我承认，对于人类的起源和发展，我的记忆有些模糊。 悲剧缪斯，出现在 大西洋月刊 再次，从 1889 年 XNUMX 月开始，异常地比正常的十二个月持续了几个月。如果将一个人的手指放在一件艺术作品的生产性萌芽上是有趣和有利的，并且如果事实上对任何此类作品的清晰描述都涉及到这种主要的识别，那么我只能将当前的小说视为可怜的孤儿。没有母亲，这是一种未经登记、未经承认的出生。我未能恢复我宝贵的第一刻意识，意识到它所形成的想法；认识到其中——正如我一般喜欢做的——某种特殊的尖锐印象或冲击的影响。我称这些记忆中的闪光总是珍贵的，因为没有它们，就无法清楚地了解一个人可能想要做什么，如果没有这种愿景，就无法直接衡量一个人可能成功地做了什么。我从最远的地方了解到，我一定从更远的地方就有了，事实上，实际上一直都有，对“艺术家生活”的一些戏剧性画面以及它所处的困难条件的快乐想法。最好的保障和享受，一般问题是它的费用并不容易支付。 “为艺术做点什么”——艺术，即作为人类的复杂性和社会的绊脚石——对我来说一定是很早就有一个精心培育的意图，艺术与“世界”之间的冲突因此让我震惊有时作为六个伟大的主要动机之一。我记得，我什至理所当然地认为，这些寓意深刻的主题在测试中不可能被证明比这更丰富。既然如此，那么，除了丰富一个人的信念之外，所有的经验还能起到什么作用呢？——因为，一方面，如果我对艺术的本质和随之而来的条件有越来越深入的了解，那么世界这个概念显然需要并且将永远继续需要任何数量的填充。无论如何，令人高兴且富有成效的事实是，存在反对派——为什么会有反对派？ 应该 是另一回事——反对派会产生无数的情况。此外，事实上无疑发生的是，正是这个关于反对派的本质和理由的问题本身就表明需要经验的指导；因此，对于经验的增长，确实，对主题的处理已经产生了效果。它一直在等待这个优势。

然而，我仍然看到经验给我带来的慢跑主要是来自《杂志》温和的编辑的邀请。 大西洋已故的托马斯·贝利·奥尔德里奇 (Thomas Bailey Aldrich) 为他的页面贡献了一个贯穿全年的连载。因此，这种友好的呼吁成为我对这本书的“起源”所能做出的最明确的陈述；然而，从它到达我手中的那一刻起，这件事上的其他一切似乎又重新焕发了生机。坦白地说，最重要的是，我看到这部作品暂时结束了，因为它的邪恶影响——尽管原因对我来说仍然不清楚——对令人愉快的旧习俗产生了影响。小说中的“奔跑”。多年来，我都没有感受到这种为了我的利益而自信地恢复的练习。的影响 悲剧缪斯 因此，这与我所真诚地（当然是足够私下的）所祈求的完全不同，我清楚地记得最后那种特殊的寒意，即我将它发射到一个巨大的灰色虚空中，没有回声或声响。任何会回来的消息。结果，没有人来过，当我读完这本书时，我发现这种情况，以它的名义，体现了一种特殊的慈善温柔；即使父母心中还挂着对受伤或被轻视、毁容或失败、不幸或不太可能的孩子的更精细的考虑——这个不幸的小凡人的想法进一步被认为是某种“妥协”。因此，我可以把这个东西看作是完全有意地、不受干扰地独自存在的，并将它比作某种芳香的袋子，里面装着采集的草药，其中的绳子从未松开过。或者，更好的是，一罐百花香，经过成型、修饰和抛光，但盖子从未打开，使里面的香味浓郁地积聚起来。一致、持续、保留 音 of 悲剧缪斯，它的持续性和毫无疑问相当精致的真实性，特别是追求的音高和重音，是，批判性地讲，它的主要优点——内在的和谐，我也许会冒昧地允许自己将其与未蒸发的气味进行比较。

在此之后，我确实很可能会被要求以一种明显的“语气”来表达我在这样的事情中的意思，以及我如何证明我的主张是正确的——这一点将在稍后等待我们。在这里，我再次找到了我手中潜在的历史线索，轻松回想起我迅速抓住了这样一个创作关于艺术的故事的机会。 那里 这是我这次的主题——经过漫长的等待，一切都变得成熟，并且带着最幸福的尊严，我最初对它的价值的看法完全迷失在青春的迷雾中。我脑子里肯定早就有这样的想法：一个年轻人应该在困难中——困难就是故事——放弃“公共生活”，热心追求一些所谓的小手艺；显然，在我面前盘旋着一些可能的画面（但都是滑稽和讽刺的），描绘了伦敦最突出的“社交”激情之一，即对戏剧事物无法平息的好奇心；对于他们中的每一个，也就是说，除了戏剧本身，特别是对于表演者的“个性”（几乎所有表演者都充分服务）。确实，后者给我的印象主要是讽刺性的处理。我一次又一次地感觉到，对于伦敦大多数独特的社会方面来说，唯一适当或有效的治疗方法是：事物普遍朴素的戏剧化气氛导致了如此多的例子从任何树篱后面涌现出来。然而，对于我自己的拉伸画布来说，立刻想到的是它必须足够大，给我真正转身的空间，而且单个说明性案例可能很容易变得微不足道。如果年轻人能够“抛弃”对政治的崇拜，当然还有其他崇拜的对象，那一切都会很好。但他还不够——因此，我们应该对其他一些会抛弃某些东西的年轻人和其他同样以自己的方式受到钦佩的人说些什么呢？

在最坏的情况下，对于那些对艺术有利的事情来说，永远不会有任何困难。问题就是在堆中选择它们。然而，如果我要表现一场与戏剧激情（作为一种职业，或者至少作为一种专注）的斗争——一场有趣的、不可或缺的斗争，我就必须从讽刺之外的另一种角度来看待戏剧。然而，如果运气好的话，这也是完全可能的——无需牺牲真理。毫无疑问，我什至应该能够使我的戏剧案例像我希望的那样重要。很明显，我需要大案子——小案子实际上会泄露我的中心思想；我现在发现我仍然在幻想中努力工作，认为为艺术而牺牲的情况 能够 永远要带着真理、有品味、有谨慎，表面上、华而不实地“大”。我敢说，即使在那时，我也意识到，我应该寻求代表的冲突受害者的最尖锐的困难，以及他困境中的最高利益，深深地存在于这样一个事实中：他对伟大的明显的、伟大的道德或道德的否定。具有功能性或有用性的角色，只需要同意类似无偿投降。这些人物都是高大、宽阔、端坐、地位稳固、天赋异禀。然而，关于对艺术的偏爱的最迷人的事实是，将如此彻底地内心深处和如此自然地令人尴尬的事情带到国外去炫耀，就是对它的伪造和庸俗化。作为一种伴随着公众荣誉的偏好，它确实无处可寻；事实上，在其真诚的统治下，它唯一的荣耀就是矛盾、专注和对除了自身以外的一切的看似可悲的冷漠。在一篇诚实的论文中，没有什么比某人愿意冒充驴子的明显例子更不“大”了。我必须说，我必须严格地意识到这些事情。我可能没有注意到的是，如果某种浪漫的魅力（即使是纯粹的古怪或一种乖僻的魅力）可能会被抛在以“职业”换取一般审美生活的行为上，那么散文和任何选定的特定美学分支的展览都会出现这种谦虚的情况。其次，为了浪漫的效果，男主角或女主角的态度可能看起来太过分了，就像低低地蹲在已证实的琐事上。在我们这个时代，艺术确实获得了如此多的荣誉和报酬，以至于对它的重要性的认识不仅仅是一种习惯，有时甚至几乎变成了一种愤怒：只有在关注的重要性时，这条界限才被划定——尤其是在英国世界。这可能意味着什么。

无论如何，我把我的作品翻得越多，我现在在其中发现的东西就越多，而且我记得，一旦在我的三个典型例子面前，我对画布太大的恐惧就消失了。唯一的问题是，如果我从很早以前就将我的政治案件标记为“一个故事本身”，然后将我的戏剧案件标记为另一个故事，那么这些最初被视为独立的利益结合在一起，可能会可耻地，背叛接缝，表现出机械和肤浅。故事就是故事，图片就是图片，我对两个故事、两张图片合而为一感到非常恐惧。原因是最清楚的——在这个缺点下，我的主题立刻就失去了其不可或缺的中心，以至于无法表达主要意图，就像没有轮毂的轮子无法移动推车一样。显然，这是一个事实 民政事务总署 有时会看到两张照片合二为一；例如，威尼斯不是有某些崇高的丁托列托的作品吗？尤其是一幅无边无际的《受难图》，它在不失权威的情况下表现了六种分别发生的行为？是的，可能是这样，但无论如何，确实存在着强大的图像融合，因此构图的优点不知何故神秘地发挥了作用。当然，如果不考虑构图的话，事情就很简单了。然而，通过什么艺术或过程，什么酒吧和螺栓，什么不戴口罩的狗和尖头枪来完成这一壮举？我必须知道自己完全不适合任何这样的勇气，并认识到，为了使之成为可能，各种各样的事情对我来说应该比我在黎明时感受到的更早开始。一幅没有构图的画会忽视它最宝贵的美的机会，而且，除非画家知道，否则它根本就不是构图的。 形成一种 这种健康和安全的原则，作为一种绝对有预谋的艺术，已经盛行。毫无疑问，如果没有它，生命就可能存在 新来者 有生命，如 三剑客，正如托尔斯泰的 和平与战争， 有它;但是，如此巨大、松散、松垮的怪物，以及其偶然和任意的奇怪元素，在艺术上是做什么的？ 意味着？我们清楚地记得，我们听说过这样的说法“优于艺术”。但我们最不明白的是 这 可能意味着，我们徒劳地寻找艺术家，神圣的解释天才，他会来帮助我们并告诉我们。生命是存在的，而浪费只是生命的牺牲，因此无法“计数”，我喜欢深呼吸的经济和有机的形式。因此，我的任务就是“参与”完全的图像融合，我的两个最初的想法之间有一些共同的兴趣，尽管它们诞生在完全不同的明星之下，但它们根本不会产生暴力。

我怀着这种对回顾的坚定迷恋回忆起，通过我在这里瞥见的温和感知， 悲剧缪斯 主观幸福感不小的季节的第一个小时；我似乎看到，主要是透过一扇宽阔的西窗，高高地俯瞰伦敦近处和远处的日落，伦敦生活的一片半灰色、半红的广阔空间。这件事情的制作虽然花了好几个月的时间，但对我来说，所有的事情都同时发生在我的桌子上的完整投影中，那是雾气弥漫的肯辛顿早晨的美好景象；确实有一种方式可以看到日落，最后以一种不同的、更尖锐的压力融入记忆，那是1889年秋天巴黎一家酒店的卧室，百年纪念博览会即将结束——还有我的长篇故事，也经历了通常的困难。通常的困难——我相当珍惜这个记录，因为另一行的一些冒险家可能会拥抱他根深蒂固的习惯，及时挽救他曾经不顾一切地冒着风险的脖子——这些困难是作为艺术精神的一种特殊恶习而遗留下来的，反对这些困难警惕从一开始就注定是徒劳的，其结果是，我的结构的中心一次又一次地、反常地、不可救药地坚持将自己置于自己的位置。 不能，可以这么说，在中间。拥有结构中心的想法或怀疑的读者是最稀有的朋友和批评家，这并不重要——看起来，一只鸟，就像凤凰一样只是寓言：终结的恐怖仍然肯定会闯入。我的作品威胁着我，把我伪装成一个活跃的人物，注定要因腿太短、与身体相比太短而受到耻辱。我敦促自己坦白承认，在我的作品中，在我看来， 具有 有机中心成功地进入了正确的位置。

于是，一次又一次，珍贵的腰带或腰带，镶嵌着钉子，扣着，放在外面勇敢地展示，实际上自己起作用了，尽管有绝望的抗议，或者换句话说，本质上的反阴谋，到了危险的接近膝盖的程度——危险的。我的意思是为了这些部分的自由。在我的几部作品中，这种置换在危机时刻成功地挑战和抵抗了我，似乎充满了可能的耻辱，以至于我仍然转向它们，尽管最终的掩饰或多或少取得了成功，一种令人遗憾的感觉。和好奇的眼睛。事实上，如果我可以这么大胆的话，这些作品都有似是而非的中心，以弥补真实的失败。然而，至于它们在我的名单中，那是另一回事，没有任何条件可以公开。就我目前的行动而言，至少这看起来是我的决心。我认为，构成本参考对象的页面所吸引的任何注意力都完全且始终未能构成严格的歧视的一部分。在这一事实中，也许毕竟存在着粗略的正义——因为例如，我所说的虚弱始终只是过度积极远见的直接和直接结果，过分渴望提供未来的需要并积攒天上的钱。珍惜对我高潮的要求。如果说戏剧艺术，正如法国一位伟大的戏剧大师所说，首先是准备的艺术，那么这对于小说的艺术来说只是在较小的程度上是正确的，而在艺术的程度上则是正确的。这本小说的内容与戏剧的内容很接近。一部小说的前半部分一直坚持把我视为后半部分的舞台或剧院，而我一般都给予了如此多的空间来使剧院变得有利，以至于我的后半部分经常被证明是奇怪的不平等。因此，就出现了一个严酷的规律性的问题，即巧妙地、完美地掩盖错误并赋予虚假数量以勇敢的真实外观。

但我绝不假装这些对独创性的绝望没有——因为看起来 最先进的 问题的本质——他们被激怒的魅力；远非如此，我在巴黎酒店的特殊困境，毫无疑问，在经历了一段不适当的主要时间流失之后，在战神广场和特罗卡德罗跨河博物馆，现在对我来说相当温柔死亡之日的恩典。重读最后几章 悲剧缪斯 我再次闻到了巴黎的气味，它出现在和平街浓郁的隆隆声中——就这一点而言，我的房间本身似乎充满了这种气味——并且让我想起“完成”的尴尬努力，不丢脸，在我已经超出的限度内；我们努力把每一天延长到下午晚些时候，在这段时间里，这座可怕的城市的基调似乎加深了，达到了一种奇怪的效果，既吉祥又致命。我认为，在这样的时刻，巴黎的“情节”比世界上任何其他情节都更加浓厚。但其中一个人与另一个人同时坐在一起，一个人坐在一个手上，绝对需要优先权。因此，一个人的条件中最重要的一点是，尽管还有那么多令人困惑的不可约量需要处理，但一个人应该确实、应该很好地、（考虑到一个人的规模）简洁地处理一个人的主题。然而，如果我刚才谈到最高难度的“激怒”魅力，那是因为在任何艺术中，经济代表性的挑战都很容易变得非常有趣。把一个人的所有可能的想法都变成一种形式和罗盘，只有通过微妙的调整和精致的化学反应才能包含和表达它，这样到最后就不会有一滴酒剩下，也不会留下一根头发丝。每个艺术家都会记得，这种必需品经常伴随着其特殊的灵感。在他看来，这就是成功的秘诀 透视缩短的 正如我在其他地方已经有机会敦促的那样，再现的实现不是通过添加物品（一种光，其伴随的阴影可能是干燥的），而是通过综合描绘的艺术，一种紧凑性，其中想象力可以切得很厚，就像切入密度丰富的婚礼蛋糕一样。我担心，这一切的寓意也许过于琐碎，但我面前作品的后半部分“厚重”、虚假、掩饰，自始至终都与尽可能重视我的戏剧价值观的努力联系在一起。因为他们必须如此之少，所以这种努力在最后呈现出一种相当痉挛的、但在其方式上非常令人愉快的痉挛。任何具体创造性努力的“历史”都是由这些温和的神童组成的！

但我从二十年前的“老”肯辛顿灯中得到了太多东西——一束挥之不去的倾斜光线，今天肯定已经完全消失了，在我的画布上发出了祝福。从我在高高的西窗上看到我的幸运头衔的那一刻起，也就是从米里亚姆·罗斯本人给我这个头衔的那一刻起，所以这个年轻的女人给了我她在书中的地位，所以这反过来又给了我宝贵的团结，而为了这种团结，除了米里亚姆之外，尼克·多默尔或彼得·谢林汉姆也没有什么值得牺牲的。因此，这个问题的大部分兴趣在于解决这种统一的细节，以及所呈现方面的顺序、原因、关系——总是令人着迷的一系列问题。与三个 一般 在米丽娅姆的案件、尼克的案件和谢林汉姆的案件等方面，还有很多工作要做。尽管可能会很高兴地说“我的几个动作完美地合而为一”，但事情的重点在于 显示 它们漂亮地变成了这样——没有它们就表现出严重的失败盘旋和猛扑。好吧，对于一个讲故事的人来说，处理一个动作（或者换句话说，一个“故事”）的乐趣在最坏的情况下是巨大的，而诸如保留尼克·多默尔的故事但又让它成为他自己的问题的兴趣彼得·谢林汉姆在很大程度上也有效地保留了谢林汉姆的财产，但在很大程度上也使其成为他的亲戚的财产，而米里亚姆·罗斯也参与了交易；正如米里亚姆·罗斯的问题同样是他和尼克的问题，正如每个年轻人的问题，按照同样的逻辑，也非常有贡献地是她的问题一样——我说，这样一个问题的兴趣是非常大的。整个事情赖以完成的系统的利益。我今天看到，这只是半个系统说：“哦，米里亚姆，她自己就是一个案例，是 链接 介于另外两种情况之间”；该设备将要求提供尽可能多的帮助，并且需要比表面上宣布的更多的应用程序。系统感将画家从卑鄙的境地中拯救出来。 随意 中风，无缘无故的触摸，但作为这项服务的报酬，该过程坚持保持完美无缺的正确状态。

这些确实是深刻的真理，其魅力主要来自于实验和实践；但我喜欢把它摆在我面前，毕竟， 悲剧缪斯 使得很难说其中涉及的哪种情况占主导地位并占主导地位。因此，在这个不完美的秩序中，一个人的主题的著名中心变成了什么？尼克肯定没有意识到这一点——如果有的话，为什么我们要接受如此难以忍受的谢林汉姆剂量呢？它不可能在谢林汉姆店里——我们总共有多余的尼克店。另一方面，在米里亚姆的作品中，既然我们没有直接展示她的作品，我们怎么可能通过推论和归纳的方式来理解它，只能通过别人或多或少令人困惑的解释来看待它。重点全部放在绝对客观的米里亚姆身上，这肯定了，在她周围暴露出如此多的主观性的情况下，如此密集的媒介怎么能成为中心呢？诸如此类的问题都是直截了当的——我承认，正因为如此，它们才令人愉快。直线前进，他们就是那种让答案成为可能的人。米里亚姆 is 尽管是客观的，但仍是分析的核心；其核心在于，整个事情从一开始就明显地在戏剧性的情况下完成，或者至少在风景条件下完成——尽管风景条件尽可能接近小说所允许的戏剧性，并且与后者有一个共同点，即它们根据 交替。这强加了一种与小说最松散的一致性不同的一致性，并且对于一个人的主题来说，有不同的观点和不同的中心位置。风景一致性的魅力，倍增的一致性 方面，让它们变得有趣多样，一直困扰着作者 悲剧缪斯 从遥远的过去开始，他就在适当的时候奢侈地屈服于这一切，也许太奢侈了，在 尴尬的时代毫无疑问，随着这些言论的延伸，也会表现出沾沾自喜的样子。

无论如何，尽可能地将自己置于它的保护之下一直是他的做法（特别是他在 卡萨马西玛公主，如此坦率地全景和游行）；在什么情况下，这种保护会比我们之前的保护付出更高的代价？戏剧中的任何角色（任何不仅仅是独白的戏剧）都没有一个能够正确表达事物的角色 篡夺 意识;他人的意识的表现方式与“英雄”的意识完全相同；在整个小说系列中，哈姆雷特的惊人意识是最广阔、最拥挤的，道德存在也是最明显的，只与故事中其他人物的意识轮流发生，无论这些人物是多么偶然。换句话说，它必须与他们的问题同等地回答自己的问题：因此（通过同等的推理，如果不是例子的话）米里亚姆可能毫无疑问地被置于同样的基础上；尽管事实上每个与她最重要的男人——或者至少与她最重要的第二个男人——的“道德存在”——is 独立回答。正如我所说，这本书的想法是一幅图画，描绘了艺术胃口达到强度、膨胀到贪婪的一些个人后果，重点强调了可能产生的一些复杂情况的象征。 （正如我所判断的，上帝原谅我！） 最“有趣”：我的意思是最好的、非常现代的意义上的有趣。我从不“落后”米里亚姆；只有可怜的谢林汉姆走了很多，而尼克·多默走了一点点，而作者，虽然他们如此浪费惊奇，却落后了 他们：但尽管如此，她与他们中的任何一个人一样，在阐释这一想法时具有彻底的象征性和功能性，而她的形象似乎更容易被赋予更生动和“更漂亮”的具体化。我记得，我对她的渴望是所有可控制的生动性——长期以来，“做演员”、接触戏剧、以某种方式满足这种联系，在任何投机叉子自由落入当代的过程中，似乎都是不可避免的。社交沙拉。

我记得，已故的 RL 史蒂文森要写信给我——而且正是在 悲剧缪斯——他无法想象一个人怎么会对如此庸俗的事物感兴趣，或者假装在如此茂密的果园里采摘水果；但是，对于舞台生物的看法，对于“表演气质”的看法，对于可怜的舞台来说，确实没有什么暗示性。 本身 尽管这一点对我来说是合理的，但对我来说，还是对整个“艺术”的影响更大。后来，一位敏锐的朋友在另一个方面强加给我一个更尖锐的命令的反对意见：在任何假装的社会现实表现中，挑战一个人的权利，以附加到“公共人物”的形象，一个假定的形象。特定的名人、一系列的兴趣、内在的区别，比我们在我们周围看到的阶级杰出成员所表现出的任何重要程度都要大。那里 是 如果有人愿意的话，这是一个很好的观点——但毕竟，仅仅好到很容易让人感到有趣。不过，我们稍后会在更紧急的情况下处理这个问题。如果早点明白的话，我会更担心的是，令人钦佩的作家阿纳托尔·弗朗斯最近就戏剧性气质的生动观点提出了见解——这种见解很可能使任何天真的工人感到眼花缭乱，感到苦恼。场地。在他简短但独特的部分 喜剧史 他最值得祝贺的是——因为有些人会立即保留——他“扮演了女演员”，也扮演了演员，尤其是江湖骗子、戏子和演员。 卡博汀，并将它们与奇怪的戏剧气氛混合在一起，以一种实际上警告所有其他人永远远离这些材料的方式。与此同时，我想我看到了米丽亚姆，在不牺牲真实性的情况下，我最希望她能从真实的特殊光芒中受益，在复杂的关系中比M先生的贵族们可能出现的任何关系都要好。阿纳托尔·法国.

例如，她与尼克·多默尔的关系是出于一种更高的利益——存在（虽然完全真诚，但真诚地为了 这里，因此与她永远表演的冲动和她表演的成功完全一致）是感动的想象力、对“艺术”的感动的自豪感以及对其他情感的魅力的结果。多默尔与她自己的关系是另一回事，现在更重要的是；但是她，可怜的年轻女子，非常慷慨和聪明地向他提供了大多数人都如此吝惜的同情，这在很大程度上是以她的自私和个人自负为代价的，尽管事实上是由她对他们在一起的感觉决定的，尼克而她，则将“世界”推迟到他们对其他更美好的礼仪的概念中。尼克总体上看不出——因为我已经描述了他在他那个时代的烦恼和焦虑——为什么他应该谴责他最珍贵的才能（至少对他来说是最珍贵的），甚至为了保留自己的能力。他在议会中的席位，继承卡特雷特先生的祝福和金钱，满足他的母亲并履行他父亲的使命，最后娶朱莉娅·达洛（Julia Dallow），一个美丽的命令女人，每年有成千上万的人。归根结底，这一切都回到了个人对正派的看法，以及在巨大压力下对正派的批判性和热情的判断。尼克的远见和判断力，全都建立在审美基础上，与米丽亚姆的想象力完美地吻合，她自己的选择现在已经完全标记出来，充满灵感和顽固不化：因此，其他考虑因素确实有力地帮助了她，她已经准备好看到他们的兴趣完美地融为一体。她处于一种高昂的状态，牺牲和服从显得尤为突出，但之所以如此突出，只是因为它们必须写下同情，写下激情。她衡量自己能为他做些什么——有能力，也就是说， 不能 对他的要求——取决于他要问什么 这里但她并不担心无法满足他，甚至在需要时为他“嘲笑”她已经开始建立的自己的艺术身份。因此，这一切都将是他们对“艺术”共同迷恋的荣耀：毫无疑问，她愿意为他服务，就像她渴望为自己服务一样，现在已经清除了过于尖锐的声音。

这使她与法国先生的生动怪物完全不同，后者的艺术身份是最后一件事 他们 想要放弃——他们唯一的摒弃就是所有物质和社会的过度装饰。事实上，尼克·多默对米丽亚姆没有什么要求，只是要求她保持“绘画起来非常有趣”。但那就是 他的 正如我所说，这本身就是一个问题。无论如何，他没有让她接受考验，这对他们俩来说都是幸运的：他忙于处理自己的案子，忙于测试自己并感受自己的现实。他认为自己为了一个对象而放弃了宝贵的东西，而那个对象不知何故不是所讨论的年轻女子，也不是任何与她非常相似的东西。另一方面，她问了彼得·谢林汉姆的一切，而彼得·谢林汉姆也问了彼得·谢林汉姆的一切。 这里;正是通过这样做，她才真正为艺术作证，并邀请他作证。他公开表示对戏剧感兴趣——这是法兰西喜剧院过去用来密谋的“有品味”的男人们的一种深深的服从，其中一些奇怪而感人的例子值得一提——他仍然向她提供了机会。如果她离开舞台，他的手和介绍最好的社会。在世界上“闪耀”的力量——以及她对这种力量的感觉——是他对她的最高衡量标准，是他对她美丽的人类价值的考验；正如她对待他的方式是她自己的标准和试金石的应用。她对自己非常有信心；因为——如果没有别的事，而且还有很多——可以这么说，她已经尝到了血的滋味，以她在公众中如此迅速而吉祥的成功的形式，把所有的缓刑抛在了身后（全部的缓刑，正如书中所给出的那样）它过于迅速和突然，尽管不可避免地如此：过程、时期、间隔、阶段、程度、联系，可能很容易被命名，也可能不够令人信服，在小说中的陈述可能使作者深感怀疑，但是它仍然是非常平淡的 代表 它们，特别是在强烈的压缩下并用简短和从属的术语来表示它们；即使小说家不代表，并且代表“一直”，他也迷失了，就像画家在他的作品中并考虑到他的意图，并不“一直”绘画一样迷失） 。

无论如何，米丽亚姆都会攻击她的朋友；如果她没有表现出绝对的诚意和高级批评家的冷酷热情，那么我的要点之一就被忽略了，她知道，在看到它们在一起时，相对灰色的颜色或多或少令人眼花缭乱的虚假。真的。谢林汉姆的整个职业就是他对她的本来面目感到高兴，而剧院，有组织的剧院，正如马修·阿诺德当时所说的那样，将是不可抗拒的。一旦他感觉到空气中弥漫着现实的气息，一旦要求他提供证据或做出牺牲，他就会立即放弃他假装的信仰，这无疑激起了她足够傲慢的蔑视。如果他的高度兴趣确实从未有过，那么它的美德又在哪里呢？ 很 一个值得谈论的利益，如果它突然暗示，面对一个严肃的呼吁，它应该厚颜无耻地放弃？如果他和她在一起，以及她的伟大领域和未来，以及他们武装起来并宣布的整个事业，都不是严肃的事情，那就是卑鄙的虚构和琐碎的事情——这实际上是社会对艺术的致敬当艺术不被认为是庸俗和无用的时候，结果总是那么快。这种致敬非常流行，而且听起来非常有启发性，但它却把注意力集中在虚荣和欺诈上。但当艺术没有做出所有让步，而是开始要求一些让步时，它只知道恐惧，感受到的只是恐惧。米里亚姆如果不是费力的话就什么都不是，而且显然如果不是“厚脸皮”就什么也不是，至少在谢林汉姆看来：在她被谴责的自负的展览中，这些正是她身材的元素和她的色彩。肖像。但对于尼克·多默（尼克·多默尔对她的要求很少）来说，她很温和且不重要。仿佛严肃而怜悯地拥抱着这样的事实： 他的 右边的牺牲可能只得到很少的她那种回报。我一定早就意识到，她都知道，为尼克做出的巨大牺牲会给她带来小小的压力——因为他自己卓越的逻辑对她产生了强烈的影响，在这种逻辑中，专注的强度是如此之大。找到它的帐户。

