章节正文
her meteoric career -- Camille, Lola Montez, Royal
Mary, Zaza -- such a name as one of these would that
of Medora Martin be to future generations
For two days Medora kept her room. On the
third she opened a magazine at the portrait of the
King of Belgium, and laughed sardonically. If that
far-famed breaker of women's hearts should cross her
path, he would have to bow before her cold and im-
perious beauty. She would not spare the old or
the young. All America -- all Europe should do
homage to her sinister, but compelling charm.
As yet she could not bear to think of the life she
had once desired -- a peaceful one in the shadow of
the Green Mountains with Beriah at her side, and
orders for expensive oil paintings coming in by each
mail from New York. Her one fatal misstep had
shattered that dream.
On the fourth day Medora powdered her face and
rouged her lips. Once she had seen Carter in
"Zaza." She stood before the mirror in a reckless
attitude and cried: "Zut! zut!" She rhymed it
with "nut," but with the lawless word Harmony
seemed to pass away forever. The Vortex had her.
She belonged to Bohemia for evermore. And never
would Beriah --
The door opened and Beriah walked in.
"'Dory," said he, "what's all that chalk and pink
stuff on your face, honey?
Medora extended an arm.
"Too late," she said, solemnly. The die is cast.
I belong in another world. Curse me if you will --
it is your right. Go, and leave me in the path I
have chosen. Bid them all at home never to men-
tion my name again. And sometimes, Beriah, pray
for me when I am revelling in the gaudy, but hol-
low, pleasures of Bohemia."
"Get a towel, 'Dory," said Beriah, "and wipe
that paint off your face. I came as soon as I got
your letter. Them pictures of yours ain't amount-
ing to anything. I've got tickets for both of us
back on the evening train. Hurry and get your
things in your trunk."
"Fate was too strong for me, Beriah. Go while
I am strong to bear it."
"How do you fold this easel, 'Dory? -- now begin
to pack, so we have time to eat before train time.
The maples is all out in full-grown leaves, 'Dory --
you just ought to see 'em!
"Not this early, Beriah?
"You ought to see 'em, 'Dory; they're like an
ocean of green in the morning sunlight."
"Oh, Beriah!"
On the train she said to him suddenly:
"I wonder why you came when you got my let-
ter."
"Oh, shucks! " said Beriah. "Did you think you
could fool me? How could you be run away to that
Bohemia country like you said when your letter was
postmarked New York as plain as day?"
A PHILISTINE IN BOHEMIA
George Washington, with his right arm up-
raised, sits his iron horse at the lower corner of
Union Square, forever signaling the Broadway cars
to stop as they round the curve into Fourteenth
Street. But the cars buzz on, heedless, as they do at
the beck of a private citizen, and the great General
must feel, unless his nerves are iron, that rapid tran-
sit gloria mundi.
Should the General raise his left hand as he has
raised his right it would point to a quarter of the
city that forms a haven for the oppressed and sup-
pressed of foreign lands. In the cause of national
or personal freedom they have found a refuge here,
and the patriot who made it for them sits his steed,
overlooking their district, while he listens through his
left car to vaudeville that caricatures the posterity
of his proteges. Italy, Poland, the former Spanish
possessions and the polyglot tribes of Austria-Hun-
gary have spilled here a thick lather of their effer-
vescent sons. In the eccentric cafes and lodging-
houses of the vicinity they hover over their native
wines and political secrets. The colony changes
with much frequency. Faces disappear from the
haunts to be replaced by others. Whither do these
uneasy birds flit? For half of the answer observe
carefully the suave foreign air and foreign courtesy
of the next waiter who serves your table d'hote.
For the other half, perhaps if the barber shops had
tongues (and who will dispute it?) they could tell
their share.
Titles are as plentiful as finger rings among these
transitory exiles. For lack of proper exploitation a
stock of titled goods large enough to supply the trade
of upper Fifth Avenue is here condemned to a mere
pushcart traffic. The new-world landlords who en-
tertain these offshoots of nobility are not dazzled
by coronets and crests. They have doughnuts to
sell instead of daughters. With them it is a serious
matter of trading in flour and sugar instead of pearl
powder and bonbons.
These assertions are deemed fitting as an intro-
duction to the tale, which is of plebeians and contains
no one with even the ghost of a title.
Katy Dempsey's mother kept a furnished-room
house in this oasis of the aliens. The business was
not profitable. If the two scraped together enough
to meet the landlord's agent on rent day and nego-
tiate for the ingredients of a daily Irish stew they
called it success. Often the stew lacked both meat
and potatoes. Sometimes it became as bad as con-
somme' with music.
