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'Twixt Land & Sea-Part7_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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feared. . . . But he did not give it up in so many words.

We were only three at table; the girl by means of repeated "Won't!"



"Shan't!" and "Don't care!" having conveyed and affirmed her

intention not to come to the table, not to have any dinner, not to



move from the verandah. The old relative hopped about in her flat

slippers and piped indignantly, Jacobus towered over her and



murmured placidly in his throat; I joined jocularly from a

distance, throwing in a few words, for which under the cover of the



night I received secretly a most vicious poke in the ribs from the

old woman's elbow or perhaps her fist. I restrained a cry. And



all the time the girl didn't even condescend to raise her head to

look at any of us. All this may sound childish - and yet that



stony, petulant sullenness had an obscurely tragic flavour.

And so we sat down to the food around the light of a good many



candles while she remained crouching out there, staring in the dark

as if feeding her bad temper on the heavily scented air of the



admirable garden.

Before leaving I said to Jacobus that I would come next day to hear



if the bag affair had made any progress. He shook his head

slightly at that.



"I'll haunt your house daily till you pull it off. You'll be

always finding me here."



His faint, melancholy smile did not part his thick lips.

"That will be all right, Captain."



Then seeing me to the door, very tranquil, he murmured earnestly

the recommendation: "Make yourself at home," and also the



hospitable hint about there being always "a plate of soup." It was

only on my way to the quay, down the ill-lighted streets, that I



remembered I had been engaged to dine that very evening with the S-

family. Though vexed with my forgetfulness (it would be rather



awkward to explain) I couldn't help thinking that it had procured

me a more amusing evening. And besides - business. The sacred



business -.

In a barefooted negro who overtook me at a run and bolted down the



landing-steps I recognised Jacobus's boatman, who must have been

feeding in the kitchen. His usual "Good-night, sah!" as I went up



my ship's ladder had a more cordial sound than on previous

occasions.



CHAPTER V

I kept my word to Jacobus. I haunted his home. He was perpetually



finding me there of an afternoon when he popped in for a moment

from the "store." The sound of my voice talking to his Alice



greeted him on his doorstep; and when he returned for good in the

evening, ten to one he would hear it still going on in the



verandah. I just nodded to him; he would sit down heavily and

gently, and watch with a sort of approving anxiety my efforts to



make his daughter smile.

I called her often "Alice," right before him; sometimes I would



address her as Miss "Don't Care," and I exhausted myself in

nonsensical chatter without succeeding once in taking her out of



her peevish and tragic self. There were moments when I felt I must

break out and start swearing at her till all was blue. And I



fancied that had I done so Jacobus would not have moved a muscle.

A sort of shady, intimate understanding seemed to have been



established between us.

I must say the girl treated her father exactly in the same way she



treated me.

And how could it have been otherwise? She treated me as she



treated her father. She had never seen a visitor. She did not

know how men behaved. I belonged to the low lot with whom her



father did business at the port. I was of no account. So was her

father. The only decent people in the world were the people of the



island, who would have nothing to do with him because of something

wicked he had done. This was apparently the explanation Miss



Jacobus had given her of the household's isolated position. For

she had to be told something! And I feel convinced that this



version had been assented to by Jacobus. I must say the old woman

was putting it forward with considerable gusto. It was on her lips



the universalexplanation, the universalallusion, the universal

taunt.






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