然而，如果这个男人既珍视她，又对她向世界传达的极其个人的信息廉价，那么这个男人能够始终如一，并且在她看来，比谢林汉姆诚实得多，实际上很关心，“真的”在乎，对他的同胞斗争者来说，没有一根救命稻草。如果说尼克·多默尔吸引了她，并且冷漠地拥抱着她，那是因为他像她自己一样，而不像彼得，把“艺术”放在第一位；但他在这件事上为她做的最多的事情就是让她看看她如何在亲密关系中享受他教给他的、他以她为代价培养的严谨。这就是我们离开她的情况，尽管对于她来说这两种关系——对于每个男人——的区别还有更多要说的，我是否可以天真地认为《离开》这本书的兴趣同样多？结束了”对于读者和我自己来说。例如，谢林汉姆向米丽亚姆求婚，而且非常“英俊”。但如果没有什么能引导我进一步思考这样一个问题，那就是我们——我们小说家，尤其是过去的小说家——能够“连续地”展示一个处于尼克·多默尔截然不同的位置的年轻人，作为提供或一个米里亚姆的年轻女子认为，因此，正是出于这个原因，这样的旅行被禁止我。舞台演员，尤其是女演员的职业，对于从事这项职业的人来说，必定有许多令人厌恶的方面，以至于我们很难想象，如果不完全屈服于这一职业，而不是完全屈服于每一项直接的补偿，每一项补偿，每一项补偿，我们就很难想象完全屈服于这一职业。自由和触手可及的最大的安逸：对米丽亚姆可能的情况的介绍仍然会受到谴责——而且理由多种多样，而且追踪起来很有趣——仍然非常不完美。

此外，我觉得我仍然可以在篇幅内对尼克的性格和尼克的危机进行大量评论，这对我目前更具反思性的愿景提出了建议。唉，令我震惊的是，他并不像他所希望的那样有趣，尽管在画面中他的痛苦和惩罚成倍增加；但他并没有像他所希望的那样有趣。因此，当我回顾这个轻微的反常现象时，我发现了一个对我来说异常迷人和感人的原因，而且我确实已经看过它了。艺术家的任何介绍 凯旋 必须在比例上保持扁平，因为它确实紧扣主题——它只能偷偷地表现出浮雕和多样性。因为，用形象的方式来表达，我们在他的胜利中所看到的魅力驱使者，就是他弯下腰看向我们的作品时的背影。诚然，“他的”胜利只不过是他所创造的东西的胜利，那是另一回事了。他的浪漫是他自己所投射的浪漫；他吃的是最稀有的特权蛋糕，是众神的烤箱中烤出来的最美味的蛋糕——因此他可能无法同时以英雄特权的形式“拥有”它。英雄的特权——即烈士的特权，或者有趣的、吸引人的、相对陷入困境的特权 人——把他置于一个完全不同的类别，只属于他，就像属于被欺骗、转移、沮丧或被征服的艺术家一样；当他身上的“业余爱好者”出于我们的钦佩或同情或其他原因而获得了专家必须做的一切时。因此，我觉得，我徒劳地努力去纠缠和装饰这个年轻人，他在他身上被浪费了一百种巧妙的触摸：他坚持在事件中看起来像一些纯粹的黄铜格子或雕刻的数字一样简单和平坦，象征和储存宝藏的保证。他的更好的部分与我们隔绝得太远，而我们所看到的那部分只能被假象——嗯，令人遗憾的是，在他的朋友和亲戚中，它被假象为假象。不，相应地，尼克·多默尔并不像我想象的那样是“书中最好的东西”，而且我认为，它包含的东西没有比保留和实现语气的统一性和质量更好的了，这是一种价值就其本身而言，我在这些言论的开头提到了这一点。我的意思是，所创造的兴趣以及这种兴趣的表达，是保持善良、真诚和真实的事物。这种吸引力，即对主要动机的忠诚，在一定程度上（至少有意地）在一定程度上与美的气氛相呼应（至少有意为之），这在某种程度上是经过了相当多的艺术处理的（即使银器被打磨过）。这么晚才指出这些特征，又让人感到尴尬。但在那充满活力与和谐的精雕细琢的外观中，那种自由运动的效果，但又反复出现和坚持参考， 悲剧缪斯 我再次感到震惊，因为我意识到了一个明显的优势。

亨利·詹姆斯。

法国人民毫不掩饰地认为，英国人在他们看来是一个缺乏表达能力和沉默寡言的种族，性格直率，不善交际，不热衷于用言语或其他刺绣来丰富任何裸露的接触。几年前，在巴黎，一个晴朗的中午，在工业宫的花园里，四个人默默地坐在一起，这种观点可能会受到鼓舞——玻璃大集市的中央庭院，在植物和花坛、碎石小道和细细的喷泉之间，排列着人物和群体、纪念碑和半身像，这些都是在雕塑部沙龙的年度展览中形成的。沙龙里的观察精神自然很高涨，一千种巧妙或朴素的呼吁加速了观察精神，但它不需要付出很大的强度来接受我提到的人物。作为有明确理由的吸引眼球的活动，这些参观者也构成了一个成功的可塑事实。即使是最肤浅的观察者也会将它们标记为与世隔绝的邻里的产品，是粗花呢和防水阶级的代表，在英国人经常出去度假的时候——圣诞节和复活节，圣灵降临节和秋天——巴黎一夜之间就洒满了水。他们身上有着英国出国旅行者那种难以形容的职业气质。一种准备暴露的气氛，无论是物质上的还是道德上的，它与安全感和持久性的平静流露如此奇怪地结合在一起，并且根据个人的敏感性，激起外国社区的愤怒或钦佩。它们更加明显，因为它们主要呈现了他们有幸所属的充满活力的种族的快乐方面。沙龙清新的漫射光线使它们变得清晰而重要；它们以自己的方式完成了创作，一动不动地排列在绿色的长凳上，几乎就像被挂在绳子上一样在展览。

三个女士和一个年轻人，他们显然是一个家庭——一个母亲，两个女儿和一个儿子；这种情况既使该团体的每个成员都具有双重典型性，又有助于解释他们沉默寡言的原因。他们彼此之间并没有什么仪式感，而且可能也厌倦了在图片和楼上房间之间的行程。他们的态度，对于那些拥有优越特征的参观者来说，即使在一些路人看来他们可能忽略了用表情来完成这些特征的好机会，毕竟是对疲惫状态的一种致敬，法国的天才仍然能够减少骄傲的困惑。

“En v'là des abrutis！”可能不止一位旁观者发出惊呼；可以肯定的是，这个有趣的群体中存在某种沮丧和沮丧的情绪，他们坐在那儿，茫然地看着前方，没有注意到这个地方的生活，似乎每个人都有一种私人的焦虑。 然而，人们或许可以很好地猜到，尽管他们在许多问题上意见一致，但目前的焦虑却各不相同。 此外，如果他们看起来很严肃，这无疑部分是因为他们都穿着丧服，就像最近丧亲之痛一样。 三位女士中最年长的一位确实有一张精致而严肃的脸，只有某种比她在巴黎可能认识到的更阴险的力量才能使这张脸变得快乐。 冰冷、寂静、相当破旧，它既不愚蠢也不坚硬——它坚固、狭窄而锋利。 这位能干的主妇显然熟悉悲伤，但并没有因此而削弱，她的额头很高，皮肤的质地赋予了一种奇异的光泽——即使从远处看，它也闪闪发光；实现高自由曲线的鼻子；她倾向于将头向后仰，并将其举过头顶，仿佛要将其从身体其他部分可能发生的纠缠中解脱出来。 如果你看过她走路，你会感觉到她以一种时尚的方式踩在地球上，这表明在一个她早已发现一个人不能为所欲为的世界里，人们永远无法知道可能会发生什么令人恼火的侵略，所以时时刻刻，尽己所能地节约是件好事。 艾格尼丝夫人保住了她的头，她白色的三角形前额，她的孩子们身上有着密密麻麻的亚麻色头发，颜色各异，形成了一个环状的丝绸华盖，就像花园聚会上的帐篷一样。 她的两个女儿都和她一样高——即使她们坐在那里也能看得见——其中一个，显然是年轻的，非常漂亮；一个身材笔直、苗条、灰眼睛的英国女孩，她的身材“好”，肤色清新。 姐姐长得并不漂亮，但身材又直又苗条，还有一双灰色的眼睛。 但此时的灰色并不那么纯粹，笔直和纤细也没有那么少女。 姑娘们的哥哥摘下了帽子，仿佛感受到了大亭子里夏日的空气的凝重。 他是个精瘦、强壮、面容清秀的青年，鼻子挺拔，浓密的浅棕色头发从前额一直绵延到脑后，只要用手轻轻一动，就能把头发从额头一直梳到脖子上。被要求。 我无法更好地描述他，只能说他是那种在陌生的土地上看起来特别漂亮的年轻英国人，而且他的总体外貌——他的英寸，他的四肢，他友善的眼睛，他声音的抑扬顿挫，他的肉体的干净——他的服装色彩和款式——使那些在遥远的国家遇到他的人因共同语言而产生令人愉快的种族同情心。 这种同情有时可能会因他的忧虑所见的局限性而受到限制，但当这种视野逐渐消退时，它几乎会令人陶醉。 我们很快就会看到它对尼古拉斯·多默尔的测量有多准确。 也许他的眼睛里时不时地出现一种飘忽不定的茫然，这很值得怀疑，仿佛他根本没有注意力，在世界上一点也不听从他的指挥。但是，这只不过是毫不拖延地补充一下，这种令人沮丧的症状在那些喜欢他的人中被称为“多梦”。 例如，他的母亲和姐妹经常注意到他的梦想。

过了一段时间，在这段时间里，这些好人可能是单独来到工业宫，与其说是为了欣赏艺术品，不如说是为了思考他们的家庭事务，年轻人从他的沉思对其中一个女孩说道。

“我说，毕迪，我们为什么要整天闷闷不乐地坐在这里？来，跟我一起转一转。”

当他站起来时，他的妹妹稍微向前倾身，环顾四周，但她暂时没有表现出任何同意他邀请的迹象。

“那么，如果彼得来了，我们到哪里去找你呢？”另一位多默小姐问道，她一动不动。

“我敢说彼得不会来。他会把我们留在这里冷静下来。”

“哦亲爱的尼克！”毕迪用小声甜美的声音抗议道。显然，她认为彼得会来，甚至还有一点她担心，如果她离开那个地方，她可能会想念他。

“我们一刻钟后就回来。我真的必须看看这些东西，”尼克宣布道，他把脸转向他们右侧附近的一群大理石人——一个腰部裹着兽皮的男人，正在与一个裸体女人扭打，以某种原始的求爱方式。或捕获。

艾格尼丝夫人顺着儿子目光的方向看去：“一切看起来都很可怕。我认为毕迪最好还是坐着不动。她还没有在上面看到足够多的恐怖吗？”

“我敢说，如果彼得来了，朱莉娅就会和他在一起，”大女孩漫不经心地说。

“那么他就可以带着朱莉娅到处走走。这样会更合适。”艾格尼丝女士说道。

“亲爱的妈妈，她不关心艺术的说唱。和朱莉娅一起看美好的事物真是令人感到可怕的无聊。”尼克回答道。

“格蕾丝，你不跟他一起去吗？”——毕蒂向她的妹妹求助。

“我觉得她的品味非常好！”格蕾丝惊呼道，没有回答这个询问。

“别 说她坏话！”艾格尼丝夫人带着一种不情愿的责备的目光在儿子身上停留了一会儿，然后郑重地对他说道。

“我什么也没说，只是她自己说的话，”年轻人催促道。 “对有些事情她很有品味，但对这种事情她一点品味都没有。”

“我认为这样更好，”艾格尼丝夫人说，她的目光再次转向她儿子似乎指定的“那种东西”。

“她非常聪明——非常聪明！”格蕾丝继续做出决定。

“太糟糕了，太糟糕了！”她哥哥重复道，站在她面前，低头对她微笑。

“你真讨厌，尼克。你知道你是这样的。”年轻女士说道，但更多的是悲伤而不是愤怒。

毕迪听到这句话站了起来，仿佛指责的语气促使她慷慨地站在他身边。 “你能不能去那个地方订午餐，你知道吗？”她问她的母亲。 “然后等一切准备好我们就回来。”

“我亲爱的孩子，我不能点午餐。”艾格尼丝夫人冷冷地不耐烦地回答道，这似乎表明她有比食物问题更重要的问题需要解决。

“那么如果彼得来的话也许他会的。我确信他在这类事情上都很擅长。”

“哦，彼得，挂了！”尼克惊呼道。 “把他排除在外，然后 do 妈妈，订午餐；但不是冷牛肉和泡菜。”

“我必须说——关于 他——你不太好。”毕蒂大胆地对她哥哥说道，她犹豫着，甚至有点脸红。

“你弥补一下，亲爱的，”年轻人回答道，用食指友好地拂过她的下巴——一个非常迷人、圆润的小下巴。

“我无法想象你对他有什么敌意，”她的夫人严肃地说。

“亲爱的妈妈，这是令人失望的喜爱，”尼克争辩道。 “他们不会回答一个人的笔记；他们不会让人们知道他们在哪里，也不会让人们知道他们会发生什么。 “地狱没有比被蔑视的女人更愤怒的”；也不像个男人。”

“彼得有很多事情要做——在大使馆这段时间非常忙碌； “肯定有原因的。”毕蒂用漂亮的眼睛解释道。

“理由充分，毫无疑问！”艾格尼丝夫人说道——然而，伴随着这句话，她含糊地叹了口气，仿佛在巴黎，即使是最好的理由也自然是糟糕的。

“朱莉娅没有给你写信吗？她当天没有给你回信吗？”格蕾丝问道，看着尼克，好像她是个大胆的人。

他等待着，以某种严肃的态度回望她。 “你对我的信件了解多少？毫无疑问，我要求太多了，”他继续说道。 “我非常依恋他们。亲爱的老彼得，亲爱的老朱莉娅！”

“她比你年轻，亲爱的！”大姑娘喊道，态度依然坚决。

“是的，十九天。”

“我很高兴你知道她的生日。”

“她知道你的；她总是给你一些东西，”艾格尼丝女士提醒她的儿子。

“她的品味很好 然后，不是吗，尼克？”格蕾丝·多默继续说道。

“她制作迷人的礼物；但是，亲爱的妈妈，事实并非如此 这里 品尝。这是她丈夫的。”

“她丈夫怎么样了？”

“她如此随意地处置的美丽物品，正是他多年来辛辛苦苦、虔诚地收集的东西，可怜的人！”

“她会把它们处理给你，但不会处理给其他人，”艾格尼丝女士说。 “但没关系，”她补充道，好像这可能是为了抱怨朱莉娅的赏金有限。 “她必须在这么多之中做出选择，这就是品味的证明，”她的女士继续说道。

“你不能说她不选择可爱的，”格蕾丝用一种胜利的语气对她的兄弟说道。

“亲爱的，他们都很可爱。乔治·达洛的判断是如此确定，他不会犯错误。”尼古拉斯·多默尔回答道。

“我不明白你怎么能谈论他，他太可怕了，”艾格尼丝夫人说。

“亲爱的，如果他足以让朱莉娅结婚，他就足以让我们谈论。”

“她给了他很大的荣誉。”

“我敢说，但他也并非不值得。我们这个时代的英国还没有制作过如此开明的美丽物品收藏。”

“你对美丽的事物想太多了！”艾格尼丝夫人叹了口气。

“我以为你刚才是在感叹我想得太少了。”

“这很好——他让朱莉娅过得很好，”毕迪安慰地插话，仿佛她预见到了一场纠缠。

“他对待她 大领主，绝对，”尼克继续说道。

“尽管如此，他过去看起来还是很油腻”——格蕾丝带着一种沉闷的重量承受着它。 “他的名字应该是塔洛。”

“如果这就是你想说的话，你就没有说出朱莉娅想要说的话，”她的哥哥评论道。

“别粗俗了，格蕾丝，”艾格尼丝夫人说。

“我知道彼得·谢林汉姆的生日！”毕迪无辜地爆发了，作为一种和平的消遣。她把手伸进尼克的胳膊里，表示她准备好和他一起走，同时她扫视着花园的偏远地区，仿佛她突然想到，在某种意义上引导他们的脚步可能毕竟是更短的路。去接近彼得。

“他比你大太多了，亲爱的，”格蕾丝毫无鼓励地回答。

“这就是我注意到这一点的原因——他三十四岁了。你说这太老了吗？我不喜欢流口水的婴儿！”毕迪哭了。

“别粗俗，”艾格尼丝夫人再次嘱咐道。

“来吧，比德，我们一起去粗俗；恐怕我们就是这样，”她哥哥对她说。 “我们要去看看这些低俗的艺术品。”

“你真的认为这对孩子的成长有必要吗？”当两人转身离开时，艾格尼丝女士问道。然后，当她的儿子受到挑战的打击时，停了下来，在他的小妹妹的手臂上徘徊了一会儿：“我们今天早上在这个地方经历了什么，以及你在我们眼前展示的一切——谋杀案” 、酷刑、各种疾病和猥亵行为！”

尼克看着他的母亲，好像这突如其来的抗议让他感到惊讶，但又好像他很快就猜到了其中隐藏的解释。她的怨恨并没有让她冰冷的脸变得生气勃勃，而是让她的脸变得更冷，缺乏表现力，尽管明显更自豪。 “啊亲爱的妈妈，不要做英国主妇！”他幽默地回答道。

“英国老太婆很快就说了！我不知道他们要做什么。”

“多么奇怪啊，你竟然只对那些不愉快的事情感到震惊，而对我自己来说，我觉得这是我几个月以来最有趣、最有启发性的早晨！”

“噢，尼克，尼克！”艾格尼丝夫人带着一种奇怪的深沉的感情哭了起来。

“我更喜欢伦敦的他们——他们不那么令人讨厌，”格蕾丝·多默说。

“它们是你可以看的东西，”她的女士继续说道。 “我们当然会做出更好的表演。”

“主题不重要，重要的是治疗，治疗！”毕蒂用银铃般叮当的声音抗议。

“可怜的小比德！”——她哥哥突然大笑起来。

“亲爱的妈妈，如果我不观察事物、不研究事物，我怎么能学会建模呢？”女孩继续说道。

这个问题无人理睬，尼古拉斯·多默尔对他的母亲说，语气更严肃，但又带着某种明确的态度，仿佛他可以给予特别的宽容：“这个地方对我来说是一个巨大的刺激;它让我耳目一新，让我兴奋——这是一场艺术生活的展览。它充满创意，充满精致；它给人一种艺术体验的印象。他们尝试一切，他们感受一切。显然，当你在研究谋杀案时，我观察到了大量好奇而有趣的工作。他们太多了，可怜的家伙；这么多人必须走出自己的路，必须引起人们的注意。其中一些只能 锥度堡、倒立、翻筋斗或做出暴力行为，以引起人们的注意。毫无疑问，在那之后，很多人都会变得更加安静。但我不知道；今天我怀着感激的心情——甚至对他们我也感到很宽容：他们给我一种聪明、善于观察的印象。所有的艺术都是一个——记住这一点，亲爱的毕迪，”年轻人继续说道，微笑着从他的高处下来。 “这也是同样伟大的多头努力，个人取得的任何进展，任何省份爆发的任何火花，对所有其他人都是有用的和建议的。我们都在同一条船上。”

“亲爱的，你是说‘我们’吗？你真的是在为艺术家做准备吗？”艾格尼丝夫人问道。

尼克只是犹豫了一下。 “我是在为毕迪说话。”

“但是你 ，那恭喜你， 一，尼克——你就是！”女孩哭了。

艾格尼丝夫人的表情一瞬间像是要再说一遍“别粗俗！”但她压抑了这些话，如果她有意的话，她发出声音，数量很少，而且不完全清晰，大意是她讨厌谈论艺术。当她儿子说话的时候，她看着他，好像没有听懂。但从她感叹的语气中可以看出，她已经太了解他了。

“我们都在同一条船上，”毕迪带着愉快的热情重复道。

“不是我，如果你愿意的话！”艾格尼丝女士回答道。 “你的模特工作是一件可怕而混乱的工作。”

“啊，但是看看结果！”女孩热切地说道，她环顾花园里的纪念碑，仿佛通过她哥哥刚刚宣布的艺术统一，她在某种程度上也成为了一个有效的事业。

“这里正在做很多事情——真正的活力，”尼古拉斯·多默尔以同样合理的方式对他的母亲说道。 “其中一些人走得很远。”

“他们确实这么做了！”艾格尼丝夫人说。

“我喜欢年轻的学校——就像雕塑中的这种运动，”尼克用他那略带挑衅性的平静坚持道。

“他们已经长大了，懂得更多了！”

“我可以看一下吗，妈妈？它 is 对我的发展来说是必要的，”Biddy 宣称。

“你想怎么做就怎么做吧。”艾格尼丝女士威严地说。

“你知道，她应该看到好的工作，”年轻人继续说道。

“我把它留给你的责任感。”这句话有些庄严，有那么一会儿，显然它诱惑了尼克，几乎激怒了他，或者无论如何，这向他暗示了一个他想说的一些话的机会。不过，显然他对时间的判断总体不太对劲，他的妹妹格蕾丝插话问道——

“求你了，妈妈，我们永远不去吃午饭了吗？”

“啊妈妈，妈妈！”青年低头看着她，额头深深皱起，困惑地低声说道。

对艾格尼丝夫人来说也是如此，当她回望他时，这似乎是一个机会。但正是这种差异，让她毫不犹豫地利用了这一点。他的轻微尴尬让她受到鼓舞，因为尼克通常不会感到尴尬。 “你曾经有过这样的 许多 责任感，”她追求； “但有时我不知道它变成了什么——似乎一切， 所有 走了！

“啊妈妈，妈妈！”他再次惊呼——仿佛有太多话要说，无法选择。但现在他走近了，弯下身子，不顾他们的处境，给了她一个快速而富有表现力的吻。我认为在开始描绘这一场景时理所当然的外国观察家必须承认，严格的英国家庭毕竟具有情感能力。格蕾丝·多默确实环顾四周，看看此时此刻他们是否被注意到。她满意地判断他们已经逃脱了。

尼克·多默尔带着毕迪走开了，但没走多远，他就停在了一座巧妙的半身像前，他的母亲在远处看到他用手在空中玩耍，做出了这个手势，这大概是鼓掌，他对他妹妹说了一些批评的话。艾格尼丝女士通过长柄上的长柄举起玻璃杯，柄上挂着一条叮当作响的链条，她​​看出半身像代表的是一个丑陋的秃头老人。夫人无限地叹了口气，尽管尚不清楚这样的物体会对她的女儿造成什么损害。尼克继续往前走，很快又停了下来。这一次，他的母亲在大理石图像前发现了一个奇怪的、做鬼脸的女人。不久，她就看不见他了。他在事物后面徘徊，环顾四周。

“我应该为我的建模获得很多想法，不是吗，尼克？”过了一会儿，他的妹妹对他说道。

“啊，我可怜的孩子，我该怎么说呢？”

“你不认为我有什么想法吗？”女孩悲伤地继续说道。

“毫无疑问，有很多。但是应用它们、将它们付诸实践的能力——你有多少呢？”

“在我尝试之前我怎么能知道呢？”

“亲爱的毕迪，你所说的尝试是什么意思？”

“为什么你知道——你见过我。”

“你管这叫尝试吗？”她哥哥好笑地问道。

“啊尼克！”她感性地说。但随后更加精神了：“请问你怎么称呼它？”

“嗯，这个例子就是一个很好的例子。”她的同伴指着另一尊半身像——一个穿着陶土的年轻人的头像，他们刚刚到达。这位现代年轻人的粗脖子、小帽子和一圈浓密的卷发，这位艺术家给他带来了洛伦佐时代的佛罗伦萨人的粗犷气息。

毕迪看了一会儿照片。 “啊，那不是尝试；这就是成功。”

“不完全是；只是认真地尝试。”

“那我为什么不认真一点呢？”

“妈妈不会喜欢的。她继承了古老的迷信观念，认为艺术只有在不好的情况下才是可以原谅的——只要它是在非正常时间进行的，为了一点点分散注意力，比如打网球或惠斯特球。唯一可以证明这一点的就是努力将其尽可能地推进（如果没有时间和单一的目的，你就无法做到这一点），她认为这只是危险的犯罪因素。这是最奇怪的后半部分的观点，最滑稽的不道德行为。”

“她不想让一个人变得专业，”毕迪回答道，仿佛她可以公正对待每一个系统。

“那就最好别管它了。总是有足够的笨蛋。”

“我不想成为一个笨蛋，”毕迪说。 “但我以为你鼓励了我。”

“我就是这么做的，我可怜的孩子。这只是为了鼓励自己。”

“用你自己的作品——你的画？”

“我的努力徒劳无功，运气不佳。团结就是力量——这样我们就可以展现更广阔的战线、更大的抵抗面。”

毕迪沉默了一会儿，继续观察。她注意到他很快就忽略了一些东西，他的第一眼就足以让他知道它们是否值得另一件，然后立刻就认出了那些有吸引力的数字。他的语气令人困惑，但他那坚定的眼神给她留下了深刻的印象，她感觉到他们之间还有多大的区别——在每种情况下她都要花多长时间来区分。她意识到，在看一件东西十分钟之前，她对它的价值是多么无知。事实上，谦虚的小毕迪不得不私下补充道：“而且即使在那时也常常没有。”正如我所说，她很困惑——尼克经常很困惑，这是他唯一的错——但有一点是确定的：她哥哥能力很强。正是这种意识让她最终说出了这句话：“我不在乎我是否取悦妈妈，只要我取悦你就行了。”

“噢，别靠在我身上。我是一根可怜的折断的芦苇——我毫无用处 真！”他立即警告她。

“你的意思是你是个笨蛋？”毕迪惊慌地问道。

“可怕，可怕！”

“所以你打算放弃你的工作——就如你所建议的那样，不管它 me？“

“这从来就不是我的工作，所有这些都是我的事，毕迪。如果有那就不一样了。我应该坚持下去。”

“你呢 不会 坚持下去？”女孩睁大眼睛站在他面前说道。

她哥哥注视着她的眼睛一会儿，她感到内疚。她担心自己不检点，让他担心。 “你的问题比我的答案应该简单得多。”

“一个伟大的天才——还有什么比这更简单的呢？”

“亲爱的毕迪，有一件好事：一点天赋都没有！”

“好吧，你的现实太真实了，你无法控制。”

“我们将会看到，我们将会看到，”尼克·多默说。 “我们去看看那一大群人。”

“我们来看看你的天赋是否真实？”毕迪陪着他继续往前走。

“不;我们将看看是否如你所说，我无法控制。巴黎胡言乱语！”当他们停在作品前时，年轻人补充道。这也许是真的，但从某种意义上说，他并没有发现自己想要哀叹。这次访问与他第一次访问法国首都相去甚远：他经常离开英国，并且通常会在前往欧洲大陆的旅途或返回时，用他的话说，“投入”几天。但目前，随着空气和场景的变化，人们的感觉比以前更准时、更敏锐，大体上是令人愉快的，百种呼吁的新奇、清新、有趣的感觉也更强烈。总的来说，他的注意力最容易偏离的那个部分，虽然不是最坦白地承认的。他比他的大多数同胞更喜欢巴黎，尽管也许不像其他一些着迷的外国人那么喜欢：这个地方总是有一种优点，可以明显地加快他的反思和观察的生活。他已经很久没有对这座塞纳河畔的城市产生如此好的印象了。无论如何，自从它们如此助长了兴奋、兴奋、野心，甚至是不安，这并没有因为过度的激动而被阻止。尼克本可以说出这种不寻常的光芒的原因，但他更愿意保守秘密。当然，对于那些对这个年轻人的历史不太了解，或者至少不太好奇的人来说，这种解释可能似乎回避了这个问题，因为它确实包含了一个简单的公式，即他最终陷入了危机。为什么是危机——危机是什么？为什么他以前没有遇到过危机？如果读者足够关心这些事情，他会及时了解到这些事情的。

