老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
I
Madame Foucault came into Sophia's room one afternoon with apeculiar guilty expression on her large face, and she held herpeignoir close to her exuberant body in folds consciouslymajestic, as though endeavouring to prove to Sophia by hercarriage that despite her shifting eyes she was the most righteousand sincere woman that ever lived.
It was Saturday, the third of September, a beautiful day. Sophia,suffering from an unimportant relapse, had remained in a state ofinactivity, and had scarcely gone out at all. She loathed theflat, but lacked the energy to leave it every day. There was nosufficiently definite object in leaving it. She could not go outand look for health as she might have looked for flowers. So sheremained in the flat, and stared at the courtyard and thecontinual mystery of lives hidden behind curtains thatoccasionally moved. And the painted yellow walls of the house, andthe papered walls of her room pressed upon her and crushed her.For a few days Chirac had called daily, animated by the mostadorable solicitude. Then he had ceased to call. She had tired ofreading the journals; they lay unopened. The relations betweenMadame Foucault and herself, and her status in the flat of whichshe now legally owned the furniture,--these things were leftunsettled. But the question of her board was arranged on the termsthat she halved the cost of food and service with Madame Foucault;her expenses were thus reduced to the lowest possible--abouteighteen francs a week. An idea hung in the air--like a scientificdiscovery on the point of being made by several independentinvestigators simultaneously--that she and Madame Foucault shouldco-operate in order to let furnished rooms at a remunerativeprofit. Sophia felt the nearness of the idea and she wanted to beshocked at the notion of any avowed association between herselfand Madame Foucault; but she could not be.
"Here are a lady and a gentleman who want a bedroom," began MadameFoucault, "a nice large bedroom, furnished."
"Oh!" said Sophia; "who are they?"
"They will pay a hundred and thirty francs a month, in advance,for the middle bedroom."
"You've shown it to them already?" said Sophia. And her toneimplied that somehow she was conscious of a right to overlook theaffair of Madame Foucault.
"No," said the other. "I said to myself that first I would ask youfor a counsel."
"Then will they pay all that for a room they haven't seen?"
"The fact is," said Madame Foucault, sheepishly. "The lady hasseen the room before. I know her a little. It is a former tenant.She lived here some weeks."
"In that room?"
"Oh no! She was poor enough then."
"Where are they?"
"In the corridor. She is very well, the lady. Naturally one mustlive, she like all the world; but she is veritably well. Quiterespectable! One would never say ... Then there would be themeals. We could demand one franc for the cafe au lait, two and ahalf francs for the lunch, and three francs for the dinner.Without counting other things. That would mean over five hundredfrancs a month, at least. And what would they cost us? Almostnothing! By what appears, he is a plutocrat ... I could thusquickly repay you."
"Is it a married couple?"
"Ah! You know, one cannot demand the marriage certificate." MadameFoucault indicated by a gesture that the Rue Breda was not theparadise of saints.
"When she came before, this lady, was it with the same man?"Sophia asked coldly.
"Ah, my faith, no!" exclaimed Madame Foucault, bridling. "It was abad sort, the other, a ...! Ah, no."
"Why do you ask my advice?" Sophia abruptly questioned, in a hard,inimical voice. "Is it that it concerns me?"
Tears came at once into the eyes of Madame Foucault. "Do not beunkind," she implored.
"I'm not unkind," said Sophia, in the same tone.
"Shall you leave me if I accept this offer?"
There was a pause.
"Yes," said Sophia, bluntly. She tried to be large-hearted, large-minded, and sympathetic; but there was no sign of these qualitiesin her speech.
. "The lady hasseen the room before. I.
"And if you take with you the furniture which is yours ...!"
Sophia kept silence.
"How am I to live, I demand of you?" Madame Foucault asked weakly.
"By being respectable and dealing with respectable people!" saidSophia, uncompromisingly, in tones of steel.
"I am unhappy!" murmured the elder woman. "However, you are morestrong than I!"
She brusquely dabbed her eyes, gave a little sob, and ran out ofthe room. Sophia listened at the door, and heard her dismiss thewould-be tenants of the best bedroom. She wondered that she shouldpossess such moral ascendancy over the woman, she so young andingenuous! For, of course, she had not meant to remove thefurniture. She could hear Madame Foucault sobbing quietly in oneof the other rooms; and her lips curled.
Before evening a truly astonishing event happened. Perceiving thatMadame Foucault showed no signs of bestirring herself, Sophia,with good nature in her heart but not on her tongue, went to her,and said:
"Shall I occupy myself with the dinner?"
Madame Foucault sobbed more loudly.
"That would be very amiable on your part," Madame Foucault managedat last to reply, not very articulately.
Sophia put a hat on and went to the grocer's. The grocer, who kepta busy establishment at the corner of the Rue Clausel, was amiddle-aged and wealthy man. He had sent his young wife and twochildren to Normandy until victory over the Prussians should bemore assured, and he asked Sophia whether it was true that therewas a good bedroom to let in the flat where she lived. His servantwas ill of smallpox; he was attacked by anxieties and fears on allsides; he would not enter his own flat on account of possibleinfection; he liked Sophia, and Madame Foucault had been acustomer of his, with intervals, for twenty years. Within an hourhe had arranged to rent the middle bedroom at eighty francs amonth, and to take his meals there. The terms were modest, but therespectability was prodigious. All the glory of this tenancy fellupon Sophia.
