章节正文
anxious eyes and faintly propitiatory manner suggested an
impending appeal.
Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey had the savoir-faire of a successful
consultant; he prided himself on being all things to all men; but
just for an instant he was at a loss what sort of thing he had to
be here. Then he adopted the genial, kindly, but by no means
lavishly generous tone advisable in the case of a man who has
suffered considerable social deterioration without being very
seriously to blame.
Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey was a little round-faced man with
defective eyesight and an unsuitable nose for the glasses he
wore, and he flaunted--God knows why--enormous side-whiskers.
"Well," he said, balancing the glasses skilfully by throwing
back his head, "and how are you? And what can I do for you?
There's no external evidence of trouble. You're looking lean and
a little pale, but thoroughly fit."
"Yes," said the late bishop, "I'm fairly fit--"
"Only--?" said the doctor, smiling his teeth, with something of
the manner of an old bathing woman who tells a child to jump.
"Well, I'm run down and--worried."
"We'd better sit down," said the great doctor professionally,
and looked hard at him. Then he pulled at the arm of a chair.
The ex-bishop sat down, and the doctor placed himself between
his patient and the light.
"This business of resigning my bishopric and so forth has
involved very considerable strains," Scrope began. "That I think
is the essence of the trouble. One cuts so many associations....
I did not realize how much feeling there would be....
Difficulties too of readjusting one's position."
"Zactly. Zactly. Zactly," said the doctor, snapping his face
and making his glasses vibrate. "Run down. Want a tonic or a
change?"
"Yes. In fact--I want a particular tonic."
Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey made his eyes and mouth round and
interrogative.
"While you were away last spring--"
"Had to go," said the doctor, "unavoidable. Gas gangrene.
Certain enquiries. These young investigators all very well in
their way. But we older reputations--Experience. Maturity of
judgment. Can't do without us. Yes?"
"Well, I came here last spring and saw, an assistant I suppose
he was, or a supply,--do you call them supplies in your
profession?--named, I think--Let me see--D--?"
"Dale!"
The doctor as he uttered this word set his face to the
unaccustomed exercise of expressing malignity. His round blue
eyes sought to blaze, small cherubic muscles exerted themselves
to pucker his brows. His colour became a violent pink. "Lunatic!"
he said. "Dangerous Lunatic! He didn't do anything--anything
bad in your case, did he?"
He was evidently highly charged with grievance in this matter.
"That man was sent to me from Cambridge with the highest
testimonials. The very highest. I had to go at twenty-four hours'
notice. Enquiry--gas gangrene. There was nothing for it but to
leave things in his hands."
Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey disavowed responsibility with an open,
stumpy-fingered hand.
"He did me no particular harm," said Scrope.
"You are the first he spared," said Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey.
"Did he--? Was he unskilful?"
"Unskilful is hardly the word."
"Were his methods peculiar?"
The little doctor sprang to his feet and began to pace about
the room. "Peculiar!" he said. "It was abominable that they
should send him to me. Abominable!"
He turned, with all the round knobs that constituted his face,
aglow. His side-whiskers waved apart like wings about to flap. He
protruded his face towards his seated patient. "I am glad that he
has been killed," he said. "Glad! There!"
His glasses fell off--shocked beyond measure. He did not heed
them. They swnng about in front of him as if they sought to
escape while he poured out his feelings.
"Fool!" he spluttered with demonstrative gestures. "Dangerous
fool! His one idea--to upset everybody. Drugs, Sir! The most
terrible drugs! I come back. Find ladies. High social position.
Morphine-maniacs. Others. Reckless use of the most dangerous
expedients.... Cocaine not in it. Stimulants--violent
stimulants. In the highest quarters. Terrible. Exalted persons.
Royalty! Anxious to be given war work and become anonymous....
Horrible! He's been a terrible influence. One idea--to disturb
soul and body. Minds unhinged. Personal relations deranged.
Shattered the practice of years. The harm he has done! The harm!"
