老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
II
Sophia still possessed about a hundred pounds, and had she chosento leave Paris and France, there was nothing to prevent her fromdoing so. Perhaps if she had chanced to visit the Gare St. Lazareor the Gare du Nord, the sight of tens of thousands of peopleflying seawards might have stirred in her the desire to flee alsofrom the vague coming danger. But she did not visit those termini;she was too busy looking after M. Niepce, her grocer. Moreover,she would not quit her furniture, which seemed to her to be a sortof rock. With a flat full of furniture she considered that sheought to be able to devise a livelihood; the enterprise ofbecoming independent was already indeed begun. She ardently wishedto be independent, to utilize in her own behalf the gifts oforganization, foresight, commonsense and tenacity which she knewshe possessed and which had lain idle. And she hated the idea offlight.
Chirac returned as unexpectedly as he had gone; an expedition forhis paper had occupied him. With his lips he urged her to go, buthis eyes spoke differently. He had, one afternoon, a mood ofcandid despair, such as he would have dared to show only to one inwhom he felt great confidence. "They will come to Paris," he said;"nothing can stop them. And ... then ...!" He gave a cynicallaugh. But when he urged her to go she said:
"And what about my furniture? And I've promised M. Niepce to lookafter him."
Then Chirac informed her that he was without a lodging, and thathe would like to rent one of her rooms. She agreed.
Shortly afterwards he introduced a middle-aged acquaintance namerCarlier, the secretary-general of his newspaper, who wished torent a bedroom. Thus by good fortune Sophia let all her roomsimmediately, and was sure of over two hundred francs a month,apart from the profit on meals supplied. On this latter occasionChirac (and his companion too) was quite optimistic, reiteratingan absolute certitude that Paris could never be invested. Briefly,Sophia did not believe him. She believed the candidly despairingChirac. She had no information, no wide theory, to justify herpessimism; nothing but the inward conviction that the race capableof behaving as she had seen it behave in the Place de la Concorde,was bound to be defeated. She loved the French race; but all thepractical Teutonic sagacity in her wanted to take care of it inits difficulties, and was rather angry with it for being sounfitted to take care of itself.
She let the men talk, and with careless disdain of theirdiscussions and their certainties she went about her business ofpreparation. At this period, overworked and harassed by novelresponsibilities and risks, she was happier, for days together,than she had ever been, simply because she had a purpose in lifeand was depending upon herself. Her ignorance of the military andpolitical situation was complete; the situation did not interesther. What interested her was that she had three men to feed whollyor partially, and that the price of eatables was rising. Shebought eatables. She bought fifty pecks of potatoes at a franc apeck, and another fifty pecks at a franc and a quarter--double thenormal price; ten hams at two and a half francs a pound; a largequantity of tinned vegetables and fruits, a sack of flour, rice,biscuits, coffee, Lyons sausage, dried prunes, dried figs, andmuch wood and charcoal. But the chief of her purchases was cheese,of which her mother used to say that bread and cheese and watermade a complete diet. Many of these articles she obtained from hergrocer. All of them, except the flour and the biscuits, she storedin the cellar belonging to the flat; after several days' delay,for the Parisian workmen were too elated by the advent of arepublic to stoop to labour, she caused a new lock to be fixed onthe cellar-door. Her activities were the sensation of the house.Everybody admired, but no one imitated.
One morning, on going to do her marketing, she found a noticeacross the shuttered windows of her creamery in the Rue Notre Damede Lorette: "Closed for want of milk." The siege had begun. It wasin the closing of the creamery that the siege was figured for her;in this, and in eggs at five sous a piece. She went elsewhere forher milk and paid a franc a litre for it. That evening she toldher lodgers that the price of meals would be doubled, and that ifany gentleman thought that he could get equally good mealselsewhere, he was at liberty to get them elsewhere. Her positionwas strengthened by the appearance of another candidate for aroom, a friend of Niepce. She at once offered him her own room, ata hundred and fifty francs a month.
