his hair in the hospital, and it had not grown
again. He stared, holding his chin in his hand, and with nothing
on the sea between him and the sky but that wreck. When I came up
to him he just moved his head a bit. 'Is that you, old man?' says
he - like that.
"If you had seen him you would have understood at once how
impossible it was for Freya to have ever loved that man. Well,
well. I don't say. She might have - something. She was lonely,
you know. But really to go away with him! Never! Madness. She
was too sensible . . . I began to reproach him gently. And by and
by he turns on me. 'Write to you! What about? Come to her! What
with? If I had been a man I would have carried her off, but she
made a child, a happy child, of me. Tell her that the day the only
thing I had belonging to me in the world perished on this reef I
discovered that I had no power over her. . . Has she come here with
you?' he shouts, blazing at me suddenly with his hollow eyes. I
shook my head. Come with me, indeed! Anaemia! 'Aha! You see?
Go away, then, old man, and leave me alone here with that ghost,'
he says, jerking his head at the wreck of his brig.
"Mad! It was getting dusk. I did not care to stop any longer all
by myself with that man in that lonely place. I was not going to
tell him of Freya's illness. Anaemia! What was the good? Mad!
And what sort of husband would he have made, anyhow, for a sensible
girl like Freya? Why, even my little property I could not have
left them. The Dutch authorities would never have allowed an
Englishman to settle there. It was not sold then. My man Mahmat,
you know, was looking after it for me. Later on I let it go for a
tenth of its value to a Dutch half-caste. But never mind. It was
nothing to me then. Yes; I went away from him. I caught the
return mail-boat. I told everything to Freya. 'He's mad,' I said;
'and, my dear, the only thing he loved was his brig.'
"'Perhaps,' she says to herself, looking straight away - her eyes
were nearly as hollow as his - 'perhaps it is true. Yes! I would
never allow him any power over me.'"
Old Nelson paused. I sat fascinated, and feeling a little cold in
that room with a blazing fire.
"So you see," he continued, "she never really cared for him. Much
too sensible. I took her away to Hong Kong. Change of climate,
they said. Oh, these doctors! My God! Winter time! There came
ten days of cold mists and wind and rain. Pneumonia. But look
here! We talked a lot together. Days and evenings. Who else had
she? . . . She talked a lot to me, my own girl. Sometimes she
would laugh a little. Look at me and laugh a little - "
I shuddered. He looked up vaguely, with a childish, puzzled
moodiness.
"She would say: 'I did not really mean to be a bad daughter to
you, papa.' And I would say: 'Of course, my dear. You could not
have meant it.' She would lie quiet and then say: 'I wonder?'
And sometimes, 'I've been really a coward,' she would tell me. You
know, sick people they say things. And so she would say too:
'I've been conceited, headstrong, capricious. I sought my own
gratification. I was selfish or afraid.' . . . But sick people,
you know, they say anything. And once, after lying silent almost
all day, she said: 'Yes; perhaps, when the day came I would not
have gone. Perhaps! I don't know,' she cried. 'Draw the curtain,
papa. Shut the sea out. It reproaches me with my folly.'" He
gasped and paused.
"So you see," he went on in a murmur. "Very ill, very ill indeed.
Pneumonia. Very sudden." He pointed his finger at the carpet,
while the thought of the poor girl, vanquished in her struggle with
three men's absurdities, and coming at last to doubt her own self,
held me in a very anguish of pity.
"You see yourself," he began again in a downcast manner. "She
could not have really . . . She mentioned you several times. Good
friend. Sensible man. So I wanted to tell you myself - let you
know the truth. A fellow like that! How could it be? She was
lonely. And perhaps for a while . . . Mere nothing. There could
never have been a question of love for my Freya - such a sensible
girl - "
"Man!" I cried, rising upon him wrathfully, "don't you see that she
died of it?"
He got up too. "No! no!" he stammered, as if angry. "The doctors!
Pneumonia. Low state. The inflammation of the . . . They told me.
Pneu - "
He did not finish the word. It ended in a sob. He flung his arms
out in a gesture of despair, giving up his ghastlypretence with a
low, heartrending cry:
"And I thought that she was so sensible!"
