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The Pupil-Part8_HENRY JAMES(1843-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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see that they had not only lost their amiability but had ceased to

believe in themselves. He could also see that if Mrs. Moreen was



trying to get people to take her children she might be regarded as

closing the hatches for the storm. But Morgan would be the last



she would part with.

One winter afternoon - it was a Sunday - he and the boy walked far



together in the Bois de Boulogne. The evening was so splendid, the

cold lemon-coloured sunset so clear, the stream of carriages and



pedestrians so amusing and the fascination of Paris so great, that

they stayed out later than usual and became aware that they should



have to hurry home to arrive in time for dinner. They hurried

accordingly, arm-in-arm, good-humoured and hungry, agreeing that



there was nothing like Paris after all and that after everything

too that had come and gone they were not yet sated with innocent



pleasures. When they reached the hotel they found that, though

scandalously late, they were in time for all the dinner they were



likely to sit down to. Confusion reigned in the apartments of the

Moreens - very shabby ones this time, but the best in the house -



and before the interrupted service of the table, with objects

displaced almost as if there had been a scuffle and a great wine-



stain from an overturned bottle, Pemberton couldn't blink the fact

that there had been a scene of the last proprietary firmness. The



storm had come - they were all seeking refuge. The hatches were

down, Paula and Amy were invisible - they had never tried the most



casual art upon Pemberton, but he felt they had enough of an eye to

him not to wish to meet him as young ladies whose frocks had been



confiscated - and Ulick appeared to have jumped overboard. The

host and his staff, in a word, had ceased to "go on" at the pace of



their guests, and the air of embarrassed detention, thanks to a

pile of gaping trunks in the passage, was strangely commingled with



the air of indignant withdrawal. When Morgan took all this in -

and he took it in very quickly - he coloured to the roots of his



hair. He had walked from his infancy among difficulties and

dangers, but he had never seen a public exposure. Pemberton



noticed in a second glance at him that the tears had rushed into

his eyes and that they were tears of a new and untasted bitterness.



He wondered an instant, for the boy's sake, whether he might

successfullypretend not to understand. Not successfully, he felt,



as Mr. and Mrs. Moreen, dinnerless by their extinguished hearth,

rose before him in their little dishonoured salon, casting about



with glassy eyes for the nearest port in such a storm. They were

not prostrate but were horribly white, and Mrs. Moreen had



evidently been crying. Pemberton quickly learned however that her

grief was not for the loss of her dinner, much as she usually



enjoyed it, but the fruit of a blow that struck even deeper, as she

made all haste to explain. He would see for himself, so far as



that went, how the great change had come, the dreadful bolt had

fallen, and how they would now all have to turn themselves about.



Therefore cruel as it was to them to part with their darling she

must look to him to carry a little further the influence he had so



fortunately acquired with the boy - to induce his young charge to

follow him into some modestretreat. They depended on him - that



was the fact - to take their delightful child temporarily under his

protection; it would leave Mr. Moreen and herself so much more free



to give the proper attention (too little, alas! had been given) to

the readjustment of their affairs.



"We trust you - we feel we CAN," said Mrs. Moreen, slowly rubbing

her plump white hands and looking with compunction hard at Morgan,



whose chin, not to take liberties, her husband stroked with a

paternal forefinger.



"Oh yes - we feel that we CAN. We trust Mr. Pemberton fully,

Morgan," Mr. Moreen pursued.



Pemberton wondered again if he might pretend not to understand; but

everything good gave way to the intensity of Morgan's



understanding. "Do you mean he may take me to live with him for

ever and ever?" cried the boy. "May take me away, away, anywhere



he likes?"

"For ever and ever? Comme vous-y-allez!" Mr. Moreen laughed



indulgently. "For as long as Mr. Pemberton may be so good."




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