He looked as though he was trying to burst--as a final
expression of wrath. He failed. His hands felt trembling to
recover his pince-nez. Then from his tail pocket he produced a
large silk handkerchief and wiped the glasses. Replaced them.
Wriggled his head in his collar, running his fingers round his
neck. Patted his tie.
"Excuse this outbreak!" he said. "But Dr. Dale has inflicted
injuries "
Scrope got up, walked slowly to the window, clasping his hands
behind his back, and turned. His manner still retained much of
his episcopaldignity. "I am sorry. But still you can no doubt
tell from your books what it was he gave me. It was a tonic that
had a very great effect on me. And I need it badly now."
Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey was quietly malignant. "He kept no diary
at all," he said. "No diary at all."
"But
"If he did," said Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey, holding up a flat hand
and wagging it from side to side, "I wouldn't follow his
treatment." He intensified with the hand going faster. "I
wouldn't follow his treatment. Not under any circumstances."
"Naturally," said Scrope, "if the results are what you say. But
in my case it wasn't a treatment. I was sleepless, confused in my
mind, wretched and demoralized; I came here, and he just produced
the stuff--It clears the head, it clears the mind. One seems to
get away from the cloud of things, to get through to essentials
and fundamentals. It straightened me out.... You must know such a
stuff. Just now, confronted with all sorts of problems arising
out of my resignation, I want that tonic effect again. I must
have it. I have matters to decide--and I can't decide. I find
myself uncertain, changeable from hour to hour. I don't ask you
to take up anything of this man Dale's. This is a new occasion.
But I want that drug."
At the beginning of this speech Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey's hands
had fallen to his hips. As Scrope went on the doctor's pose had
stiffened. His head had gone a little on one side; he had begun
to play with his glasses. At the end he gave vent to one or two
short coughs, and then pointed his words with his glasses held
out.
"Tell me," he said, "tell me." (Cough.) "Had this drug that
cleared your head--anything to do with your resignation?"
And he put on his glasses disconcertingly, and threw his head
back to watch the reply.
"It did help to clear up the situation."
"Exactly," said Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey in a tone that defined his
own position with remorseless clearness. "Exactly." And he held
up a flat, arresting hand. .
"My dear Sir," he said. "How can you expect me to help you to a
drug so disastrous?--even if I could tell you what it is."
"But it was not disastrous to me," said Scrope.
"Your extraordinaryresignation--your still more
extraordinary way of proclaiming it!"
"I don't think those were disasters."
"But my dear Sir!"
"You don't want to discuss theology with me, I know. So let me
tell you simply that from my point of view the illumination that
came to me--this drug of Dr. Dale's helping--has been the
great release of my life. It crystallized my mind. It swept aside
the confusing commonplace things about me. Just for a time I saw
truth clearly.... I want to do so again."
"Why?"
"There is a crisis in my affairs--never mind what. But I
cannot see my way clear."
Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey was meditating now with his eyes on his
carpet and the corners of his mouth tucked in. He was swinging
his glasses pendulum-wise. "Tell me," he said, looking sideways
at Scrope, "what were the effects of this drug? It may have been
anything. How did it give you this--this vision of the truth--
that led to your resignation?"
Scrope felt a sudden shyness. But he wanted Dale's drug again
so badly that he obliged himself to describe his previous
experiences to the best of his ability.
"It was," he said in a matter-of-fact tone, "a golden,
transparentliquid. Very golden, like a warm-tinted Chablis. When
water was added it became streaked and opalescent, with a kind of
living quiver in it. I held it up to the light."
"Yes? And when you took it?"
"I felt suddenly clearer. My mind--I had a kind of exaltation
and assurance."
"Your mind," Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey assisted, "began to go
twenty-nine to the dozen."
"It felt stronger and clearer," said Scrope, sticking to his
quest.
"And did things look as usual?" asked the doctor, protruding
his knobby little face like a clenched fist.
"No," said Scrope and regarded him. How much was it possible to
tell a man of this type?