我们的年轻人最近几年都没有错过沙龙，但本季的普遍声音表明沙龙不是特别好。尽管如此，正是这次展览，由于某种与他的“危机”有关的原因，让他快速思考，产生了他对母亲所说的艺术生活感的效果。今天，大理石和青铜器的区域对他来说尤其如此。玻璃花园，花草并不丰富，新作品与草率的植物交替出现，还有奇怪、潮湿的气味，部分是雕塑家工作室的塑料粘土的气味，发出了旧联想、其他访问和陪伴的声音现在结束了——一种含沙射影的雄辩，同时在某种程度上与巴黎普遍的尖锐传染是相同的。空气中弥漫着青春的气息，还有永远复苏的众多新鲜事物，以及数百种才能、独创性和实验的传播。夏日的云彩在这座宏伟建筑的屋顶上投下了阴影。白色的图像虽然粗俗，却充满挑衅地发现了这个地方。餐厅里盘子的嘎嘎声在远处听起来很友善，我们的年轻人比以往任何时候都更庆幸自己没有错过这个机会。他觉得这将如何帮助他解决一些问题。就在他做出这样的反应时，他的目光落在了一个人身上，他的出现——只是第一眼——是为了实现帮助的想法。他大声喊叫，然而，由于话还没说完，毕迪没能听懂。这次会面的另一方是如此切题、如此相关和一致。

女孩的注意力追随着她哥哥的注意力，集中在一个年轻人身上，年轻人面对着他们，却没有看到他们，他正忙着向两个同伴讲述他对其中一件展出作品的想法。 比迪说的是，这个年轻人皮肤白皙，身材肥胖，中等身材。他有一张圆脸，留着短胡子，头顶上的头发让人想起，因为他手里拿着帽子，这一事实可以看出。 布里吉特·多默尔反应敏捷，立即把他视为一位绅士，但这位绅士不同于她见过的任何其他绅士。 她可能会认为他很陌生，但从他嘴里说出的话传到了她的耳朵里，让她觉得自己是一种罕见的英语。 不是外国人说话不够流畅，也不是这个年轻人说话不流畅。 事实上，它具有一种引人注目的、具有侵略性的完美性，毕迪确信，没有一个单纯的学习者会冒险用舌头玩这样的把戏。 他似乎从中汲取了丰富的效果和飘逸的气息——像调制乐器一样调制和操纵它。 她对这位绅士同伴的看法不太有效，除了她很快就做出反应，他们是任何国家的人，从中国到秘鲁，你都会立即将他们视为当地人。 其中一个是一位披着披肩的老太太；这是她展示自己的最显着的方式。 披肩是一种古老的、常用的刺绣羊绒面料，四十年前许多女士在国外散步时都穿着这种面料，但现在没有女士穿着这种面料。 它已经从佩戴者的背上掉下来了一半，但就在毕蒂允许自己考虑她的时候，她猛烈地一拉它，然后又把它举到肩膀上，在那里她继续整理和固定它，用了很多力气。她听着这位绅士的谈话，心情愉悦而优雅。 毕迪猜想，这种小交易经常发生，他也并非没有意识到，这让老太太显得滑稽、做作、褪色，仿佛与这个时代格格不入。 另一个人则年轻得多，可能是个女儿，脸色苍白，额头低低，有一头浓密的黑发。 然而，毕迪很快发现，她主要拥有的是一双凝视的眼睛。 我们年轻的朋友之所以有这样的发现，是因为他们此时偶然独自休息了一段时间——毕迪觉得她休息了很长时间。 这两位女士都穿着轻薄、短小的礼服，给人一种花朵般的身材和奇怪的透明感的印象，她们穿着低跟鞋，露出大量的长袜，并装饰着大玫瑰花结。 毕迪略显激动的感觉直接传到了他们的鞋子上：它们隐约地向她暗示，穿着者是舞者——可能与老式的披肩舞表演有关。 当她明白这一点时，那个可爱的年轻人已经意识到并向她的兄弟说话了。 他上前伸出了手。

“我从来没有遇到过你——我不知道为什么，”尼克补充道，两人微笑着，上下打量着对方，就像久别重逢的男人一样。

“哦，在我看来，有足够的理由：我们的人生道路如此不同。”尼克的朋友很有礼貌，他在不认识毕蒂的情况下向她行礼就证明了这一点。

“是的，不同，但也没有那么不同。毕竟，我们不是都生活在伦敦，而且都生活在十九世纪吗？”

“啊，亲爱的多默，对不起：我不是生活在十九世纪。 生命之牙！”那位先生宣称。

“伦敦也不行吗？”

“是的——当我不在撒马尔罕的时候！但可以肯定的是，我们自古以来就存在分歧。我喜欢你燃烧的东西，你也燃烧我喜欢的东西。”陌生人一边说话，一边愉快而热情地看着毕迪。她很容易猜到，不是因为是她，而是因为他的天性渴望有第二位旁听者——一种富有同情心的画廊。她的生活中充满了害羞的人，她立即意识到她从未遇到过任何一个如此了解自己的角色并识别他的暗示的人。

“你怎么知道我喜欢什么？”尼古拉斯·多默问道。

“我很清楚你以前做过什么。”

“这比我自己做的还要多。有很多事情。”

“是的，有很多事情——很多很多：这就是让生活如此有趣的原因。”

“你觉得有趣吗？”

“我亲爱的朋友， 这就是托德雷。你不这么认为吗？啊，是时候见见你了——我明白了。我有一个想法，你需要我。”

“据我所知，我想我做到了！”尼克的语气让他妹妹感到震惊，让她更想知道，如果这位绅士有那么重要，为什么他不介绍他呢。

“神明众多，这就是其中一座神殿。”神秘人继续说道。 “这是一座充满奇怪偶像的房子——不是吗？——还有一些奇怪和不自然的祭品。”

这句话既可以对毕迪说，也可以对她哥哥说。但女孩的目光又转向那些暂时失去同伴的女士们。她感到反应迟钝，担心自己应该把这个随和的世界公民当成一个僵硬、害怕的英国女孩，而这不是她想要的类型；但只要她没有收到尼克的信号，那么视觉交易还不算过分吗？陌生女人中年长的那个已经转过身来，看着某个青铜人像，同时她的披肩又掉了。但另一个人站在他们的护卫离开的地方，把所有的注意力都集中在他突然与其他人交往上。她的双臂垂在身侧，低着头，低着脸，看起来很奇怪，眼睛从眉毛下面抬起来。她的这种态度很引人注目，尽管她的神态如此不和解，几乎看起来很危险。它是否表达了因被另一个女孩抛弃而感到的怨恨？毕迪开始感到害怕——有那么一刻，这个被忽视的生物就像一只即将跳起来的母老虎——忍不住大声喊道，她根本不想侵占这位绅士。然后她发现这位年轻女士也有一种举止，几乎和她聪明的向导一样，她很快就意识到，这也许并不比他的举止更重要。她只从眉毛下面看着毕蒂，眉毛呈美妙的拱形，但她的举止却很有风度。毕迪瞬间感觉自己是芭蕾舞剧中的一个人物，一部戏剧性的芭蕾舞剧——一个从属的一动不动的人物，随着音乐冲向或奇怪地跳跃。如果这个年轻人是女主角的话，这确实是一部非常戏剧性的芭蕾舞剧。女孩想，她有一头华丽的头发。与此同时，尼克对他的对话者说：“你不在伦敦——那里不能见到你吗？”

“我漫游，漂流，漂浮，”这是答案； “我的感觉指引着我——如果我这样的生活可以说是有方向的话。哪里有什么感觉，我就努力去那里！”年轻人继续露出自信的笑声。

“我想联系你，”尼克回答道。

“好吧，在这种情况下，毫无疑问就会有智力冒险。这些就是支配我职业生涯的潮流——任何形式的个人关系。”

“这次我不想失去你，”尼克继续说道，他的语气让毕迪很惊讶。不久前，当他的朋友说他试图去有感觉的地方时，她想知道他如何能够忍受他。

“不要失去我，不要失去我！”陌生人喊道，这对女孩来说是她见过的最不负责任的表现。 “毕竟你为什么要这么做？让我们保持在一起，除非我干涉”——他微笑着，带着疑问地看着毕迪，毕迪仍然面无表情，只是再次注意到尼克没有让他们认识。这是一个反常现象，因为他如此珍视这位绅士。尽管如此，尼克的任何反常现象都会影响到他的妹妹。

“当然，我会留下你，”他说，“除非我剥夺了那些女士们的权利——！”

“迷人的女性，但这并不是牢不可破的结合。我们相遇，我们交流，我们分离！他们要走了——我送他们到门口。我会回来的。”说完，尼克的朋友又回到了同伴们身边，他们也跟着他离开了，当他们离开时，女孩那双奇异而美丽的眼睛一直停留在毕迪的哥哥和毕迪本人身上。

“谁 is 他谁 ，那恭喜你， 他们？”毕迪立即问道。

“他是一位绅士，”尼克回答道——她认为这还不够，甚至还带着一丝犹豫。他说得好像她可能认为他不是其中之一，如果他真的是其中之一，为什么他不介绍他呢？但毕迪绝对不会提出这个问题，他现在走到最近的长凳上，坐在上面等待对方回来。然而，他的妹妹刚坐下，他就说道：“亲爱的，你看这里，你认为你最好留下来吗？”

“你想让我回到妈妈身边吗？”少女拉长脸问道。

“那么你觉得呢？”他确实很高兴地问了这个问题。

“你们的谈话是关于——私人事务吗？”

“不，我不能这么说。但我怀疑母亲是否会认为这是‘你的成长所必需的’。”

这个断言似乎激发了她的热切，她再次爆发：“但是他们是谁——他们是谁？”

“我对女士们一无所知。我以前从未见过他们。这个人是我在牛津非常熟悉的一个人。人们认为他在那里非常有趣。正如他所说，我们已经出现分歧，我几乎看不到他了，但没有他想象的那么严重，因为我读过他的书——带着兴趣读他的书。他写了一本非常聪明的书。”

“什么样的书？”

“一种小说。”

“什么样的小说？”

“嗯，我不知道——写了很多好文章。”毕蒂听得如此容易，以至于她认为她哥哥应该补充一句：“我敢说，如果你回到母亲身边，彼得就会来。”

“我不在乎他是否有。彼得对我来说什么都不是。不过如果你愿意的话我就去。”

尼克再次对她微笑，然后说道：“这没什么意义。我们都去吧。”

“全部？”她附和道。

“他不会伤害我们。相反，他会给我们带来好处。”

这是可能的，女孩默默地想道，但尽管如此，这个想法还是让她觉得很勇敢，他们带着这个奇怪的年轻人回去和他们以及其他人一起吃早餐，特别是如果彼得也在的话。如果彼得对她来说毫无意义，那么她应该如此重视这种偶然事件，那就太奇怪了。那个奇怪的年轻人又出现了，现在她看到他没有了奇怪的女性附肢，他个人似乎不再那么奇怪了。此外，他还给她留下了深刻的印象，因为通常来说，文学角色占了很大一部分，特别是如果它能促成许多优秀的作品的话。当他在长凳上就座时，尼克指着她对他说：“我的妹妹布丽吉特”，然后提到了他的名字：“尼克先生”。加布里埃尔·纳什。”

“你喜欢巴黎——你在这里快乐吗？”纳什先生弯下身子向他的朋友询问，与女孩说话。

虽然他的话适合这种情况，但她突然发现他的语气不适合这种情况，这让她回答他的语气比平时更加​​干巴巴。 “哦，是的，这非常好。”

“你对法国艺术感兴趣吗？你在这里找到东西了吗？

“哦，是的，我喜欢其中一些。”

纳什先生善意地看着她。 “我希望你能说你更喜欢学院。”

“如果她认为你没有预料到的话，她就会这么做，”尼古拉斯·多默尔说。

“噢，尼克！”毕迪抗议道。

“多默小姐本身就是一幅英国照片，”他们的来访者用一种彬彬有礼的男人的语气说道。

“如果你不喜欢它们，那就是一种恭维！”毕迪惊呼道。

“啊，其中一些，其中一些；有某种东西！”纳什先生继续说道。 “我们必须感受一切，尽我们所能。我们就是为此而来。”

“那你确实喜欢英国艺术吗？”尼克带着一丝惊讶的语气问道。

纳什先生沉浸在自己的好奇心中。 “我亲爱的多默，你还记得我以前对你的抱怨吗？你的公式就像是在做梦一样。人们可能会在案件中看到一些东西，但也可能看不到。”

“老实说，”尼克说，“我不知道有谁比你更喜欢概括。当街角的那个人分发传单时，你把它们关掉了。”

“它们是我的野燕麦。我已经把它们全部种下了。”

“我们会看到的！”

“哦，现在它们什么也没有了：一种驯服的、稀疏的、朴素的生长。我唯一好的概括就是我的行动。”

“我们将会看到 他们 然后。”

“啊，请原谅。你无法用肉眼看到它们。而且，我的主要是负面的。我知道，人们的行为大部分是他们所做的事情，但我的行为是我所做的所有事情 别 做。这样的东西有很多很多，但是却没有产生任何效果。其余的都是色调——非常精细的色调。”

“行为的阴影？”尼克饶有兴趣地询问，这让他的妹妹感到惊讶，纳什先生的谈话让她觉得主要是黑社会的胡言乱语。

“印象的阴影，欣赏的阴影，”年轻人带着解释性的微笑说道。 “我所有的行为都是由我的感受组成的。”

“那你就不表露一下你的感受吗？你以前也这样啊！”

“主要不就是厌恶吗？”纳什问道。 “那些不再运作了。我已经关上了那扇窗。”

“你的意思是你什么都喜欢？”

“天哪，不！但我只看我喜欢的东西。”

“你的意思是你已经失去了高贵的厌恶能力？”

“我一点也不知道。我从来没有尝试过。我亲爱的朋友，”加布里埃尔·纳什说，“我们只有一种生活是我们所了解的：想象一下带着不愉快的印象去接受它！那我们什么时候才能去讨好呢？”

“你所说的令人愉快是什么意思？”尼克问道。

“哦，我们意识中的快乐时刻——这些时刻的倍增。我们必须将尽可能多的人从黑暗的深渊中拯救出来。”

尼克对他妹妹的表现感到惊讶不已，但现在轮到比迪让他睁开眼睛了。她提高了甜美的声音，向陌生人发出恳求。

“你不认为世界上有任何错误吗？有任何虐待和痛苦吗？”

“噢，这么多，这么多！这就是为什么人们必须做出选择。”

“选择阻止他们，改造他们——这不是选择吗？”毕迪问道。 “那是尼克的，”她补充道，红着脸看着这个人物。

“啊，我们的分歧——是的！”纳什先生叹了口气。 “有各种各样的机器可以实现这一点——非常复杂和巧妙。你的公式，我亲爱的多默，你的公式！”

“绞死他们吧，我什么都没有！”尼克现在勇敢地宣告。

“对我个人来说，最简单的方法就是那些最具吸引力的方法，”纳什先生继续说道。 “我们太关注丑陋的事物；我们注意到它，我们放大它。伟大的事情就是不去管它并鼓励美丽。”

“你必须非常确定你能抓住美丽的东西，”尼克说。

“啊，正是如此，这就是欣赏能力的重要性。我们必须训练我们的特殊感觉。它具有非凡的扩展能力。生命并不算太长。”

“但是，如果没有得到肯定，如果正如你所说，一切都走向负面，那么超常延期有什么好处呢？好的后果在哪里？”多默问道。

“本着自己的精神。一个人的自我是一个很好的结果。这是我们要做的最重要的事情。 I 这是一个很好的结果，”加布里埃尔·纳什说。

毕迪听了这句话，从长凳上站起来，退了一步，看着一尊雕像。但她还没走多远，停顿了一下，转过身来，目光更加凝重，带着绝望的神情，过了一会儿问道：“那么你是审美家吗？”

“啊，有一个公式！这就是戴帽子！我有 没有 职业，我亲爱的年轻女士。我没有 公民社会。这些东西是复杂精巧机器的一部分。正如我所说，我坚持使用最简单的方法。我发现这足以让一个人做事。仅仅存在就是这样一种 职业;活出这样的艺术；感受这样的职业！”

布丽吉特·多默尔转过身来，审视着她的雕像，她的哥哥对他的老朋友说：“那么要写信吗？”

“来写？噢，我再也不会这么做了！”

“你已经做得足够好了，以至于不一致。你的那本书绝不是消极的；它是积极的。它既复杂又巧妙。”

“我亲爱的朋友，我对那本书感到非常羞愧，”加布里埃尔·纳什说。

“啊，称自己为浮夸的佛教徒，就够了！”他的同伴惊呼道。

“搞定了吗？我一点也不想结束它。为什么一个人要称呼自己为任何东西呢？一个人只会剥夺其他人最宝贵的职业。让我补充一点，你不这样做 开始 洞察生活的艺术，直到它不再对你所谓的你产生最小的影响。这还很初级。”

“但如果你喜欢颜色，你也必须喜欢名字。你必须区分，”尼克反对道。 “如果没有他的类别、类型和多样性，观察者就什么都不是。”

“啊相信他能辨别！”加布里埃尔·纳什甜甜地说。 “那是为了他自己的方便；他私下里有一个术语来满足这个要求。这就是一个人的风格。但从那一刻起，为了其他人的方便，标志必须变得更粗俗，阴影就开始消失。这真是一个可悲的时刻！你看，文学是为了方便别人。它需要最卑微的让步。它对一个人的风格造成了如此大的伤害，我真的不得不放弃它。”

“那么政治呢？”尼克问道。

“那么，他们呢？”纳什先生看着他朋友的妹妹仍在检查她的雕像，以一种特殊的节奏回答道。毕迪既恼怒又好奇。她介入了空间，但她的声音并没有超出听得见的范围。尼克的问题激起她的好奇心，作为对他朋友的话的反驳。

“毫无疑问，你会说，这仍然是为了他人的方便——对于一个人的风格来说仍然更糟糕。”

毕迪及时转过身来，听到了纳什先生的回答：“这与生活中的阴影根本没有任何关系！我不能说比这更糟糕的了。”

毕蒂走近了一步，更加鼓起了勇气。 “妈妈不会等吗？我们不是应该去吃午饭吗？”

两个年轻人都抬头看着她，纳什先生大声说道：“你应该抗议！你应该救他！”

“为了救他？”毕迪附和道。

“他有自己的风格，我保证他有！但我已经看到它过去了。我读过他的演讲。”

“你有这个能力吗？”尼克笑了。

“对你来说，是的。但这就像在铜管乐队中聆听夜莺的声音。”

“我认为它们很漂亮，”毕迪宣称。

听到这一致敬，她哥哥站了起来，纳什先生也站了起来，用他明亮的口语语气说道：“但是，多默小姐，他有眼睛。他生来就是为了看——看遍一切，看清一切。这样的人太少了。”

“我想他仍然能看到，”毕迪回答道，他有点想知道尼克为什么不为自己辩护。

“他看到了他的‘一面’，他可怕的‘一面’，亲爱的年轻女士。可怜的人，幻想你有一个“侧面”——你，你——并且日日夜夜地看着它！我宁愿看着广告牌上的广告度过一生。”

“你不认为我有一天会成为一名伟大的政治家吗？”尼克说。

“我亲爱的朋友，这正是我所害怕的。”

“怜悯！你不佩服他们吗？”毕迪哭了。

“这是一种与其他行业一样的行业，也是社会肯定会宽恕的一种谋生方式。但当一个人可以变得更好时——！”

“为什么世界上有什么是更好的呢？”毕迪问道。

年轻人喘着粗气，尼克替他回答说：“加布里埃尔·纳什好多了！你必须来和我们一起吃午饭。我必须留住你——我必须！”他加了。

“我们还会救他的。”他们走的时候，纳什先生轻松地对毕迪说道，而女孩更想知道她妈妈会怎么看他。

同伴们离开后，艾格尼丝女士和她的大女儿一起沉默地休息了五分钟，最后她说道：“我想无论如何都必须有食物。”然后站起来，离开了他们之前住的地方。一直坐着。 “那我们要去哪里呢？我讨厌在外面吃饭，”她继续说道。

“天哪，当一个人来到巴黎——！”格蕾丝回来的语气显然是在暗示，在如此鲁莽的冒险中，人们必须做好妥协和让步的准备。两位女士漫步到了空中悬挂着一个巨大的“自助餐”牌子的地方，进入了一个专门为白布小桌子、稻草覆盖的椅子和系着长围裙的服务员保留的区域。其中一位工作人员热切地接近他们，并带着一种 “亲爱的女士吗？” 收到夫人夫人略显急躁的宣布作为回报 “非; nous sommes beaucoup！” 他把他们带到一张比其他大多数人都大的桌子前，在他的保护下，他们在桌子上就座，开始相当慵懒而含糊地考虑吃饭的问题。服务员已经放了一个 菜单 艾格尼丝女士手里拿着一张纸，她通过眼镜毫无兴趣地研究着它，而他则以专业流利的方式列举了该机构的资源，格蕾丝则观察着其他桌子上的人们。她很饿，已经从一个长长的釉面卷上撕下了一小块。

“你知道，不是冷牛肉和泡菜，”她对母亲说道。艾格尼丝夫人没有理会这句亵渎的话，而是放下了眼镜，放下了那份油腻的文件。 “这意味着什么？我敢说这都很糟糕，”格蕾丝继续说道。她补充道：“如果彼得来了，他肯定会很特别。”

“让他先特意来吧！”夫人惊呼道，目光冷漠地看着侍者。

“Poulet Chasseur、菲力牛排、蛋黄酱” 男人提议道。

“你要把我告诉你的告诉我们，”艾格尼丝夫人说。她清晰而权威地提到了她想要的菜肴。他又插了三四个建议，但由于这些建议完全没有给她留下任何印象，他变得沉默而顺从，显然是在公正地对待她的想法。因为艾格尼丝夫人有自己的想法，尽管十分钟前她就表示自己在这种情况下无能为力，这很适合她的幽默感，但她把这些想法强加给侍者的方式是独创的、实用的、经济的，向这位高级行政女士表明，孩子的母亲，伯爵的女儿，官员的配偶，热情好客的施与者，回顾一生的午餐。她担负着许多忧虑，养活众人——她很荣幸地意识到，她一直在体面地喂养他们，因为她总是做所有的事情——一直是其中之一。 “一切都贵得离谱，”侍者走开时，她对女儿说道。对于这句话，格蕾丝没有回答。她已经习惯了很长一段时间以来听到的一切都很昂贵；这是人们一直所期望的。于是她自己找到了这个案子，但她对此保持沉默并富有创意，在与她母亲交谈的过程中，没有再继续下去，而他们等待后者的命令被执行，直到艾格尼丝夫人大声反映：“他让他谈论朱莉娅的方式让我很不高兴。”

“有时我认为他这样做是为了折磨一个人。谁都不能提她！”格蕾丝回应道。

“最好别提她，还是别管了。”

“但他从来没有提到过她自己。”

“在某些情况下，这应该表明人们喜欢别人——当然，还需要更多的东西来证明这一点，”艾格尼丝女士继续沉思。 “有时我觉得他在想她，但有时我却无法想象 什么 他正在想。”

“这非常合适，”格蕾丝咬着面包卷说道。

她的同伴停了下来，似乎在寻找更高的立足点。然后她似乎在观察中找到了更高的境界：“他当然喜欢她——他一直都认识她。”

“没有什么比她喜欢他更明显的了，”格蕾丝说。

“可怜的朱莉娅！”艾格尼丝夫人几乎要哭了。她的语气表明她对此的了解比她准备说的还要多。

“她并不是不聪明、读书多，”她的女儿继续说道。 “如果没有其他原因，她对政治、对他的一切如此感兴趣也是有原因的。”

“啊，尼克是什么人——这就是我有时想知道的！”

格蕾丝有些绝望地看着她的父母：“为什么，妈妈，他就不能像爸爸一样吗？”她等待着答案，但没有等到。 ”接着她又追了一句：“我以为你已经把他看成那么喜欢他了。

“嗯，我不知道，”艾格尼丝夫人轻声说道。

“那是谁？珀西当然不是。”

艾格尼丝夫人沉默了一会儿。 “没有人像你父亲一样。”

“亲爱的爸爸！”格蕾丝帅气地表示同意。然后快速过渡：“这对我们所有人来说都是一件快乐的事情——她会对我们很好。”

“她已经是这样了——以她的方式，”艾格尼丝夫人认真地说，她很快就跟着回来了。 “这对她有多大好处！”她又再现了刚才的苦涩语气。

“有人照顾她对她有好处。我知道，而且我想她也知道这一点，”格蕾丝宣称。 “无论如何，一个人可以让其他女人望而却步。”

“别多管闲事——你很笨，”她母亲不太同情地反驳道。 “有些女人很漂亮，有些女人又聪明又富有。”

“是的，但不是全部：这就是朱莉娅的优点。她的财产将被投入其中；他似乎不会因此而娶她。”

“如果他这样做了，他就不会了。”艾格尼丝夫人含糊地说。

“是的，这就是它的魅力所在。那时他可以做任何事，不是吗？”

“嗯，你父亲的财产就没有什么可说的了。”

“是的，但是珀西叔叔没有帮助他吗？”

“他的妻子帮助了他，”艾格尼丝女士说。

“亲爱的妈妈！”女孩迅速说道。 “有一件事，”她补充道：“卡特雷特先生将永远帮助尼克。”

“你说的‘总是’是什么意思？”

“为什么他要不要娶朱莉娅呢？”

“事情没那么容易，”艾格尼丝夫人判断道。 “这一切都取决于尼克的行为。他明天就可以阻止这一切。”

格蕾丝·多默尔凝视着；她显然认为卡特雷特先生的仁慈是自然安排的一部分。 “他怎么能阻止呢？”

“因为不认真。阻止人们给你钱并不难。”

“严肃的？”格蕾丝重复道。 “他希望他成为像埃格伯特勋爵那样的一本正经的人吗？”

“是的——这正是他想要的。只有他娶了朱莉娅，他才会为他做的事。”

“他告诉过你了吗？”格蕾丝问道。然后，在她母亲回答之前，“我对此很高兴！”她哭了。

“他没有告诉我，但事情就是这样发生的。”艾格尼丝夫人不像她的女儿那么乐观，而她所培养的这种乐观情绪只是一层薄薄的组织，对事物所表现出来的感觉。 “如果尼克变得富有，查尔斯·卡特雷特会让他变得更加富有。如果他不这样做，他就不会给他一先令。”

“噢，妈妈！”格蕾丝提出异议。

“可以说，在公共生活中，金钱不再像以前那样必要了，”她的夫人若有所思地继续说道。 “这么说的人根本不知道这件事。这总是非常必要的。”

她的女儿明显受到了她阴郁态度的影响，觉得有必要唤起一个更愉快的想法作为纠正。 “我敢说;但事实是——不是吗？——可怜的爸爸拥有的东西太少了。”

“是的，事实就是它杀了他！”

这些话带着一种奇怪的、快速的、小小的激情迸发出来。他们吓坏了格蕾丝·多默尔，她跳到她的位置上，喘着气说：“哦，妈妈！”然而，下一瞬间，她又用不同的声音补充道：“哦，彼得！”因为，一位绅士正带着热切的神情向他们走来。

