老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
III
Constance's pride urged her to refuse the offer. But in truth hersole objection to it was that she had not thought of the schemeherself. For the scheme really reconciled her wish to remain whereshe was with her wish to be free of the shop.
"I shall make him put me in a new window in the parlour--one thatwill open!" she said positively to Cyril, who accepted Mr.Critchlow's idea with fatalistic indifference.
After stipulating for the new window, she closed with the offer.Then there was the stock-taking, which endured for weeks. And thena carpenter came and measured for the window. And a builder and amason came and inspected doorways, and Constance felt that the endwas upon her. She took up the carpet in the parlour and protectedthe furniture by dustsheets. She and Cyril lived between bareboards and dustsheets for twenty days, and neither carpenter normason reappeared. Then one surprising day the old window wasremoved by the carpenter's two journeymen, and late in theafternoon the carpenter brought the new window, and the three menworked till ten o'clock at night, fixing it. Cyril wore his capand went to bed in his cap, and Constance wore a Paisley shawl. Apainter had bound himself beyond all possibility of failure topaint the window on the morrow. He was to begin at six a.m.; andAmy's alarm-clock was altered so that she might be up and dressedto admit him. He came a week later, administered one coat, andvanished for another ten days. Then two masons suddenly came withheavy tools, and were shocked to find that all was not preparedfor them. (After three carpetless weeks Constance had relaid herfloors.) They tore off wall-paper, sent cascades of plaster downthe kitchen steps, withdrew alternate courses of bricks from thewalls, and, sated with destruction, hastened away. After four daysnew red bricks began to arrive, carried by a quite guiltlesshodman who had not visited the house before. The hodman met thefull storm of Constance's wrath. It was not a vicious wrath,rather a good-humoured wrath; but it impressed the hodman. "Myhouse hasn't been fit to live in for a month," she said in fine."If these walls aren't built to-morrow, upstairs AND down--to-morrow, mind!--don't let any of you dare to show your noses hereagain, for I won't have you. Now you've brought your bricks. Offwith you, and tell your master what I say!"
It was effective. The next day subdued and plausible workmen ofall sorts awoke the house with knocking at six-thirty precisely,and the two doorways were slowly bricked up. The curious thing wasthat, when the barrier was already a foot high on the ground-floorConstance remembered small possessions of her own which she hadomitted to remove from the cutting-out room. Picking up herskirts, she stepped over into the region that was no more hers,and stepped back with the goods. She had a bandanna round her headto keep the thick dust out of her hair. She was very busy, verypreoccupied with nothings. She had no time for sentimentalities.Yet when the men arrived at the topmost course and were at lasthidden behind their own erection, and she could see only roughbricks and mortar, she was disconcertingly overtaken by a mistyblindness and could not even see bricks and mortar. Cyril foundher, with her absurd bandanna, weeping in a sheet-covered rocking-chair in the sacked parlour. He whistled uneasily, remarked: "Isay, mother, what about tea?" and then, hearing the heavy voicesof workmen above, ran with relief upstairs. Tea had been set inthe drawing-room, he was glad to learn that from Amy, who informedhim also that she should 'never get used to them there new walls,'not as long as she lived.
He went to the School of Art that night. Constance, alone, couldfind nothing to do. She had willed that the walls should be built,and they had been built; but days must elapse before they could beplastered, and after the plaster still more days before thepapering. Not for another month, perhaps, would her house be freeof workmen and ripe for her own labours. She could only sit in thedust-drifts and contemplate the havoc of change, and keep her eyesas dry as she could. The legal transactions were all but complete;little bills announcing the transfer of the business lay on thecounters in the shop at the disposal of customers. In two daysCharles Critchlow would pay the price of a desire realized. Thesign was painted out and new letters sketched thereon in chalk. Infuture she would be compelled, if she wished to enter the shop, toenter it as a customer and from the front. Yes, she saw that,though the house remained hers, the root of her life had beenwrenched up.
And the mess! It seemed inconceivable that the material mess couldever be straightened away!
Yet, ere the fields of the county were first covered with snowthat season, only one sign survived of the devastating revolution,and that was a loose sheet of wall-paper that had been too soonpasted on to new plaster and would not stick. Maria Insull wasMaria Critchlow. Constance had been out into the Square and seenthe altered sign, and seen Mrs. Critchlow's taste in window-curtains, and seen--most impressive sight of all--that the grimywindow of the abandoned room at the top of the abandoned staircasenext to the bedroom of her girlhood, had been cleaned and a tableput in front of it. She knew that the chamber, which she herselfhad never entered, was to be employed as a storeroom, but thevisible proof of its conversion so strangely affected her that shehad not felt able to go boldly into the shop, as she had meant todo, and make a few purchases in the way of friendliness. "I'm asilly woman!" she muttered. Later, she did venture, timidlyabrupt, into the shop, and was received with fitting state by Mrs.Critchlow (as desiccated as ever), who insisted on allowing herthe special trade discount. And she carried her little friendlypurchases round to her own door in King Street. Trivial, trivialevent! Constance, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, did both.She accused herself of developing a hysterical faculty in tears,and strove sagely against it.