"They differed?" said the doctor, relaxing.
"Yes.... Well, to be plain.... I had an immediate sense of God.
I saw the world--as if it were a transparent curtain, and then
God became--evident.... Is it possible for that to determine
the drug?"
"God became--evident," the doctor said with some distaste,
and shook his head slowly. Then in a sudden sharp cross-examining
tone: "You mean you had a vision? Actually saw 'um?"
"It was in the form of a vision." Scrope was now mentally very
uncomfortable indeed.
The doctor's lips repeated these words noiselessly, with an
effect of contempt. "He must have given you something--It's a
little like morphia. But golden--opalescent? And it was this
vision made you astonish us all with your resignation?"
"That was part of a larger process," said Scrope patiently. "I
had been drifting into a complete repudiation of the Anglican
positions long before that. All that this drug did was to make
clear what was already in my mind. And give it value. Act as a
developer."
The doctor suddenly gave way to a botryoidal hilarity. "To
think that one should be consulted about visions of God--in
Mount Street!" he said. "And you know, you know you half want to
believe that vision was real. You know you do."
So far Scrope had been resisting his realization of failure.
Now he gave way to an exasperation that made him reckless of
Brighton-Pomfrey's opinion. "I do think," he said, "that that
drug did in some way make God real to me. I think I saw God."
Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey shook his head in a way that made Scrope
want to hit him.
"I think I saw God," he repeated more firmly. "I had a sudden
realization of how great he was and how great life was, and how
timid and mean and sordid were all our genteel, professional
lives. I was seized upon, for a time I was altogether possessed
impending appeal.
Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey had the savoir-faire of a successful
consultant; he prided himself on being all things to all men; but
just for an instant he was at a loss what sort of thing he had to
be here. Then he adopted the genial, kindly, but by no means
lavishly generous tone advisable in the case of a man who has
suffered considerable social deterioration without being very
seriously to blame.
Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey was a little round-faced man with
defective eyesight and an unsuitable nose for the glasses he
wore, and he flaunted--God knows why--enormous side-whiskers.
"Well," he said, balancing the glasses skilfully by throwing
back his head, "and how are you? And what can I do for you?
There's no external evidence of trouble. You're looking lean and
a little pale, but thoroughly fit."
"Yes," said the late bishop, "I'm fairly fit--"
"Only--?" said the doctor, smiling his teeth, with something of
the manner of an old bathing woman who tells a child to jump.
"Well, I'm run down and--worried."
"We'd better sit down," said the great doctor professionally,
and looked hard at him. Then he pulled at the arm of a chair.
The ex-bishop sat down, and the doctor placed himself between
his patient and the light.
"This business of resigning my bishopric and so forth has
involved very considerable strains," Scrope began. "That I think
is the essence of the trouble. One cuts so many associations....
I did not realize how much feeling there would be....
Difficulties too of readjusting one's position."
"Zactly. Zactly. Zactly," said the doctor, snapping his face
and making his glasses vibrate. "Run down. Want a tonic or a
change?"
"Yes. In fact--I want a particular tonic."
Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey made his eyes and mouth round and
interrogative.
"While you were away last spring--"
"Had to go," said the doctor, "unavoidable. Gas gangrene.
Certain enquiries. These young investigators all very well in
their way. But we older reputations--Experience. Maturity of
judgment. Can't do without us. Yes?"
"Well, I came here last spring and saw, an assistant I suppose
he was, or a supply,--do you call them supplies in your
profession?--named, I think--Let me see--D--?"
"Dale!"
The doctor as he uttered this word set his face to the
unaccustomed exercise of expressing malignity. His round blue
eyes sought to blaze, small cherubic muscles exerted themselves
to pucker his brows. His colour became a violent pink. "Lunatic!"
he said. "Dangerous Lunatic! He didn't do anything--anything
bad in your case, did he?"
He was evidently highly charged with grievance in this matter.
"That man was sent to me from Cambridge with the highest
testimonials. The very highest. I had to go at twenty-four hours'
notice. Enquiry--gas gangrene. There was nothing for it but to
leave things in his hands."
Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey disavowed responsibility with an open,
stumpy-fingered hand.
"He did me no particular harm," said Scrope.
"You are the first he spared," said Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey.
"Did he--? Was he unskilful?"
"Unskilful is hardly the word."
"Were his methods peculiar?"
The little doctor sprang to his feet and began to pace about
the room. "Peculiar!" he said. "It was abominable that they
should send him to me. Abominable!"
He turned, with all the round knobs that constituted his face,
aglow. His side-whiskers waved apart like wings about to flap. He
protruded his face towards his seated patient. "I am glad that he
has been killed," he said. "Glad! There!"
His glasses fell off--shocked beyond measure. He did not heed
them. They swnng about in front of him as if they sought to
escape while he poured out his feelings.
"Fool!" he spluttered with demonstrative gestures. "Dangerous
fool! His one idea--to upset everybody. Drugs, Sir! The most
terrible drugs! I come back. Find ladies. High social position.
Morphine-maniacs. Others. Reckless use of the most dangerous
expedients.... Cocaine not in it. Stimulants--violent
stimulants. In the highest quarters. Terrible. Exalted persons.
Royalty! Anxious to be given war work and become anonymous....
Horrible! He's been a terrible influence. One idea--to disturb
soul and body. Minds unhinged. Personal relations deranged.
Shattered the practice of years. The harm he has done! The harm!"
He looked as though he was trying to burst--as a final
expression of wrath. He failed. His hands felt trembling to
recover his pince-nez. Then from his tail pocket he produced a
large silk handkerchief and wiped the glasses. Replaced them.
Wriggled his head in his collar, running his fingers round his
neck. Patted his tie.
"Excuse this outbreak!" he said. "But Dr. Dale has inflicted
injuries "
Scrope got up, walked slowly to the window, clasping his hands
behind his back, and turned. His manner still retained much of
his episcopaldignity. "I am sorry. But still you can no doubt
tell from your books what it was he gave me. It was a tonic that
had a very great effect on me. And I need it badly now."
Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey was quietly malignant. "He kept no diary
at all," he said. "No diary at all."
"But
"If he did," said Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey, holding up a flat hand
and wagging it from side to side, "I wouldn't follow his
treatment." He intensified with the hand going faster. "I
wouldn't follow his treatment. Not under any circumstances."
"Naturally," said Scrope, "if the results are what you say. But
in my case it wasn't a treatment. I was sleepless, confused in my
mind, wretched and demoralized; I came here, and he just produced
the stuff--It clears the head, it clears the mind. One seems to
get away from the cloud of things, to get through to essentials
and fundamentals. It straightened me out.... You must know such a
stuff. Just now, confronted with all sorts of problems arising
out of my resignation, I want that tonic effect again. I must
have it. I have matters to decide--and I can't decide. I find
myself uncertain, changeable from hour to hour. I don't ask you
to take up anything of this man Dale's. This is a new occasion.
But I want that drug."
At the beginning of this speech Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey's hands
had fallen to his hips. As Scrope went on the doctor's pose had
stiffened. His head had gone a little on one side; he had begun
to play with his glasses. At the end he gave vent to one or two
short coughs, and then pointed his words with his glasses held
out.
"Tell me," he said, "tell me." (Cough.) "Had this drug that
cleared your head--anything to do with your resignation?"
And he put on his glasses disconcertingly, and threw his head
back to watch the reply.
"It did help to clear up the situation."
"Exactly," said Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey in a tone that defined his
own position with remorseless clearness. "Exactly." And he held
up a flat, arresting hand. .
"My dear Sir," he said. "How can you expect me to help you to a
drug so disastrous?--even if I could tell you what it is."
"But it was not disastrous to me," said Scrope.
"Your extraordinaryresignation--your still more
extraordinary way of proclaiming it!"
"I don't think those were disasters."
"But my dear Sir!"
