老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
III
This was the end of Sophia's romantic adventures in France. Soonafterwards the Germans entered Paris, by mutual agreement, andmade a point of seeing the Louvre, and departed, amid the silenceof a city. For Sophia the conclusion of the siege meant chieflythat prices went down. Long before supplies from outside couldreach Paris, the shop-windows were suddenly full of goods whichhad arrived from the shopkeepers alone knew where. Sophia, withthe stock in her cellar, could have held out for several weeksmore, and it annoyed her that she had not sold more of her goodthings while good things were worth gold. The signing of a treatyat Versailles reduced the value of Sophia's two remaining hamsfrom about five pounds apiece to the usual price of hams. However,at the end of January she found herself in possession of a capitalof about eight thousand francs, all the furniture of the flat, anda reputation. She had earned it all. Nothing could destroy thestructure of her beauty, but she looked worn and appreciablyolder. She wondered often when Chirac would return. She might havewritten to Carlier or to the paper; but she did not. It was Niepcewho discovered in a newspaper that Chirac's balloon hadmiscarried. At the moment the news did not affect her at all; butafter several days she began to feel her loss in a dull sort ofway; and she felt it more and more, though never acutely. She wasperfectly convinced that Chirac could never have attracted herpowerfully. She continued to dream, at rare intervals, of the kindof passion that would have satisfied her, glowing but banked downlike a fire in some fine chamber of a rich but careful household.
She was speculating upon what her future would be, and whether byinertia she was doomed to stay for ever in the Rue Breda, when theCommune caught her. She was more vexed than frightened by theCommune; vexed that a city so in need of repose and industryshould indulge in such antics. For many people the Commune was aworse experience than the siege; but not for Sophia. She was awoman and a foreigner. Niepce was infinitely more disturbed thanSophia; he went in fear of his life. Sophia would go out to marketand take her chances. It is true that during one period the wholepopulation of the house went to live in the cellars, and orders tothe butcher and other tradesmen were given over the party-wallinto the adjoining courtyard, which communicated with an alley. Astrange existence, and possibly perilous! But the women who passedthrough it and had also passed through the siege, were not verymuch intimidated by it, unless they happened to have husbands orlovers who were active politicians.
Sophia did not cease, during the greater part of the year 1871, tomake a living and to save money. She watched every sou, and shedeveloped a tendency to demand from her tenants all that theycould pay. She excused this to herself by ostentatiously declaringevery detail of her prices in advance. It came to the same thingin the end, with this advantage, that the bills did not lead tounpleasantness. Her difficulties commenced when Paris at lastdefinitely resumed its normal aspect and life, when all the womenand children came back to those city termini which they had leftin such huddled, hysterical throngs, when flats were re-openedthat had long been shut, and men who for a whole year had had thedisadvantages and the advantages of being without wife and family,anchored themselves once more to the hearth. Then it was thatSophia failed to keep all her rooms let. She could have let themeasily and constantly and at high rents; but not to men withoutencumbrances. Nearly every day she refused attractive tenants inpretty hats, or agreeable gentlemen who only wanted a room oncondition that they might offer hospitality to a dashingpetticoat. It was useless to proclaim aloud that her house was'serious.' The ambition of the majority of these joyous personswas to live in a 'serious' house, because each was sure that atbottom he or she was a 'serious' person, and quite different fromthe rest of the joyous world. The character of Sophia's flat,instead of repelling the wrong kind of aspirant, infallibly drewjust that kind. Hope was inextinguishable in these bosoms. Theyheard that there would be no chance for them at Sophia's; but theytried nevertheless. And occasionally Sophia would make a mistake,and grave unpleasantness would occur before the mistake could berectified. The fact was that the street was too much for her. Fewpeople would credit that there was a serious boarding-house in theRue Breda. The police themselves would not credit it. And Sophia'sbeauty was against her. At that time the Rue Breda was perhaps themost notorious street in the centre of Paris; at the height of itsreputation as a warren of individual improprieties; most busilycreating that prejudice against itself which, over thirty yearslater, forced the authorities to change its name in obedience tothe wish of its tradesmen. When Sophia went out at about eleveno'clock in the morning with her reticule to buy, the street waslittered with women who had gone out with reticules to buy. Butwhereas Sophia was fully dressed, and wore headgear, the otherswere in dressing-gown and slippers, or opera-cloak and slippers,having slid directly out of unspeakable beds and omitted to brushtheir hair out of their puffy eyes. In the little shops of the RueBreda, the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, and the Rue des Martyrs, youwere very close indeed to the primitive instincts of human nature.It was wonderful; it was amusing; it was excitingly picturesque;and the universality of the manners rendered moral indignationabsurd. But the neighbourhood was certainly not one in which awoman of Sophia's race, training, and character, could comfortablyearn a living, or even exist. She could not fight against theentire street. She, and not the street, was out of place and inthe wrong. Little wonder that the neighbours lifted theirshoulders when they spoke of her! What beautiful woman but a madEnglishwoman would have had the idea of establishing herself inthe Rue Breda with the intention of living like a nun andcompelling others to do the same?
By dint of continual ingenuity, Sophia contrived to win somewhatmore than her expenses, but she was slowly driven to admit toherself that the situation could not last.