"You see," she said, "there is a piano in it."
"But I don't play the piano," the man protested, shocked at theprice.
"That is not my fault," she said.
He agreed to pay the price demanded for the room because of theopportunity of getting good meals much cheaper than in therestaurants. Like M. Niepce, he was a 'siege-widower,' his wifehaving been put under shelter in Brittany. Sophia took to theservant's bedroom on the sixth floor. It measured nine feet byseven, and had no window save a skylight; but Sophia was in a fairway to realize a profit of at least four pounds a week, afterpaying for everything.
On the night when she installed herself in that chamber, amid aworld of domestics and poor people, she worked very late, and therays of her candles shot up intermittently through the skylightinto a black heaven; at intervals she flitted up and down thestairs with a candle. Unknown to her a crowd gradually formedopposite the house in the street, and at about one o'clock in themorning a file of soldiers woke the concierge and invaded thecourtyard, and every window was suddenly populated with heads.Sophia was called upon to prove that she was not a spy signallingto the Prussians. Three quarters of an hour passed before herinnocence was established and the staircases cleared of uniformsand dishevelled curiosity. The childish, impossible unreason ofthe suspicion against her completed in Sophia's mind the ruin ofthe reputation of the French people as a sensible race. She wasextremely caustic the next day to her boarders. Except for thisepisode, the frequency of military uniforms in the streets, theprice of food, and the fact that at least one house in four wasflying either the ambulance flag or the flag of a foreign embassy(in an absurd hope of immunity from the impending bombardment) thesiege did not exist for Sophia. The men often talked about theirguard-duty, and disappeared for a day or two to the ramparts, butshe was too busy to listen to them. She thought of nothing but herenterprise, which absorbed all her powers. She arose at six a.m.,in the dark, and by seven-thirty M. Niepce and his friend had beenserved with breakfast, and much general work was already done. Ateight o'clock she went out to market. When asked why she continuedto buy at a high price, articles of which she had a store, shewould reply: "I am keeping all that till things are much dearer."This was regarded as astounding astuteness.
On the fifteenth of October she paid the quarter's rent of theflat, four hundred francs, and was accepted as tenant. Her earswere soon quite accustomed to the sound of cannon, and she feltthat she had always been a citizeness of Paris, and that Paris hadalways been besieged. She did not speculate about the end of thesiege; she lived from day to day. Occasionally she had a qualm offear, when the firing grew momentarily louder, or when she heardthat battles had been fought in such and such a suburb. But thenshe said it was absurd to be afraid when you were with a couple ofmillion people, all in the same plight as yourself. She grewreconciled to everything. She even began to like her tiny bedroom,partly because it was so easy to keep warm (the question ofartificial heat was growing acute in Paris), and partly because itensured her privacy. Down in the flat, whatever was done or saidin one room could be more or less heard in all the others, owingto the prevalence of doors.
