老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
II
Nobody really thought that this almost ideal condition of thingswould persist: an enterprise commenced in such glory must surelytraverse periods of difficulty and even of temporary disaster. Butno! Cyril seemed to be made specially for school. Before Mr. Poveyand Constance had quite accustomed themselves to being the parentsof 'a great lad,' before Cyril had broken the glass of hismiraculous watch more than once, the summer term had come to a endand there arrived the excitations of the prize-giving, as it wascalled; for at that epoch the smaller schools had not found theeffrontery to dub the breaking-up ceremony a 'speech-day.' Thisprize-giving furnished a particular joy to Mr. and Mrs. Povey.Although the prizes were notoriously few in number--partly to addto their significance, and partly to diminish their cost (thefoundation was poor)--Cyril won a prize, a box of geometricalinstruments of precision; also he reached the top of his form, andwas marked for promotion to the formidable Fourth. Samuel andConstance were bidden to the large hall of the WedgwoodInstitution of a summer afternoon, and they saw the whole Board ofGovernors raised on a rostrum, and in the middle, in front of whathe referred to, in his aristocratic London accent, as 'a beggarlyarray of rewards,' the aged and celebrated Sir Thomas WilbrahamWilbraham, ex-M.P., last respectable member of his ancient line.And Sir Thomas gave the box of instruments to Cyril, and shookhands with him. And everybody was very well dressed. Samuel, whohad never attended anything but a National School, recalled thesimple rigours of his own boyhood, and swelled. For certainly, ofall the parents present, he was among the richest. When, in theinformal promiscuities which followed the prize distribution,Cyril joined his father and mother, sheepishly, they duly didtheir best to make light of his achievements, and failed. Thewalls of the hall were covered with specimens of the pupils'skill, and the headmaster was observed to direct the attention ofthe mighty to a map done by Cyril. Of course it was a map ofIreland, Ireland being the map chosen by every map-drawingschoolboy who is free to choose. For a third-form boy it wasconsidered a masterpiece. In the shading of mountains Cyril wasalready a prodigy. Never, it was said, had the Macgillycuddy Reeksbeen indicated by a member of that school with a more amazingsubtle refinement than by the young Povey. From a proper pride inthemselves, from a proper fear lest they should be secretlyaccused of ostentation by other parents, Samuel and Constance didnot go near that map. For the rest, they had lived with it forweeks, and Samuel (who, after all, was determined not to be dirtunder his son's feet) had scratched a blot from it with acompleteness that defied inquisitive examination.
The fame of this map, added to the box of compasses and Cyril'sown desire, pointed to an artistic career. Cyril had always drawnand daubed, and the drawing-master of the Endowed School, who wasalso headmaster of the Art School, had suggested that the youthshould attend the Art School one night a week. Samuel, however,would not listen to the idea; Cyril was too young. It is true thatCyril was too young, but Samuel's real objection was to Cyril'sgoing out alone in the evening. On that he was adamant.
The Governors had recently made the discovery that a sportsdepartment was necessary to a good school, and had rented a fieldfor cricket, football, and rounders up at Bleakridge, aninnovation which demonstrated that the town was moving with therapid times. In June this field was open after school hours tilleight p.m. as well as on Saturdays. The Squire learnt that Cyrilhad a talent for cricket, and Cyril wished to practise in theevenings, and was quite ready to bind himself with Bible oaths torise at no matter what hour in the morning for the purpose of homelessons. He scarcely expected his father to say 'Yes' as hisfather never did say 'Yes,' but he was obliged to ask. Samuelnonplussed him by replying that on fine evenings, when he couldspare time from the shop, he would go up to Bleakridge with hisson. Cyril did not like this in the least. Still, it might betried. One evening they went, actually, in the new steam-car whichhad superseded the old horse-cars, and which travelled all the wayto Longshaw, a place that Cyril had only heard of. Samuel talkedof the games played in the Five Towns in his day, of the Titanicsport of prison-bars, when the team of one 'bank' went forth tothe challenge of another 'bank,' preceded by a drum-and-fife band,and when, in the heat of the chase, a man might jump into thecanal to escape his pursuer; Samuel had never played at cricket.
Samuel, with a very young grandson of Fan (deceased), sat indignity on the grass and watched his cricketer for an hour and ahalf (while Constance kept an eye on the shop and superintendedits closing). Samuel then conducted Cyril home again. Two dayslater the father of his own accord offered to repeat theexperience. Cyril refused. Disagreeable insinuations that he was ababy in arms had been made at school in the meantime.
Nevertheless, in other directions Cyril sometimes surprisinglyconquered. For instance, he came home one day with the informationthat a dog that was not a bull-terrier was not worth calling adog. Fan's grandson had been carried off in earliest prime by achicken-bone that had pierced his vitals, and Cyril did indeedpersuade his father to buy a bull-terrier. The animal was asuperlative of forbidding ugliness, but father and son vied witheach other in stern critical praise of his surpassing beauty, andConstance, from good nature, joined in the pretence. He was calledLion, and the shop, after one or two untoward episodes, wasabsolutely closed to him.
But the most striking of Cyril's successes had to do with thequestion of the annual holiday. He spoke of the sea soon afterbecoming a schoolboy. It appeared that his complete ignorance ofthe sea prejudicially affected him at school. Further, he hadalways loved the sea; he had drawn hundreds of three-masted shipswith studding-sails set, and knew the difference between a brigand a brigantine. When he first said: "I say, mother, why can't wego to Llandudno instead of Buxton this year?" his mother thoughthe was out of his senses. For the idea of going to any place otherthan Buxton was inconceivable! Had they not always been to Buxton?What would their landlady say? How could they ever look her in theface again? Besides ... well ...! They went to Llandudno, ratherscared, and hardly knowing how the change had come about. But theywent. And it was the force of Cyril's will, Cyril the theoreticcypher, that took them.