“你好吗，艾格尼丝表弟？你好吗，小格蕾丝？彼得·谢林汉姆笑着与他们握手，三分钟后他在餐桌旁的椅子上坐了下来，餐桌上的第一道菜已经摆好了。一方面要求作出解释，另一方面也提出解释。由此可见，双方在某种程度上存在着不同的目的。在艾格尼丝夫人和她的同伴前往巴黎的前一天，谢林汉姆因大使的私人事务去了伦敦四十八个小时，直到当天凌晨才在大使乘坐夜行列车返回时抵达。因此，他延迟收到尼克·多默的两封信。如果尼克亲自来到大使馆——他可能有幸打电话给他——他就会知道二等秘书不在。艾格尼丝夫人并没有完全成功地找出她儿子忽视这种礼貌形式的动机。她只能说：“我期待着他，我希望他走；我希望他走。”事实上，如果没有收到你的消息，他会在离开这个地方后立即离开——一两个小时后。但我们在这里如此安静——不是为了出去，也不是为了吸引大使。尼克是这么说的——“哦，妈妈，我们不会插手这件事的；”一封友好的便条就可以了。我不太清楚他想阻止什么，除非是欢乐之类的事情。我知道大使馆不是同性恋。但我确信他的留言是友好的，不是吗？我敢说你会亲眼看到。他一到国外就与众不同了；他似乎并不关心。”艾格尼丝夫人停顿了一下，没有进行这个具体的解释。然后她继续说道：“他说你会看到朱莉娅，并且你会从她那里了解一切。当我问她怎么知道时，他说，“哦，她什么都知道！”

“他从来没有对我说过任何关于朱莉娅的事，”彼得·谢林汉姆回答道。艾格尼丝夫人和她的女儿对此交换了一个眼神：后者已经问过朱莉娅三遍在哪里，而夫人则表示他们一直希望她能够和彼得一起去。年轻人说她现在在和平街的一家旅馆里，但从那天早上才到那里；他在前往香榭丽舍大街之前见过她。她乘早班火车来到巴黎——在世界上所有的地方中，她一直住在凡尔赛宫。她从戛纳回来后在巴黎待了一周——她在那里呆了将近一个月：太棒了！——然后去凡尔赛看望比林赫斯特太太。也许他们会记得她，可怜的达洛的妹妹。她留在那里教她的女儿们法语——她有一两个女儿！——朱莉娅和她一起度过了三天。她将于二十五号左右返回英国。她肯定已经离开城镇七个星期了——这对她来说是一件罕见的事情；夏天她通常都是这样坚持的。

“和比林赫斯特太太待了三天——她的脾气真好！”艾格尼丝女士评论道。

“哦，他们对她很好，”谢林汉姆说。

“嗯，我希望如此！”格蕾丝·多默呼了口气。 “你为什么不让她来这里？”

“我提议了，但她不肯。”这时，两位女士之间又目光一扫，彼得继续说道：“她说你必须来奥朗德饭店看她。”

“我们当然会这么做，”艾格尼丝女士宣称。 “尼克去威斯敏斯特询问她的情况。”

“她放弃了；他们不会给她她想要的房间，她通常的房间。”

“她非常特别！”格蕾丝得意地说。然后她补充道：“她 不 就像照片一样，不是吗？”

彼得·谢林汉姆凝视着。 “哦，我敢说。但今天早上她脑子里可不是这么想的。她从伦敦得到了一些消息——她非常兴奋。”

“她脑子里装的是什么？”艾格尼丝夫人问道。

“她从伦敦传来什么消息？”格蕾丝补充道。

“她希望尼克站起来。”

“尼克要站起来吗？”两位女士都哭了。

“她承诺把他带入严酷的环境。平克斯先生死了——你知道，他是在大选中获得席位的人。他因心脏病或类似疾病而在伦敦落脚。朱莉娅有她的电报，但我看到它出现在昨晚的报纸上。”

“想象一下——尼克从来没有提到过！”艾格尼丝夫人说。

“你不知道吗，妈妈？——在国外他只看外国报纸。”

“哦，我知道。我对他没有耐心，”她的女士继续说道。 “亲爱的朱莉娅！”

“这是一个令人讨厌的小地方，Pinks 的位置很紧——107 之类的；但如果它一年前返回自由党，它很可能会再次这样做。无论如何，朱莉娅相信这是可以做到的——如果这个人是尼克的话——并且准备好接受命令把他放进去。”

“我确信如果她能做到，她就会做到，”格蕾丝宣称。

“亲爱的，亲爱的朱莉娅！尼克可以为自己做点什么。”这位候选人的母亲说道。

“我毫不怀疑他能做任何事，”彼得·谢林汉姆和蔼地回答道。然后，“你是指费用吗？”他询问道。

“啊，我担心他在开支上做不了多少，可怜的亲爱的孩子！可怕的是我们对珀西的关注是如此之少。”

“好吧，我猜你可以看看朱莉娅。我想这就是她的想法。”

“令人愉快的朱莉娅！”艾格尼丝夫人爆发了。 “可怜的尼古拉斯爵士要是知道就好了！当然他必须直接回家，”她补充道。

“他不会喜欢这样的，”格蕾丝说。

“那他就得不高兴地走。”

“它反而会破坏 选择您 “如果你刚来的话，就不要短途旅行。”彼得建议道。 “更不用说伟大的毕迪了，如果她喜欢巴黎的话。”

“也许我们可以留下来——和朱莉娅一起保护我们，”艾格尼丝女士说。

“啊，她不会留下来；她会去找她的男人的。”

“她的男人——？”

“站起来的人，无论他是谁——尤其是如果他是尼克的话。”这最后一句话让彼得·谢林汉姆的同伴们再次四目相对，他接着说道：“她将直接前往哈什。”

“很棒的朱莉娅！”艾格尼丝夫人气喘吁吁。 “当然尼克也必须直接去那里。”

“嗯，我想他必须先看看他们是否会抓到他。”

“如果他们想要他呢？为什么他不尝试怎么知道呢？

“我指的是总部的人，那些安排这件事的人。”

艾格尼丝夫人脸色有点红。 “我亲爱的彼得，你认为他们‘拥有’他父亲的儿子是毫无疑问的吗？”

“当然，这是一个伟大的名字，艾格尼丝表弟——一个非常伟大的名字。”

“简单地说，是最伟大的一个，”艾格尼丝女士微笑着说。

“这是世界上最好听的名字！”格蕾丝更加强调地说。

“尽管如此，这并没有阻止他失去席位。”

“以六票之差：太可恶了！”夫人哭了。

“我记得——我记得。既然如此，他们为什么不立即把他转移到其他地方呢？”

“亲爱的彼得，你在国外的生活怎么样！一年来，出现了最严重的空缺职位空缺——我从未见过这样的情况。他们已经把手放在他身上，让他做好一切准备。我敢说他们已经给他发电报了。”

“他还没有告诉你吗？”

艾格尼丝夫人支吾着。 “他在国外的时候真是太奇怪了！”

“在家里他也随心所欲，”格蕾丝插话道。 “他做得很少——不嫌麻烦。”她的母亲对这句话毫无异议地接受了，她哲学地追问：“我想这是因为他知道自己很聪明。”

“确实如此，亲爱的老人。但他以积极的方式做了什么，他一直在做什么？”

“他一直在画画。”

“啊，不是认真的！”艾格尼丝夫人抗议道。

“这是最糟糕的方式，”彼得谢林汉姆说。 “好东西？”

两位女士都没有对此做出直接回应，但艾格尼丝女士说：“他已经说过很多次了。他们总是打电话给他。”

“他说得很棒，”格蕾丝证实道。

“这是我生活在遥远的国家所失去的另一件事。他现在正在和伟大的毕迪一起做沙龙吗？”

“就这一部分的事情。我不知道是什么让他们坚持了这么久。”艾格尼丝夫人呻吟道。 “你见过这么可怕的地方吗？”

谢林汉姆凝视着。 “事情不是很好吗？我有一个主意——！」

“好的？”艾格尼丝夫人叫道。 “他们太可恶了，太邪恶了。”

“啊，”彼得笑道，“住在国外的人就会陷入这样的境地。法国人不应该住在国外！”

“他们来了，”格蕾丝这时宣布。 “但是他们身边有一个奇怪的人。”

“当我们想说话的时候，那真是太无聊了！”艾格尼丝夫人叹了口气。

彼得怀着欢迎的心情站了起来，站了一会儿，看着其他人走近。 “按照绅士的判断，谈话不会有任何困难，”他说道。当他仍然如此引人注目时，我们的目光可能会短暂地停留在他身上。他的地位中等，显然是他种族中紧张而不是冷漠的代表。他有一张瓜子脸，五官精致而坚毅，肤色偏棕色。他的眼睛是棕色的，女人们都认为他的眼睛很温柔；他的头发是深棕色的，同样的批评者有时也会对头发没有一点起伏感到遗憾。也许是为了掩饰这种朴素，他把衣服穿得很短。他的牙齿洁白，小胡子很尖，下巴末端的小胡子也是尖尖的。他的脸上流露出智慧，充满活力。它还有一个更进一步的区别，那就是它常常给肤浅的观察者带来某种陌生的演员阵容。然而，更深层次的人通常觉得它足够潜在地英语化。有一种想法是，在从事外交生涯并前往陌生的土地生活后，他养成了外星人、意大利人或西班牙人的面具；甚至是一个时间上的外星人——十六世纪无所不在的出色外交代表之一。事实上，无论如何，不​​可能有比彼得·谢林汉姆更现代的人了——更符合自己的阶级和国家。但这并没有阻止一些流浪者——例如布里奇特·多默尔——欣赏他脸颊的橄榄色，欣赏他的小胡子和胡须，因为它们与查理一世的相似。同时，她相当混乱她的比较——她认为他想起了提香。

彼得与尼克的会面是双方最友好的，有很多“亲爱的朋友”和“老男孩”，他对多默斯小姐中的弟弟的问候包括最坦率的“很高兴见到你，我亲爱的比德！ ”没有接吻，但空气中弥漫着一种表兄弟情谊，一种有意识的、活生生的关系，正如加布里埃尔·纳什在人群外盘旋片刻时无疑很快注意到的那样。毕迪没有对彼得·谢林汉姆说什么，但沉默中却没有一丝平静，仿佛带着最美丽的相貌预兆。尼克向他的母亲和另外两人介绍了加布里埃尔·纳什，称他是他刚刚遇到的“一位令人愉快的老朋友”，谢林汉姆对纳什先生说，承认了这一行为，但似乎不是为了他，而是为了他。主持人：“我以前经常见到你。”

“啊，重复——重复：在研究如何生活的过程中，我们还没有消除这种笨拙，不是吗？”纳什先生和蔼地问道。 “这是我们舞台上多余的人的一种贫困，我们不会一次就彻底过去，而是像剧院里的游行队伍或军队一样来来回回。这是一个肮脏的经济，本应得到更好的管理。正确的事情就是 一种 外观和游行队伍，无论花费多少，都永远不同。”大家都忙着坐在餐桌旁，所以此刻唯一没有注意力的人是格蕾丝，当她的眼睛停留在他身上时，年轻人微笑着对她说了这最后一句话。 “唉，这是一个非常糟糕的想法，不是吗？无论花费多少，世界都不会起来！”

格蕾丝迅速把目光从他身上移开，对她哥哥说：“尼克，平克斯先生死了。”

“先生。粉红色？”加布里埃尔·纳什问道，似乎在考虑自己应该坐在哪里。

“严厉的成员；朱莉娅希望你站起来，”女孩继续说道。

“先生。 Pinks，Harsh 的成员？到底是什么名字啊！”加百列仍然没有坐在座位上，愉快地沉思着。

“朱莉娅想要我吗？我真是太感谢她了！”尼克心不在焉地说。 “纳什，请坐在我母亲旁边，彼得坐在她的另一边。”

“亲爱的，这不是朱莉娅”——艾格尼丝夫人认真地说。 “每个人都想要你。你没有听到你的人的消息吗？你不知道座位空着吗？”

尼克环视桌子，看看上面有什么。 “说实话我不记得了。妈妈，您还吩咐了什么？”

“有一些 炖牛肉亲爱的，然后吃点加兰汀。这是一盘带芦笋尖的鸡蛋。”

“我建议你去尝试一下，尼克，”彼得谢林汉姆说，他向他展示了所讨论的准备工作。

“和芦笋尖一起放进鸡蛋里？ Donnez m'en s'il vous plaît。我亲爱的朋友，我怎么能忍受呢？我怎么能坐呢？钱从哪里来？”

“钱？为什么从七月开始——！”格蕾丝开口说道，但立刻引起了她母亲的注意。

“可怜的朱莉娅，你把她怎么样了！”尼克惊呼道。 “纳什，我向你推荐芦笋尖。妈妈，他是我最好的朋友——一定要照顾他。”

“我感觉我已经吃过早餐了——我不确定，”纳什微笑着说。

“和那些漂亮的女士一起？再试一次——你就会知道了。”

“钱是可以管理的； “费用很小，而且席位是确定的。”艾格尼丝夫人追问道，显然没有理会她儿子关于纳什的禁令。

“相反——如果朱莉娅倒下了！”她的大女儿惊呼道。

“也许朱莉娅不会倒下！”尼克幽默地回答道。

毕迪坐在纳什先生旁边，这样她就可以趁机问：“那些漂亮的女士是谁？”就好像她没有意识到她哥哥的暗示一样。事实上，这是一个无辜的把戏：她对邻居最近与她分居的奇怪女人感到好奇，无法给出适当的理由。

“迷惑、误导、痴迷的人！”纳什先生回答说，他明白她要求提供描述。 “奇怪、古怪、近乎浪漫的类型。命中注定的受害者，头脑简单的牺牲品！”

内容很丰富，但又很模糊，毕迪只能回答：“哦，都是这些吗？”但与此同时，彼得·谢林汉姆对尼克说：“朱莉娅在这里，你知道。你必须去看看她。”

尼克一瞬间相当严肃地看着他，仿佛在说：“你也是吗？”但彼得的眼睛似乎在回答：“不，不，我不是”；他的表弟回答道：“我当然会去看她。我马上就去。请感谢她为我着想。”

“想着你？有很多事想你！”艾格尼丝女士说道。 “家里肯定有电报。我们必须回去——我们必须回去！”

“我们必须回英国吗？”尼克·多默问道；母亲没有回答，他继续说道：“你的意思是我必须去哈什学校吗？”

夫人回避了这个问题，询问纳什先生要不要吃点鱼；但她的收获微乎其微，因为这位先生再次被失去亲人的选区的不幸名字所震惊，只是爆发出：“啊，这是一个多么值得代表的地方啊！你怎么能——你怎么能？”

“真是个好地方。”艾格尼丝夫人冷冷地说。 “我想你从来没有去过那里。这确实是一个非常好的地方。它很大程度上属于我的表弟达洛夫人。”

加布里埃尔一边吃着鱼，一边饶有兴趣地听着。 “但我认为我们已经不再有袖珍行政区了。”

“我们很多人都非常缺乏口袋。有很多严酷的事情，”尼克·多默观察到。

“我不明白你的意思，”艾格尼丝女士相当威严地对纳什说道。

彼得谢林汉姆也对他说：“哦，没关系；他们就像一颗子弹一样向你袭来！”年轻人天真地继续说道：

“你的意思是说你必须付钱才能进入那个可怕的地方——这不是 您 谁得到报酬？

“去那个可怕的地方？”艾格尼丝夫人面无表情地重复道。

“进入下议院。你的工资不高吗？”

“我亲爱的纳什，你真令人愉快：不要离开我——不要离开我！”尼克哭了；而他的母亲则用一种质问的眼神看着他：“这世界上到底是谁这么了不起？”

“那你认为袖珍行政区是什么？”彼得·谢林汉姆问道。

纳什先生的脸上焕发着光彩。 “哎呀，这些行政区填满了你的口袋。在没有贿赂的情况下做这种事——这就是特罗普堡垒！=

“他住在撒马尔罕，”尼克·多默向他的母亲解释道，他的母亲明显脸红了。 “你给我什么建议？我会照你说的做，”他继续对他的老熟人说。

“亲爱的，亲爱的——！”艾格尼丝夫人恳求道。

“首先见朱莉娅，谨向纳什先生表示敬意。她是一位出色的顾问，”彼得谢林汉姆说。

纳什先生隔着桌子向东道主微笑。 “女士优先——女士优先！我没有任何话可以反对她的任何想法。”

“我们不能在这里坐太久，还有很多事情要做，”艾格尼丝夫人焦急地说，她察觉到服务有些缓慢。 炖牛肉.

到目前为止，毕迪主要忙于偷偷地、断断续续地打量彼得·谢林汉姆。对于一位年轻女士来说，这是完全合法的，她有一个英俊的表弟，而她已经一年多没有见面了。但她现在可以用甜美的声音插话：“我们知道纳什先生对政治的看法：他刚才告诉我们，他认为政治很可怕。”

“不，并不可怕——只是低劣，”被指责的人士抗议道。 “一切都是相对的。”

“比什么低？”艾格尼丝夫人问道。

纳什先生似乎考虑了一会儿。 “对于任何其他可能有问题的事情。”

“其他的就没什么问题了！”夫人说，如果不是那么干的话，她的语气一定会很得意。

“啊那么！”她的邻居悲伤地摇摇头。随后他转向毕迪。 “刚才和我在一起的那些女士，你竟然对她们表现出了兴趣？”毕迪表示同意，然后继续说道：“他们都是戏剧性的人。弟弟正想登上舞台呢。”

“那你在协助她吗？”毕迪问道，她很高兴自己猜得几乎正确。

“一点也不——我宁愿掐死她。我认为它是最低等的艺术。”

“低于政治？”正在听的彼得·谢林汉姆问道。

“亲爱的，不，我不会这么说。我认为法国剧院是比下议院更伟大的机构。”

“我同意你的观点！”谢林汉笑道： “更重要的是，我并不认为戏剧艺术是低等的艺术。在我看来，恰恰相反，应该包括所有其他人。”

“是的——这是一个观点。我想这是我朋友们的看法。”

“你朋友的？”

“两位女士——老熟人——我一周前在巴黎认识的，刚刚在这个地方和她们待了一个小时。”

“你应该看看他们；他们给我留下了深刻的印象，”毕迪对她的表弟说。

“如果他们真的有什么话要对剧院说的话，我很想见见他们。”

“它很容易管理。你相信戏剧吗？”加布里埃尔·纳什问道。

“充满激情，”谢林汉姆承认。 “你不是吗？”

纳什还没来得及回答，毕迪叹了口气插话道。 “我多么希望我能去——但在巴黎我不能去！”

“我会带你走，毕迪——我发誓我会带你走。”

“但是戏剧，彼得，”女孩反对道。 “妈妈说它们比照片上还要糟糕。”

“哦，我们会安排的：他们会在法国专门为一个可爱的、向往的英国女孩做一个。”

“你能做吗？”

“我可以让他们做我选择的任何事情。”

“啊，那就是剧院相信 您，”纳什先生说。

“我为之付出了这么多，如果没有的话那就太忘恩负义了！”谢林汉高兴地说道。

艾格尼丝夫人从他和另一位客人之间退了出来，为了表示她至少吃完了饭，她走到儿子身边坐下，她带着几分迫切地抱着儿子谈话。但听到剧院的谈论后，她向这个自相矛盾的年轻人提出了一个客观的挑战。 “请问您是否认为绅士当演员更好？”

“比当政治家更好吗？啊，喜剧演员对喜剧演员，演员不是更诚实吗？”

艾格尼丝夫人转向她的儿子，精神抖擞地说：“想想你伟大的父亲，尼古拉斯！”

“他是一个诚实的人，”尼古拉斯说。 “也许这就是他无法忍受的原因。”

彼得·谢林汉姆认为这场对话发生了令人不舒服的转折，尽管在他看来，这并不完全是尼克的酷儿同志的行为造成的。为了把事情拉回到更安全的地方，他对这位人士说：“请问您刚才所说的那位女士是英国人吗？罗斯小姐：这不是一个很奇怪的名字吗？

“一模一样。只有女儿，按照她的同类，希望被某些人认识 根据游击队 在她能够入伍之前。”

“那她怎么称呼自己？”布里吉特·多默问道。

“莫德·瓦瓦苏尔、伊迪丝·坦普尔、格拉迪斯·韦恩——诸如此类的垃圾。”

“那她自己叫什么名字？”

“米丽娅姆——米丽娅姆·罗斯。这会做得很好，并且会让她受益于一个吸引人的事实——至少我相信——她是半个以上的犹太教徒。”

“它和雷切尔·菲利克斯一样好，”谢林汉姆说。

“名字不错，但才华不行。这丫头实在是太蠢了。”

“还有一半以上是犹太人？你不信！”谢林汉姆笑了。

“不相信她是犹太人吗？”毕迪问，她对米丽娅姆·罗斯更感兴趣。

“不，不——她很蠢，真的。如果她是的话，她将是第一个。”

“啊，你可以自己判断，”纳什回答说，“如果你明天下午来君士坦丁堡街的卡雷夫人， à l'entresol设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“卡雷夫人？哎呀，我已经收到了她的一张便条——我今天早上返回巴黎时发现的——让我五点钟去看看，听听她的讲话。 年轻的英国人设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“这是我的安排——我得到了恩惠。女士们想要发表意见，亲爱的老卡雷同意见她们并提出意见。莫德·瓦瓦苏尔将背诵，而这位令人尊敬的艺术家将做出判断。”

谢林汉姆记得他的纸条在口袋里，于是拿出来看了一下。 “她希望让自己成为一个小观众——她说她会做得更好——她问我是因为我是英国人。我一定会去的。”

“如果可以的话，请带上多默尔：观众会更好。你会来吗，多默？”纳什先生继续向他的朋友呼吁——“你愿意和我一起去听一位英国业余朗诵者和一位法国老女演员的表演吗？”

尼克在与母亲和格蕾丝谈话后环顾四周。 “我会和你一起去任何地方，这样，正如我告诉你的那样，我就不会失去你——可以抓住你。”

“可怜的纳什先生，他为什么这么有用？”艾格尼丝夫人冷冷地随意询问。

“他让我稳住了，妈妈。”

“哦，我希望你能接受 me“彼得，”毕蒂若有所思地对她表弟大声说道。

“和一位法国老女演员共度一个小时？做 您 想上舞台吗？”年轻人问道。

“不，但我想看看一些东西——了解一些东西。”

“卡雷夫人的方式很出色，但她很难成为一个英国小女孩的伴侣。”

“我不是小，而是太大；和 她 你说的那个人走了。”

“出于职业目的，并与她的好母亲在一起，”纳什先生微笑着说。 「我想艾格尼丝女士不会冒险——！」

“哦，我看到了她的好妈妈！”毕迪说道，好像她对这种保护的价值有自己的印象。

“是的，但你还没听过她的话。然后你就可以衡量她了。”

毕迪仍然充满渴望。 “是大名鼎鼎的奥诺丽娜·卡雷吗？”

“个人荣誉：无与伦比，完美！”彼得·谢林汉姆说。 “我们这个时代第一位艺术家，完全把她带入了。我和她是老朋友了；她非常善于过来“说”话——她有时仍然这样做 在世界 没有其他人 能够----在我的房间里。”

“那就让她来吧。我们可以去 那里”

“这些日子中的一天！”

“还有那位年轻的女士——米里亚姆、莫德、格拉迪斯——也让她来了。”

谢林汉姆看着纳什，后者表情平淡。 “哦，你不会有任何困难。她会跳起来的！”

“非常好。我会和朱莉娅一起喝一点艺术茶。你一定要来，纳什先生。”这位先生答应了，彼得继续说道：“但是，如果正如你所说，你不是为了帮助这位小姐，你怎么会安排这次采访这位伟大的模特呢？”

“正是为了阻止她。伟大的模特会发现她很糟糕。你可能知道，她的判断是拉达曼丁的。”

“不幸的生物！”毕迪说。 “我觉得你很残忍。”

“没关系——我会照顾他们的，”谢林汉姆笑道。

“卡雷夫人如何判断这个女孩是否背诵英语呢？”

“她很聪明，可以判断她是否背诵中文，”彼得宣称。

“确实如此，但是 年轻的英国人 也用法语背诵，”加布里埃尔·纳什说。

“那她也不傻。”

“据我所知，还有意大利语，还有其他几种语言。”

谢林汉姆显然很感兴趣。 “很好——我们会让她经历这一切。”

“她一定是 最先进的 聪明，”毕迪满怀渴望地继续说道。

“她在欧洲大陆度过了一生；她和她母亲一起流浪；她已经捡到东西了。”

“她是一位女士吗？”毕迪问道。

“哦，太棒了！地球上的伟人都在母亲这边。另一方面，我想，他的父亲只是伦敦金融城的一名犹太股票经纪人。”

“那么他们就富有了——或者说应该富有，”谢林汉姆建议道。

“应该是——啊，这就是苦涩！股票经纪人的出手太短了——他在花花中被带走了。然而，他给妻子留下了一定的财产，但她似乎已经把这些财产弄得一团糟，因为她自己没有希伯来人的保障。这就是她至今赖以生存的东西——这个和另一个资源。正如她经常告诉我的那样，她的丈夫具有艺术气质：正如你所知，这在 梅西厄斯。他充分利用了这小小的机会，收集了各种图画、挂毯、珐琅、瓷器和类似的小玩意。据我推测，他也为了获利而与他们分开。简而言之，他经营着一项整洁的小生意 兄弟。虽然它被扼杀在萌芽状态，但罗斯夫人手里还保留着一定数量的此类物品。事实上，它们一定是她唯一的资本。她不是一个商界女性；她是一位商业女性。毫无疑问，她对这些事情漠不关心。但她把它们一块一块地卖掉了，在她女儿长大的过程中，它们让她继续生活。正是由于这种不稳定的交通，以非凡的神秘和微妙的方式进行，五年前，在佛罗伦萨，我结识了她。那些日子里，我常常收集——上帝保佑我！——我常常捡起我买不起的垃圾。这是一个小阶段——我们也有我们的小阶段，不是吗？”纳什先生带着孩子般的信任问道——“而我却站在了另一边。罗斯夫人有一个旧绿罐，我听说过她的旧绿罐。闻之即向往，故趁夜色前去观之。我买了它，几年前我把它推翻并砸碎了。这是这个小阶段的最后一个阶段。然而，正如你所看到的，这并不是罗斯夫人的最后一个。后来我在伦敦遇见了她，一两年前我在威尼斯找到了她。她似乎是一位伟大的流浪者。她还有其他旧罐子，有其他颜色的，红的、黄的、黑的、蓝的——她可以把它们做成你喜欢的任何肤色。我不知道她是否随身携带它们，也不知道她是否在欧洲主要城市设有秘密小商店。无论如何，今天它们似乎都消失了。另一方面，她有她的女儿，她已经长大了，是另一种珍贵的花瓶——我希望比其他花瓶更脆弱。愿她不被推翻、粉碎！”

彼得·谢林汉姆和比迪·多默尔聚精会神地听着这段历史，当纳什先生停止讲话时，女孩证明了她对这段历史的兴趣：“一个犹太股票经纪人，一个好奇心商人：对他来说是多么奇怪的人啊。”结婚——嫁给一个出身名门的人！我敢说他是德国人。”

“他的名字肯定只是罗斯，而这位可怜的女士，为了让它变得漂亮，又加了另一个名字。 o”谢林汉巧妙地建议道。

“你们俩都很聪明，”加布里埃尔说，“据我所知，鲁道夫·罗斯确实是莫德·瓦瓦苏尔爸爸的称呼。但就克减问题而言，一个人可能会被淹死或挨饿——因为这有什么联系？ 不能 当一个人碰巧拥有成为纽金特城堡的内维尔-纽金特的一名内维尔-纽金特人的荣誉时，这是一种不正当的关系吗？这就是莫德妈妈的高贵血统。我似乎听说鲁道夫·罗斯非常多才多艺，并且像他的大多数人一样，对音乐实践并不陌生。他受雇向内维尔-纽金特小姐教授风琴，她从他的课程中受益匪浅。如果他的女儿像他一样——而且她不像她的母亲——那么他就是一个黝黑而危险的英俊的人。所以我迅速冒险重建局势。”