Her existence, in the first half of November, had become regularwith a monotony almost absolute. Only the number of meals servedto her boarders varied slightly from day to day. All theserepasts, save now and then one in the evening, were carried intothe bedrooms by the charwoman. Sophia did not allow herself to beseen much, except in the afternoons. Though Sophia continued toincrease her prices, and was now selling her stores at an immenseprofit, she never approached the prices current outside. She wasvery indignant against the exploitation of Paris by itsshopkeepers, who had vast supplies of provender, and were hoardingfor the rise. But the force of their example was too great for herto ignore it entirely; she contented herself with about half theirgains. Only to M. Niepce did she charge more than to the others,because he was a shopkeeper. The four men appreciated theirparadise. In them developed that agreeable feeling of securitywhich solitary males find only under the roof of a landlady who isat once prompt, honest, and a votary of cleanliness. Sophia hung aslate near the frontdoor, and on this slate they wrote theirrequests for meals, for being called, for laundry-work, etc.Sophia never made a mistake, and never forgot. The perfection ofthe domestic machine amazed these men, who had been accustomed tosomething quite different, and who every day heard harrowingstories of discomfort and swindling from their acquaintances. Theyeven admired Sophia for making them pay, if not too high, stillhigh. They thought it wonderful that she should tell them theprice of all things in advance, and even show them how to avoidexpense, particularly in the matter of warmth. She arranged rugsfor each of them, so that they could sit comfortably in theirrooms with nothing but a small charcoal heater for the hands.Quite naturally they came to regard her as the paragon and miracleof women. They endowed her with every fine quality. According tothem there had never been such a woman in the history of mankind;there could not have been! She became legendary among theirfriends: a young and elegant creature, surpassingly beautiful,proud, queenly, unapproachable, scarcely visible, a marvellousmanager, a fine cook and artificer of strange English dishes,utterly reliable, utterly exact and with habits of order ...! Theyadored the slight English accent which gave a touch of the exoticto her very correct and freely idiomatic French. In short, Sophiawas perfect for them, an impossible woman. Whatever she did wasright.
And she went up to her room every night with limbs exhausted, butwith head clear enough to balance her accounts and go through hermoney. She did this in bed with thick gloves on. If often she didnot sleep well, it was not because of the distant guns, butbecause of her preoccupation with the subject of finance. She wasmaking money, and she wanted to make more. She was alwaysinventing ways of economy. She was so anxious to achieveindependence that money was always in her mind. She began to lovegold, to love hoarding it, and to hate paying it away.
One morning her charwoman, who by good fortune was nearly asprecise as Sophia herself, failed to appear. When the moment camefor serving M. Niepce's breakfast, Sophia hesitated, and thendecided to look after the old man personally. She knocked at hisdoor, and went boldly in with the tray and candle. He started atseeing her; she was wearing a blue apron, as the charwoman did,but there could be no mistaking her for the charwoman. Niepcelooked older in bed than when dressed. He had a rather ridiculous,undignified appearance, common among old men before their morningtoilette is achieved; and a nightcap did not improve it. Hisrotund paunch lifted the bedclothes, upon which, for the sake ofextra warmth, he had spread unmajestic garments. Sophia smiled toherself; but the contempt implied by that secret smile wassoftened by the thought: "Poor old man!" She told him briefly thatshe supposed the charwoman to be ill. He coughed and movednervously. His benevolent and simple face beamed on her paternallyas she fixed the tray by the bed.
play the piano," the man protested, shocked at theprice.shiny head with his hand.Sophia was bending.
"I really must open the window for one little second," she said,and did so. The chill air of the street came through the closedshutters, and the old man made a noise as of shivering. She pushedback the shutters, and closed the window, and then did the samewith the other two windows. It was almost day in the room.
"You will no longer need the candle," she said, and came back tothe bedside to extinguish it.
The benign and fatherly old man put his arm round her waist. Freshfrom the tonic of pure air, and with the notion of hisridiculousness still in her mind, she was staggered for an instantby this gesture. She had never given a thought to the temperamentof the old grocer, the husband of a young wife. She could notalways imaginatively keep in mind the effect of her own radiance,especially under such circumstances. But after an instant herprecocious cynicism, which had slept, sprang up. "Naturally! Imight have expected it!" she thought with blasting scorn.
"Take away your hand!" she said bitterly to the amiable old fool.She did not stir.
He obeyed, sheepishly.
"Do you wish to remain with me?" she asked, and as he did notimmediately answer, she said in a most commanding tone: "Answer,then!"
"Yes," he said feebly.
"Well, behave properly."
She went towards the door.
"I wished only--" he stammered.
"I do not wish to know what you wished," she said.
Afterwards she wondered how much of the incident had beenoverheard. The other breakfasts she left outside the respectivedoors; and in future Niepce's also.
