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Lady Baltimore-Part16_Owen Wister(1860-1938)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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propriety."



"Oh," said Mrs. Gregory, "no Mayrant was ever known to be gross!"

"But this particular young lady," said Mrs. Weguelin, "would not be



estranged by an masculine irregularities and gayeties. Not many."

"How about infidelities?" I suggested. "If he should flagrantly lose his



heart to another?"

Mrs. Weguelin replied quickly. "That answers very well where hearts



are in question."

"But," said I, "since phosphates are no longer--?"



There was a pause. "It would be a new dilemma," Mrs. Gregory then said

slowly, "if she turned out to care for him, after all."



Throughout all this I was getting more and more the sense of how a total

circle of people, a well-filled, wide circle of interested people,



surrounded and cherished John Mayrant, made itself the setting of which

he was the jewel; I felt in it, even stronger than the manifestation of



personal affection (which certainly was strong enough), a collective

sense of possession in him, a clan value, a pride and a guardianship



concentrated and jealous, as of an heir to some princely" target="_blank" title="a.王候般的；高贵的">princelyestate, who must

be worthy for the sake of a community even before he was worthy for his



own sake. Thus he might amuse himself--it was in the code that princely" target="_blank" title="a.王候般的；高贵的">princely

heirs so should pour se deniaiser, as they neatly put it in Paris--thus



might he and must he fight when his dignity was assailed; but thus might

he not marry outside certain lines prescribed, or depart from his



circle's established creeds, divine and social, especially to hold any

position which (to borrow Mrs. Gregory's phrase) "reflected ignominy"



upon them all. When he transgressed, their very value for him turned them

bitter against him. I know that all of us are more or less chained to our



community, which is pleased to expect us to walk its way, and mightily

displeased when we please ourselves instead by breaking the chain and



walking our own way; and I know that we are forgiven very slowly; but I

had not dreamed what a prisoner to communal criticism a young American



could be until I beheld Kings Port over John Mayrant.

And to what estate was this prince heir? Alas, his inheritance was all of



it the Past and none of it the Future; was the full churchyard and the

empty wharves! He was paying dear for his princedom! And then, there was



yet another sense of this beautiful town that I got here completely,

suddenly crystallized, though slowly gathering ever since my arrival: all



these old people were clustered about one young one. That was it; that

was the town's ultimatetragic note: the old timber of the forest dying



and the too sparse new growth appearing scantily amid the tall, fine,

venerable, decaying trunks. It had been by no razing to the ground and



sowing with salt that the city had perished; a process less violent but

more sad had done away with it. Youth, in the wake of commerce, had ebbed



from Kings Port, had flowed out from the silent, mourning houses, and

sought life North and West, and wherever else life was to be found. Into



my revery floated a phrase from a melodious and once favorite song: O

tempo passato perche non ritorni?



And John Mayrant? Why, then, had he tarried here himself? That is a hard

saying about crabbed age and youth, but are not most of the sayings hard



that are true? What was this young man doing in Kings Port with his

brains, and his pride, and his energetic adolescence? If the Custom House



galled him, the whole country was open to him; why not have tried his

fortune out and away, over the hills, where the new cities lie, all full



of future and empty of past? Was it much to the credit of such a young

man to find himself at the age of twenty-three or twenty-four, sound and



lithe of limb, yet tied to the apron strings of Miss Josephine, and Miss

Eliza, and some thirty or forty other elderlyfemale relatives?



With these thoughts I looked at the ladies and wondered how I might lead

them to answer me about John Mayrant, without asking questions which



might imply something derogatory to him or painful to them. I could not

ever say to them a word which might mean, however indirectly, that I



thought their beautiful, cherished town no place for a young man to go to

seed in; this cut so close to the quick of truth that discourse must keep



wide away from it. What, then, could I ask them? As I pondered, Mrs.

Weguelin solved it for me by what she was saying to Mrs. Gregory, of



which, in my preoccupation, I had evidently missed a part:--

"--if he should share the family bad taste in wives."



"Eliza says she has no fear of that."

"Were I Eliza, Hugh's performance would make me very uneasy."



"Julia, John does not resemble Hugh."




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