End
- personality [,pə:sə´næliti]
n.人；个性；人品；人物 (初中英语单词) - whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- intelligence [in´telidʒəns] n.智力；消息 (初中英语单词)
- beheld [bi´held] behold的过去式(分词) (初中英语单词)
- handwriting [´hænd,raitiŋ] n.笔迹；书法 (初中英语单词)
- childish [´tʃaildiʃ] a.孩子的；幼稚的 (初中英语单词)
- envelope [´envələup] n.信封，封皮 (初中英语单词)
- opening [´əupəniŋ] n.开放；开端 a.开始的 (初中英语单词)
- tribute [´tribju:t] n.贡物；献礼；颂词 (初中英语单词)
- astonishment [ə´stɔniʃmənt] n.吃惊；惊异 (初中英语单词)
- atmosphere [´ætməsfiə] n.大气；空气；气氛 (初中英语单词)
- garment [´gɑ:mənt] n.衣服，外衣 (初中英语单词)
- glitter [´glitə] n.光辉 vi.闪烁，炫耀 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- anxious [´æŋkʃəs] a.担忧的；渴望的 (初中英语单词)
- forehead [´fɔrid] n.额，前部 (初中英语单词)
- innocent [´inəsənt] a.无罪的；单纯的 (初中英语单词)
- freely [´fri:li] ad.自由地；慷慨地 (初中英语单词)
- reasonable [´rizənəbəl] a.合理的；有理智的 (初中英语单词)
- forgive [fə´giv] vt.原谅，谅解，宽恕 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- emotion [i´məuʃən] n.感情；情绪；激动 (初中英语单词)
- sensible [´sensəbəl] a.感觉得到的 (初中英语单词)
- gently [´dʒentli] ad.温和地；静静地 (初中英语单词)
- lonely [´ləunli] a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词)
- illness [´ilnis] n.生病，不健康，疾病 (初中英语单词)
- selfish [´selfiʃ] a.自私的，利己的 (初中英语单词)
- pointed [´pɔintid] a.尖(锐)的；中肯的 (初中英语单词)
- gesture [´dʒestʃə] n.手势 v.打手势 (初中英语单词)
- despair [di´speə] vi.&n.绝望 (初中英语单词)
- uneasy [ʌn´i:zi] a.不安的；不自在的 (高中英语单词)
- bearing [´beəriŋ] n.举止；忍耐；关系 (高中英语单词)
- postal [´pəustl] a.邮政的 n.明信片 (高中英语单词)
- denmark [´denmɑ:k] n.丹麦 (高中英语单词)
- leisure [´leʒə] n.空闲；悠闲；安定 (高中英语单词)
- flicker [´flikə] n.&v.闪烁；忽隐忽现 (高中英语单词)
- shabby [´ʃæbi] a.(衣服)破旧的 (高中英语单词)
- marine [mə´ri:n] a.海的 n.海军陆战队 (高中英语单词)
- skeleton [´skelitən] n.骨骼；骷髅 (高中英语单词)
- madness [´mædnis] n.疯狂；狂热 (高中英语单词)
- reproach [ri´prəutʃ] vt.&n.责备；指责；耻辱 (高中英语单词)
- anguish [´æŋgwiʃ] n.(极度的)痛苦；苦恼 (高中英语单词)
- ghastly [´gɑ:stli] a.苍白的；可怕的 (高中英语单词)
- pretence [pri´tens] n.假装；托词；无理要求 (高中英语单词)
- impatience [im´peiʃəns] n.不耐烦，急躁 (英语四级单词)
- composed [kəm´pəuzd] a.镇静自若的 (英语四级单词)
- bungalow [´bʌŋgələu] n.(有凉台的)平房 (英语四级单词)
- profoundly [prə´faundli] ad.深深地 (英语四级单词)
- noticeable [´nəutisəbəl] a.显著的；值得注意的 (英语四级单词)
- episode [´episəud] n.插曲；一段情节 (英语四级单词)
- utterance [´ʌtərəns] n.发音；言辞；所说的话 (英语四级单词)
- vaguely [´veigli] ad.含糊地，暖昧地 (英语四级单词)
- devilish [´devəliʃ] a.魔鬼般的，凶恶的 (英语六级单词)
- unclean [ʌn´kli:n] a.不清洁的；讨厌的 (英语六级单词)
- contour [´kɔntuə] n.外形 vt.描...的轮廓 (英语六级单词)
- watery [´wɔ:təri] a.水的；像水的 (英语六级单词)
- waistcoat [´weskət, ´weiskəut] n.背心，马甲 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- pneumonia [nju:´məuniə] n.肺炎 (英语六级单词)
- conceited [kən´si:tid] a.自负的；自夸的 (英语六级单词)
- downcast [´daunkɑ:st] a.沮丧的；向下看的 (英语六级单词)
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