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The Arrow of Gold-Part4_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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wanted to pay my mother out, for all these 'Masters' she had been

throwing at his head for the last two hours. He insinuates with



the utmost politeness:

"'As you are honouring my poor collection with a visit you may like



to judge for yourself as to the inspiration of these two pictures.

She is upstairs changing her dress after our morning ride. But she



wouldn't be very long. She might be a little surprised at first to

be called down like this, but with a few words of preparation and



purely as a matter of art . . .'

"There were never two people more taken aback. Versoy himself



confesses that he dropped his tall hat with a crash. I am a

dutiful son, I hope, but I must say I should have liked to have



seen the retreat down the great staircase. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

He laughed most undutifully and then his face twitched grimly.



"That implacable brute Allegre followed them down ceremoniously and

put my mother into the fiacre at the door with the greatest



deference. He didn't open his lips though, and made a great bow as

the fiacre drove away. My mother didn't recover from her



consternation for three days. I lunch with her almost daily and I

couldn't imagine what was the matter. Then one day . . ."



He glanced round the table, jumped up and with a word of excuse

left the studio by a small door in a corner. This startled me into



the consciousness that I had been as if I had not existed for these

two men. With his elbows propped on the table Mills had his hands



in front of his face clasping the pipe from which he extracted now

and then a puff of smoke, staring stolidly across the room.



I was moved to ask in a whisper:

"Do you know him well?"



"I don't know what he is driving at," he answered drily. "But as

to his mother she is not as volatile as all that. I suspect it was



business. It may have been a deep plot to get a picture out of

Allegre for somebody. My cousin as likely as not. Or simply to



discover what he had. The Blunts lost all their property and in

Paris there are various ways of making a little money, without



actually breaking anything. Not even the law. And Mrs. Blunt

really had a position once - in the days of the Second Empire - and



so. . ."

I listened open-mouthed to these things into which my West-Indian



experiences could not have given me an insight. But Mills checked

himself and ended in a changed tone.



"It's not easy to know what she would be at, either, in any given

instance. For the rest, spotlessly honourable. A delightful,



aristocratic old lady. Only poor."

A bump at the door silenced him and immediately Mr. John Blunt,



Captain of Cavalry in the Army of Legitimity, first-rate cook (as

to one dish at least), and generous host, entered clutching the



necks of four more bottles between the fingers of his hand.

"I stumbled and nearly smashed the lot," he remarked casually. But



even I, with all my innocence, never for a moment believed he had

stumbled accidentally. During the uncorking and the filling up of



glasses a profound silence reigned; but neither of us took it

seriously - any more than his stumble.



"One day," he went on again in that curiously flavoured voice of

his, "my mother took a heroic decision and made up her mind to get



up in the middle of the night. You must understand my mother's

phraseology. It meant that she would be up and dressed by nine



o'clock. This time it was not Versoy that was commanded for

attendance, but I. You may imagine how delighted I was. . . ."



It was very plain to me that Blunt was addressing himself

exclusively to Mills: Mills the mind, even more than Mills the



man. It was as if Mills represented something initiated and to be

reckoned with. I, of course, could have no such pretensions. If I



represented anything it was a perfect freshness of sensations and a

refreshing ignorance, not so much of what life may give one (as to



that I had some ideas at least) but of what it really contains. I

knew very well that I was utterly insignificant in these men's



eyes. Yet my attention was not checked by that knowledge. It's

true they were talking of a woman, but I was yet at the age when



this subject by itself is not of overwhelming interest. My

imagination would have been more stimulated probably by the



adventures and fortunes of a man. What kept my interest from

flagging was Mr. Blunt himself. The play of the white gleams of



his smile round the suspicion of grimness of his tone fascinated me

like a moral incongruity.



So at the age when one sleeps well indeed but does feel sometimes




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