艾格尼丝夫人和她的另外两个孩子暂时陷入了沉默，因此纳什先生以他普遍的礼貌，实际上是对他们以及其他听众讲了最后的话。艾格尼丝夫人看上去似乎想知道他在说谁，在听到一座贵族宅邸的名字后，她问道：“纽金特城堡——那到底在哪里？”

“这是一个面积无法估量、辉煌几乎难以想象的领域，但我担心在任何平淡的地球地理中都找不到它！”艾格尼丝女士把眼睛放在桌布上，好像她不确定她是否有自由，或者至少没有按照她的“命令”，而纳什先生继续大量描述性假设——“它一定是在曼萨纳雷斯河或瓜达尔基维尔河的河岸”——彼得·谢林汉姆的想象力似乎被米里亚姆·罗斯的素描激发了，他开始争论并提醒他，他在不久前曾对戏剧艺术给予过低的地位，并且还没有回答他是否相信戏剧的问题。这给了演讲者进一步的机会。 “我不知道我是否理解你的问题；有不同的服用方法。我认为这很重要吗？你是这个意思吗？对于想要赚钱的经理和舞台木匠，对于想要在公共场合出风头的女士们先生们，以及对于其他无聊又愚蠢、不知道晚上该做什么的女士们先生们来说，这当然很重要。这是一种可以无限发挥作用的商业和社会便利。但在艺术上、智力上重要吗？如何 能够 它是——如此贫穷、如此有限的形式吗？”

“以我的名誉担保，我觉得它丰富而多样！做 您 尼克，你认为这是一种糟糕且有限的形式吗？”谢林汉姆补充道，向他的亲戚发出呼吁。

“纳什怎么想我就怎么想。今天我除了他的意见外没有其他意见。”

多默斯一家人希望的这个回答吸引了他母亲和姐妹们的目光，也让他的朋友惊呼他不习惯这样的责任——所以很少有人同意他的观点来检验他的冷静。 “哦，我曾经有过你的感觉，”纳什继续对谢林汉姆说道。 “我完全理解你。这是一个像另一个阶段一样的阶段。我经历过——j'ai été comme ça。=

“那时你经常去法国剧院，我就是在那里见到你的。我现在就安排你了。”

“恐怕我没有注意到其他观众，”纳什解释道。 “我没有注意到伟大的卡雷——她还在舞台上。想象一下我的迷恋，以及我如何能够容忍你的迷恋，当我告诉你我想认识她时，我无法休息，直到我告诉她我是如何粘在她的嘴唇上的。

“就是这样 I 告诉她的，”谢林汉姆回答道。

“她对我很好。她说： '你是我的力量会合。'”

“她就是这么跟我说的！”

“我们仍然是非常好的朋友。”

“我们也是！”谢林汉姆笑道。 “而像她这样完美的艺术——你的意思是说你不考虑 这 重要的是，如此罕见的戏剧性智慧？”

“恐怕你读过 连续。你听懂了他们的措辞。”——纳什带着怜悯说道。 “戏剧性的智慧从来都不是稀有的；没有什么比这更常见的了。”

“那我们为什么有这么多令人震惊的演员？”

“我们有吗？我认为他们大部分都很好；在该行业中比在其他任何行业中更容易、更彻底地取得成功。如果他们不做那件可怜的事，他们（一般来说这些人）能做什么呢？并反思可怜的事情使他们能够成功！当然，舞台上总是有很多人根本不是演员，因为对于我们可怜的人性来说，表现出无效的愚蠢和粗俗比搞垮房子更容易。”

“据我所知，要完全产生任何艺术效果并不容易，”谢林汉姆宣称； “演员制作的作品是我们所知道的最重要的作品之一。你不会让我相信，观看像卡雷夫人这样的女演员并不是一种品味的教育，也不是一种知识的拓展。”

“可怜的女人，她做了她能做的一切，但条件是多么卑鄙、粗俗！她必须诠释戏剧中的一个角色，而戏剧中的一个角色——更不用说整部作品了：我更具体地说是现代作品——是一个挂在任何东西上的可怜的小钉子！剧作家向我们展示的内容太少，受到观众的阻碍，只能进行糟糕的分析。”

“我知道这个投诉。现在都是时尚。这 拉菲内斯 彼得·谢林汉姆以一种与他那个时代的文化同步的人的方式说道，并且不被惊讶所吸引。 “康努，康努”

“人们会更清楚地知道这一点，不是吗？当现代观众本质上的残酷本质被更多地认识到，当它被正确分析时： 万灵草 一个大城市的人口在一天中品味最低的时候，涌出丑陋的旅馆和餐馆，吃得饱饱的，沉迷于买卖以及这个时代所有其他肮脏的关注，挤在一个闷热的人群中，对自己的座位感到失望，为作者计时，为演员计时，希望当场拿回钱——所有这一切都在十一点之前。想象一下把精致的东西放在这样的法庭上吧！根本就没有这个问题。剧作家即使可以也不会这么做，而即使他愿意，十有八九他也做不到。他必须做出最低限度的让步。他的主要准则之一是他必须让观众能够搭乘 11.30 停止的郊区火车。对于其他以晚餐和郊区火车为主导力量的艺术家（画家或小说家），你有何看法？老剧作家并没有顺从他们——至少没有那么顺从——这就是为什么他们的表演能力越来越差。如果他们——这些大而散漫的人——被触碰，那就只会被肢解和轻视。此外，他们有一个更简单的文明来代表——在这些社会中，人类的生活是在行动中、在激情中、在直接而暴力的表达中的。这些东西可以放在剧场的板上，而不会牺牲它们的完整性和真实性。今天，我们的反思性、复杂性和分散性变得无限强烈，这使得一切变得不同。在晚餐和郊区火车之间，你可以用一个角色、一个想法、一种感觉做些什么？你可以给它们画出一幅粗略的草图，但是你对它们的触动是多么少，它们就会变得多么秃顶！与小说家的所作所为相比，这是多么粗鲁啊！”

“纳什先生，你写小说吗？”彼得坦诚地问道。

“不，但当它们非常精彩时我就会读它们，而且我不去看戏剧。例如，我读过巴尔扎克——我在《巴尔扎克》中遇到了瓦莱丽·马尔内夫令人钦佩的肖像。 贝蒂小姐设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“你将它与埃米尔·奥吉尔 (Emile Augier) 的塞拉芬娜 (Séraphine) 的贫困进行了对比。 贫穷狮子？我在那儿等你。这就是 巴塔耶骑士 你们这些家伙。”

“多么非凡的讨论啊！多么可怕的作者啊！”艾格尼丝夫人对儿子低声说道。但他太专注地听其他年轻人说话，没有做出任何回应，彼得·谢林汉姆继续说道：

“我在现代剧目中见过卡雷夫人，她让这些剧目对我来说栩栩如生，让我难以忘怀，就像瓦莱丽·玛内夫一样。有人可能会说，她是女演员中的巴尔扎克。”

“可以说是粉饰画家的细密画家！”纳什提出替补。

人们可能会猜测，谢林汉姆憎恨他该死的自由，但只能效仿他轻松的形式。 “如果你认为你介绍给我们老朋友的那位年轻女士很重要，那你就太宽宏大量了。”

纳什先生轻轻掂量了一下。 “她可能比以往任何时候都更重要。”

然而，艾格尼丝夫人起身结束了这一幕，甚至表示关于她从未听说过的人和问题已经说得够多了。其他人都站了起来，服务员给尼古拉斯带来了账单收据，谢林汉姆继续对他的对话者说：“也许她会比你想象的更重要。”

“也许——如果你对她感兴趣的话！”

“一个神秘的声音似乎在劝告我这样做，低声说虽然我从未见过她，但我会在她身上找到一些东西。”彼得对此提出上诉。 “你说怎么样，毕迪——我应该对她感兴趣吗？”

女孩支吾着，脸色有些苍白，因为被公开当作神谕而感到有些尴尬。 “如果她不友善，我不建议这样做。”

“如果她 is 好的？”

“你还是少劝吧！”她哥哥大笑着用胳膊搂住了她。

艾格尼丝夫人看上去很忧郁——她可能在对自己说：“老天保佑我们，我的一个女孩有什么机会和一个对女演员如此热衷的男人在一起呢？”她感到惊慌和苦恼；整个早上，她都被迫注意许多不协调的事情——令人不快的图片和关于它们的更令人不快的理论，尼克方面模糊的反常预兆和彼得的奇怪的渴望，显然是在巴黎学到的，与他们讨论。这个人的语气是她从未接触过的，话题无关紧要、无趣，甚至令人厌恶，其实际效果是让她的存在变得轻描淡写。 “让我们离开这个——让我们离开这个！”她冷酷地说。一行人一起走向出发的大门，听到儿子对他可怕的朋友说的话，她烦躁的心情并没有得到抚慰：我粘着你！”

这时，艾格尼丝夫人突然插话。 “请原谅我提醒你，你要去拜访朱莉娅。”

“好吧，纳什不能也来拜访一下朱莉娅吗？这正是我想要的——她应该见见他。”

彼得·谢林汉姆人道地向他的亲戚提供了帮助。 “也许更好的方式是让他们在我的主持下在我的‘戏剧性茶会’上见面。这将使我能够以一报还一报。如果纳什先生能够将我介绍给这位我们对荣誉的渴望的人，我们的评价如此不同，那么我会把他介绍给我的妹妹，这是一个更积极的数量。

“很容易看出谁会获得最好的结果！”格蕾丝·多默宣称；而纳什则平静地、公正地站在那里，以一种优雅超然的方式站在那里，这似乎是他的特点，他同意任何能让他摆脱选择的粗鄙的决定，并且总体上相信事情会对他有利。他乐呵呵地无助，对社交冷漠。即使在讨论他自己的可否受理问题时，他也准备好微笑着主持。

“尼克会带你来的。我在大使馆有一个小角落，”谢林汉姆继续说道。

“你好亲切。你必须带 他 然后明天——君士坦丁堡街。”

“五点钟——别害怕。”

“哦亲爱的！”他们继续前行时，毕迪哭了，艾格尼丝夫人抓住他的胳膊，带着儿子更快地走开了。当他们来到香榭丽舍大街时，尼克·多默环顾四周，发现他的朋友不见了。毕蒂已经依恋彼得了，格蕾丝不可能鼓励纳什先生。

艾格尼丝夫人的想法是，她的儿子应该直接从工业宫去奥朗德酒店，无论他的母亲和姐妹是否在场，都按照他的幽默感推荐。尽管她很想见到他们尊贵的朱莉娅，而且她知道她的女儿们也想见见她，但如果这种牺牲有助于尼克的迅速对抗，她就准备推迟他们的来访。她担心他应该和达洛太太谈谈，也担心他自己也担心。但现在看来，他并没有意识到有什么急切的压力。他的观点是，她和女孩们应该立即去找她们的表弟，如果她们愿意的话，应该在她的社交中度过余下的时间。他稍后会去；他会在晚上去。与此同时，他还有很多事情想做。

这个问题得到了一定程度的讨论，尽管不是很长，当时一小群人站在协和广场的边缘，他们是步行前往的。艾格尼丝夫人注意到，他提议优先考虑的“很多事情”优先于一项紧急任务，即与一个向他伸出双手的人开会，这在他覆盖大广场的友好目光中以某种方式暗示着塞纳河对岸、码头陡峭的蓝色屋顶、巴黎的明亮广阔。世界上还有什么比确保他的座位更重要的呢？这位善良女士的想象力飞得如此之快。现在，这个想法对他的吸引力不亚于四处寻找旧书和印刷品——因为她确信这就是他脑子里的想法。如果朱莉娅知道的话，她会感到受宠若惊，但她当然不能知道。艾格尼丝夫人已经在考虑她能对这个年轻人缺乏降雨的最不伤害性的解释。她本想表现出他在自己旅馆的房间里忙得不可开交，向每一个应该关心的人写下政治信件，特别是起草他给严酷选民的讲话。幸运的是，她是一个有无数判断力的女人，她脸上的疲惫表情部分来自于她多年来在与丈夫和儿子的交往中教育自己，不要过分坚持。她本来想坚持，天性使她坚持，而自制力则以多种方式说明了这一点。即使现在也无法阻止她建议尼克在做任何其他事情之前至少应该先去旅馆看看是否有电报。

他毫不犹豫地同意这样做，并叫了一辆出租车让她可以和女孩们一起走，然后再次吻了她，就像他在展览上所做的那样。这种关注永远不会让她不悦，但不知怎的，当他亲吻她时，她真的更担心了：她已经意识到这是他正在从她身边溜走的迹象，她希望她能坦白地把它当作他的。抓住她来救他。她开车离开时有一种模糊的感觉，无论如何，她和女孩们可能会做点什么，让这个地方对他来说保持温暖。她对彼得没有向奥朗德饭店进行更多的推动感到有点恼火，现在她已经清楚地意识到彼得身上有一种不值得指望的外国人，这使他说英语事务，甚至英国国内政治都被视为地方性的，甚至是“有趣的”。它们非常具有当地特色，如果有人回想起，在公共生活中，偶尔发生的滑稽事件，从自由的角度来看，不正是它们带来的温暖的人性安慰吗？当她留下两个年轻人并肩站在协和广场中央时，尼克回头一看，似乎停下来欣赏这宏伟的构图——就好像他没有见过它一千遍一样！ ——她希望她能想到彼得对她儿子的影响多一点有利于地方主义。她担心他不会缩短男孩的不合时宜 法兰妮。然而，他非常友善：他邀请他们所有人那天晚上在一家便利的咖啡馆和他一起吃饭，并承诺带上朱莉娅和他的一位同事。尽管如此，他还是愿意做这样的事情，以确保尼克和他的妹妹能够见面。而且，他对地方主义的渴望并没有那么强烈，如果事实证明那里有的话。 是 任何有损于他对待毕迪的行为——！这种反思的结果可能可以通过夫人在一分钟后对她坐在她对面的小女儿说的话来体现。 地方之声，如果她买一顶新帽子也没什么坏处，而且搜查可能会在当天下午开始。

“妈妈，一顶法式帽子吗？”格蕾丝说。 “噢，等她回家吧！”

“我认为他们在这里真的更漂亮，你知道，”毕迪说。艾格尼丝女士简单地说：“我敢说它们更便宜。”事实上，她心里想的是：“我敢说彼得认为他们很合适。”可以看出，她内心有很多事情，当她到达和平街的顶端时，她得知达洛夫人半小时前就出去了，没有留下任何信息，这并没有减少她内心的事情。她对这件事感到更加不安，超出了她所能解释的范围，也超出了她认为正确的范围，因为她理所当然地认为朱莉娅会以某种方式等待他们。她怎么能确定尼克不会来呢？当人们在巴黎几天时，他们并没有在房子里闷闷不乐，但她可能会等更长的时间或留下解释。那么她是不是不太关心尼克的地位呢？难道她没有意识到去见他的重要性吗？艾格尼丝夫人想知道她的行为是否表明她已经厌倦了这位年轻绅士对待她的方式。也许她出去是因为直觉告诉她，他们早点见面对他来说没有什么区别——告诉她他终究不会来。母亲看到他们的宝贝朋友可能已经累了，她的心沉了下去，她有一种直觉，还有更困难的事情等着她。她本来不喜欢告诉达洛夫人尼克要到晚上才能见到她，但现在她更不喜欢她不在场听到这件事。她甚至有点怨恨她的亲戚没有考虑到她和女孩们无论如何都会来，并且认为她们不值得留下来。事实上，她也许会去他们的旅馆，那是沿着里沃利路走一段好路，靠近皇家宫殿——在那里，马车夫被指示开车去那家旅馆。

当他慢跑时，朱莉娅在某种程度上理解了这可能意味着什么，朱莉娅正在想办法避开他们。她是不是越来越不喜欢他们了？她是否认为他们对她的关注太敏锐了，以至于他们的关系更加密切的想法不会有吸引力？到目前为止，她的行为还没有表现出这样的样子，除非在她对待可怜的格蕾丝的方式上有一点点，只是一点点。艾格尼丝夫人知道她并不是特别喜欢可怜的格蕾丝，甚至可以充分猜测原因——格蕾丝的方式背叛了他们最想要确保她的方式。她记得上次来哈什时，女孩待了多久——待了一周还算可以，却把来访的时间拖到了一个月。她私下发誓，格蕾丝一年内不得再靠近这个地方。除非尼克和朱莉娅在规定的时间内结婚了，否则不会。如果真是这样的话，她应该不会在意。她认识到朱莉娅爱上尼克并不完全是应该的。在可能追求他之后，她最好不喜欢他的母亲和姐妹，这比以前更好。艾格尼丝夫人公正地对待了自然法则，根据这一法则，女人通常不会与丈夫的女性物品相处，甚至愿意在她的纪律程度上为此做出牺牲。但她不想白白牺牲：如果有人反对她当婆婆，她希望自己先当婆婆。

在里沃利街的旅馆里，她失望地发现达洛夫人没有打电话来，也没有电报来。她和女孩们一起进去了半个小时，然后又和她们零零散散地出去了。她犹豫不决、不满意，下午就成了一个问题；而且，她最不喜欢、最不习惯的就是：不是在不同的事情之间进行选择——她的生活充满了这样的事情——而是根本不想做任何事情。在他们分开之前，尼克对她说：“你可以和女孩们一起闲逛，你知道；”这里的一切都很有趣。”当他和彼得·谢林汉姆闲逛、闲聊，也许还去看了更多像沙龙里的照片时，这句话很容易说出来。在这种情况下，他通常会很友善地与他们共度时光。但这一事件完全采取了反常、亵渎的形式。她不想去闲逛，也不觉得巴黎的一切都很有趣。她不喜欢漫无目的，而且觉得这样很粗俗。如果她在酒店找到了朱莉娅的名片——这表明她希望在他们从沙龙回来时抓住他们——她会在晚上之前第二次尝试去见她；但她并没有这么做。但现在他们肯定不会打扰她了。艾格尼丝夫人和姑娘们在皇宫和黎塞留街无忧无虑地闲逛，然后出现在林荫大道上，她们在那里继续节俭的徘徊，毕迪相当恼火地这样称呼它。他们走进五家商店给毕迪买了一顶帽子，可悲的是，她夫人关于廉价的假设被证明是错误的。

“到底谁是你的喜剧朋友？”与此同时，彼得·谢林汉姆一边走一边询问他的亲戚。

“啊，去剑桥你还失去了一些东西——你失去了加布里埃尔·纳什！”

“他听起来像一位伊丽莎白时代的剧作家，”谢林汉姆说。 “但我并没有失去他，因为现在看来，没有他我就无法拥有你了。”

「哦，至于这个，请稍等一下。我想再试一次，但我不知道他穿得怎么样。我的意思是你可能已经失去了他的新鲜感，这是件好事。我宁愿担心他变得传统，或者至少变得严肃起来。”

“上帝啊，你说这件事是认真的吗？”

“他以前很同性恋。他确实具有玩弄创意的天才。他是一个非常健谈的人。”

“在我看来，他现在做得很好，”彼得·谢林汉姆说。

“噢，这没什么。他曾经有过伟大的飞行，非常伟大的飞行；人们看到他在蓝色中站起来、站起来、翻筋斗——人们想知道他能走多远。他非常聪明，我认为找出是什么阻碍了他的整体表现和他的各个部分一样出色可能会很有趣。我的意思是，万一他表现得不太好。”

“我看到的不仅仅是怀疑。不就是因为他太厉害了吗？”

“那将是整体——我会及时看到——但它肯定不是部分之一。这可能是结果，但不是原因，而我声称对原因感兴趣。你认为他对戏剧的评价是个混蛋吗——他宣称戏剧是一种粗俗的艺术？”

谢林汉姆说：“如果你对他的看法与你不同，那就有理由了。” “唯一不好的就是不能保留我们的差异。你不必告诉我你同意他的观点，因为坦白说我不在乎。”

“那你的热情还在燃烧吗？”尼克·多默问道。

“我的激情-？”

“我并不是指任何模棱两可的艺术的拥护者：标记出内疚的良心，标记出上升的脸红，标记出心灵的混乱！我指的是人们最了解你的古老标志；你在 Français 的永久摊位，你对 第一，你‘跟随’年轻人才和老年人的方式。”

“是的，这仍然是我的小爱好，如果你愿意的话，我的小愚蠢，”谢林汉姆说。 “我不觉得我厌倦了。你会得到什么？强烈的偏好反而是一种祝福；他们正在简化。我喜欢再现——生活的再现：我认为，我更喜欢它，而不是真实的事物。你也喜欢它，你会准备好在其他条件下以你的方式去追求它——所以你没有权利扔石头。你最喜欢用一辆车来完成，而我则喜欢用另一辆车来完成；我们对任何一方的偏好都在我们心中根深蒂固。当演员的才华——啊他一定有这个！——经过严格训练时，他的表演方式让我着迷。啊必须 be 那！在剧作家的支持下，他在表现方面可以做的事情在我看来是无数的——他可以把它发挥到一定程度！——而且我非常高兴观察它们、识别和比较它们。这是一种娱乐，就像另一种娱乐一样——我不会假装用任何崇高的名字来称呼它，但在这个充满摩擦的山谷里，它会发挥作用。一个人可能会在其中迷失自我，而且它有一个建议——我想，这与其他艺术的研究是一样的——你走得越远，你发现的就越多。如果你愿意的话，我会说得很远。但这是人们认识我的主要标志吗？”彼得突然问道。

“不要为此感到羞耻，”尼克回答道，“否则它会为你感到羞耻。我应该歧视。你在我的朋友和亲戚中以你冉冉升起的年轻外交官的性格而闻名。但你知道我总是想要对图片进行最后的润色，最后的分析成果。因此，我发现你在正在崛起的年轻外交官中很引人注目，因为你用如此漂亮的语言描述了迷恋。”

“你显然相信这会阻止我飞得很高。不过消遣归消遣有比你闲的吗？”

“比我的？”

“为什么你有六个，而我只允许自己拥有一个。真的，戏剧是我唯一的恶习。比方说，这比花几个星期的时间思考你的朋友纳什先生可能是一个最喜欢胡言乱语和令人讨厌的人的具体方式更肆意吗？这不是我理想的娱乐选择，但我会尽快向您介绍他的情况。你是一位年轻的政治家——恰好是一位 责任 暂时——但你花了不少时间在画布上涂上鲜艳的颜料。再现的想法让你着迷，但就你而言，它是用油画来再现——或者你也练习水彩画和粉彩画？你甚至比我走得更远，因为我只在别人的作品中研究我所偏爱的艺术。我并不渴望留下自己的作品。你是一位画家，可能是一位伟大的画家；但我不是演员。”尼克·多默宣称他肯定会成为其中一员——他在这方面做得很好；谢林汉姆没有理会这一指控，继续说道：“让我补充一点，考虑到你 ，那恭喜你， 作为一名画家，你对复杂的纳什的描绘是非常暗淡的。”

“他一点也不复杂；他一点也不复杂。他太简单了，无法描述。大多数人都有很多属性和附属物来装饰和修饰他们，而我喜欢加布里埃尔的原因是他根本没有任何属性和附属物。这让他，让他保持清爽的凉爽。”

“天哪，你和他很匹配！不就是一个附肢，一个躲避踢击的属性吗？他是如何做到这一点的？”谢林汉姆问道。

“我一点也不知道——我不知道他不会激起踢腿的冲动。此外，他还可以反击，我想没有人见过他躲闪。他的手段、他的职业、他的财产与这个问题毫无关系。他不会躲进别人的眼里；他就像用剪刀从纸上剪出的轮廓一样整洁。因此，我喜欢他，因为在与他打交道时你知道自己掌握了什么。对于大多数男人来说，你做不到：要摘花，你必须折断整个布满灰尘、多刺的世俗树枝；你发现你正在掌控各种各样的其他人和事，悬而未决的事故和状况。可怜的纳什没有这些负担：他是一朵孤独芬芳的花朵。”

“我亲爱的朋友，你最好也做一下同样的修剪！”谢林汉反驳道；年轻人继续他们的散步和闲聊，互相拉扯，互相拳打脚踢，因为他们都是男孩，所以表现出友好的粗暴态度。小谢林汉姆一家和小多默斯一家之间自古以来就关系亲密，他们在乡间因邻里关系融洽而团结在一起，而且父母之间还有着不容忽视的表亲关系，艾格尼丝夫人与温德拉什夫人有着这种可塑的关系，她是彼得和朱莉娅以及其他女儿和一位成熟青年的母亲，她将继承并且从那时起就继承了古代男爵领地。后来很多事情都发生了变化，但没有解释不解释的充分理由。我们的一个年轻人去了伊顿公学，另一个去了哈罗公学——分散在山上的学校是多默斯家的传统——这种分歧在大学时期就已经形成了。然而，布里克特仍然可以进入温德拉什，温德拉什到布里克特，珀西瓦尔·多默现在继承了这个庄园，通过出租中部地区那座令人愉快的白宫——其被剥夺的居民艾格尼丝夫人和她的女儿们，有点粗鲁地终止了交换。 ，很喜欢它——对一位美国著名的富人来说，他在对比感的第一印象中认为，他每年以一千二百美元的价格买到了它，很便宜。布里克特是从他的哥哥那里来到已故的尼古拉斯爵士身边的，他的哥哥去世时没有妻子和孩子。这位新男爵与他的父亲如此不同——尽管有时他会想起以他的名字命名的叔叔——以至于尼克必须通过培养顺从性来弥补这一点。他环游世界，拍摄激发社会热情的镜头，当社会上听说过它们，在英国步枪迄今为止幸免于难的少数合法生物的追逐中。与此同时，艾格尼丝夫人和她的女儿们在伦敦温带地区的一栋有山墙、格子的房子里定居下来，尽管这仍然需要一些解释。可怜的女人，布里克特的收入并没有流到她的腿上。这笔中等财产没有附属嫁妆，而代表夫人收取的遗产津贴也不是为了煽动富丽堂皇。

尼克在他母亲的屋顶下有一个房间，他主要在加尔各答花园用餐时用它来打扮晚餐，并且他“保留”了圣殿中的房间；对于一个从事公共生活的年轻人来说，独立的演讲是必不可少的。此外，他被怀疑在南肯辛顿的一个偏僻地区拥有一间工作室，尽管对于一名国会议员来说，这样的隐居处可能看起来很不协调。在这个地方见到他的选民是很荒唐的，除非他想为他们画肖像，而他们很难对这种“再现”感到满意。事实上，肖像画的唯一问题是当他们中的几个人的妻子和女儿表达了他们英俊的年轻成员的照片的愿望时。尼克并没有主动提出亲自画这幅画，加尔各答花园的女士们也认为工作室是理所当然的，而不是多加关注。他们知道，过于明显的倾向将这种突发奇想视为纯粹的奢侈行为，因此很容易被纠正。因为他们并没有忘记，卡特雷特先生的幽默感以方便的支票形式出现在清晰的建议信内页之间，这对他们来说是一种压力。卡特雷特先生是尼克的天意，就像尼克一般被视为他的母亲和姐妹的天意一样，特别是因为事实已经变得如此明显，珀西并不是一个狡猾的自私者，他主要以一种“六孔”完全超出了这个范围。卡特雷特先生寄出的支票当然不是给电影公司的。但它们表达了对尼克的普遍信心，对于一个享受如此奢侈的年轻人来说，稍微扩张是很自然的。加尔各答花园充分感受到他不会背叛这种信心。因为卡特雷特先生的行为根本没有名字，除非有人愿意称其为鼓舞人心的行为。他从未承诺过任何事情，但他是最令人愉快的人之一，救赎先于或免除了誓言。他是已故右翼尊贵绅士的早期和终生的朋友、政治追随者、忠实的崇拜者、困难时期的坚定支持者。他从未结过婚，只拥护尼古拉斯爵士的观点——他常常写信给 时 赞成他们——据我们所知，他们既不是小鸡也不是孩子；只不过是一个和蔼可亲、性格古怪的小家庭，其特点是他对生活在一个小而陡峭、干净的乡村小镇的奇怪品味，所有绿色的花园和红色的墙壁，周围环绕着树篱，所有这些都聚集在一个巨大的棕色旧房子周围。修道院。当艾格尼丝夫人的想象力寄托在她的第二个儿子的未来上时，她喜欢记住卡特雷特先生没有什么可以“跟上”的：这个推论似乎如此直接，以至于他会跟上尼克。

