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The Arrow of Gold-Part24_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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with courteousdetachment and the narrowest possible line of white

underlining his silky black moustache.



"Your services are immensely appreciated," she said with an amusing

touch of importance as of a great official lady. "Immensely



appreciated by people in a position to understand the great

significance of the Carlist movement in the South. There it has to



combat anarchism, too. I who have lived through the Commune . . ."

Therese came in with a dish, and for the rest of the lunch the



conversation so well begun drifted amongst the most appalling

inanities of the religious-royalist-legitimist order. The ears of



all the Bourbons in the world must have been burning. Mrs. Blunt

seemed to have come into personal contact with a good many of them



and the marvellous insipidity of her recollections was astonishing

to my inexperience. I looked at her from time to time thinking:



She has seen slavery, she has seen the Commune, she knows two

continents, she has seen a civil war, the glory of the Second



Empire, the horrors of two sieges; she has been in contact with

marked personalities, with great events, she has lived on her



wealth, on her personality, and there she is with her plumage

unruffled, as glossy as ever, unable to get old: - a sort of



Phoenix free from the slightest signs of ashes and dust, all

complacent amongst those inanities as if there had been nothing



else in the world. In my youthful haste I asked myself what sort

of airy soul she had.



At last Therese put a dish of fruit on the table, a small

collection of oranges, raisins, and nuts. No doubt she had bought



that lot very cheap and it did not look at all inviting. Captain

Blunt jumped up. "My mother can't stand tobacco smoke. Will you



keep her company, mon cher, while I take a turn with a cigar in

that ridiculous garden. The brougham from the hotel will be here



very soon."

He left us in the white flash of an apologetic grin. Almost



directly he reappeared, visible from head to foot through the glass

side of the studio, pacing up and down the central path of that



"ridiculous" garden: for its elegance and its air of good breeding

the most remarkable figure that I have ever seen before or since.



He had changed his coat. Madame Blunt mere lowered the long-

handled glasses through which she had been contemplating him with



an appraising, absorbed expression which had nothing maternal in

it. But what she said to me was:



"You understand my anxieties while he is campaigning with the

King."



She had spoken in French and she had used the expression "mes

transes" but for all the rest, intonation, bearing, solemnity, she



might have been referring to one of the Bourbons. I am sure that

not a single one of them looked half as aristocratic as her son.



"I understand perfectly, Madame. But then that life is so

romantic."



"Hundreds of young men belonging to a certain sphere are doing

that," she said very distinctly, "only their case is different.



They have their positions, their families to go back to; but we are

different. We are exiles, except of course for the ideals, the



kindred spirit, the friendships of old standing we have in France.

Should my son come out unscathed he has no one but me and I have no



one but him. I have to think of his life. Mr. Mills (what a

distinguished mind that is!) has reassured me as to my son's



health. But he sleeps very badly, doesn't he?"

I murmured something affirmative in a doubtful tone and she



remarked quaintly, with a certain curtness, "It's so unnecessary,

this worry! The unfortunate position of an exile has its



advantages. At a certain height of social position (wealth has got

nothing to do with it, we have been ruined in a most righteous



cause), at a certain established height one can disregard narrow

prejudices. You see examples in the aristocracies of all the



countries. A chivalrous young American may offer his life for a

remote ideal which yet may belong to his familial tradition. We,



in our great country, have every sort of tradition. But a young

man of good connections and distinguished relations must settle



down some day, dispose of his life."




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