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The Arrow of Gold-Part3_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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"This house is full of costly objects. So are all his other



houses, so is his place in Paris - that mysterious Pavilion hidden

away in Passy somewhere."



Mills knew the Pavilion. The wine had, I suppose, loosened his

tongue. Blunt, too, lost something of his reserve. From their



talk I gathered the notion of an eccentricpersonality, a man of

great wealth, not so much solitary as difficult of access, a



collector of fine things, a painter known only to very few people

and not at all to the public market. But as meantime I had been



emptying my Venetian goblet with a certain regularity (the amount

of heat given out by that iron stove was amazing; it parched one's



throat, and the straw-coloured wine didn't seem much stronger than

so much pleasantly flavoured water) the voices and the impressions



they conveyed acquired something fantastic to my mind. Suddenly I

perceived that Mills was sitting in his shirt-sleeves. I had not



noticed him taking off his coat. Blunt had unbuttoned his shabby

jacket, exposing a lot of starched shirt-front with the white tie



under his dark shaved chin. He had a strange air of insolence - or

so it seemed to me. I addressed him much louder than I intended



really.

"Did you know that extraordinary man?"



"To know him personally one had to be either very distinguished or

very lucky. Mr. Mills here . . ."



"Yes, I have been lucky," Mills struck in. "It was my cousin who

was distinguished. That's how I managed to enter his house in



Paris - it was called the Pavilion - twice."

"And saw Dona Rita twice, too?" asked Blunt with an indefinite



smile and a marked emphasis. Mills was also emphatic in his reply

but with a serious face.



"I am not an easy enthusiast where women are concerned, but she was

without doubt the most admirable find of his amongst all the



priceless items he had accumulated in that house - the most

admirable. . . "



"Ah! But, you see, of all the objects there she was the only one

that was alive," pointed out Blunt with the slightest possible



flavour of sarcasm.

"Immensely so," affirmed Mills. "Not because she was restless,



indeed she hardly ever moved from that couch between the windows -

you know."



"No. I don't know. I've never been in there," announced Blunt

with that flash of white teeth so strangely without any character



of its own that it was merely disturbing.

"But she radiated life," continued Mills. "She had plenty of it,



and it had a quality. My cousin and Henry Allegre had a lot to say

to each other and so I was free to talk to her. At the second



visit we were like old friends, which was absurdconsidering that

all the chances were that we would never meet again in this world



or in the next. I am not meddling with theology but it seems to me

that in the Elysian fields she'll have her place in a very special



company."

All this in a sympathetic voice and in his unmoved manner. Blunt



produced another disturbing white flash and muttered:

"I should say mixed." Then louder: "As for instance . . . "



"As for instance Cleopatra," answered Mills quietly. He added

after a pause: "Who was not exactly pretty."



"I should have thought rather a La Valliere," Blunt dropped with an

indifference of which one did not know what to make. He may have



begun to be bored with the subject. But it may have been put on,

for the whole personality was not clearly definable. I, however,



was not indifferent. A woman is always an interesting subject and

I was thoroughly awake to that interest. Mills pondered for a



while with a sort of dispassionate benevolence, at last:

"Yes, Dona Rita as far as I know her is so varied in her simplicity



that even that is possible," he said. "Yes. A romantic resigned

La Valliere . . . who had a big mouth."






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