这个年轻人一生中最重要的事件就是两年多前，在他父亲的注视下，他在克罗克赫斯特的激烈竞争中取得了无与伦比的成功——这场胜利是他神圣的名字、他的青春年华、他对足球的热情。他的演讲充满了年轻的理想主义色彩，但又充分地抓住了这个问题——这个紧迫的问题，但后来已经被烧毁了——所引起的争论、党内明显的个人同情，以及他的演讲所激发的注意力，已经变得非常精彩。报纸上曾有一些领导人对此进行过报道，半是对她丈夫的恭维，众所周知，他的丈夫过早地失败了——他几乎和他的儿子一样年轻，死时也很出名，因为艾格尼丝夫人认为这和他的儿子一样出名。男孩的母亲虔诚地保存着这些礼物，剪下来并用丝带绑在一起，放在最喜欢的柜子最里面的抽屉里。但这是一次贫瘠的、或者几乎是一次贫瘠的胜利，因为按照尼克历史上的重要性顺序，另一件事非常接近它：无非就是议会的迅速解散，而他正是在议会中迅速解散的。显然注定会给出未来的征兆。他在大选中还没有恢复席位，因为第二次竞选比第一次更加激烈，保守党推举了一个大声、粗俗、喋喋不休、欺负人、挥金如土的人。见证了光明时刻的可怜的尼古拉斯爵士在黑暗到来之前就去世了，这在某种程度上是一种安慰。他带着所有的希望去世了，他的第二个儿子头上没有意识到近乎失望，在与尼克进行了一次漫长而至高无上的采访之后，他将火炬和传统交给了他，艾格尼丝夫人没有出席，但她知道这是一个伟大的采访。彻底的父亲般的奉献精神，对国家最高问题的庄严思想交流（她有理由相信他已经触及了对外、国内和殖民政策的问题），从那一刻起，这个男孩的本性和举止就留下了最明显的印象。痕迹。如果他的沉思倾向增加，那是因为他苍白的父亲在寂静昏暗的房间里对他说的话有太多值得思考的地方，他把死亡缩短的伟大使命交给了他，用令人难忘的庄严呼吸给他带来了难忘的回忆。尼古拉斯爵士的声音非常丰富，他的口音再次响起。这是一生的工作，而“与细节相关的协调能力”是这位令人遗憾的政治家的崇高声誉的伟大特征之一——最具分析性的周报总是在谈论它——使之成为可能。他将这一前景从任何含糊或模棱两可的阴影中拯救出来。

五年前，尼克·多默 (Nick Dormer) 接受克罗克赫斯特 (Crockhurst) 选举人的质询，彼得·谢林汉姆 (Peter Sherringham) 出现在一个考官面前，考官们没那么容易放过他，尽管也有一些对他有利的奉承偏见。这些影响是每个年轻人开始生活时所背负的大量、轻松、不令人尴尬的包袱的一部分。 然而，彼得通过了，通过了很高的要求，并得到了回报，他立即被派往德国执行小型的、从属的外交职务。 从那时起，他就开始了他的职业生涯，但我们不必担心，因为在我们认识他的三年前，他被任命为驻巴黎大使馆秘书，这些经历都显得黯然失色。 他做得很好，走得也很快，现在可以松口气了。 他更愿意留在巴黎担任下属，而不是去洪都拉斯担任校长，而尼克·多默在谈到他在法国剧院的摊位作为他的野心的镇静剂时并没有给此事添上虚假色彩。 尼克的年龄比他表弟低，这对他的影响比他们十几岁的时候更轻松了。事实上，没有人比一个已经在下议院任职一年的年轻人年纪大得多，尽管这个年轻人是在不知不觉中出现的。 分离和多样性使他们彼此变得陌生，足以为他们所共有的东西付出代价。他们是朋友，但不是特别的朋友；进一步的学位总是可以作为一种合适但不令人压抑的偶然事件而悬在他们面前，而且他们都意识到，保留某些分歧来互相“取笑”符合他们的利益——因此，如果他们不同意，他们可能会争吵。一切都有共同点。 彼得心胸宽广，发现他的表弟总是那么英国化，他有点恼火，而尼克·多默则让他成为同样富有同情心的批评的对象，承认他有一种罕见的外语技巧，但反映出来，甚至与奢侈宣告了，远离家乡却仍如此朴素是一种遗憾。 此外，尼克对外交头脑有自己的看法，但为了自己的同情心，他发现外交头脑总是走错方向。 干燥、狭窄、贫瘠、贫穷，这是他在与聪明的秘书熟悉的谈话中说出的。缺乏想象力、慷慨、最敏锐的洞察力和最高的勇气。 这和其他任何事情一样，都有助于维持他们之间的和平。他们之间应该有一些扭打，这是他们友好交往的必要条件，而他们扭打的内容并不重要。 尼克·多默尔对巴黎的喜爱，码头上的橱窗，栏杆上的旧书，河流的欢乐，卢浮宫的宏伟，那张巨大面孔上的每一个精致的特征，都让他的同伴觉得这是与世隔绝的标志;对谢林汉姆来说，欣赏这些事物已经成为一种无意识的习惯，一种心满意足的同化。 如果说可怜的尼克在这个时候表现得情绪化、抒情的话，那是因为他没有其他方式来表达对独立生活的告别，而独立生活这个词现在似乎已经明确可见——这种感觉如此强烈地压在他​​身上，以至于这些他自由的最后时刻。

当他和他的三个家庭成员到达他们选择的餐厅时，彼得·谢林汉姆已经坐在一张完美无暇的桌子旁边，但达洛夫人还没有到场，他们有时间进行社交和解——时间各就各位，摊开餐巾，嚼碎面包卷，呼吸着美味的空气，看着门口，然后通常会抬起头，悬起叉子，伴随着这位女士大部分动作的骚动，宣布她进来了。这 商行夫人 躲了又躲，人们环顾四周，彼得和尼克站了起来，椅子传来一阵移动声——朱莉娅来了。彼得正在讲述他如何在她的旅馆停下来带她一起去，却发现按照她的习惯，她根本没有准备好。由于担心他的客人会先到达约会地点并受到不适当的欢迎，他没有带她离开，留下她跟随。他没有像他想的那样带朋友来，因为他推测朱莉娅如果想谈论她的候选人，她会更喜欢纯粹的家庭聚会。现在，她站在那里，低头看着桌子和她期待的亲戚，脱下手套，让她的兄弟脱下她的夹克，举起双手重新整理一下她的帽子。她最后看着尼克，微笑着，但只笑了一会儿。她对彼得说：“我们要在这里吃饭吗？哎呀，你怎么没有私人房间呢？”

尼克已经好几个星期没有见到她了，一年来也很少见到她，但她那随性而粗鲁的态度在这段时间里并没有改变。她语速出奇地快，仿佛说话本身并不是一种乐趣——要尽快结束；和她 布鲁斯奎里 友好的评论家以害羞为借口解释了这种黑暗的阴影。在他看来，害羞从来都不是一种终极品质，也不是对任何事物的真正解释。它只是用一种结果来解释另一种结果，没有任何值得夸耀的理由。他对朱莉娅的怀疑是，她的思想不如她的性格讨人喜欢。这是一个丑陋的、令人沮丧的想法，但他至今还没有接受一半。在这起案件中，她有权排除所有疑点，不应该在没有经过完整审判的情况下对她进行审判。与此同时，尼克害怕审判——这就是他最近很少见到她的部分原因——因为他害怕判决，害怕任何可能削弱她美丽的魅力的事情。摆脱。有人认为她粗鲁，而他讨厌粗鲁的女人。如果他执着于这种观点，或者更确切地说，如果这种观点执着于他，那么她身上仍然令人高兴和他所欣赏的东西就会失去太多的甜蜜。如果说他还无法解读一个他从小就认识的女人的性格，这可能会让人觉得奇怪，但答案是，这个性格的成长速度比尼克的观察要快。生长是持续的，而观察只是偶尔的，尽管它很早就开始了。如果他试图在内心表达这件事（他可能没有这样做），他可能会宣称她对他产生了太多的强迫感；不是出于设计的强迫，也不是强求，也不是家庭期望的粗俗压力，也不是他想要娶她到足以娶她的背叛的愿望，而是各种紧急事情的混合体；她给人一种专横而慷慨的感觉——可能前者多于后者——以及某种对厄运的预感，以及他应该到来的想法的影响，他是命中注定的。

这让他不敢了解她最坏的一面。并不是想要及时适应，而是他更典型的愿望，就是想要插入一种暂时的幻觉。然而，每当他在分离后遇见她时，幻想与现实、希望与恐惧都陷入了混乱。就单独见到她或不断交谈而言，这次分离已经相当长了。自从他未能重新获得席位以来，这种情况就一直持续着。他的印象是，她对这次失败的判断相当僵化，她认为，而且有些尖锐地说，他应该做得更好。这是她专横的方式的一部分，而不是 所有 仅仅在目前的基础上就被忽视。如果他要娶她，他就应该与她达成谅解：他应该给她自己的尺度，也应该接受她的尺度。但实际情况中的理解可能表明他太多了 是 娶她。你可以和你的妻子吵架，因为有补偿——为了她；为了她；为了她；为了她。但你可能不准备提供这些补偿作为奢侈争吵的预付款。

当朱莉娅·达洛漂亮的脑袋再次摆在他面前时，我们的年轻人仍然这样想，这并不是说这样的奢侈是相当可观的。一年中的任何一天，兴高采烈的心情当然都比失态的多愁善感好。她的肤色和她哥哥很相似，但由于她脸上没有其他地方相同，所以相似度并不惊人。她的头发呈深棕色，通常被认为是黑色，而且头发又浓密，需要简单的整理才能使其与她身体的其他部分保持自然的关系。她的眼睛是灰色的，有时显得太浅，并且没有凹陷在脸上，而是很好地位于表面。她的鼻子很完美，但嘴巴太小了；尼克·多默尔，毫无疑问还有其他人，有时会想知道她的脸怎么能用这样的嘴来表达决定。她的身材对此有所帮助，因为她看起来很高——极其苗条——但实际上并非如此。她的头不断变换着姿势，虽然这种或那种方式与平常只有半英寸的距离，但不知怎的，却增添了一种决心和脾气。如果不是她的线条和表面极其精致，她可能会被称为“大胆”；但事实上，她看起来优雅而安静——传统的优雅和安静是有目的的。总而言之，她很美丽，她那优雅的头颅显得庄重，她的头发像黑暗的深处，她的眼睛像早期的空旷，她的嘴像一朵罕见的粉红色花朵。

彼得说他没有选择私人房间，因为他了解毕迪的品味。她喜欢看看这个世界——她已经告诉过他了——好奇的人们，巴黎的来来往往。 “哦，为了毕迪，什么都可以！”朱莉娅回答道，对女孩微笑并取代了她的位置。艾格尼丝夫人和她的大女儿交换了一个眼神，尼克开玩笑地说，他不明白为什么要为了一个自以为是的孩子而牺牲整个聚会。这个自以为是的孩子脸红地抗议说她从来没有向彼得表达过这样的愿望，对此尼克以更广泛的幽默透露彼得为他们服务是出于小气：他在公共房间里把他们放在一起，因为他不肯去的费用 柜。他没有带来任何客人，没有显赫的外国人，也没有外交上的人物来招待他们，现在他们会看到他给他们准备的晚餐是多么微不足道。彼得愤怒地用长长的一卷刺伤了他，艾格尼丝夫人似乎在等待达洛夫人的某种表现，但没有出现，她带着一定的冷漠得出结论，他们对自己的隐私和隐私感到非常满意。为社会。尼克提醒人们注意他母亲的这句优美的话语，并说它非常整洁，而格蕾丝和毕迪则和谐地看着朱莉娅的衣服。尼克感到紧张，开了很多玩笑来掩盖这一点——这种轻松并没有阻止朱莉娅过了一会儿对他说：“你知道，你今天可能会来看我。你没有收到彼得给我的消息吗？”

“骂他吧，朱莉娅——好好骂他。我恳求他走，”艾格尼丝女士说道。格蕾丝补充道：“噢，朱莉娅，把它给他吧！”然而，这些话并没有达到他们所暗示的效果，因为达洛夫人只是以她快速简短的方式拒绝回答，因为这会让他太过分了。尼克在心里认为她身上有一种不优雅的地方，即骄傲或害羞的反常，如果她看到你期待什么，她总是让你有点失望。她以某种方式冷落了热情洋溢的态度，但却没有给出任何有趣的暗示，表明她希望自己保留这种热情。然而，热情洋溢无疑是艾格尼丝夫人最不愿意被指责的。尼克虽然回答朱莉娅说他确信自己不应该找到她，但他也无法察觉到他母亲接受的手术是出于那种阴暗的态度。 “他应该走了；他欠你这个，”她继续说道。 “但确实，他会和我们一样幸运。午饭后我就和女孩们一起去了。我想你已经拿到了我们的名片。”

“他可能是在我进来之后才来的，”达洛夫人说。

“亲爱的朱莉娅，今晚我要去见你。我一直在等待。”尼克回答道。

“当然 we “我不知道你什么时候进来的。”艾格尼丝女士说道。

“我很抱歉。你明天必须来。我讨厌晚上打电话。”朱莉娅平静地补充道。

“那么，你愿意和我一起去流浪吗？你愿意挽着我的手臂漫步巴黎吗？”尼克微笑着问道。 “你愿意和我一起开车吗？”

“噢，那真是太完美了！”格蕾丝喊道。

“我以为我们要去某个地方——去竞技场，彼得，”比迪说。

“哦，不是全部；就咱俩！”彼得笑道。

“我要回家睡觉了。我已经得到了休息，”艾格尼丝夫人叹了口气。

“彼得不能接受吗？ us？”格蕾丝问道。 “妈妈，如果朱莉娅不接待尼克，尼克可以带你回家，而我可以很好地照顾彼得和毕迪。”

“带他们去做一些有趣的事情；请收下它们，”达洛夫人对她的兄弟说。她的声音很友善，但又带着同意的意思，尼克既看出了她的善良，又感受到了压力。 “你累了，可怜的亲爱的，”她继续对艾格尼丝夫人说。 “想象一下你被拖来拖去的样子！你过来干什么？”

“我妈妈来了，因为我带了她，”尼克说。 “是我把她拖来的。我带她来是为了换点零钱。我认为这对她有好处。我想去看看沙龙。”

“现在时机还不错。我有一辆马车，你必须使用它；你不能使用任何其他东西。它会带你去任何地方。明天我开车送你到处走走。”朱莉娅说出这些话的时候，她的神情充满了能力，而不是缺乏。但尼克已经注意到了，而且他现在又高兴地重新注意到，她缺乏涂油的行为对她总是表现得丝毫没有影响。他非常清楚，在剩下的时间里，她可能会和他母亲在一起，她会为她做无数的好事。她会给女孩们一些东西——他私下里对此有预感；昂贵的巴黎东西，也许不是完全有用的。

艾格尼丝夫人是一位会衡量支出和回报的女人，但她太敏锐，也太公正，无法认识到可以从中获得优势的最微弱的报价。 “亲爱的朱莉娅！”她回应地喊道；她的语气使这种简短的致谢变得足够了。朱莉娅想要的只是她自己的几句话。 “Harsh 非常有趣，”她补充道。 “我们非常兴奋。”

“是的，尼克看起来就是这样。 谢谢，葡萄酒吧。这正是适合你的，你知道，”朱莉娅对他说。

“可以肯定的是他知道这一点。他非常感激。你真是太好了。”

“你给了我很大的荣誉，朱莉娅，”尼克赶紧补充道。

“请别累了，”那位女士回答道。

“我们稍后再讨论。当然还有很多要点。”尼克继续说道。 “现在我们纯粹是欢乐的。不知何故，“严厉”在这里是一个错误的说法。 理性的原因设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“我亲爱的朋友，你完全听懂了加布里埃尔·纳什先生的语气，”彼得·谢林汉姆对此宣称。

“加布里埃尔·纳什先生是谁？”达洛夫人问道。

“尼克，他是位绅士吗？毕迪是这么说的，”格蕾丝·多默尔在回答这个问题之前插话道。

“应该说，任何一个尼克带来和我们一起吃午饭的人——！”艾格尼丝大人冷冷地叹了口气。

“啊，格蕾丝，你的水准真高！”她儿子说；而彼得·谢林汉姆则向他的妹妹解释说，纳什先生是尼克的新导师或神谕——而且，她应该看看他是否愿意来和他一起喝茶。

“我一点也不想见他，”朱莉娅回答道，“就像我不想谈论可怜的彼得的严酷和无聊一样。”

“哦，当然，亲爱的，你会让我厌烦的，”她哥哥大声说道。

“那就一次一件事吧。让我们尽一切努力保持欢乐。只是你必须告诉我怎么做，”达洛夫人继续对尼克说。 “他是什么意思，艾格尼丝表弟？难道他要我们把酒杯一饮而尽，妙语连珠吗？”

“你会做得很好，”尼克说。 “你今晚真是太迷人了。”

“如果你想要一些令人兴奋的事情，就去彼得家吧，朱莉娅。你会看到一个很棒的女孩。”毕迪冲着彼得微笑着插话道。

“精彩有什么用？”

“因为她认为自己可以采取行动，但实际上却做不到，”顽皮的毕迪说。

“天哪，你们都认识什么人啊！我讨厌彼得的戏剧人物。”

“你不回家吗，朱莉娅？”艾格尼丝夫人问道。

“住酒店吗？”

“亲爱的，不，对哈什来说——看看一切。”

“我正在处理电报。我还不知道。”

“我想他们毫无疑问会抓住他，”艾格尼丝女士决定追击。

“谁会拥有谁？”

“为什么，当地人和党的管理者。我说的是我儿子的地位问题。”

“我敢说，他们会得到我希望他们得到的人。里面有这么多人，从某种意义上说，这太可怕了。我喜欢你坐在那里的样子，”朱莉娅继续对尼克说道。

“我也是，”他对她微笑。他以为她 是 现在很迷人，因为她快乐、随和，尽管她可能会辩称自己无能，但她确实愿意理解在外国城镇的酒馆里吃晚饭是多么有趣。她的幽默感很好，或者说将会是这样，而不是盛大，不僵硬，不冷漠，也不傲慢，也没有任何不喜欢她的人通常会发现她的东西，有时甚至有一点点让他相信她。一些冷漠的人身上的欢乐精神并不完全快乐，他们的娱乐努力太像河马的沐浴；但当达洛夫人把胳膊肘放在桌子上时，人们觉得可以相信她可以再次安全地把它们取下来。

对于一个正在哀悼的家庭来说，晚餐很热闹。更重要的是，演出还没过半，朱莉娅就安排她哥哥为了避免低级场面，带女孩们去法国剧院。这是她的想法，尼克有机会观察到，当朱​​莉娅的想法出现时，如何容易引起争议。连节目都像是预先安排好的，正好迎合年轻人的脸皮——里恩的灾难 和 德拉塞利埃小姐。彼得很乐意，但最终是朱莉娅解决了这个问题，甚至派人去拿报纸——他罕见地没有意识到晚上的账单——并让比迪放心，因为他们也在一起的文章，比迪很高兴但很焦虑。好地方迟到了。彼得总能获得好位置：只要他一句话，最好的包厢就由他支配。她让他把这个词写在一张卡片上，然后看到一名信使带着它被派往黎塞留街。所有这一切都没有大声或坚持，而是附带的和权威的。包厢是定制的，他们一喝完咖啡，马车就来了。彼得和女孩们开着车离开了，他知道他要把车送回来，尼克和两位女士一起吃完饭，等待着它。此后，他的母亲被护送到那里，并被送往她的公寓，而自始至终，朱莉娅都在掌控着接下来的事件。 “一定要对她好一点，”当他把艾格尼丝女士放在咖啡馆门口的车里时，她对他说道。他猜想，让他和达洛太太坐在一起会让她感到安慰。

他总是对他那迷人的表弟很好。如果事情按照她喜欢的方式进行，那就证明她体内有某种强大的力量——假设事情会发生的力量。朱莉娅也有自己的分歧——有些是好的方面，有些是好的方面。当她像今晚一样，自由自在地处于主导地位时，他准备鼓励她认为理所当然的大部分事情。当他们等待与他母亲一起开走的马车返回时，她坐在他对面，胳膊肘撑在桌子上，先玩弄一个，然后又玩弄阻碍马车的另一个​​物体；五分钟后，她惊呼道：“哦，我说，走吧！”突然站起来，要她的外套。他说了一些关于马车和它回来接他们的命令的事情，她回答说：“好吧，它可以再次消失。我不需要马车，”她补充道，“我想步行”——一会儿她就离开了这个地方，桌子上的人又转过身来， 出纳员 在她高高的座位上摇晃。她在林荫大道的人行道上上下打量着。门口的小桌子旁坐着一些人。宽阔的柏油路上到处都是人。光线充足，声音弥漫。到处都是，尽管他们用餐的餐厅并不处于激烈的争斗之中，但巴黎的夜景却象征着大量的欢乐，这将巴黎视为一个巨大的感官市场。越过卡普辛大道，它就像一个巨大的集市一样在温暖的夜晚闪耀，杜兰德咖啡馆对面的玛德琳玫瑰戏剧化，一个高雅的艺术 装饰 皇家街的脚灯前。 “我们去哪里，做什么？”达洛夫人问道，看着她的同伴，这让他有些惊讶，因为他以为她只想回家。

“你喜欢去哪儿就去哪儿。天气太热了，我们可能会开车而不是进屋。我们可能会去森林。那就太好了。”

“是的，但它不会走路。不过，这并不重要。它对任何事情都足够温和——适合像所有这些人一样坐在外面。我从来没有在巴黎晚上散步过。这会让我觉得很有趣。”

尼克犹豫了。 “所以可能会，但不特别推荐给女士。”

“如果它恰好适合我，我不在乎。”

“那好吧，如果你愿意的话，我们就步行去巴士底狱。”

朱莉娅犹豫了一下，站在一边，仍然四处张望。 “太远了;我累了;我们就坐在这里吧。”她在杜兰德先生的“露台”上的一张空桌子旁坐下。 “这样就可以了；这很有趣，我们可以看看玛德琳蛋糕——这很值得尊敬。如果我们必须拥有一些东西，我们就会有一个 马代尔——这值得尊敬吗？不是特别？那就更好了。那些人有什么？ 博克斯？难道我们不能有 博克斯？他们很低吗？那我就拥有一个吧。我一直表现得非常好——我一直住在凡尔赛宫： 我爱你设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

她坚持说，但当它被端上来时，她说高玻璃杯里的稀薄液体非常恶心。尼克感到很惊讶，他想，他的母亲让他双手插在口袋里，并不是为了进行这样的讨论。他一直看着外面，但随着他的口才变得更快，他转向他的朋友，她已经坐在沙发上，脸对着窗户。她把外套和手套给了女仆，但帽子却留在了身上。她坐下时身体稍微前倾，双手交叉放在膝上，眼睛盯着他。角落里的灯被厚厚的遮盖着，整个房间都处于一种阴暗的气氛中，街道和对面明亮的店面的光线几乎相等。 “因此，为什么要像报纸上的社论那样明智而严肃地对待它呢？”尼克微笑着补充道。

他说完后，她继续看着他，然后说道：“如果你不想站起来，就直说吧。你不需要说出你的理由。”

“你真是太好了，居然放过我！然后我是一个了不起的人，这是有原因的；这是我的强项，你知道吗？除了我提到的那些之外，我还有很多东西，已经完成并准备交付。奇怪的是，他们并不总是控制我的行为。我想我确实想站起来。”

“那你刚才说的是演讲，”朱莉娅宣称。

“一个演讲？”

“‘腐烂’，竞选活动的骗局。”

“不，那些伟大的真理以及许多其他真理仍然存在。但内心的声音告诉我，我会这么做。拥抱这个机会，接受你的合作，比等待其他机会而丧失这种优势要优雅得多。”

“我很乐意在任何地方为您提供帮助，”她继续说道。

“非常感谢，”他回答道，仍然双手插在口袋里站在那里。 “你在自己的位置上会做得最好，我没有权利拒绝为自己提供这样的帮助。”

朱莉娅冷静地思考着。 “我做得还不错。”

“啊，你太政治化了！”

“我当然是;这是唯一体面的事情。但只有你愿意帮助自己，我才能帮助你。我可以做很多事情，但我不能做所有事情。如果你愿意工作，我就和你一起工作；但如果你把手插在口袋里去做这件事，我就不会跟你有任何关系。”尼克立即改变了这些成员的位置，手肘撑在膝盖上，坐到了座位上。 “你很聪明，但你确实得费点麻烦。东西是不会落到人嘴里的。”

“我会尝试——我会尝试。我有很大的动力，”他承认。

“当然有。”

“我的母亲，我可怜的母亲。”朱莉娅发出了一些模糊的声音，他继续说道：“当然还有我的父亲，亲爱的好人。我妈妈比你更政治。”

“我敢说她是，而且完全正确！”达洛夫人说。

“她不能比你告诉我更多她的想法、她的信仰和她想要的东西。”

“请原谅，我可以完美地告诉你。我一直非常想要一件事——将保守党拒之门外。”

“我懂了。这是一个伟大的哲学。”

“它会做得很好。我渴望国家的利益。我并不为此感到羞耻。”

“你能告诉我什么是国家的利益吗？”

“我完全知道它不是什么。这不是保守党想要做的。”

“他们想做什么？”

“哦，我要花很长时间才能告诉你。各种垃圾。”

“你会花很长时间，他们也会花更长的时间！他们想做的就是阻止 us 从做。在我们这边，我们希望阻止他们阻止我们。这与我们大家所看到的一样清楚。因此，从双方角度来看，这都是一个美丽、清晰、鼓舞人心的节目。”

“我不相信你，”达洛夫人靠在沙发上回答道。

“我希望不会，朱莉娅，确实如此！”他停顿了一会儿，脸仍然对着她，手肘放在膝盖上。然后他继续说道：“你是一位非常有成就、非常热心的女人；但你没有想法，你知道——不能称之为想法。你主要想要的是成为一个政治沙龙的主持人；开始一项工作，坚持下去，使其成功。”

“你很了解我！”朱莉娅抗议道；但透过昏暗的光线，他可以看出她脸上的表情有所不同。

“你会及时得到它的，但我不会来，”尼克继续说道。

“你来的次数不能少于你的次数。”

“当我说你会得到它时，我的意思是你已经得到了它。这就是我不来的原因。”

“我认为你不明白你的意思，”达洛夫人说。 “我有一个想法，在我看来，这个想法和你们今晚招待我的任何一个想法一样好——一个简单的想法，即一个人应该为自己的国家做某事或那件事。”

“‘某事或那事’当然涵盖了所有内容。一个人总是可以为自己的国家做一件事，那就是不要害怕。”

“怕什么？”

尼克·多默等了一会儿，好像他的想法很有趣，但他很快说道：“我下次再告诉你。能如此流利地谈论站立的事情真是太好了，”他补充道。 “但我没有现金这个问题并不完全陌生。”

“你之前做了什么？”她问。

“这是我父亲第一次付钱。”

“那另一次呢？”

“噢，卡特雷特先生。”

“你的开支不会很大；相反，”朱莉娅说。

“他们不会的；我会密切注意这一点。我将拥有伟大的哈奇比。”

“当然;但你知道我希望你做得很好。”她顿了一下，然后说道：“当然，你可以把账单寄给我。”

“非常感谢；你非常友善。我不该想这个。”尼克·多默说着就站了起来，再次走到窗前，背对着同伴站着，同伴的目光落在他身上。 “我会想办法解决的，”他总结道。

“先生。卡特雷特会很高兴，”朱莉娅说。

“我敢说，但我讨厌拿别人的钱。”

“这对于国家来说简直是无稽之谈。不就是为了 他们？“

“等他们拿回来的时候！”尼克回答道，转身寻找他的帽子。 “时间太晚了；你一定很累了。”达洛夫人对此没有做出任何回应，他继续着自己的追求，直到他到达房间的一个昏暗的角落时才成功，那顶帽子已被他表弟的女仆放到了那里。 “先生。如果卡特雷特付钱的话，他的期望会很高。你也会的。”