"You don't want to discuss theology with me, I know. So let me
tell you simply that from my point of view the illumination that
came to me--this drug of Dr. Dale's helping--has been the
great release of my life. It crystallized my mind. It swept aside
the confusing commonplace things about me. Just for a time I saw
truth clearly.... I want to do so again."
"Why?"
"There is a crisis in my affairs--never mind what. But I
cannot see my way clear."
Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey was meditating now with his eyes on his
carpet and the corners of his mouth tucked in. He was swinging
his glasses pendulum-wise. "Tell me," he said, looking sideways
at Scrope, "what were the effects of this drug? It may have been
anything. How did it give you this--this vision of the truth--
that led to your resignation?"
Scrope felt a sudden shyness. But he wanted Dale's drug again
so badly that he obliged himself to describe his previous
experiences to the best of his ability.
"It was," he said in a matter-of-fact tone, "a golden,
transparentliquid. Very golden, like a warm-tinted Chablis. When
water was added it became streaked and opalescent, with a kind of
living quiver in it. I held it up to the light."
"Yes? And when you took it?"
"I felt suddenly clearer. My mind--I had a kind of exaltation
and assurance."
"Your mind," Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey assisted, "began to go
twenty-nine to the dozen."
"It felt stronger and clearer," said Scrope, sticking to his
quest.
"And did things look as usual?" asked the doctor, protruding
his knobby little face like a clenched fist.
"No," said Scrope and regarded him. How much was it possible to
tell a man of this type?
"They differed?" said the doctor, relaxing.
"Yes.... Well, to be plain.... I had an immediate sense of God.
I saw the world--as if it were a transparent curtain, and then
God became--evident.... Is it possible for that to determine
the drug?"
"God became--evident," the doctor said with some distaste,
and shook his head slowly. Then in a sudden sharp cross-examining
tone: "You mean you had a vision? Actually saw 'um?"
"It was in the form of a vision." Scrope was now mentally very
uncomfortable indeed.
The doctor's lips repeated these words noiselessly, with an
effect of contempt. "He must have given you something--It's a
little like morphia. But golden--opalescent? And it was this
vision made you astonish us all with your resignation?"
"That was part of a larger process," said Scrope patiently. "I
had been drifting into a complete repudiation of the Anglican
positions long before that. All that this drug did was to make
clear what was already in my mind. And give it value. Act as a
developer."
The doctor suddenly gave way to a botryoidal hilarity. "To
think that one should be consulted about visions of God--in
Mount Street!" he said. "And you know, you know you half want to
believe that vision was real. You know you do."
So far Scrope had been resisting his realization of failure.
Now he gave way to an exasperation that made him reckless of
Brighton-Pomfrey's opinion. "I do think," he said, "that that
drug did in some way make God real to me. I think I saw God."
Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey shook his head in a way that made Scrope
want to hit him.
