老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
III
She was reassured as to Cyril during the next few days. He did notattempt to repeat his ingenious naughtiness of the Monday evening,and he came directly home for tea; moreover he had, as a kind ofmiracle performed to dazzle her, actually arisen early on theTuesday morning and done his arithmetic. To express hersatisfaction she had manufactured a specially elaborate straw-frame for the sketch after Sir Edwin Landseer, and had hung it inher bedroom: an honour which Cyril appreciated. She was as happyas a woman suffering from a recent amputation can be; and comparedwith the long nightmare created by Samuel's monomania and illness,her existence seemed to be now a beneficent calm.
Cyril, she thought, had realized the importance in her eyes oftea, of that evening hour and that companionship which were forher the flowering of the day. And she had such confidence in hisgoodness that she would pour the boiling water on the Hornimantea-leaves even before he arrived: certainty could not be moresure. And then, on the Friday of the first week, he was late! Hebounded in, after dark, and the state of his clothes indicated tooclearly that he had been playing football in the mud that was agrassy field in summer.
"Have you been kept in, my boy?" she asked, for the sake of form.
"No, mother," he said casually. "We were just kicking the ballabout a bit. Am I late?"
"Better go and tidy yourself," she said, not replying to hisquestion. "You can't sit down in that state. And I'll have somefresh tea made. This is spoilt."
"Oh, very well!"
Her sacred tea--the institution which she wanted to hallow by longhabit, and which was to count before everything with both of them--had been carelessly sacrificed to the kicking of a football inmud! And his father buried not ten days! She was wounded: a deep,clean, dangerous wound that would not bleed. She tried to be gladthat he had not lied; he might easily have lied, saying that hehad been detained for a fault and could not help being late. No!He was not given to lying; he would lie, like any human being,when a great occasion demanded such prudence, but he was not aliar; he might fairly be called a truthful boy. She tried to beglad, and did not succeed. She would have preferred him to havelied.
Amy, grumbling, had to boil more water.
When he returned to the parlour, superficially cleaned, Constanceexpected him to apologize in his roundabout boyish way; at anyrate to woo and wheedle her, to show by some gesture that he wasconscious of having put an affront on her. But his attitude wasquite otherwise. His attitude was rather brusque and overbearingand noisy. He ate a very considerable amount of jam, far tooquickly, and then asked for more, in a tone of a monarch who callsfor his own. And ere tea was finished he said boldly, apropos ofnothing:
"I say, mother, you'll just have to let me go to the School of Artafter Easter."
And stared at her with a fixed challenge in his eyes.
He meant, by the School of Art, the evening classes at the Schoolof Art. His father had decided absolutely against the project. Hisfather had said that it would interfere with his lessons, wouldkeep him up too late at night, and involve absence from home inthe evening. The last had always been the real objection. Hisfather had not been able to believe that Cyril's desire to studyart sprang purely from his love of art; he could not avoidsuspecting that it was a plan to obtain freedom in the evenings--that freedom which Samuel had invariably forbidden. In all Cyril'ssuggestions Samuel had been ready to detect the same schemelurking. He had finally said that when Cyril left school and tookto a vocation, then he could study art at night if he chose, butnot before.
"You know what your father said!" Constance replied.
"But, mother! That's all very well! I'm sure father would haveagreed. If I'm going to take up drawing I ought to do it at once.That's what the drawing-master says, and I suppose he ought toknow." He finished on a tone of insolence.
"I can't allow you to do it yet," said Constance, quietly. "It'squite out of the question. Quite!"
He pouted and then he sulked. It was war between them. At times hewas the image of his Aunt Sophia. He would not leave the subjectalone; but he would not listen to Constance's reasoning. He openlyaccused her of harshness. He asked her how she could expect him toget on if she thwarted him in his most earnest desires. He pointedto other boys whose parents were wiser.
"It's all very fine of you to put it on father!" he observedsarcastically.
He gave up his drawing entirely.
When she hinted that if he attended the School of Art she would becondemned to solitary evenings, he looked at her as though saying:"Well, and if you are--?" He seemed to have no heart.
After several weeks of intense unhappiness she said: "How manyevenings do you want to go?"
The war was over.
He was charming again. When she was alone she could cling to himagain. And she said to herself: "If we can be happy together onlywhen I give way to him, I must give way to him." And there wasecstasy in her yielding. "After all," she said to herself,"perhaps it's very important that he should go to the School ofArt." She solaced herself with such thoughts on three solitaryevenings a week, waiting for him to come home.