In this mouldy old house Katy waxed plump and
pert and wholesome and as beautiful and freckled as
a tiger lily. She was the good fairy who was guilty
of placing the damp clean towels and cracked pitchers
of freshly laundered Croton in the lodgers' rooms.
You are informed (by virtue of the privileges of
astronomical discovery) that the star lodger's name
was Mr. Brunelli. His wearing a yellow tie and pay-
ing his rent promptlydistinguished him from the
other lodgers. His raiment was splendid, his com-
plexion olive, his, mustachefierce, his manners a
prince's, his rings and pins as magnificent as those
of a traveling dentist.
He had breakfast served in his room, and he ate it
in a red dressing gown with green tassels. He left
the house at noon and returned at midnight. Those
were mysterious hours, but there was nothing my-
terious about Mrs. Dempsey's lodgers except the
things that were not mysterious. One of Mr. Kip-
ling's poems is addressed to "Ye who hold the un-
written clue to all save all unwritten thing." The
same "readers" are invited to tackle the foregoing
assertion.
Mr. Brunelli, being impressionable and a Latin,
fell to conjugating the verb "amare," with Katy in
the objective case, though not because of antipathy.
She talked it over with her mother.
"Sure, I like him," said Katy. "He's more po-
liteness than twinty candidates for Alderman, and lie
makes me feel like a queen whin he walks at me side.
But what is he, I dinno? I've me suspicions. The
marnin'll coom whin he'll throt out the picture av his
baronial halls and ax to have the week's rint hung
up in the ice chist along wid all the rist of 'em."
"'Tis true," admitted Mrs. Dempsey, "that he
seems to be a sort iv a Dago, and too coolchured in
his spache for a rale gentleman. But ye may be mis-
judgin' him. Ye should niver suspect any wan of
bein' of noble descint that pays cash and pathronizes
the laundry rig'lar."
"He's the same tbricks of spakin' and blarneyin'
wid his hands," sighed Katy, "as the Frinch noble-
man at Mrs. Toole's that ran away wid Mr. Toole's
Sunday pants and left the photograph of the Bastile,
his grandfather's chat-taw, as security for tin weeks'
rint."
Mr. Brunelli continued his calorific wooing. Katy
continued to hesitate. One day he asked her out to
dine and she felt that a denouement was in the air.
While they are on their way, with Katy in her best
muslin, you must take as an entr'acte a brief peep at
New York's Bohemia.
'Tonio's restaurant is in Bohemia. The very lo-
cation of it is secret. If you wish to know where it is
ask the first person you meet. He will tell you in a
whisper. 'Tonio discountenances custom; he keeps
his house-front black and forbidding; he gives you a
pretty bad dinner; he locks his door at the dining
hour; but he knows spaghetti as the boarding-house
knows cold veal; and -- he has deposited many dol-
lars in a certain Banco di -- something with many
gold vowels in the name on its windows.
To this restaurant Mr. Brunelli conducted Katy.
The house was dark and the shades were lowered; but
Mr. Brunelli touched an electric button by the base-
ment door, and they were admitted.
Along a long, dark, narrow hallway they went and
then through a shining and spotless kitchen that
opened directly upon a back yard.
The walls of houses hemmed three sides of the
yard; a high, board fence, surrounded by cats, the
other. A wash of clothes was suspended high upon
a line stretched from diagonal corners. Those were
property clothes, and were never taken in by 'Tonio.
They were there that wits with defective pronuncia-
tion might make puns in connection with the ragout.
A dozen and a half little tables set upon the bare
ground were crowded with Bohemia-hunters, who
flocked there because 'Tonio pretended not to want
them and pretended to give them a good dinner.
There was a sprinkling of real Bohemians present
who came for a change because they were tired of
the real Bohemia, and a smart shower of the men
who originate the bright sayings of Congressmen and
the little nephew of the well-known general passen-
ger agent of the Evansville and Terre Haute Rail-
road Company.
Here is a bon mot that was manufactured at
'Tonio's:
"A dinner at 'Tonio's," said a Bohemian, "always
Mary, Zaza -- such a name as one of these would that
of Medora Martin be to future generations
For two days Medora kept her room. On the
third she opened a magazine at the portrait of the
King of Belgium, and laughed sardonically. If that
far-famed breaker of women's hearts should cross her
path, he would have to bow before her cold and im-
perious beauty. She would not spare the old or
the young. All America -- all Europe should do
homage to her sinister, but compelling charm.
