老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
IV
It is remarkable what a little thing will draw even the mostregular and serious people from the deep groove of their habits.One morning in March, a boneshaker, an affair on two equal woodenwheels joined by a bar of iron, in the middle of which was awooden saddle, disturbed the gravity of St. Luke's Square. True,it was probably the first boneshaker that had ever attacked thegravity of St. Luke's Square. It came out of the shop of DanielPovey, the confectioner and baker, and Samuel Povey's celebratedcousin, in Boulton Terrace. Boulton Terrace formed nearly a rightangle with the Baines premises, and at the corner of the angleWedgwood Street and King Street left the Square. The boneshakerwas brought forth by Dick Povey, the only son of Daniel, now agedeleven years, under the superintendence of his father, and theSquare soon perceived that Dick had a natural talent for breaking-in an untrained boneshaker. After a few attempts he could remainon the back of the machine for at least ten yards, and his featshad the effect of endowing St. Luke's Square with theattractiveness of a circus. Samuel Povey watched with candidinterest from the ambush of his door, while the unfortunate younglady assistants, though aware of the performance that was goingon, dared not stir from the stove. Samuel was tremendously temptedto sally out boldly, and chat with his cousin about the toy; hehad surely a better right to do so than any other tradesman in theSquare, since he was of the family; but his diffidence preventedhim from moving. Presently Daniel Povey and Dick went to the topof the Square with the machine, opposite Holl's, and Dick, beingcarefully installed in the saddle, essayed to descend the gentlepaven slopes of the Square. He failed time after time; the machinehad an astonishing way of turning round, running uphill, and thenlying calmly on its side. At this point of Dick's life-historyevery shop-door in the Square was occupied by an audience. At lastthe boneshaker displayed less unwillingness to obey, and lo! in amoment Dick was riding down the Square, and the spectators heldtheir breath as if he had been Blondin crossing Niagara. Everysecond he ought to have fallen off, but he contrived to keepupright. Already he had accomplished twenty yards--thirty yards!It was a miracle that he was performing! The transit continued,and seemed to occupy hours. And then a faint hope rose in thebreast of the watchers that the prodigy might arrive at the bottomof the Square. His speed was increasing with his 'nack.' But theSquare was enormous, boundless. Samuel Povey gazed at theapproaching phenomenon, as a bird at a serpent, with bulging,beady eyes. The child's speed went on increasing and his path grewstraighter. Yes, he would arrive; he would do it! Samuel Poveyinvoluntarily lifted one leg in his nervous tension. And now thehope that Dick would arrive became a fear, as his pace grew stillmore rapid. Everybody lifted one leg, and gaped. And the intrepidchild surged on, and, finally victorious, crashed into thepavement in front of Samuel at the rate of quite six miles anhour.
Samuel picked him up, unscathed. And somehow this picking up ofDick invested Samuel with importance, gave him a share in theglory of the feat itself.
Daniel Povey same running and joyous. "Not so bad for a start,eh?" exclaimed the great Daniel. Though by no means a simple man,his pride in his offspring sometimes made him a little naive.
Father and son explained the machine to Samuel, Dick incessantlyrepeating the exceedingly strange truth that if you felt you werefalling to your right you must turn to your right and vice versa.Samuel found himself suddenly admitted, as it were, to the innerfellowship of the boneshaker, exalted above the rest of theSquare. In another adventure more thrilling events occurred. Thefair-haired Dick was one of those dangerous, frenzied madcaps whoare born without fear. The secret of the machine had been revealedto him in his recent transit, and he was silently determining tosurpass himself. Precariously balanced, he descended the Squareagain, frowning hard, his teeth set, and actually managed toswerve into King Street. Constance, in the parlour, saw anincomprehensible winged thing fly past the window. The cousinsPovey sounded an alarm and protest and ran in pursuit; for thegradient of King Street is, in the strict sense, steep. Half-waydown King Street Dick was travelling at twenty miles an hour, andheading straight for the church, as though he meant todisestablish it and perish. The main gate of the churchyard wasopen, and that affrighting child, with a lunatic's luck, whizzedsafely through the portals into God's acre. The cousins Poveydiscovered him lying on a green grave, clothed in pride. His firstwords were: "Dad, did you pick my cap up?" The symbolism of theamazing ride did not escape the Square; indeed, it was muchdiscussed.
This incident led to a friendship between the cousins. They formeda habit of meeting in the Square for a chat. The meetings were thesubject of comment, for Samuel's relations with the greater Danielhad always been of the most distant. It was understood that Samueldisapproved of Mrs. Daniel Povey even, more than the majority ofpeople disapproved of her. Mrs. Daniel Povey, however, was awayfrom home; probably, had she not been, Samuel would not even havegone to the length of joining Daniel on the neutral ground of theopen Square. But having once broken the ice, Samuel was glad to beon terms of growing intimacy with his cousin. The friendshipflattered him, for Daniel, despite his wife, was a figure in aworld larger than Samuel's; moreover, it consecrated his positionas the equal of no matter what tradesman (apprentice though he hadbeen), and also he genuinely liked and admired Daniel, rather tohis own astonishment.