“是的，我必须说我应该这么做！我应该期待很多——一切。”达洛夫人站直身子，强调了这一点。 “如果你骑行时会摔倒，如果你只是为了错过它，那么你最好留在外面。”

“我怎么能错过它 您？”年轻人笑了。她不耐烦地但又难以辨认地说了一句话，他继续说道：“即使我这么做了，也会非常有趣。”

“这非常有趣，”朱莉娅说。 “但最好的乐趣就是获胜。如果你不——！”

“如果我不这样做呢？”当她倒下时，他重复了一遍。

“我再也不会和你说话了。”

“即使你不付钱，你的期望是多少！”

达洛夫人的反驳证明了这一言论的合理性，她表达了这样一个事实：如果他们明天收到她认为自己有权统计的信息，这些信息往往表明保守党打算多么努力地战斗，她应该关注他和她一样早在现场。周日是一个失落的日子。她应该周一离开巴黎。

“哦，他们会奋力抗争； “他们会把金斯伯里安置起来。”尼克一边说，一边抚平帽子。 “他们都会下来——所有能逃走的东西。金斯伯里有一位非常漂亮的妻子。”

“她没有你表弟那么漂亮，”朱莉娅微笑道。

“哦，天哪，不——表弟比妻子更重要！”尼克一说完就笑了，好像这话有尴尬的一面。但赔偿也许并不能弥补这一点，他还夸张地假装温顺地补充道：“我会做你告诉我的任何有福的事情。”

“那就明天过来吧——最早十点。”她转身，和他一起向门口走去。但在他们到达之前，她问道：“请问，绅士不应该做任何事情，成为任何人吗？”

“成为任何东西——？”

“如果他不想为国家服务。”

“你的意思是渴望获得政治财富吗？哦，上帝保佑我，是的，还有其他事情。”

“还有什么东西可以与之相比呢？”

“嗯，比如说我，我非常喜欢艺术。”

“艺术方面的？”她附和道。

“你从来没有听说过他们吗？我非常喜欢画画。”

听到这里，朱莉娅突然停了下来，她那双漂亮的灰色眼睛一时间显得更加前倾。 “别可恶了！晚安，”她说着，转身离开，让他走了。

第二天，彼得·谢林汉姆提醒尼克，他已答应出席卡雷夫人的会见，会见加布里埃尔·纳什介绍给她的女士们。下午，按照这个安排，两人前往君士坦丁堡街。他们在老女演员那间装饰华丽的小客厅里找到了纳什先生和他的朋友们，据他们所知，这位老女演员在一次课上被扣留了，请求宽限十分钟——一场排练。 沙龙喜剧 一位美丽的女士即将将其捐赠给慈善机构，她同意作为顾问出席该慈善机构。罗斯夫人坐在黑色缎子沙发上，女儿坐在她旁边，而加布里埃尔·纳什在房间里走来走去，看着那些奉献的祭品，这些祭品把那个用灰白色和金色装饰的小镶板盒子变成了一个戏剧博物馆：礼物，卡雷夫人在半个世纪的声誉中收集的肖像、花环、王冠、镶框和上釉的信件、奖杯、贡品和文物。这种丰富的证词并不比承认错过的事情、沉默的事情更引人注目，这些事情似乎从这一切中升起，使它变得忧郁，就像对鼓掌的提及，从本质上讲，现在只能以沉默：因此，如果这个地方充满了历史，那么它只是一种没有事实的形式，或者至多是一个的冗余，另一个的一小部分——面具的历史，吱吱声，一系列的历史徒劳的手势。

这位杰出艺术家展出的一些物品，她早期的肖像画，无论是石版画还是微型画，都代表了服装，体现了一个遥远时期的风格，以至于尼克·多默尔在看到这些物品时，对这个女人产生了一种强烈的好奇心。他们接受了今天的生活与很久以前的生活。彼得·谢林汉姆已经知道她是如何创造这个奇迹的，但每次他拜访她，都让他感到又好笑又着迷，他觉得这一切都是真的。 是 这是一个奇迹，他非凡的老朋友看到了他永远、永远不应该看到的东西。这些正是他最想看到的事情，而她的持续时间，她的生存，愉快地欺骗了他，并帮助他猜测了一些。他对演员艺术的欣赏是如此系统化，以至于有一种古董的一面，而且冒着把他描绘成一种荒谬的徒劳的风险，必须说，迄今为止，他几乎没有比失去演员更强烈的遗憾了。那个先前的世界，特别是他迟来地错过了伟大的 女演员是本世纪初法国舞台上的光芒，卡雷夫人的榜样和指导使她受益匪浅。她经常向他描述她罕见的前任，她直接从他的手中得到了她最著名的部分，而她自己的举止常常是对他的宗教模仿。但她的描述让他烦恼多于安慰，只是证实了他的理论，他的大量观察已经证实了这一点，即演员的艺术总体上正在走下坡路，走下坡，脚下是粗俗的深渊，之后这位女士的才华在五十多年前就达到了完美。他很想在子午线下停留一个小时。

加布里埃尔·纳什向他的同伴介绍了新来者。但两位女士中较年轻的一位并没有表现出愿意参与这笔交易的迹象。那个女孩很白。她蜷缩在那里，沉默而僵硬，吓得要死，面无表情地凝视着。如果布里吉特·多默此刻看到她，她可能会因为前一天在沙龙中在莫德·瓦瓦苏尔充满挑战的目光下遭受的精神挫败而感到报仇。现在很明显，如果不是瓦瓦苏尔小姐把在场的人看作这么多的守卫和看守人，她早就逃跑了。她的出现让尼克觉得收藏它们的小艺术殿堂就像是牙医的候诊室。谢林汉姆见过很多紧张的女孩在同样的磨难面前瑟瑟发抖，他喜欢对她们友善，说一些能帮助她们公正对待自己的话。在特定情况下，几乎绝大多数人都认为他们拥有人们能想到的比戏剧性更高的其他才能。但他总是忍不住担心这个场合不应该太残酷，即使是违背他的良心。确实，在某些情况下，对某些自以为是的无能例子进行适当的惩罚简直太残酷了。他想起了纳什先生对这个不幸的少女所说的话，并意识到虽然她可能很无能，但她现在绝非自以为是。加布里埃尔开始与尼克·多默交谈，而彼得则对罗斯夫人讲话。直接对女孩说任何话都是没有用的，她甚至不敢听。罗斯夫人的披肩在她身上飘扬，她依偎在女儿身边，伸出手安慰着米丽亚姆的一只手。她有一双漂亮、傻乎乎的近视眼睛，一个又长又细的鼻子，上唇突出在下唇之上，就像装饰性的檐口支撑在其支撑上一样。 “这很大程度上取决于——真的一切！”她在回答谢林汉姆的一些社交评论时说道。 “要么是这个，”她表情丰富地在房间里翻了个白眼，“要么就是——我不知道是什么！”

“也许我们人太多了，”彼得大胆地对她女儿说道。 “但实际上，在你开始之后，你会发现，四五个你会做得更好。”

在她回答之前，她转过头，抬起了美丽的眼睛。下一瞬间，他就看到他们满脸是泪水。但她说的话，虽然像是敲着银锣，却没有感性的味道：“哦，我不在乎。” 您！”他听了大笑，说这话说得很好，如果她能给卡雷夫人这样一个标本的话——！他话还没说完，女演员就进来了，他观察到女孩悲伤地站起身来，低着头，从眉毛下面向外看。她的脸上没有任何感情，只有敬畏和痛苦的空洞，甚至没有任何优点，因为它没有任何反应。但他同时指出，头脑很好。它强烈而显着，可以在远处分辨出来。卡雷夫人一开始几乎没有理睬她，只是按照她在其他人中的顺序向她打招呼，并指着座位，用微笑和手势围成一圈，就好像他们都在提示框前一样。这位老女演员给人的印象是一个红脸、戴着假发、眼睛圆睁、鹰钩鼻、双手漂亮的红脸女人。但尼克·多默（Ni​​ck Dormer）对人类表面的过度刻痕有着敏锐的洞察力，他很快发现这些相对粗糙的痕迹包含了大量精致的细节——眉毛、鼻孔、一闪而过的表情，仿佛有许多细小的面部线条。被从内部拉出来。这位成就卓著的艺术家的嘴尤其是一种罕见的乐器，一双嘴唇的曲线和精致的角诉说着一生中准确无误的“点”和精美的诗句，有助于解释从那里发出的声音的纯粹性。他们。她的整个面容看起来像是长期服役的东西——一种被无限磨损和使用、过度拉伸和拉伸的东西，它的弹性过度，弹簧松弛，但却被认真地保存和维护，甚至就像一些有价值的旧钟表一样。颤抖着，隆隆作响，但可以相信它会报时。她一开口，加布里埃尔·纳什就可爱地喊道： “啊，塞利梅内之声！” 塞利梅内浓密的假发顶上戴着一朵红色的大花，神态庄严，摇头晃脑，举止各有各的威严。除此之外，她很奇怪，几乎是怪诞的，对某些人来说甚至是可怕的，能够用她冷酷的眼睛重新出现，就像黑暗中的一种奇怪的景象。她为自己让大家久等而辩解，用最滑稽的方式模仿着，语调像长笛一样优美，表演和佯装。 美女们 她刚才一直在努力向他传达一些基本知识。 “Mais celles-là，c'est une plaisanterie” 她又去找罗斯太太。 “而你和你的女儿， 谢尔夫人——我确信你是另一回事。

女孩已经擦掉了眼泪，正凝视着她，鲁思夫人倾身向前，充满预兆地说道：“她懂得四种语言。”

卡雷夫人扭过头，做作地看了一眼。 “这三个太多了。关键是要对一个人做一些正确的事。”

“我们非常认真，”法语说得很好的罗斯夫人继续说道。

“我很高兴听到——il n'y a que ça。就这样——脑袋很好。”她看着女孩说道。 “但是让我们看看，我亲爱的孩子，你里面有什么！”小姐仍是无力说话，她张开嘴唇，但什么也没说。由于这次努力的失败，她将深沉阴沉的目光转向了三个男人。 “不美好的尊重——携带得很好。”卡雷夫人进一步评论道。但就在她说话的时候，罗斯小姐那双美丽的目光又变得湿润了，下一刻她肯定开始哭泣了。尼克·多默（Ni​​ck Dormer）如雨后春笋般涌现；他感到尴尬和冒犯——坐在那儿看着一个可怜的女工与胆怯作斗争，实在是太不礼貌了。一阵混乱。罗斯夫人的眼泪也流了下来。纳什先生高兴地接受了这句话，但同时也向他的同伴们发出了最友好、最熟悉的鼓励。彼得·谢林汉姆提出当场与尼克一起退休，如果他们的存在给这位年轻女士带来麻烦的话。但骚动很快就结束了。卡雷夫人示意罗斯夫人离开座位，坐在女孩旁边，纳什明智地向其他男人解释说，如果他们离开她，她的情况会更糟。她的母亲恳求他们留下来，“这样至少应该有一些英语”。她说话的口气就好像这位老女演员是一支由法国女人组成的军队。现场的年轻女主角很快就醒过来，坐在她旁边沙发上的卡雷夫人握着她的手，发出完美的安抚音乐。 “神经，神经——它们一半是我们的事。如果你还有别的东西的话，想吃多少就吃多少。 让我们——你知道什么吗？

“我知道一些片段。”

“其中的一些片段 剧目？“

米丽娅姆·罗斯瞪着眼睛，好像不明白。 “我懂一些诗。”

“英语、法语、意大利语、德语，”她妈妈说。

卡雷夫人看了鲁斯夫人一眼，表示对这一消息的重复出现感到恼火。 “她想用这些语言表演吗？短语手册不是喜剧！”

“这只是为了向你展示她是如何接受教育的。”

“啊， 谢尔夫人，没有什么教育是重要的！我的意思是保存正确的那个。你女儿一定有一种特殊的说话方式，就像我一样 梅西厄斯设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“你看我会不会说法语。”女孩对女主人微笑着说道。她现在看起来几乎已经镇定下来了。

“你说得非常完美。”

“还有英语，”罗斯小姐说。

“你不应该成为一名演员——你应该成为一名家庭教师。”

“哦，别告诉我们这个：这是为了逃避那个！”罗斯夫人恳求道。

“我非常确定你的女儿会逃脱这一困境，”彼得·谢林汉姆感动地插话道。

“哦，如果 您 可以帮助她！”这位女士满怀憧憬地说。

“她确实拥有所有引人注目的品质，”彼得回答道。

“你是 最先进的 先生好心！”罗斯夫人优雅地披上衣服，说道。

“她认识 Célimène；我听过她演奏《Célimène》，”加布里埃尔·纳什对卡雷夫人说道。

“她认识朱丽叶，她认识麦克白夫人和克利奥帕特拉，”罗斯夫人补充道。

“让我们，我亲爱的孩子，你想为法国舞台工作还是为英国舞台工作？”老女演员问道。

“我们的人非常需要你，罗斯小姐，”谢林汉姆勇敢地脱口而出。

“你能和伦敦的任何人通话吗？你能介绍一下她吗？”妈妈急切地问道。

“亲爱的女士，我必须先听听她的话，听听卡雷夫人说的话。”

“她有一副罕见的美丽声音，我能听懂声音，”罗斯夫人说。

“啊，那么如果她有智慧，她就有一切天赋。”

“她有一颗最富有诗意的心灵，”老太太继续说道。

“我想画她的肖像； “她就是为此而生的。”尼克·多默大胆地对罗斯夫人说道。部分是因为对女孩是否适合坐着感到震惊，部分是为了减轻缺乏表现力的观众的粗鲁。

“所有艺术家都这么说。我已经画了三四个她的头像了，如果你想看的话：她有多种风格。如果你要为她做事，我相信这会让她受到庆祝。”

“我也是，”尼克轻松地笑道。

“确实是——国会议员！”纳什宣称。

「啊，我很荣幸——？」罗斯夫人低声说道，她看上去既满意又困惑。

尼克解释说她根本没有荣誉感，同时卡雷夫人一直在质问那个女孩“谢尔夫人，我对你女儿无能为力：她知道的太多了！”她爆发了。 “可惜了，因为我喜欢野生的抓它们。”

“哦，如果仅此而已，她就够狂野了！这就是重点，即在哪里尝试的问题，”罗斯夫人继续说道。 “我要把她发射到什么地方——什么危险的波涛汹涌的大海？我这么着急地想起来了。”

“试试这里——试试法国公众：他们是最严肃的，”加布里埃尔·纳什说。

“啊不，试试英语吧：真是难得的空缺！”谢林汉姆迅速表示反对。

“噢，这不是公众，亲爱的先生们。这是私人的一面，是其他人——这是生活，是道德氛围。”

“Je ne connais qu'une scene,—la notre，”卡雷夫人宣称。 “每个知道没有其他人的人都向我保证。”

“非常正确地保证，”纳什先生说。 “我们国家的戏剧是幼稚而野蛮的。”

“必须为此做点什么，也许小姐就是做这件事的人，”谢林汉姆有争议地建议道。

“啊但是， 有待，能为她做什么？卡雷夫人问道。

“嗯，我能帮忙做的任何事，”彼得·谢林汉姆说，他越来越被这个女孩的富有类型所打动。讨论进行时，米里亚姆·鲁思静静地坐着，以一种奇怪的依赖性坦诚从一位发言者看向另一位发言者。

“啊，如果你的角色被标记出来了，我恭喜你，小姐！”——这位老女演员在这句话上画了下划线，就像她经常在舞台上给其他人画下划线一样。她对这位年轻的有抱负的人微笑，但他似乎并不理解她。然而，她的语气却深入到了母亲本性的某些深处，给焦躁的水面又增添了一丝骚动。

“我觉得她有责任在戏剧的生活、标准中找到什么，”罗斯夫人解释道。 “最纯粹的音色在哪里——最高的标准在哪里？这就是我要问的，”这位好心的女士继续说道，语气中带着一种误导性的紧张，引得加布里埃尔·纳什发出一阵不客气但友善的笑声。

“最纯粹的音调——qu'est-ce que c'est que ça？”卡雷夫人以现代喜剧的最佳方式要求。

“我们非常、 非常 值得尊敬，”罗斯夫人继续说道，但现在她也微笑着，变得轻松起来。

“我想要的是让我的女儿的行为——以及她应该参与的行为的画面——不会绝对可怕。现在， 谢尔夫人，这一切怎么样？怎么样 执行 在法国剧院——她应该看到的所有东西，她应该听到的东西，她应该学的东西？”

正如谢林汉姆的感受，她的女主人接受了它， 德特雷上。 “我想我不知道你在说什么。这些是她在任何地方都可能看到、听到和学到的东西；只是他们做得更好，说得更好，最重要的是他们得到了更好的教导。在我看来，女演员唯一的行为就是她自己的行为，而她表现自己的唯一方式就是不做一根无助的棍子。我不知道还有其他行为。”

“但是有些角色，有些情况，我认为我不应该喜欢看到 这里 承担。”

“毫无疑问，有很多，她最好不要去管！”法国女人笑道。

“我不应该喜欢看到她代表一个非常坏的女人——一个 真 坏人，”罗斯夫人平静地追问。

“啊，那么在英国，在你们的剧院里，每个人都完美无瑕？你的戏一定比我想象的还要巧妙！”

“我们没有任何比赛，”加布里埃尔·纳什说。

“人们会为罗斯小姐写下这些——这将是一个新时代，”谢林汉姆带着肆意的、或者至少是好斗的乐观态度插话道。

“将要 您先生，您愿意做点什么吗？我们伟大的英国理想之一的草图？”老太太饶有兴趣地问道。

“哦，我知道你用我们的作品做什么——以显示你高超的美德！”他还没来得及回答说他只写了外交备忘录，卡雷夫人就哭了。 “坏女人？ Je n'ai joué que ça，女士。 '特别糟糕？我试图让它们变得真实！”

“我可以说‘冒险’，”米丽娅姆冷冷地打断道，这似乎暗示着她想要参与母亲的关怀。

“那么请让我们很高兴听到您的声音。卡雷夫人会给你 réplique，”彼得谢林汉姆说。

“当然，我的孩子；不用书我也能说出来。”卡雷夫人回答道。 “把你自己放在那儿——把椅子移开一点。”她拍了拍这位年轻的访客，鼓励她站起来，并与她确定了他们应该拍摄的场景，而三个男人则跳了起来，安排了表演的地点。米丽亚姆离开座位，茫然地环顾四周。然后，她摘下帽子，交给母亲，站在指定地点，眼睛盯着地面。然而，突然，卡雷夫人并没有开始这一幕，而是转向老太太，神态表明她心中正在积聚力量，对这位来访者刚才的言论进行反驳。

“你把事情搞混了， 谢尔夫人，我很想告诉你这一点。我相信其他英国人的情况更是如此，我从来没能了解到你的道德或你的才能会因此而受益。在我看来，过于受人尊敬而不去事情做得最好的地方确实是非常邪恶的。为了保持自己的美德而做坏事，就会陷入比其他任何事情都更令人震惊的粗俗之中。把它们做好就足够了，不把它们搞砸才是唯一的体面。这已经够难的了，值得进入天堂。其他一切都是卑鄙的骗局！ 瞧，亲爱的女士，我来解答你的顾忌！

“这真是令人钦佩——令人钦佩；我很高兴我的朋友多默能听到你这么说！”纳什大声喊道，随意指定了尼克。

那个年轻人认为这实际上是一次表明问题的智慧的演讲，但他相当讨厌加布里埃尔应该认为这会让他觉得这是一个启示；为了表明他熟悉它所表明的思路，也为了在这个小圈子里发挥自己的作用，他对罗斯夫人说，好像他们可能认为许多事情是理所当然的：“换句话说，你的女儿必须在艺术良心中找到她的保障。”但话音刚落，他就对他们如此公开地在可怜的女孩英俊的鼻子底下讨论罗斯小姐可能找到的保持她个人完整性的最佳条件感到惊讶。然而，这种反常现象是轻微且不压抑的——公开讨论敏感问题的回声似乎如此熟悉地萦绕在这个自负的小房间里。而且，这次的女主角显然已经不再尴尬了。她是鼎上的女祭司，等待着灵感的降临，脑子里只想着这一点。她光着头，改变了姿势，保持直立，双臂垂在身体两侧，令人钦佩。她的眼睛直视着窗外，凝视着君士坦丁堡街对面的房屋。

鲁斯夫人带着惊讶而恭敬的注意力听着卡雷夫人讲话，但尼克考虑到她，非常确定她根本没有接受这位伟大艺术家的小教训。但这并不妨碍她在回答自己时惊叹道：“哦，美好的艺术生活——确实有什么比这更美的呢？”

彼得·谢林汉姆什么也没说。他正在观察米丽亚姆和她的态度。她穿着一件黑色连衣裙，褶皱笔直。她的脸在平眉毛下显得苍白而规矩——有一种奇异的、强烈的、悲剧性的美。 “我不知道她身上有什么，”他自言自语道。 “看来，她的长期空缺并没有带来什么。但这样的脸，这样的脑袋，真是福气啊！”卡雷夫人带她去书本上，给她讲了克罗林德演讲的第一句：“你不是我，我的孩子，今天”。但女孩还是犹豫了，有一瞬间似乎做出了徒劳的、痉挛般的努力。在这抽搐中，她不祥地皱起了眉头。她低低的前额遮住了她的眼睛；阴影中的眼睛凝视着，灿烂而冰冷，她的双手紧握在身体两侧。她看上去严肃而可怕，在这一刻她就是一个化身，她的生动形象让谢林汉姆忍不住哭了起来。 “Elle est bien belle—ah ça”老女演员低声说道；在女孩嘴唇发出声音之前的停顿中，彼得转向他的亲戚，低声说道：“你必须把她画成那样。”

“像那样？”

“作为悲剧缪斯。”

她开始说话了；一个长长的、有力的、毫无色彩的声音在她年轻的喉咙里颤抖着。她在与塞莉的令人钦佩的采访中，以一种粗鲁的单调，说出了克罗林德的台词，这是第三幕的瑰宝，然后，她获得了信心，努力进行转调，但并不完全成功，显然她觉得不那么成功。 。卡雷夫人没有举手就将球送了回去，她重复了西莉的演讲，这些演讲是她记忆中经常对她说的，并以柔和、交流的艺术读出诗句。于是他们继续观看这一幕，当这场戏结束时，米丽娅姆·罗斯并不是一个胜利。谢林汉姆忍住不看加布里埃尔·纳什，卡雷夫人说道：“我认为你有发言权， 马菲尔，某个地方或其他地方。我们必须尝试并把手放在上面。”然后她问她得到了什么指示，女孩扬起眉毛，看着她的母亲，而她的母亲则在提示她。

“太太。德拉米尔在伦敦；她曾经是英国舞台上的装饰品。她只给极少数人上课；这是一个很大的恩惠。这是一个非常好的人！但最重要的是，罗明坚先生——我认为他教给我们的最多。”罗斯夫人解释说，这位先生是罗马的一位意大利悲剧演员，他指导米里亚姆如何正确地发音以及朗诵和手势的艺术。

“我保证打手势！”他们的女主人宣称。 “他们为聋子模仿，为盲人强调。德拉梅尔夫人无疑是所有美德的缩影，但我从未听说过她。你旅行的次数太多了，”卡雷夫人继续说道。 “这很有趣，但学习的方法就是呆在家里，把自己关起来，敲击体重秤。”罗斯夫人抱怨说他们无家可归。老女演员在回答时惊呼道：“哦，你这个英国人，你是 d'une légèreté à faire frémir。 如果你没有家，你就必须建造一个家，或者至少为了体面假装拥有一个家。在我们的职业中，这是首要条件。”

“但是哪里？这就是我所要求的！”罗斯夫人说。

“为什么不在这里？”谢林汉姆被淘汰了。

“哦，这里！”这位善良的女士摇了摇头，世界充满了悲伤。

“来伦敦生活吧，然后我就可以画你的女儿了，”尼克·多默插话道。

“这就是全部吗，我亲爱的朋友？”加布里埃尔·纳什问道。

“啊，伦敦充满了回忆，”罗斯夫人继续说道。 “我父亲在那里有一栋很棒的房子——我们总是来这里。但一切都结束了。”

“在这里学习，然后去伦敦露面。”彼得说着，语气中却充满了轻浮的感觉。

“用法语出现？”

“不，用莎士比亚的语言。”

“但我们不能在这里研究这个。”

“先生。谢林汉姆的意思是他会给你上课。”卡雷夫人解释道。 “让我不得不说——他是一位出色的批评家。”

“你怎么知道这一点——你是一个无可挑剔、完美无缺的人？”谢林汉姆问：这个问题被女孩鼓起勇气宣布她能背诵阿尔弗雷德·德·缪塞的《夜》而提前得到答复。

“可恶！”女演员说：“这超出了我的能力！无论如何，请给我们一个样本。”

女孩再次摆好姿势，把缪塞笔下的诗人与缪斯的一段精彩对话的片段卷出来——骄傲地大声地卷起来，在房间里扔来滚去。卡雷夫人一开始看着她，但过了一会儿她就闭上了眼睛，尽管最好的部分是欣赏她年轻候选人的美丽。谢林汉姆原以为米里亚姆对她第一次表演的平淡无奇感到相当羞愧，但现在他发现她几乎没有意识到这一点：她相当振奋和大胆。她把神圣的诗句搅得一团糟，尽管有一定的响亮和节奏，显然是在模仿一位著名女演员、卡雷夫人的一位同志，她曾听到卡雷夫人朗诵这些诗句，但她的创作就好像她是在蒙着眼睛猛冲一样。她要“抓住”的某个玩伴。当她说完后，卡雷夫人没有做出任何判断，只是淡淡地说：“也许你最好说点英语。”她建议写一些小诗——如果有英语寓言的话，也可以写一些寓言。当她听到没有这种语言时，她似乎并没有感到惊讶——这是一种人们对这种语言的期望如此之低的语言。罗斯夫人说：“她把丁尼生记熟了。我认为他比拉封丹更深”；经过一番深思熟虑和拖延后，米丽娅姆突然开始唱《食莲花者》，几乎气喘吁吁地从这首歌直接转到《爱德华·格雷》。谢林汉姆此时已经听到她做出了四种不同的尝试，他唯一的概括是，她以完全相同的语气说出了这些不同的作品——一种庄严、单调、拖沓的方式，暗示着讲坛上的劝告，并且显然采用了这种方式。带着“影响”的意图，来自于“风格”的粗略想法。这一切都是葬礼式的，但又很粗糙。谢林汉姆认为她的英语表演不如她的法语表演那么无用，但他可以看出卡雷夫人听得并不那么愉快。从女孩哭诉丁尼生诗句的方式中，他发现了一丝微弱的光芒，就像深水中的珍珠一样。但她走得越远，对加布里埃尔·纳什先生的神经的刺激就越剧烈：他也可以从这位绅士最后小心翼翼地溜到窗前，靠在那里，头伸出，背对着展览的方式发现。他有沉默表达的艺术；他的态度尽可能清楚地表明：“不，不，你不能说我没礼貌，也不能说我脾气不好。而且，我是这个场合的表演者，我会回避自己，让你来评判。如果生活中有一件事是我讨厌的，那就是客厅背诵的这种愚蠢的新时尚，以及那些练习这种做法的令人难以忍受的生物，他们阻止谈话，而且，因为他们在谈话之下，你不能用批评来惩罚他们。所以我这样做实在是太宽宏大量了——把这些无知的女人带到这里来，以我个人的代价，来压制我正义的反感。”

