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The Wrong Box-Part10_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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pitch--dark; and, as the devil would have it, Morris barked his



shins and sprawled all his length over the pedestal of Hercules.

The pain was sharp; his temper was already thoroughly undermined;



by a last misfortune his hand closed on the hammer as he fell;

and, in a spasm of childishirritation, he turned and struck at



the offending statue. There was a splintering crash.

'O Lord, what have I done next?' wailed Morris; and he groped his



way to find a candle. 'Yes,' he reflected, as he stood with the

light in his hand and looked upon the mutilated leg, from which



about a pound of muscle was detached. 'Yes, I have destroyed a

genuineantique; I may be in for thousands!' And then there



sprung up in his bosom a sort of angry hope. 'Let me see,' he

thought. 'Julia's got rid of--, there's nothing to connect me



with that beast Forsyth; the men were all drunk, and (what's

better) they've been all discharged. O, come, I think this is



another case of moral courage! I'll deny all knowledge of the

thing.'



A moment more, and he stood again before the Hercules, his lips

sternly compressed, the coal-axe and the meat-cleaver under his



arm. The next, he had fallen upon the packing-case. This had been

already seriously undermined by the operations of Gideon; a few



well-directed blows, and it already quaked and gaped; yet a few

more, and it fell about Morris in a shower of boards followed by



an avalanche of straw.

And now the leather-merchant could behold the nature of his task:



and at the first sight his spirit quailed. It was, indeed, no

more ambitious a task for De Lesseps, with all his men and



horses, to attack the hills of Panama, than for a single, slim

young gentleman, with no previous experience of labour in a



quarry, to measure himself against that bloated monster on his

pedestal. And yet the pair were well encountered: on the one



side, bulk--on the other, genuineheroic fire.

'Down you shall come, you great big, ugly brute!' cried Morris



aloud, with something of that passion which swept the Parisian

mob against the walls of the Bastille. 'Down you shall come, this



night. I'll have none of you in my lobby.'

The face, from its indecent expression, had particularly animated



the zeal of our iconoclast; and it was against the face that he

began his operations. The great height of the demigod--for he



stood a fathom and half in his stocking-feet--offered a

preliminary obstacle to this attack. But here, in the first



skirmish of the battle, intellect already began to triumph over

matter. By means of a pair of library steps, the injured



householder gained a posture of advantage; and, with great swipes

of the coal-axe, proceeded to decapitate the brute.



Two hours later, what had been the erect image of a gigantic

coal-porter turned miraculously white, was now no more than a



medley of disjected members; the quadragenarian torso prone

against the pedestal; the lascivious countenance leering down the



kitchen stair; the legs, the arms, the hands, and even the

fingers, scattered broadcast on the lobby floor. Half an hour



more, and all the debris had been laboriously carted to the

kitchen; and Morris, with a gentle sentiment of triumph, looked



round upon the scene of his achievements. Yes, he could deny all

knowledge of it now: the lobby, beyond the fact that it was



partly ruinous, betrayed no trace of the passage of Hercules. But

it was a weary Morris that crept up to bed; his arms and



shoulders ached, the palms of his hands burned from the rough

kisses of the coal-axe, and there was one smarting finger that



stole continually to his mouth. Sleep long delayed to visit the

dilapidated hero, and with the first peep of day it had again



deserted him.

The morning, as though to accord with his disastrous fortunes,



dawned inclemently. An easterly gale was shouting in the streets;

flaws of rain angrily assailed the windows; and as Morris



dressed, the draught from the fireplacevividly played about his

legs.



'I think,' he could not help observing bitterly, 'that with all I

have to bear, they might have given me decent weather.'



There was no bread in the house, for Miss Hazeltine (like all

women left to themselves) had subsisted entirely upon cake. But



some of this was found, and (along with what the poets call a




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