米德尔马契 英文版 Middlemarch
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER LIII. Page 2
"That could be supplied to you, if you would engage to keep ata distance," said Mr. Bulstrode, perhaps with a little too mucheagerness in his undertone.
"That must be as it suits my convenience," said Raffles coolly. "I seeno reason why I shouldn't make a few acquaintances hereabout. I'm notashamed of myself as company for anybody. I dropped my portmanteau atthe turnpike when I got down--change of linen--genuine--honor bright--more than fronts and wristbands; and with this suit of mourning,straps and everything, I should do you credit among the nobs here."Mr. Raffles had pushed away his chair and looked down at himself,particularly at his straps. His chief intention was to annoy Bulstrode,but he really thought that his appearance now would producea good effect, and that he was not only handsome and witty,but clad in a mourning style which implied solid connections.
"If you intend to rely on me in any way, Mr. Raffles," said Bulstrode,after a moment's pause, "you will expect to meet my wishes."
"Ah, to be sure," said Raffles, with a mocking cordiality."Didn't I always do it? Lord, you made a pretty thing out of me,and I got but little. I've often thought since, I might have donebetter by telling the old woman that I'd found her daughter andher grandchild: it would have suited my feelings better; I've gota soft place in my heart. But you've buried the old lady by this time,I suppose--it's all one to her now. And you've got your fortuneout of that profitable business which had such a blessing on it.You've taken to being a nob, buying land, being a country bashaw.Still in the Dissenting line, eh? Still godly? Or taken to the Churchas more genteel?"
This time Mr. Raffles' slow wink and slight protrusion of histongue was worse than a nightmare, because it held the certitudethat it was not a nightmare, but a waking misery. Mr. Bulstrodefelt a shuddering nausea, and did not speak, but was consideringdiligently whether he should not leave Raffles to do as he would,and simply defy him as a slanderer. The man would soon showhimself disreputable enough to make people disbelieve him."But not when he tells any ugly-looking truth about _you_,"said discerning consciousness. And again: it seemed no wrong to keepRaffles at a distance, but Mr. Bulstrode shrank from the directfalsehood of denying true statements. It was one thing to look back onforgiven sins, nay, to explain questionable conformity to lax customs,and another to enter deliberately on the necessity of falsehood.
But since Bulstrode did not speak, Raffles ran on, by way of usingtime to the utmost.
"I've not had such fine luck as you, by Jove! Things wentconfoundedly with me in New York; those Yankees are cool hands,and a man of gentlemanly feelings has no chance with them. I marriedwhen I came back--a nice woman in the tobacco trade--very fond of me--but the trade was restricted, as we say. She had been settledthere a good many years by a friend; but there was a son too muchin the case. Josh and I never hit it off. However, I made the mostof the position, and I've always taken my glass in good company.It's been all on the square with me; I'm as open as the day.You won't take it ill of me that I didn't look you up before.I've got a complaint that makes me a little dilatory. I thought you weretrading and praying away in London still, and didn't find you there.But you see I was sent to you, Nick--perhaps for a blessing to bothof us."
Mr. Raffles ended with a jocose snuffle: no man felt his intellectmore superior to religious cant. And if the cunning which calculateson the meanest feelings in men could be, called intellect, he hadhis share, for under the blurting rallying tone with which hespoke to Bulstrode, there was an evident selection of statements,as if they had been so many moves at chess. Meanwhile Bulstrodehad determined on his move, and he said, with gathered resolution--
"You will do well to reflect, Mr. Raffles, that it is possible for aman to overreach himself in the effort to secure undue advantage.Although I am not in any way bound to you, I am willing to supplyyou with a regular annuity--in quarterly payments--so long as youfulfil a promise to remain at a distance from this neighborhood.It is in your power to choose. If you insist on remaining here,even for a short time, you will get nothing from me. I shall declineto know you."
"Ha, ha!" said Raffles, with an affected explosion, "that remindsme of a droll dog of a thief who declined to know the constable."