"I think I saw God," he repeated more firmly. "I had a sudden
realization of how great he was and how great life was, and how
timid and mean and sordid were all our genteel, professional
lives. I was seized upon, for a time I was altogether possessed
- anxious [´æŋkʃəs]
a.担忧的；渴望的 (初中英语单词) - instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- generous [´dʒenərəs] a.慷慨的；丰盛的 (初中英语单词)
- considerable [kən´sidərəbəl] a.重要的；值得重视 (初中英语单词)
- thoroughly [´θʌrəli] ad.完全地，彻底地 (初中英语单词)
- bishop [´biʃəp] n.主教 (初中英语单词)
- assistant [ə´sistənt] n.助手；助理；助教 (初中英语单词)
- violent [´vaiələnt] a.强暴的；猛烈的 (初中英语单词)
- evidently [´evidəntli] ad.明显地 (初中英语单词)
- responsibility [ri,spɔnsə´biliti] n.责任(心)；职责；任务 (初中英语单词)
- sprang [spræŋ] spring 的过去式 (初中英语单词)
- measure [´meʒə] n.量度；范围 vt.测量 (初中英语单词)
- handkerchief [´hæŋkətʃif] n.手帕，手绢 (初中英语单词)
- collar [´kɔlə] n.衣领；(狗等的)项圈 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- dignity [´digniti] n.尊严，尊贵；高官显贵 (初中英语单词)
- treatment [´tri:tmənt] n.待遇；对待；治疗 (初中英语单词)
- wretched [´retʃid] a.可怜的；倒霉的 (初中英语单词)
- uncertain [ʌn´sə:tn] a.不定的；不可靠的 (初中英语单词)
- changeable [´tʃeindʒəbəl] a.易变的；可换的 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- pointed [´pɔintid] a.尖(锐)的；中肯的 (初中英语单词)
- extraordinary [ik´strɔ:dinəri] a.非常的；额外的 (初中英语单词)
- release [ri´li:s] vt&n.释放；放松；赦免 (初中英语单词)
- vision [´viʒən] n.视觉；想象力；幻影 (初中英语单词)
- liquid [´likwid] n.液体 a.流动的 (初中英语单词)
- quiver [´kwivə] v.抖动 n.颤动(声) (初中英语单词)
- actually [´æktʃuəli] ad.事实上；实际上 (初中英语单词)
- astonish [ə´stɔniʃ] vt.使惊讶；使惊异 (初中英语单词)
- realization [,riəlai´zeiʃən] n.实现；认识 (初中英语单词)
- firmly [´fə:mli] ad.坚固地，稳定地 (初中英语单词)
- altogether [,ɔ:ltə´geðə] ad.完全；总而言之 (初中英语单词)
- faintly [´feintli] ad.微弱地，软弱无力的 (高中英语单词)
- external [ik´stə:nəl] a.外部的；外面的 (高中英语单词)
- cambridge [´keimbridʒ] n.剑桥 (高中英语单词)
- reckless [´rekləs] a.不注意的；鲁莽的 (高中英语单词)
- resignation [,rezig´neiʃən] n.辞职(书)；放弃；顺从 (高中英语单词)
- crisis [´kraisis] n.转折点；危机 (高中英语单词)
- transparent [træns´peərənt] a.透明的；显而易见的 (高中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- contempt [kən´tempt] n.轻蔑；受辱；不顾 (高中英语单词)
- patiently [´peiʃəntli] ad.有耐心地；坚韧地 (高中英语单词)
- genial [´dʒi:niəl] a.愉快的；和蔼的 (英语四级单词)
- essence [´esəns] n.本质；要素；精华 (英语四级单词)
- vibrate [´vaibreit, vai´breit] v.(使)振动；发抖 (英语四级单词)
- maturity [mə´tjuəriti] n.成熟；完备 (英语四级单词)
- grievance [´gri:vəns] n.不平；冤情；抱怨 (英语四级单词)
- abominable [ə´bɔminəbəl] a.可憎的；极坏的 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- disastrous [di´zɑ:strəs] a.招致灾祸的；不幸的 (英语四级单词)
- theology [θi´ɔlədʒi] n.神学 (英语四级单词)
- commonplace [´kɔmənpleis] a.平凡的；常见的 (英语四级单词)
- noiselessly [´nɔizlisli] ad.静静地，轻轻地 (英语四级单词)
- sordid [´sɔ:did] a.(指环境等)肮脏的 (英语四级单词)
- advisable [əd´vaizəbl] a.合适的，得当的 (英语六级单词)
- episcopal [i´piskəpəl] a.主教的，主教管辖的 (英语六级单词)
- malignant [mə´lignənt] a.恶意的；有害的 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- sleepless [´sli:pləs] a.失眠的；寂静的 (英语六级单词)
- clearness [´kliənis] n.清楚；明白；明确 (英语六级单词)
- illumination [i,lju:mi´neiʃən] n.照明；阐明 (英语六级单词)
- matter-of-fact [mætərɔv´fækt] a.实事求是的 (英语六级单词)
- genteel [dʒen´ti:l] a.有教养的；文雅的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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