霍华德庄园 英文版 Howards End
爱德华.摩根.福斯特 Edward Morgan Forster
Chapter 28
For many hours Margaret did nothing; then she controlledherself, and wrote some letters. She was too bruised tospeak to Henry; she could pity him, and even determine tomarry him, but as yet all lay too deep in her heart forspeech. On the surface the sense of his degradation was toostrong. She could not command voice or look, and the gentlewords that she forced out through her pen seemed to proceedfrom some other person.
"My dearest boy," she began, "this is not to part us.It is everything or nothing, and I mean it to be nothing.It happened long before we ever met, and even if it hadhappened since, I should be writing the same, I hope. I dounderstand."
But she crossed out "I do understand"; it struck a falsenote. Henry could not bear to be understood. She alsocrossed out, "It is everything or nothing. "Henry wouldresent so strong a grasp of the situation. She must notcomment; comment is unfeminine.
"I think that'll about do," she thought.
Then the sense of his degradation choked her. Was heworth all this bother? To have yielded to a woman of thatsort was everything, yes, it was, and she could not be hiswife. She tried to translate his temptation into her ownlanguage, and her brain reeled. Men must be different, evento want to yield to such a temptation. Her belief incomradeship was stifled, and she saw life as from that glasssaloon on the Great Western, which sheltered male and femalealike from the fresh air. Are the sexes really races, eachwith its own code of morality, and their mutual love a meredevice of Nature to keep things going? Strip humanintercourse of the proprieties, and is it reduced to this?Her judgment told her no. She knew that out of Nature'sdevice we have built a magic that will win us immortality.Far more mysterious than the call of sex to sex is thetenderness that we throw into that call; far wider is thegulf between us and the farmyard than between the farm-yardand the garbage that nourishes it. We are evolving, in waysthat Science cannot measure, to ends that Theology dares notcontemplate. "Men did produce one jewel," the gods willsay, and, saying, will give us immortality. Margaret knewall this, but for the moment she could not feel it, andtransformed the marriage of Evie and Mr. Cahill into acarnival of fools, and her own marriage--too miserable tothink of that, she tore up the letter, and then wroteanother:
Dear Mr. Bast,
I have spoken to Mr. Wilcox about you, as I promised,and am sorry to say that he has no vacancy for you.
Yours truly,M. J. Schlegel
She enclosed this in a note to Helen, over which shetook less trouble than she might have done; but her head wasaching, and she could not stop to pick her words:
Dear Helen,
Give him this. The Basts are no good. Henry foundthe woman drunk on the lawn. I am having a room gotready for you here, and will you please come round atonce on getting this? The Basts are not at all the typewe should trouble about. I may go round to them myselfin the morning, and do anything that is fair.
M
In writing this, Margaret felt that she was beingpractical. Something might be arranged for the Basts lateron, but they must be silenced for the moment. She hoped toavoid a conversation between the woman and Helen. She rangthe bell for a servant, but no one answered it; Mr. Wilcoxand the Warringtons were gone to bed, and the kitchen wasabandoned to Saturnalia. Consequently she went over to theGeorge herself. She did not enter the hotel, for discussionwould have been perilous, and, saying that the letter wasimportant, she gave it to the waitress. As she recrossedthe square she saw Helen and Mr. Bast looking out of thewindow of the coffee-room, and feared she was already toolate. Her task was not yet over; she ought to tell Henrywhat she had done.
This came easily, for she saw him in the hall. Thenight wind had been rattling the pictures against the wall,and the noise had disturbed him.
"Who's there?" he called, quite the householder.
Margaret walked in and past him.
"I have asked Helen to sleep," she said. "She is besthere; so don't lock the front-door."
"I thought someone had got in," said Henry.
"At the same time I told the man that we could donothing for him. I don't know about later, but now theBasts must clearly go."
"Did you say that your sister is sleeping here, after all?"
"Probably."
"Is she to be shown up to your room?"
"I have naturally nothing to say to her; I am going tobed. Will you tell the servants about Helen? Could someonego to carry her bag?"
He tapped a little gong, which had been bought to summonthe servants.
"You must make more noise than that if you want them to hear."
Henry opened a door, and down the corridor came shoutsof laughter. "Far too much screaming there," he said, andstrode towards it. Margaret went upstairs, uncertainwhether to be glad that they had met, or sorry. They hadbehaved as if nothing had happened, and her deepestinstincts told her that this was wrong. For his own sake,some explanation was due.
And yet--what could an explanation tell her? A date, aplace, a few details, which she could imagine all tooclearly. Now that the first shock was over, she saw thatthere was every reason to premise a Mrs. Bast. Henry'sinner life had long laid open to her--his intellectualconfusion, his obtuseness to personal influence, his strongbut furtive passions. Should she refuse him because hisouter life corresponded? Perhaps. Perhaps, if thedishonour had been done to her, but it was done long beforeher day. She struggled against the feeling. She toldherself that Mrs. Wilcox's wrong was her own. But she wasnot a bargain theorist. As she undressed, her anger, herregard for the dead, her desire for a scene, all grew weak.Henry must have it as he liked, for she loved him, and someday she would use her love to make him a better man.
Pity was at the bottom of her actions all through thiscrisis. Pity, if one may generalize, is at the bottom ofwoman. When men like us, it is for our better qualities,and however tender their liking, we dare not be unworthy ofit, or they will quietly let us go. But unworthinessstimulates woman. It brings out her deeper nature, for goodor for evil.
Here was the core of the question. Henry must beforgiven, and made better by love; nothing else mattered.Mrs. Wilcox, that unquiet yet kindly ghost, must be left toher own wrong. To her everything was in proportion now, andshe, too, would pity the man who was blundering up and downtheir lives. Had Mrs. Wilcox known of his trespass? Aninteresting question, but Margaret fell asleep, tethered byaffection, and lulled by the murmurs of the river thatdescended all the night from Wales. She felt herself at onewith her future home, colouring it and coloured by it, andawoke to see, for the second time, Oniton Castle conqueringthe morning mists.