"Your allusions are lost on me sir," said Bulstrode, with white heat;"the law has no hold on me either through your agency or any other."
"You can't understand a joke, my good fellow. I only meantthat I should never decline to know you. But let us be serious.Your quarterly payment won't quite suit me. I like my freedom."
the constable."back by that time."If you intend to rely on me in any way, Mr. Raffles,"
Here Raffles rose and stalked once or twice up and down the room,swinging his leg, and assuming an air of masterly meditation.At last he stopped opposite Bulstrode, and said, "I'll tellyou what! Give us a couple of hundreds--come, that's modest--and I'll go away--honor bright!--pick up my portmanteau and go away.But I shall not give up my Liberty for a dirty annuity. I shallcome and go where I like. Perhaps it may suit me to stay away,and correspond with a friend; perhaps not. Have you the moneywith you?"
"No, I have one hundred," said Bulstrode, feeling the immediate riddancetoo great a relief to be rejected on the ground of future uncertainties."I will forward you the other if you will mention an address."
"No, I'll wait here till you bring it," said Raffles. "I'll takea stroll and have a snack, and you'll be back by that time."
Mr. Bulstrode's sickly body, shattered by the agitations hehad gone through since the last evening, made him feel abjectlyin the power of this loud invulnerable man. At that momenthe snatched at a temporary repose to be won on any terms.He was rising to do what Raffles suggested, when the latter said,lifting up his finger as if with a sudden recollection--
"I did have another look after Sarah again, though I didn'ttell you; I'd a tender conscience about that pretty young woman.I didn't find her, but I found out her husband's name, and I madea note of it. But hang it, I lost my pocketbook. However, if Iheard it, I should know it again. I've got my faculties as if Iwas in my prime, but names wear out, by Jove! Sometimes I'm nobetter than a confounded tax-paper before the names are filled in.However, if I hear of her and her family, you shall know, Nick.You'd like to do something for her, now she's your step-daughter."
"Doubtless," said Mr. Bulstrode, with the usual steady look of hislight-gray eyes; "though that might reduce my power of assisting you."
As he walked out of the room, Raffles winked slowly at his back,and then turned towards the window to watch the banker riding away--virtually at his command. His lips first curled with a smile and thenopened with a short triumphant laugh.
"But what the deuce was the name?" he presently said, half aloud,scratching his head, and wrinkling his brows horizontally. He hadnot really cared or thought about this point of forgetfulness untilit occurred to him in his invention of annoyances for Bulstrode.
"It began with L; it was almost all l's I fancy," he went on,with a sense that he was getting hold of the slippery name.But the hold was too slight, and he soon got tired of this mental chase;for few men were more impatient of private occupation or morein need of making themselves continually heard than Mr. Raffles.He preferred using his time in pleasant conversation with the bailiffand the housekeeper, from whom he gathered as much as he wanted toknow about Mr. Bulstrode's position in Middlemarch.
After all, however, there was a dull space of time which needed relievingwith bread and cheese and ale, and when he was seated alone with theseresources in the wainscoted parlor, he suddenly slapped his knee,and exclaimed, "Ladislaw!" That action of memory which he had triedto set going, and had abandoned in despair, had suddenly completeditself without conscious effort--a common experience, agreeable asa completed sneeze, even if the name remembered is of no value.Raffles immediately took out his pocket-book, and wrote down the name,not because he expected to use it, but merely for the sake of notbeing at a loss if he ever did happen to want it. He was not goingto tell Bulstrode: there was no actual good in telling, and toa mind like that of Mr. Raffles there is always probable good in a secret.
He was satisfied with his present success, and by three o'clock that dayhe had taken up his portmanteau at the turnpike and mounted the coach,relieving Mr. Bulstrode's eyes of an ugly black spot on the landscapeat Stone Court, but not relieving him of the dread that the black spotmight reappear and become inseparable even from the vision of his hearth.