As yet she could not bear to think of the life she
had once desired -- a peaceful one in the shadow of
the Green Mountains with Beriah at her side, and
orders for expensive oil paintings coming in by each
mail from New York. Her one fatal misstep had
shattered that dream.
On the fourth day Medora powdered her face and
rouged her lips. Once she had seen Carter in
"Zaza." She stood before the mirror in a reckless
attitude and cried: "Zut! zut!" She rhymed it
with "nut," but with the lawless word Harmony
seemed to pass away forever. The Vortex had her.
She belonged to Bohemia for evermore. And never
would Beriah --
The door opened and Beriah walked in.
"'Dory," said he, "what's all that chalk and pink
stuff on your face, honey?
Medora extended an arm.
"Too late," she said, solemnly. The die is cast.
I belong in another world. Curse me if you will --
it is your right. Go, and leave me in the path I
have chosen. Bid them all at home never to men-
tion my name again. And sometimes, Beriah, pray
for me when I am revelling in the gaudy, but hol-
low, pleasures of Bohemia."
"Get a towel, 'Dory," said Beriah, "and wipe
that paint off your face. I came as soon as I got
your letter. Them pictures of yours ain't amount-
ing to anything. I've got tickets for both of us
back on the evening train. Hurry and get your
things in your trunk."
"Fate was too strong for me, Beriah. Go while
I am strong to bear it."
"How do you fold this easel, 'Dory? -- now begin
to pack, so we have time to eat before train time.
The maples is all out in full-grown leaves, 'Dory --
you just ought to see 'em!
"Not this early, Beriah?
"You ought to see 'em, 'Dory; they're like an
ocean of green in the morning sunlight."
"Oh, Beriah!"
On the train she said to him suddenly:
"I wonder why you came when you got my let-
ter."
"Oh, shucks! " said Beriah. "Did you think you
could fool me? How could you be run away to that
Bohemia country like you said when your letter was
postmarked New York as plain as day?"
A PHILISTINE IN BOHEMIA
George Washington, with his right arm up-
raised, sits his iron horse at the lower corner of
Union Square, forever signaling the Broadway cars
to stop as they round the curve into Fourteenth
Street. But the cars buzz on, heedless, as they do at
the beck of a private citizen, and the great General
must feel, unless his nerves are iron, that rapid tran-
sit gloria mundi.
Should the General raise his left hand as he has
raised his right it would point to a quarter of the
city that forms a haven for the oppressed and sup-
pressed of foreign lands. In the cause of national
or personal freedom they have found a refuge here,
and the patriot who made it for them sits his steed,
overlooking their district, while he listens through his
left car to vaudeville that caricatures the posterity
of his proteges. Italy, Poland, the former Spanish
possessions and the polyglot tribes of Austria-Hun-
gary have spilled here a thick lather of their effer-
vescent sons. In the eccentric cafes and lodging-
houses of the vicinity they hover over their native
wines and political secrets. The colony changes
with much frequency. Faces disappear from the
haunts to be replaced by others. Whither do these
uneasy birds flit? For half of the answer observe
carefully the suave foreign air and foreign courtesy
of the next waiter who serves your table d'hote.
For the other half, perhaps if the barber shops had
tongues (and who will dispute it?) they could tell
their share.
Titles are as plentiful as finger rings among these
transitory exiles. For lack of proper exploitation a
stock of titled goods large enough to supply the trade
of upper Fifth Avenue is here condemned to a mere
pushcart traffic. The new-world landlords who en-
tertain these offshoots of nobility are not dazzled
by coronets and crests. They have doughnuts to
sell instead of daughters. With them it is a serious
matter of trading in flour and sugar instead of pearl
powder and bonbons.
These assertions are deemed fitting as an intro-
duction to the tale, which is of plebeians and contains
no one with even the ghost of a title.
Katy Dempsey's mother kept a furnished-room
house in this oasis of the aliens. The business was
not profitable. If the two scraped together enough
to meet the landlord's agent on rent day and nego-
tiate for the ingredients of a daily Irish stew they
called it success. Often the stew lacked both meat
and potatoes. Sometimes it became as bad as con-
somme' with music.
In this mouldy old house Katy waxed plump and
pert and wholesome and as beautiful and freckled as
a tiger lily. She was the good fairy who was guilty
of placing the damp clean towels and cracked pitchers
of freshly laundered Croton in the lodgers' rooms.