Then one day she saw in Galignani's Messenger an advertisement ofan English pension for sale in the Rue Lord Byron, in the ChampsElysees quarter. It belonged to some people named Frensham, andhad enjoyed a certain popularity before the war. The proprietorand his wife, however, had not sufficiently allowed for thevicissitudes of politics in Paris. Instead of saving money duringtheir popularity they had put it on the back and on the fingers ofMrs. Frensham. The siege and the Commune had almost ruined them.With capital they might have restored themselves to their formerpride; but their capital was exhausted. Sophia answered theadvertisement. She impressed the Frenshams, who were delightedwith the prospect of dealing in business with an honest Englishface. Like many English people abroad they were most strangelyobsessed by the notion that they had quitted an island of honestmen to live among thieves and robbers. They always implied thatdishonesty was unknown in Britain. They offered, if she would takeover the lease, to sell all their furniture and their renown forten thousand francs. She declined, the price seeming absurd toher. When they asked her to name a price, she said that shepreferred not to do so. Upon entreaty, she said four thousandfrancs. They then allowed her to see that they considered her tohave been quite right in hesitating to name a price so ridiculous.And their confidence in the honest English face seemed to havebeen shocked. Sophia left. When she got back to the Rue Breda shewas relieved that the matter had come to nothing. She did notprecisely foresee what her future was to be, but at any rate sheknew she shrank from the responsibility of the Pension Frensham.The next morning she received a letter offering to accept sixthousand. She wrote and declined. She was indifferent and shewould not budge from four thousand. The Frenshams gave way. Theywere pained, but they gave way. The glitter of four thousandfrancs in cash, and freedom, was too tempting.
Thus Sophia became the proprietress of the Pension Frensham in thecold and correct Rue Lord Byron. She made room in it for nearlyall her other furniture, so that instead of being under-furnished,as pensions usually are, it was over-furnished. She was extremelytimid at first, for the rent alone was four thousand francs ayear; and the prices of the quarter were alarmingly different fromthose of the Rue Breda. She lost a lot of sleep. For some nights,after she had been installed in the Rue Lord Byron about afortnight, she scarcely slept at all, and she ate no more than sheslept. She cut down expenditure to the very lowest, and frequentlywalked over to the Rue Breda to do her marketing. With the aid ofa charwoman at six sous an hour she accomplished everything. Andthough clients were few, the feat was in the nature of a miracle;for Sophia had to cook.
her beauty, but she looked worn and appreciablyolder. She wondered often when Chirac would return. She might havewritten to Carlier or to the.
The articles which George Augustus Sala wrote under the title"Paris herself again" ought to have been paid for in gold by thehotel and pension-keepers of Paris. They awakened Englishcuriosity and the desire to witness the scene of terrible events.Their effect was immediately noticeable. In less than a year afterher adventurous purchase, Sophia had acquired confidence, and shewas employing two servants, working them very hard at low wages.She had also acquired the landlady's manner. She was known as Mrs.Frensham. Across the balconies of two windows the Frenshams hadleft a gilded sign, "Pension Frensham," and Sophia had not removedit. She often explained that her name was not Frensham; but invain. Every visitor inevitably and persistently addressed heraccording to the sign. It was past the general comprehension thatthe proprietress of the Pension Frensham might bear another namethan Frensham. But later there came into being a class of persons,habitues of the Pension Frensham, who knew the real name of theproprietress and were proud of knowing it, and by this knowledgewere distinguished from the herd. What struck Sophia was theastounding similarity of her guests. They all asked the samequestions, made the same exclamations, went out on the sameexcursions, returned with the same judgments, and exhibited thesame unimpaired assurance that foreigners were really verypeculiar people. They never seemed to advance in knowledge. Therewas a constant stream of explorers from England who had to be seton their way to the Louvre or the Bon Marche.
Sophia's sole interest was in her profits. The excellence of herhouse was firmly established. She kept it up, and she kept themodest prices up. Often she had to refuse guests. She naturallydid so with a certain distant condescension. Her manner to guestsincreased in stiff formality; and she was excessively firm withundesirables. She grew to be seriously convinced that no pensionas good as hers existed in the world, or ever had existed, or evercould exist. Hers was the acme of niceness and respectability. Herpreference for the respectable rose to a passion. And there wereno faults in her establishment. Even the once despised showyfurniture of Madame Foucault had mysteriously changed into thebest conceivable furniture; and its cracks were hallowed.
She never heard a word of Gerald nor of her family. In thethousands of people who stayed under her perfect roof, not onementioned Bursley nor disclosed a knowledge of anybody that Sophiahad known. Several men had the wit to propose marriage to her withmore or less skilfulness, but none of them was skilful enough toperturb her heart. She had forgotten the face of love. She was alandlady. She was THE landlady: efficient, stylish, diplomatic,and tremendously experienced. There was no trickery, no basenessof Parisian life that she was not acquainted with and armedagainst. She could not be startled and she could not be swindled.
Years passed, until there was a vista of years behind her.Sometimes she would think, in an unoccupied moment, "How strangeit is that I should be here, doing what I am doing!" But theregular ordinariness of her existence would instantly seize heragain. At the end of 1878, the Exhibition Year, her Pensionconsisted of two floors instead of one, and she had turned the twohundred pounds stolen from Gerald into over two thousand.