Every one liked Daniel Povey; he was a favourite among all ranks.The leading confectioner, a member of the Local Board, and asidesman at St. Luke's, he was, and had been for twenty-fiveyears, very prominent in the town. He was a tall, handsome man,with a trimmed, greying beard, a jolly smile, and a flashing, darkeye. His good humour seemed to be permanent. He had dignitywithout the slightest stiffness; he was welcomed by his equals andfrankly adored by his inferiors. He ought to have been ChiefBailiff, for he was rich enough; but there intervened a mysteriousobstacle between Daniel Povey and the supreme honour, a scarcelytangible impediment which could not be definitely stated. He wascapable, honest, industrious, successful, and an excellentspeaker; and if he did not belong to the austerer section ofsociety, if, for example, he thought nothing of dropping into theTiger for a glass of beer, or of using an oath occasionally, or oftelling a facetious story--well, in a busy, broad-minded town ofthirty thousand inhabitants, such proclivities are no bar whateverto perfect esteem. But--how is one to phrase it without wrongingDaniel Povey? He was entirely moral; his views wereunexceptionable. The truth is that, for the ruling classes ofBursley, Daniel Povey was just a little too fanatical a worshipperof the god Pan. He was one of the remnant who had kept alive thegreat Pan tradition from the days of the Regency through the vast,arid Victorian expanse of years. The flighty character of his wifewas regarded by many as a judgment upon him for the robustRabelaisianism of his more private conversation, for his frankinterest in, his eternal preoccupation with, aspects of life andhuman activity which, though essential to the divine purpose, arenot openly recognized as such--even by Daniel Poveys. It was not aquestion of his conduct; it was a question of the cast of hismind. If it did not explain his friendship with the rector of St.Luke's, it explained his departure from the Primitive Methodistconnexion, to which the Poveys as a family had belonged sincePrimitive Methodism was created in Turnhill in 1807.
Daniel Povey had a way of assuming that every male was boilingover with interest in the sacred cult of Pan. The assumption,though sometimes causing inconvenience at first, usually conqueredby virtue of its inherent truthfulness. Thus it fell out withSamuel. Samuel had not suspected that Pan had silken cords to drawhim. He had always averted his eyes from the god--that is to say,within reason. Yet now Daniel, on perhaps a couple of finemornings a week, in full Square, with Fan sitting behind on thecold stones, and Mr. Critchlow ironic at his door in a long whiteapron, would entertain Samuel Povey for half an hour with Pan'smost intimate lore, and Samuel Povey would not blench. He would,on the contrary, stand up to Daniel like a little man, and pretendwith all his might to be, potentially, a perfect arch-priest ofthe god. Daniel taught him a lot; turned over the page of life forhim, as it were, and, showing the reverse side, seemed to say:"You were missing all that." Samuel gazed upwards at the handsomelong nose and rich lips of his elder cousin, so experienced, soagreeable, so renowned, so esteemed, so philosophic, and admittedto himself that he had lived to the age of forty in a state ofcomparative boobyism. And then he would gaze downwards at thefaint patch of flour on Daniel's right leg, and conceive that lifewas, and must be, life.
Not many weeks after his initiation into the cult he was startledby Constance's preoccupied face one evening. Now, a husband of sixyears' standing, to whom it has not happened to become a father,is not easily startled by such a face as Constance wore. Years agohe had frequently been startled, had frequently lived in suspensefor a few days. But he had long since grown impervious to thesealarms. And now he was startled again--but as a man may bestartled who is not altogether surprised at being startled. Andseven endless days passed, and Samuel and Constance glanced ateach other like guilty things, whose secret refuses to be kept.Then three more days passed, and another three. Then Samuel Poveyremarked in a firm, masculine, fact-fronting tone:
"Oh, there's no doubt about it!"
And they glanced at each other like conspirators who have lighteda fuse and cannot take refuge in flight. Their eyes saidcontinually, with a delicious, an enchanting mixture of ingenuousmodesty and fearful joy:
"Well, we've gone and done it!"
There it was, the incredible, incomprehensible future--coming!
Samuel had never correctly imagined the manner of its heralding.He had imagined in his early simplicity that one day Constance,blushing, might put her mouth to his ear and whisper--somethingpositive. It had not occurred in the least like that. But thingsare so obstinately, so incurably unsentimental.
"I think we ought to drive over and tell mother, on Sunday," saidConstance.
His impulse was to reply, in his grand, offhand style: "Oh, aletter will do!"
But he checked himself and said, with careful deference: "Youthink that will be better than writing?"
All was changed. He braced every fibre to meet destiny, and tohelp Constance to meet it.
The weather threatened on Sunday. He went to Axe withoutConstance. His cousin drove him there in a dog-cart, and heannounced that he should walk home, as the exercise would do himgood. During the drive Daniel, in whom he had not confided,chattered as usual, and Samuel pretended to listen with the sameattitude as usual; but secretly he despised Daniel for a man whohas got something not of the first importance on the brain. Hisperspective was truer than Daniel's.
He walked home, as he had decided, over the wavy moorland of thecounty dreaming in the heart of England. Night fell on him in mid-career, and he was tired. But the earth, as it whirled throughnaked space, whirled up the moon for him, and he pressed on at agood speed. A wind from Arabia wandering cooled his face. And atlast, over the brow of Toft End, he saw suddenly the Five Towns a-twinkle on their little hills down in the vast amphitheatre. Andone of those lamps was Constance's lamp--one, somewhere. He lived,then. He entered into the shadow of nature. The mysteries made himsolemn. What! A boneshaker, his cousin, and then this!
"Well, I'm damned! Well, I'm damned!" he kept repeating, he whonever swore.