The charwoman never came again. She had caught smallpox and shedied of it, thus losing a good situation. Strange to say, Sophiadid not replace her; the temptation to save her wages and food wastoo strong. She could not, however, stand waiting for hours at thedoor of the official baker and the official butcher, one of a longline of frozen women, for the daily rations of bread and tri-weekly rations of meat. She employed the concierge's boy, at twosous an hour, to do this. Sometimes he would come in with hishands so blue and cold that he could scarcely hold the preciouscards which gave the right to the rations and which cost Chirac anhour or two of waiting at the mayoral offices each week. Sophiamight have fed her flock without resorting to the officialrations, but she would not sacrifice the economy which theyrepresented. She demanded thick clothes for the concierge's boy,and received boots from Chirac, gloves from Carlier, and a greatovercoat from Niepce. The weather increased in severity, andprovisions in price. One day she sold to the wife of a chemist wholived on the first floor, for a hundred and ten francs, a ham forwhich she had paid less than thirty francs. She was conscious of athrill of joy in receiving a beautiful banknote and a gold coin inexchange for a mere ham. By this time her total cash resources hadgrown to nearly five thousand francs. It was astounding. And thereserves in the cellar were still considerable, and the sack offlour that encumbered the kitchen was still more than half full.The death of the faithful charwoman, when she heard of it,produced but little effect on Sophia, who was so overworked and socompletely absorbed in her own affairs that she had no nervousenergy to spare for sentimental regrets. The charwoman, by whoseside she had regularly passed many hours in the kitchen, so thatshe knew every crease in her face and fold of her dress, vanishedout of Sophia's memory.
Sophia cleaned and arranged two of the bedrooms in the morning,and two in the afternoon. She had stayed in hotels where fifteenbedrooms were in charge of a single chambermaid, and she thoughtit would be hard if she could not manage four in the intervals ofcooking and other work! This she said to herself by way of excusefor not engaging another charwoman. One afternoon she was rubbingthe brass knobs of the numerous doors in M. Niepce's room, whenthe grocer unexpectedly came in.
She glanced at him sharply. There was a self-conscious look in hiseye. He had entered the flat noiselessly. She remembered havingtold him, in response to a question, that she now did his room inthe afternoon. Why should he have left his shop? He hung up hishat behind the door, with the meticulous care of an old man. Thenhe took off his overcoat and rubbed his hands.
"You do well to wear gloves, madame," he said. "It is dog'sweather."
"I do not wear them for the cold," she replied. "I wear them so asnot to spoil my hands."
"Ah! truly! Very well! Very well! May I demand some wood? Whereshall I find it? I do not wish to derange you."
She refused his help, and brought wood from the kitchen, countingthe logs audibly before him.
"Shall I light the fire now?" she asked.
"I will light it," he said.
"Give me a match, please."
As she was arranging the wood and paper, he said: "Madame, willyou listen to me?"
"What is it?"
"Do not be angry," he said. "Have I not proved that I am capableof respecting you? I continue in that respect. It is with all thatrespect that I say to you that I love you, madame. ... No, remaincalm, I implore you!" The fact was that Sophia showed no sign ofnot remaining calm. "It is true that I have a wife. But what doyou wish ...? She is far away. I love you madly," he proceededwith dignified respect. "I know I am old; but I am rich. Iunderstand your character. You are a lady, you are decided,direct, sincere, and a woman of business. I have the greatestrespect for you. One can talk to you as one could not to anotherwoman. You prefer directness and sincerity. Madame, I will giveyou two thousand francs a month, and all you require from my shop,if you will be amiable to me. I am very solitary, I need thesociety of a charming creature who would be sympathetic. Twothousand francs a month. It is money."
He wiped his shiny head with his hand.
Sophia was bending over the fire. She turned her head towards him.
"Is that all?" she said quietly.
"You could count on my discretion," he said in a low voice. "Iappreciate your scruples. I would come, very late, to your room onthe sixth. One could arrange ... You see, I am direct, like you."