You are informed (by virtue of the privileges of
astronomical discovery) that the star lodger's name
was Mr. Brunelli. His wearing a yellow tie and pay-
ing his rent promptlydistinguished him from the
other lodgers. His raiment was splendid, his com-
plexion olive, his, mustachefierce, his manners a
prince's, his rings and pins as magnificent as those
of a traveling dentist.
He had breakfast served in his room, and he ate it
in a red dressing gown with green tassels. He left
the house at noon and returned at midnight. Those
were mysterious hours, but there was nothing my-
terious about Mrs. Dempsey's lodgers except the
things that were not mysterious. One of Mr. Kip-
ling's poems is addressed to "Ye who hold the un-
written clue to all save all unwritten thing." The
same "readers" are invited to tackle the foregoing
assertion.
Mr. Brunelli, being impressionable and a Latin,
fell to conjugating the verb "amare," with Katy in
the objective case, though not because of antipathy.
She talked it over with her mother.
"Sure, I like him," said Katy. "He's more po-
liteness than twinty candidates for Alderman, and lie
makes me feel like a queen whin he walks at me side.
But what is he, I dinno? I've me suspicions. The
marnin'll coom whin he'll throt out the picture av his
baronial halls and ax to have the week's rint hung
up in the ice chist along wid all the rist of 'em."
"'Tis true," admitted Mrs. Dempsey, "that he
seems to be a sort iv a Dago, and too coolchured in
his spache for a rale gentleman. But ye may be mis-
judgin' him. Ye should niver suspect any wan of
bein' of noble descint that pays cash and pathronizes
the laundry rig'lar."
"He's the same tbricks of spakin' and blarneyin'
wid his hands," sighed Katy, "as the Frinch noble-
man at Mrs. Toole's that ran away wid Mr. Toole's
Sunday pants and left the photograph of the Bastile,
his grandfather's chat-taw, as security for tin weeks'
rint."
Mr. Brunelli continued his calorific wooing. Katy
continued to hesitate. One day he asked her out to
dine and she felt that a denouement was in the air.
While they are on their way, with Katy in her best
muslin, you must take as an entr'acte a brief peep at
New York's Bohemia.
'Tonio's restaurant is in Bohemia. The very lo-
cation of it is secret. If you wish to know where it is
ask the first person you meet. He will tell you in a
whisper. 'Tonio discountenances custom; he keeps
his house-front black and forbidding; he gives you a
pretty bad dinner; he locks his door at the dining
hour; but he knows spaghetti as the boarding-house
knows cold veal; and -- he has deposited many dol-
lars in a certain Banco di -- something with many
gold vowels in the name on its windows.
To this restaurant Mr. Brunelli conducted Katy.
The house was dark and the shades were lowered; but
Mr. Brunelli touched an electric button by the base-
ment door, and they were admitted.
Along a long, dark, narrow hallway they went and
then through a shining and spotless kitchen that
opened directly upon a back yard.
The walls of houses hemmed three sides of the
yard; a high, board fence, surrounded by cats, the
other. A wash of clothes was suspended high upon
a line stretched from diagonal corners. Those were
property clothes, and were never taken in by 'Tonio.
They were there that wits with defective pronuncia-
tion might make puns in connection with the ragout.
A dozen and a half little tables set upon the bare
ground were crowded with Bohemia-hunters, who
flocked there because 'Tonio pretended not to want
them and pretended to give them a good dinner.
There was a sprinkling of real Bohemians present
who came for a change because they were tired of
the real Bohemia, and a smart shower of the men
who originate the bright sayings of Congressmen and
the little nephew of the well-known general passen-
ger agent of the Evansville and Terre Haute Rail-
road Company.
