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Some Reminiscences-Part16_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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weariness of which that interruption had made me aware--the awful

disenchantment of a mind realising suddenly the futility of an



enormous task, joined to a bodilyfatigue such as no ordinary

amount of fairly heavy physical labour could ever account for. I



have carried bags of wheat on my back, bent almost double under a

ship's deck-beams, from six in the morning till six in the



evening (with an hour and a half off for meals), so I ought to

know.



And I love letters. I am jealous of their honour and concerned

for the dignity and comeliness of their service. I was, most



likely, the only writer that neat lady had ever caught in the

exercise of his craft, and it distressed me not to be able to



remember when it was that I dressed myself last, and how. No

doubt that would be all right in essentials. The fortune of the



house included a pair of grey-blue watchful eyes that would see

to that. But I felt somehow as grimy as a Costaguana lepero



after a day's fighting in the streets, rumpled all over and

dishevelled down to my very heels. And I am afraid I blinked



stupidly. All this was bad for the honour of letters and the

dignity of their service. Seen indistinctly through the dust of



my collapsed universe, the good lady glanced about the room with

a lightly" target="_blank" title="ad.轻微地；细长的">slightly amused serenity. And she was smiling. What on earth



was she smiling at? She remarked casually:

"I am afraid I interrupted you."



"Not at all."

She accepted the denial in perfect good faith. And it was



strictly true. Interrupted--indeed! She had robbed me of at

least twenty lives, each infinitely more poignant and real than



her own, because informed with passion, possessed of convictions,

involved in great affairs created out of my own substance for an



anxiously meditated end.

She remained silent for a while, then said with a last glance all



round at the litter of the fray:

"And you sit like this here writing your--your. . ."



"I--what? Oh, yes, I sit here all day."

"It must be perfectly delightful."



I suppose that, being no longer very young, I might have been on

the verge of having a stroke; but she had left her dog in the



porch, and my boy's dog, patrolling the field in front, had

espied him from afar. He came on straight and swift like a



cannon-ball, and the noise of the fight, which burst suddenly

upon our ears, was more than enough to scare away a fit of



apoplexy. We went out hastily and separated the gallant animals.

Afterwards I told the lady where she would find my wife--just



round the corner, under the trees. She nodded and went off with

her dog, leaving me appalled before the death and devastation she



had lightly made--and with the awfullyinstructive sound of the

word "delightful" lingering in my ears.



Nevertheless, later on, I duly escorted her to the field gate. I

wanted to be civil, of course (what are twenty lives in a mere



novel that one should be rude to a lady on their account?), but

mainly, to adopt the good sound Ollendorffian style, because I



did not want the dog of the general's daughter to fight again

(encore) with the faithful dog of my infant son (mon petit



garcon).--Was I afraid that the dog of the general's daughter

would be able to overcome (vaincre) the dog of my child?--No, I



was not afraid. . .But away with the Ollendorff method. However

appropriate and seemingly unavoidable when I touch upon anything



appertaining to the lady, it is most unsuitable to the origin,

character and history of the dog; for the dog was the gift to the



child from a man for whom words had anything but an Ollendorffian

value, a man almost childlike in the impulsive movements of his



untutored genius, the most single-minded of verbal

impressionists, using his great gifts of straight feeling and



right expression with a fine sincerity and a strong if, perhaps,

not fully consciousconviction. His art did not obtain, I fear,



all the credit its unsophisticated inspiration deserved. I am

alluding to the late Stephen Crane, the author of "The Red Badge



of Courage," a work of imagination which found its short moment




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