She had an impulse to order him tempestuously out of the flat; butit was not a genuine impulse. He was an old fool. Why not treathim as such? To take him seriously would be absurd. Moreover, hewas a very remunerative boarder.
"Do not be stupid," she said with cruel tranquillity. "Do not bean old fool."
And the benign but fatuous middle-aged lecher saw the enchantingvision of Sophia, with her natty apron and her amusing gloves,sweep and fade from the room. He left the house, and the expensivefire warmed an empty room.
Sophia was angry with him. He had evidently planned the proposal.If capable of respect, he was evidently also capable of chicane.But she supposed these Frenchmen were all alike: disgusting; anddecided that it was useless to worry over a universal fact. Theyhad simply no shame, and she had been very prudent to establishherself far away on the sixth floor. She hoped that none of theother boarders had overheard Niepce's outrageous insolence. Shewas not sure if Chirac was not writing in his room.
That night there was no sound of cannon in the distance, andSophia for some time was unable to sleep. She woke up with astart, after a doze, and struck a match to look at her watch. Ithad stopped. She had forgotten to wind it up, which omissionindicated that the grocer had perturbed her more than she thought.She could not be sure how long she had slept. The hour might betwo o'clock or it might be six o'clock. Impossible for her torest! She got up and dressed (in case it should be as late as shefeared) and crept down the interminable creaking stairs with thecandle. As she descended, the conviction that it was the middle ofthe night grew upon her, and she stepped more softly. There was nosound save that caused by her footfalls. With her latchkey shecautiously opened the front door of the flat and entered. Shecould then hear the noisy ticking of the small, cheap clock in thekitchen. At the same moment another door creaked, and Chirac, withhair all tousled, but fully dressed, appeared in the corridor.
"So you have decided to sell yourself to him!" Chirac whispered.
She drew away instinctively, and she could feel herself blushing.She was at a loss. She saw that Chirac was in a furious rage,tremendously moved. He crept towards her, half crouching. She hadnever seen anything so theatrical as his movement, and thetwitching of his face. She felt that she too ought to betheatrical, that she ought nobly to scorn his infamous suggestion,his unwarrantable attack. Even supposing that she had decided tosell herself to the old pasha, did that concern him? A dignifiedsilence, an annihilating glance, were all that he deserved. Butshe was not capable of this heroic behaviour.
"What time is it?" she added weakly.
"Three o'clock," Chirac sneered.
"I forgot to wind up my watch," she said. "And so I came down tosee."
"In effect!" He spoke sarcastically, as if saying: "I've waitedfor you, and here you are."
She said to herself that she owed him nothing, but all the timeshe felt that he and she were the only young people in that flat,and that she did owe to him the proof that she was guiltless ofthe supreme dishonour of youth. She collected her forces andlooked at him.
"You should be ashamed," she said. "You will wake the others."
"And M. Niepce--will he need to be wakened?"
"M. Niepce is not here," she said.
Niepce's door was unlatched. She pushed it open, and went into theroom, which was empty and bore no sign of having been used.
"Come and satisfy yourself!" she insisted.
Chirac did so. His face fell.
She took her watch from her pocket.
"And now wind my watch, and set it, please."
She saw that he was in anguish. He could not take the watch. Tearscame into his eyes. Then he hid his face, and dashed away. Sheheard a sob-impeded murmur that sounded like, "Forgive me!" andthe banging of a door. And in the stillness she heard the regularsnoring of M. Carlier. She too cried. Her vision was blurred by amist, and she stumbled into the kitchen and seized the clock, andcarried it with her upstairs, and shivered in the intense cold ofthe night. She wept gently for a very long time. "What a shame!What a shame!" she said to herself. Yet she did not quite blameChirac. The frost drove her into bed, but not to sleep. Shecontinued to cry. At dawn her eyes were inflamed with weeping. Shewas back in the kitchen then. Chirac's door was wide open. He hadleft the flat. On the slate was written, "I shall not take mealsto-day."