Here is a bon mot that was manufactured at
'Tonio's:
"A dinner at 'Tonio's," said a Bohemian, "always
- career [kə´riə]
n.经历；生涯；职业 (初中英语单词) - peaceful [´pi:sfəl] a.和平的；平静的 (初中英语单词)
- expensive [ik´spensiv] a.费钱的，昂贵的 (初中英语单词)
- refuge [´refju:dʒ] v.&n.避难(所)；庇护 (初中英语单词)
- barber [´bɑ:bə] n.理发师 (初中英语单词)
- dispute [di´spju:t] v.&n.争论，辩论；争吵 (初中英语单词)
- traffic [´træfik] n.交通，运输 (初中英语单词)
- virtue [´və:tʃu:] n.美德；贞操；长处 (初中英语单词)
- promptly [´prɔmptli] ad.敏捷地；即时地 (初中英语单词)
- fierce [fiəs] a.残忍的；强烈的 (初中英语单词)
- magnificent [mæg´nifisənt] a.壮丽的；豪华的 (初中英语单词)
- midnight [´midnait] n.午夜；漆黑 (初中英语单词)
- mysterious [mi´stiəriəs] a.神秘的；难以理解的 (初中英语单词)
- suspect [´sʌspekt, sə´spekt] v.怀疑；觉得 n.嫌疑犯 (初中英语单词)
- security [si´kjuəriti] n.安全；证券；抵押品 (初中英语单词)
- hesitate [´heziteit] vi.犹豫，踌躇 (初中英语单词)
- restaurant [´restərɔnt] n.饭店，菜馆 (初中英语单词)
- button [´bʌtn] n.钮扣 vt.扣上(扣子) (初中英语单词)
- connection [kə´nekʃən] n.联系；关系；联运 (初中英语单词)
- shower [´ʃauə] n.展出者；阵雨；淋浴 (初中英语单词)
- nephew [´nevju:, ´nɛfju] n.侄子；外甥 (初中英语单词)
- well-known [,wel´nəun] a.著名的，众所周知的 (初中英语单词)
- portrait [´pɔ:trit] n.肖像；相片；雕像 (高中英语单词)
- belgium [´beldʒəm] n.比利时 (高中英语单词)
- solemnly [´sɔləmli] ad.严肃地，庄严地 (高中英语单词)
- broadway [´brɔ:dwei] n.&a.百老汇大街(的) (高中英语单词)
- patriot [´pætriət] n.爱国者 (高中英语单词)
- poland [´pəulənd] n.波兰 (高中英语单词)
- plentiful [´plentifəl] a.丰富的；多的 (高中英语单词)
- nobility [nəu´biliti, nə-] n.高贵；贵金属性 (高中英语单词)
- profitable [´prɔfitəbəl] a.有益的；有用的 (高中英语单词)
- wholesome [´həulsəm] a.有益于健康的 (高中英语单词)
- distinguished [di´stiŋgwiʃt] a.卓越的，著名的 (高中英语单词)
- tackle [´tækəl] n.用具；装置 vt.处理 (高中英语单词)
- crowded [´kraudid] a.充(拥)满了的 (高中英语单词)
- originate [ə´ridʒineit] vt.发源；创造；引起 (高中英语单词)
- breaker [´breikə] n.浪花；破坏者 (英语四级单词)
- sinister [´sinistə] a.阴险的；不吉的 (英语四级单词)
- lawless [´lɔ:ləs] a.无法无天的 (英语四级单词)
- evermore [,evə´mɔ:] ad.永远，始终 (英语四级单词)
- heedless [´hi:dlis] a.不注意的，不留心的 (英语四级单词)
- vicinity [vi´siniti] n.邻近，附近，接近 (英语四级单词)
- waiter [´weitə] n.侍者，服务员 (英语四级单词)
- freckled [´frekld] a.有雀斑的，有斑点的 (英语四级单词)
- freshly [´freʃli] ad.新近，刚才 (英语四级单词)
- raiment [´reimənt] n.衣饰 (英语四级单词)
- mustache [mə´stɑ:ʃ] n.髭，小胡子 (英语四级单词)
- objective [ɔb´dʒektiv] a.客观的 n.目标 (英语四级单词)
- alderman [´ɔ:ldəmən] n.市参议员；总督 (英语四级单词)
- laundry [´lɔ:ndri] n.洗衣店；待洗的衣服 (英语四级单词)
- defective [di´fektiv] a.有缺陷的；有瑕疵的 (英语四级单词)
- extended [iks´tendid] a.伸长的；广大的 (英语六级单词)
- philistine [´filistain] n.腓力斯人 a.市侩的 (英语六级单词)
- vaudeville [´vɔ:dəvil] n.滑稽通俗喜剧；杂耍 (英语六级单词)
- eccentric [ik´sentrik] a.古怪的；离心的 (英语六级单词)
- frequency [´fri:kwənsi] n.频繁；周率 (英语六级单词)
- fitting [´fitiŋ] a.适当的 n.试衣 (英语六级单词)
- cracked [krækt] a.有裂缝的；碎的；粗哑 (英语六级单词)
- hallway [´hɔ:lwei] n.(美)门厅，过道 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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