Madame Foucault was deeply impressed. Characteristically she beganat once to construct a theory that Sophia had only to walk out ofthe house in order to discover ideal tenants for the rooms. Alsoshe regarded the advent of the grocer as a reward from Providencefor her self-denial in refusing the profits of sinfulness. Sophiafelt personally responsible to the grocer for his comfort, and soshe herself undertook the preparation of the room. Madame Foucaultwas amazed at the thoroughness of her housewifery, and at theingenuity of her ideas for the arrangement of furniture. She satand watched with admiration sycophantic but real.
That night, when Sophia was in bed, Madame Foucault came into theroom, and dropped down by the side of the bed, and begged Sophiato be her moral support for ever. She confessed herself generally.She explained how she had always hated the negation ofrespectability; how respectability was the one thing that she hadall her life passionately desired. She said that if Sophia wouldbe her partner in the letting of furnished rooms to respectablepersons, she would obey her in everything. She gave Sophia a listof all the traits in Sophia's character which she admired. Sheasked Sophia to influence her, to stand by her. She insisted thatshe would sleep on the sixth floor in the servant's tiny room; andshe had a vision of three bedrooms let to successful tradesmen.She was in an ecstasy of repentance and good intentions.
Sophia consented to the business proposition; for she had nothingelse whatever in prospect, and she shared Madame Foucault's rosyview about the remunerativeness of the bedrooms. With threetenants who took meals the two women would be able to feedthemselves for nothing and still make a profit on the food; andthe rents would be clear gain.
And she felt very sorry for the ageing, feckless Madame Foucault,whose sincerity was obvious. The association between them would bestrange; it would have been impossible to explain it to St. Luke'sSquare. ... And yet, if there was anything at all in the virtue ofChristian charity, what could properly be urged against theassociation?
"Ah!" murmured Madame Foucault, kissing Sophia's hands, "it is to-day, then, that I recommence my life. You will see--you will see!You have saved me!"
It was a strange sight, the time-worn, disfigured courtesan, halfprostrate before the beautiful young creature proud andunassailable in the instinctive force of her own character. It wasalmost a didactic tableau, fraught with lessons for the vicious.Sophia was happier than she had been for years. She had a purposein existence; she had a fluid soul to mould to her will accordingto her wisdom; and there was a large compassion to her credit.Public opinion could not intimidate her, for in her case there wasno public opinion; she knew nobody; nobody had the right toquestion her doings.
The next day, Sunday, they both worked hard at the bedrooms fromearly morning. The grocer was installed in his chamber, and thetwo other rooms were cleansed as they had never been cleansed. Atfour o'clock, the weather being more magnificent than ever, MadameFoucault said:
"If we took a promenade on the boulevard?"
Sophia reflected. They were partners. "Very well," she agreed.
The boulevard was crammed with gay, laughing crowds. All the cafeswere full. None, who did not know, could have guessed that thenews of Sedan was scarcely a day old in the capital. Delirious joyreigned in the glittering sunshine. As the two women strolledalong, content with their industry and their resolves, they cameto a National Guard, who, perched on a ladder, was chipping awaythe "N" from the official sign of a court-tradesman. He wasexchanging jokes with a circle of open mouths. It was in this waythat Madame Foucault and Sophia learnt of the establishment of arepublic.
"Vive la republique!" cried Madame Foucault, incontinently, andthen apologized to Sophia for the lapse.
They listened a long while to a man who was telling strangehistories of the Empress.
Suddenly Sophia noticed that Madame Foucault was no longer at herelbow. She glanced about, and saw her in earnest conversation witha young man whose face seemed familiar. She remembered it was theyoung man with whom Madame Foucault had quarrelled on the nightwhen Sophia found her prone in the corridor; the last remainingworshipper of the courtesan.
quarrelled on the nightwhen .
The woman's face was quite changed by her agitation. Sophia drewaway, offended. She watched the pair from a distance for a fewmoments, and then, furious in disillusion, she escaped from thefever of the boulevards and walked quietly home. Madame Foucaultdid not return. Apparently Madame Foucault was doomed to be thetoy of chance. Two days later Sophia received a scrawled letterfrom her, with the information that her lover had required thatshe should accompany him to Brussels, as Paris would soon begetting dangerous. "He adores me always. He is the most deliciousboy. As I have always said, this is the grand passion of my life.I am happy. He would not permit me to come to you. He has spenttwo thousand francs on clothes for me, since naturally I hadnothing." And so on. No word of apology. Sophia, in reading theletter, allowed for a certain exaggeration and twisting of thetruth.
"Young fool! Fool!" she burst out angrily. She did not meanherself; she meant the fatuous adorer of that dilapidated,horrible woman. She never saw her again. Doubtless Madame Foucaultfulfilled her own prediction as to her ultimate destiny, but inBrussels.