虽然谢林汉姆私下判断罗斯小姐无罪释放的方式没有引起任何兴趣，但他仍然意识到有一些东西超越了她的失败并幸存下来，也许值得他好奇。这是轮廓和态度的元素，她站立的方式，转动眼睛、头部和移动四肢的方式。这些事情引起了人们的注意；他们有一种天生的权威，尽管他们提出了太多建议，但学校里的女学生 生动的画面，一种“塑料”的宏伟。而且，当他看着时，她的脸变大了。某种微妙的东西在其中显现出来，一种模糊的多样性承诺和对耐心的感人恳求，仿佛它意识到能够随着时间的推移表现出更多的阴影，而不是迄今为止主要装饰它的简单而引人注目的阴暗。简而言之，这些相当粗鲁的身体幸福构成了她职业的唯一标志。他几乎不愿意认出他们。他经常见到他们，而他们却毫无意义，以至于他最终认为他们几乎是无能的保证。他知道卡雷夫人对他们的重视程度太低，以至于在衡量他们的做作性质时，她把他们排除在外。当她失去了帮助和完成她们的其他财产的护送时，她几乎认为她们是成功的积极障碍——她唯一推崇的成功。她比他自己更频繁地对年轻女子进行评判，对她们来说，如果奇迹可行的话，她们的头发、眉毛和雕像般的气质就会创造出圣化她们愚蠢的奇迹。但那个奇迹从来没有出现过。她评价最高的品质不是天赋，而是演员通过孜孜不倦的学习从矿井中挖掘出来的努力获得的征服效果。谢林汉姆记得，在他们相识之初，他曾就这个问题与她进行过一次友好的争论，当时他很感动，为礼物的理由辩护，无疑是超出了范围。她甚至说，一个严肃的喜剧演员应该为他们感到羞耻——为把自己的观点寄托在他们身上而感到羞耻；当谢林汉姆引用伟大的雷切尔作为一名球员时，她的天赋非常丰富，并因此获得了最高的胜利，她宣称雷切尔就是证明她观点的例子；——一种由一两个主要助手辅助的天赋，声音和眉头不祥，但本质上是由工作形成的，不懈而凶猛的工作。 “我一点也不关心你们那些漂亮的女孩，”她说。 “但是请给我带来一个愿意像雷切尔那样辛苦劳作十分之一的人，我会原谅她的美丽。当然， 请注意, 雷切尔不是 伟大的贝特：如果你喜欢的话，这就是一份礼物！”

罗斯夫人显然对她女儿的身材感到非常自豪——众所周知，她的女儿对女主人的影响就像一个 伟大的贝特——轻率而平静地向卡雷夫人提出上诉，请求裁决；但幸运的是这位女士很健谈 保姆 与此同时，茶盘也嘎嘎地进来了。老女演员忙着给她的英国客人提供茶点，热情好客，在这样的消遣的掩护下，当其他人在一起交谈时，谢林汉姆向她提出了一个问题：“嗯，我年轻的朋友有什么问题吗？ ”

“我什么也看不见。她声音很大，而且很粗鲁。”

“她非常害怕。你必须考虑到这一点。”

“非常害怕我，但一点也不害怕她的作者——也不是你！”卡雷夫人微笑着。

“你对纳什那个家伙告诉你的话没有偏见吗？”

“为什么有偏见？他只告诉我她很漂亮。”

“你不这么认为吗？”

令人钦佩。但我不是摄影师，也不是裁缝，也不是理发师。我不能用‘后发’做任何事，也不能仅仅用大眼神做任何事。”

“这个头非常高贵，”彼得·谢林汉姆说。 “当她说英语时，她的声音有一些甜美的语气。”

“啊，你的英语——可能吧！我只能说，我认真地听了她的话，我并没有察觉到她做了什么 细微差别，单个词形变化或意图。但没有一个， 蒙彻。我不认为她聪明。”

“但他们一开始不是常常显得很愚蠢吗？”

“说永远！”

“那么，有些人不是会成功吗——即使他们很英俊？”

“当他们很帅的时候，他们总是会成功——以这样或那样的方式。”

“你听不懂我们英语，”彼得谢林汉姆说。

卡雷夫人喝了茶。然后她回答说：“嫁给她吧，我的儿子，并给她钻石。让她当大使；她看起来会很好。”

“你对她兴趣这么小，以至于你不想为她做任何事？”

“做任何事？”

“给她一些教训。”

老女演员看了他一会儿。之后，她从茶桌旁站起来，对米里亚姆·罗斯说：“我亲爱的孩子，我为 英语场景。你把英语做得最好。”

“我做得好吗？”女孩问道。

“你有很多东西要学；但你的武力很粗鲁。主要的事情 再来一首，但他们会来的。你必须工作。”

“我认为她有想法，”罗斯夫人说。

“她是从你那里得到的，”卡雷夫人回答道。

“我必须说，如果是这样的话 我们的 剧院我就放心了。我确实认为我们的更安全，”这位好心的女士继续说道。

“毫无疑问，我们的很危险。”

“你的意思是你更严厉，”女孩说。

“你妈妈说得对，”女演员微笑着说。 “你有想法。”

“但是接下来我们该怎么办——我们该如何进行呢？”罗斯夫人哀怨而含糊地向三位先生提出了这一呼吁。但他们已经离了几步远，正忙着说话，所以没能听到他们的声音。

“工作工作工作！”女演员惊呼道。

“用英语我可以扮演莎士比亚。我想扮演莎士比亚，”米里亚姆表示。

“这很幸运，因为在英语中你没有其他人可以玩。”

“但他是如此伟大——而且他如此纯洁！”罗斯夫人说。

“看来这确实救了你。”卡雷夫人回答道。

“你觉得我其实很糟糕，不是吗？”少女一脸严肃的问道。

“我的天，你是你的迪莱杰吗？ 当然你很粗暴；但我在你这个年纪也是如此。如果你找到了自己的声音，它可能会带你走得更远。再说了，我怎么想又有什么关系呢？我该如何为你们的英国公众做出判断呢？”

“我该如何找到自己的声音？”米丽娅姆·罗斯问道。

“通过尝试。 Il n'y a que ça。像马一样日以继夜地工作。此外，正如谢林汉姆先生所说，他会帮助你。”

那位绅士听到他的名字，转过身来，女孩向他求助。 “你真的会帮我吗？”

“找到她的声音，”卡雷夫人说。

“当声音有价值时，它是发自内心的；所以我想这就是寻找它的地方，”加布里埃尔·纳什建议道。

“你知道的很多；你什么都没有！”米丽亚姆反驳道，脸上露出了她这一次第一次露出的喜悦之情。

“有声音吗，我的孩子？”纳什先生问道。

“任何心意——或者任何礼仪！”

彼得·谢林汉姆暗自表示，他更喜欢她的忧伤，因为她说出这几句话的方式中并非完全没有表现出得体的语气。此外，他很恼火，因为在他刚刚与这位年轻女士的介绍人举行的简短会议上，他不得不应付充满希望地谈论她的相当困难的电话。纳什先生温和地微笑着说道：“我的年轻朋友给人留下了怎样的印象？”——对此，彼得的乐观主义感觉被一种尴尬的逻辑所困扰。他回答说，他承认自己有希望，尽管他什么也没做；——同时，这个可怜的女孩，她的人的夸张的“点”和她试图表达的虚荣心，构成了一种挑战，他觉得这是一个探究的主题、一个问题、一个可探索的小册子。她太坏了，让人无法扑倒，但又太“吸引”——也许毕竟只是粗俗——让人无法忽视，尤其是当她用悲惨的目光注视着他，深信着“真的吗？”这封信对他的影响是直接针对他的荣誉，给了他一个勇敢真实的机会，甚至勇敢一点的嘲笑，以便在一个特殊的情况下表明他一直坚持的一般观点，即年轻人的学习方向因为舞台的兴趣可能与任何其他艺术吸引力一样高。

“先生。纳什为我们提供了巨大的服务，将我们介绍给卡雷夫人，我相信我们非常感谢他。”罗斯夫人带着亲切的纠正态度对女儿说道。

“但这对我们有什么好处呢？”女孩问道，对女演员微笑着，轻轻地将指尖放在她的手上。 “卡雷夫人以可爱的耐心听我说话，然后向我介绍我的生意——啊，以世界上最漂亮的方式。”

“小姐，你没那么粗鲁；那语气非常 公正。美好时光;工作工作！”女演员哭了。 “那里有一个拐点——或者说非常接近。多练习，直到掌握为止。”

“来练习一下吧 me“如果你妈妈愿意带你来的话，”彼得·谢林汉姆说。

“你上课——你听懂了吗？”米丽亚姆问道。

“我是一个老戏迷，我对自己的判断有着无限的信心。”

“‘老’，先生，说得太过分了，”罗斯夫人抗议道。 “我女儿知道你的地位很高，但她很直接。你总会发现她是这样。也许你会说，还有一些不太光荣的错误。我们很高兴来看你。哦，我在她这个年纪的时候就去过大使馆。那么她今天为什么不去呢？那是在达维南特勋爵的时代。”

“明天有几个人要来和我一起喝茶。也许你五点钟就来。”

“它会让我想起亲爱的旧时光，”罗斯夫人说。

“谢谢;明天我会努力做得更好，”米里亚姆非常甜蜜地宣称。

“你每一分钟都做得更好！”谢林汉姆回来了——他看着女主人，表示支持这一声明。

“她正在寻找自己的声音，”卡雷夫人承认。

“她正在找朋友！”罗斯夫人插了进来。

“别忘了，当你来到伦敦时，我希望你能来看看 me”尼克·多默对女孩说道。 “尝试画你——这对我有好处！”

“她甚至找到了两个，”卡雷夫人说。

“这是为了弥补我失去的一个！”米里亚姆用一种非常鄙视的眼神看着加布里埃尔·纳什。 “是他认为我不好。”

“你这么说是为了让我开车送你回家；你知道它会的，”纳什回答道。

“我们都会送你回家；为什么不？”谢林汉姆问道。

卡雷夫人看着此刻比以往更加英俊的英俊姑娘，又看着三个戴上帽子准备陪伴她的年轻人。她冷酷而明亮的眼睛里瞬间浮现出更深沉的表情。 “啊啦青年！”她叹了口气。 “我的孩子，如果你是地球上最伟大的鹅，你就会永远拥有它！”

第二天，米丽娅姆来到彼得·谢林汉姆家，显然是想“说”些什么，这样一位戏剧赞助人不可能不邀请她，尽管卡雷夫人家的展览本可以促使她迅速发出邀请。 。他的好奇心与其说是被激发，不如说是被平息了，但他仍然觉得自己已经“吸收”了这个黑眉毛的女孩和她怀旧的母亲，必须面对这一行为的直接后果。在加龙宫门口的一小群人最终散去之后的二十四小时里，这一责任一直压在他的肩上。

离开卡雷夫人后，两位女士明确拒绝了纳什先生提供的出租车，并在先生们的陪同下步行回家。那时的巴黎街道灯火通明，时不时发生的事情，谢林汉姆幽默地走在街上，速度不太快，边走边稍微倾身与米丽亚姆交谈。他们的步伐由她母亲控制，母亲挽着加布里埃尔·纳什（尼克·多默在她的另一边）的手臂，带着优雅的蔑视向前迈进。她倾斜的背影就在他们面前，尽管她有严格的原则，但她却没有保持静止的状态，她丢失和找回的披肩的小戏剧永远在上演。

谢林汉姆没有对女孩谈论她的表现或她的能力。他们谈论的只是她和母亲的生活方式——他们的旅行、他们的生活。 养老金，他们的经济，他们对家园的渴望，她熟悉的许多城市，她所掌握的外语和广阔的世界视野。他很容易猜到这两位女士的悲惨流放方式，她们是寻找大陆廉价的流浪者，习惯于奇怪的接触和妥协，在英国“人脉非常广”，但却出去吃饭。这个女孩只是间接地与人交流；尽管这似乎不是出于任何保密计划，而是出于与她不信任的人交往的习惯。她支离破碎、唐突，而且一点也不害羞，像以前一样，对卡雷夫人充满了恐惧。她给了谢林汉姆这种恐惧的理由，而他认为她的理由天真自命不凡。 “她最崇拜一位伟大的艺术家，胜过世界上任何人；在艺术面前， 大艺术，她的心跳得好快。”她的举止并不完美，各种经历的摩擦让她变得更加粗糙，而不是变得更加光滑。她没有说任何证明她聪明的话，尽管他猜这是她的两三句话的设计；但他与她分开时，怀疑用当代法语的说法，她是一种“本性”。

加龙酒店位于歌剧院大道和交易所广场之间一条未整修的小街上，老巴黎的鹅卵石街道上依然繁盛。谢林汉姆偶尔会穿过昏暗的高处，但从未注意到那高高的、陈腐的东西。 梅森梅布勒一家三流省级旅馆的外观，正是罗斯夫人标准缩水的例证。 “我们想请你上来，但那是在顶层，我们没有客厅，”这位可怜的女士勇敢地解释道。 “我们必须在一家咖啡馆接待纳什先生。”

尼克·多默声称他喜欢咖啡馆，而米里亚姆看着他的表弟，突然热情地放弃了这个要求：“你是否认为我应该想做点什么——这样我们就可以不再像猪一样生活了？”

第二天彼得认识到，虽然听她说话可能很无聊，但让她背诵总比让她什么都不做要好，所以他的妹妹和艾格尼丝夫人的存在，甚至格蕾丝和毕迪的存在，都有效地发挥了作用，似乎，通过一种奇怪的默契反对，剥夺了她的理性，尽管它是装饰性的。他只要看到他们在一起就知道她不可能是来“会见”他们的——甚至她母亲暗示的温柔也未能把这个场合置于那种基础上——因此必须假设她是被带来的。向他们展示一些东西。她并没有屈服，也没有毫无生气地坐在那里，甚至是为了谈话——那种谈话很可能会成功——所以不可避免地把她的位​​置与地毯上的主要位置联系在一起，沉默、专注以及把椅子拉到一起。即使如此，他一开始也觉得这件事很不稳定，在光明或黑暗中，其他女士们毫无表情的面孔，成双成对地坐在沙发上——除了朱莉娅和多默斯之外，还有几个；主要是谢林汉姆的同事秘书的妻子和她们的丈夫——他觉得在女孩应该说完的时候，他几乎不能指望他们能滔滔不绝地滔滔不绝。

罗斯小姐描绘了朱丽叶喝药水的情景，正如她母亲解释的那样，根据系统，著名的鲁杰里先生的场景——一个高亢激烈的声音、许多哭声和扭曲的场景：她摇晃着她的头发（事实证明这很壮观） - 表演结束前就下来了。然后她朗诵了几首维克多·雨果的短诗，这些诗是鲁斯夫人从数百首诗中挑选出来的，这位好心的女士小心翼翼地让大家知道。此后，她跳到美国七弦琴上，用朗费罗、洛厄尔、惠蒂尔、福尔摩斯以及现在首次向谢林汉姆透露的两三位女诗人的样本，为大家带来熟悉和新鲜的样本。她滔滔不绝地滔滔不绝，保持着地板，明显为自己的运气而高兴，以至于她的主人主要忙着想知道如何才能让她停下来。他对她的曲目范围感到惊讶，考虑到她永远不可能得到太多鼓励——这肯定主要来自她的母亲，而且他不相信罗明坚先生——这表明她有一个非常顽固的野心和一种浮躁的能量。最后是她的母亲检查了她，他发现自己怀疑加布里埃尔·纳什已经向老妇暗示干涉是必要的。对他自己来说，他主要庆幸的是卡雷夫人没有来。他觉得她会认为这次展览很糟糕、很无礼、缺乏批评，是完全不雅的。

他对这场戏的女主角唯一的新印象就是同样的高度自信——她的冷静、她的自满、她渴望继续下去。她本来对老女演员怕得要命，但对一群人却一点也不害怕。 世界女性，朱莉娅，艾格尼丝夫人，大使馆里聪明的女人。肯定是这些人物比较害怕。确实有那么一刻，连朱莉娅第一次说起这件事时都感到害怕。空间太小，衣衫褴褛的女孩的哭声、抽搐和冲刺声太近了。艾格尼丝夫人大部分时间都表现出她在剧院看一场手枪射击的戏剧时所表现出的表情。事实上，这位年轻朗诵者的态度变得更加痉挛和更具爆发力。然而，公司似乎普遍认为她非常聪明和成功。在谢林汉看来，这表明他们对此事的了解是多么的少。可怜的毕迪深受打击。当米丽亚姆在她最好的时候，脸色变得苍白而致命时，她的脸色变得通红，全神贯注。在商定最好不要再让她劳累之后，是她第一个对她说话的。她向前走了几步，碰巧离得最近——她低声说道：“哦，太谢谢你了。我从来没有见过如此美丽、如此宏伟的东西。”

当她说这句话的时候，她看起来很红很漂亮，彼得·谢林汉姆很喜欢她，当她看起来比平时更漂亮时，他会更多地注意到她，更喜欢她。当他转过身去时，他听到米丽娅姆的回答，语气中并没有对她的敬意表示赞赏：“我以前见过你——两天前和多默先生在沙龙里。是的，我知道他是你的兄弟。从那时起我就认识了他。他想为我画肖像。你觉得他会做得好吗？”他担心这个女孩有点野蛮，而且有点虚荣。如果两个年轻女子的简短对话的其余部分传到他的耳朵里，这种印象也许会得到证实。毕迪大胆地观察到，她自己学过一点模特，她能理解任何艺术家如何认为罗斯小姐是一个出色的主题。如果确实如此 她 可以尝试一下她的头，那确实是一个机会。

“谢谢你，”米丽亚姆带着高雅喜剧般的笑声说道。 “我想我宁愿不 家庭过客！”然后她补充道：“如果你的兄弟是一名艺术家，我不明白他在议会里的表现如何。”

“哦，他现在不在议会——我们只希望他能加入。”

“啊，我明白了。”

“而且他也不是艺术家，”毕迪觉得自己必须认真地声明。

“那么他就什么都不是了，”罗斯小姐说。

“嗯——他非常聪明。”

“啊，我明白了，”罗斯小姐再次回答道。 “先生。纳什把他吹得这么高。”

“我不认识纳什先生，”毕迪说，他为自己有点干巴巴和有点失实陈述而感到内疚，并感到自己受到了冷落。

“好吧，你不必愿意。”

毕迪在她身边又站了一会儿，仍然看着她，不知道接下来该说什么，但并没有发现她因为她的举止如此奇怪而变得不那么英俊。毕迪有一个聪明的小头脑，总是尽可能地把不同的东西分开。现在，她心里充满了一种反省，同时也带着些许欣慰，如果这个女孩对她说话时对尼克的态度如此出人意料地熟悉，那么她根本就没有提到彼得。两位绅士走过来，他们是彼得的两位朋友，向鲁斯小姐发表了毕迪认为人们在巴黎学会的那种演讲。女孩私下推断，毫无疑问，正是在巴黎，他们学会了倾听他们的声音，就像这位引人注目的表演者倾听一样。她接受他们的预付款的方式与她接受毕迪预付款的方式非常不同。谢林汉姆注意到他年轻的女亲戚转身走开，脸仍然很红，再次坐在她母亲身边，留下米里亚姆和两个男人在一起。她似乎意识到，有那么一刻，她表现得异常自发和大胆，而且她已经付出了一些代价。她母亲旁边的座位上坐着鲁斯太太，艾格尼丝夫人带着全神贯注的宽容将头偏向她。他确信罗斯夫人正在向她讲述纽金特城堡的内维尔-纽金特家族的事，而艾格尼丝夫人却觉得很奇怪，因为她从未听说过他们。他对自己说，毕迪很慷慨。她催促朱莉娅过来，是为了让他们看看这个奇怪的年轻女人有多糟糕，但现在事实证明这件事令人眼花缭乱，她忘记了这一计算，并为她天真地认为是表演者的胜利而感到高兴。然而，她却远离朱莉娅。她甚至没有看她一眼，邀请她承认，用通俗的话说，他们已经被卖掉了。 ”踩在某人的脚趾上。她就像一头踢翻了挤奶桶的奶牛。她应该被绑起来。”

“我可怜的朱莉娅，情况不太好； “这根本就不好。”谢林汉有些恼怒地回答道。

“那么请原谅我。我以为这就是你邀请我们的原因。”

“我以为她与众不同，”彼得有点愚蠢地说。

“啊，如果你不那么关心她就更好了。在我看来，你总是太看重那些人了。”

“哦，我确实也很关心她——确切地说。她很有趣。”他的妹妹疑惑地看了他一眼，他补充道：“她很可怕。”他感到愚蠢的恼怒，并为自己的恼怒感到羞愧，因为他找不到理由。当他看到加布里埃尔·纳什接近尼克·多默介绍的朱莉娅时，这种感觉并没有减弱。他很乐意地给这两个年轻人让座，因为纳什的出现让他有一种对他们的样本感到错误的感觉。他记得他应该把这位绅士介绍给他的妹妹，这可以说是他们讨价还价的一部分。对于尼克解除他的职务，他并不感到遗憾，他甚至心照不宣地、讽刺地祝愿他亲戚的朋友与达洛夫人的谈话愉快。谢林汉姆的一生都是与人一起度过的，他习惯了与人相处，无论是作为主人还是作为客人，他总体上都轻松地承担了社会负担。他可以毫无不安地观察，尤其是在前一种身份下，也可以毫无焦虑地测量体温。但目前，他的同伴对他造成了压迫；他感到忧心忡忡，而且他表现出了这种忧虑——对于一位致力于外交的绅士来说，这是他在世界上最不尊重的事情。他对自己以这么蹩脚的借口召集全屋子人的轻率感到恼火，同时又对让目击者如此明显地认为借口足够的愚蠢感到恼火。他内心为自己的错觉而呻吟，在这种错觉下，他给自己配备了悲剧缪斯——一个尖锐而活泼的悲剧缪斯——却又希望他的访客走开，让他单独和她在一起。

尼克·多默对达洛夫人说，他想让她认识他的一位老朋友，他认识的最聪明的人之一；他还补充说，希望她能温柔地对待他，鼓励他。他是如此胆怯，如此容易惊慌失措。纳什先生随即坐到了她沙发扶手旁的椅子上，他们的同伴走开了，达洛夫人把目光转向了她的新朋友，没有明显地改变位置。然后她迅速地说：“当人们被告知自己很聪明时，这是非常尴尬的。”

“如果不这样做才尴尬，”加百列微笑道。

“是的，但是这样的人太少了——足够被谈论了。”

“这不就是为什么这样的事情，这样的例外，应该向他们提及的原因吗？”他问。 “他们可能无法自己找到答案。当然，正如你所说，应该有一个确定性；那么他们就更确定知道了。多默是一个可爱的小伙子，但他很鲁莽、肤浅。”

达洛夫人受到这种刺激，第二次把目光转向她的客人。但在接下来的谈话中，她很少重复这个动作。如果她非常喜欢尼克·多默——并且可以毫不拖延地向读者传达她的喜好——她的喜欢是一种与她不喜欢没有任何困难的类型，以防万一出现这种复杂情况，无论是一个人还是其他人。属于他。为了她所爱的人而“忍受”别人并不是她的本性：这种忍受通常都消耗在爱中，而没有留下任何东西。如果孤立和简化其对象的情感可以与寻求交流和契约的情感区分开来，那么朱莉娅·达洛的情感就属于包围型，更不用说是缩小型的了。与其说她嫉妒，不如说她本质上是排外的。她不希望与这位熟悉但有些不健全的亲戚有任何经历，她对他感兴趣，而她自己也不会希望与他有任何经历。事实上，她对他感兴趣的部分原因是他帮助她实现她所渴望的特定延伸——伟大事务和公共行动的品味和刺激。对她来说，对他有这样的抱负似乎是她能给他的最高荣誉。她的良心和倾向都在其中，而她的计划，在她看来，是高尚的，足以掩盖她可能对把他引向另一条路的力量所产生的蔑视。总的来说，她对他现有的关系抱有偏见、怀疑，并且在等待中表现出不经意的轻蔑。在一个奇怪的情况下，即使他和他一样了解她，她仍然持怀疑态度，他认为这些书值得推荐给她：这个推荐确实在很大程度上证实了她的怀疑。

这条法律规定加布里埃尔·纳什注定要受苦，如果加布里埃尔·纳什在任何情况下都可能遭受苦难的话。他的假装实际上是他已经清除了生活中这种浪费的可能性，尽管他可能会承认，如果那个漂亮的容器出现泄漏，那么它侧面的伤口就会被女人的手处理。前两天晚上，达洛夫人与她的兄弟和多默斯一家共进晚餐时，感动地感叹彼得和尼克认识最非凡的人。至于彼得，这位态度端正的女孩和她的母亲现在非常生动地指出了这一寓意。因此，认为她身边那个自负的男人也有类似的品质是理所当然的，他坐在那里，仿佛他可以时时刻刻靠在她沙发的扶手上。她一点也不想和他谈论自己，有那么一瞬间，她担心他会从聪明转向胆怯。然而，这是一场虚惊，因为他只是对优雅的提取物所带来的乐趣提出了批评——字面上的意思 投掷 一般来说——从房间的中央，在一个人毫无防备的头部。他暗示，在他看来，这些乐趣都是表演者的。无论如何，审计员们让罗斯小姐度过了一个愉快的下午。这当然是达洛夫人的好心哥哥安排这个小型聚会的主要目的。 （朱莉娅讨厌听到他称她的兄弟为“善良”：这个词似乎带有冒犯性的居高临下的感觉。）但他自己，他说，现在一直在做同样的善事，三分之二的时间都在听“语调”和尖叫声。毫无疑问，她自己也观察到，这个时代的洪流，对哑剧的崇拜，对任何人来说几乎都是太强烈了。它如何扫过一只，又将一只撞到岩石上。由于她没有回应这个提议，加布里埃尔·纳什问她是否对当时的主要标志感到震惊：江湖骗子的优势、荣耀和名声、他所享受的个人恩惠。难道她没有注意到他至少在伦敦受到了公众的极大关注吗？因为在巴黎，他的上流社会还没有那么普遍，尤其是职业女性，也不是每个客厅里都有。

“我不明白你的意思，”达洛夫人说。 “我对这样的人一无所知。”

“无论你走到哪里，他们难道都在你的脚下吗——他们的表演、他们的肖像、他们的演讲、他们的自传、他们的名字、他们的举止、他们丑陋的面孔，正如人们所说的，以及他们愚蠢的自命不凡？”

“我敢说这取决于一个人去的地方。如果它们无处不在”——她停顿了一下——“我不会到处去。”

“我哪儿也不去，但在家里它们就像海中老人一样骑在我背上。回到伦敦后稍微观察一下，”纳什先生继续友好地指导道。朱莉娅听到这句话站了起来——她不喜欢接受指示；她不喜欢听别人的指挥。但房间的其他角落似乎没有给她提供任何特殊的理由穿过它：如果没有巨大的诱因，她从来不会做这样的事情。于是她就站在那里，仿佛马上就要离开这个地方，她现在确实决定这么做了。与她对话的人也站了起来，在她身边徘徊，没有受到鼓励，但也泰然自若。他接着说，谢林汉姆先生邀请罗斯小姐参加一个下午的运动是非常正确的。作为一个优秀、勇敢、和蔼可亲的女孩，她应得的。她受过高等教育，懂十几种语言，出身显赫，而且极其挑剔。

“非常特别？”达洛夫人重复道。

“也许我应该说，她的母亲非常支持她。特别注意他们遇到的人的类型——语气、标准。我不得不说他们就像 您: 他们不会去任何地方。这种精神在自称为美好社会的暴徒中并不常见，以至于不值一提。”

她一时什么也没说。她茫然地环视了一下房间，但没有看米丽娅姆·罗斯。尽管如此，她很快就不再不耐烦地摇晃着，就像被迫提到她一样。 “她太粗俗了。”

“啊，不要对我的朋友多默说这种话！”纳什先生笑了。

“你和他是这么好的朋友吗？”达洛夫人看着他的眼睛问道。

“足够伟大，让我希望我们会变得更伟大。”

她又沉默了一会儿，然后继续说道：“我为什么不应该对他说她粗俗呢？”

“因为他太崇拜她了。他想画她。”

“画她？”

“给她画肖像。”

“我懂了。我敢说她会这么做的。”

纳什先生表现得更加有趣了。 “如果这就是你对她的看法，那么你就不太欣赏他渴望实践的艺术。”

“他想修炼？”她又重复了一遍。

“你没跟他谈过这件事吗？啊，你一定要让他坚持下去！”

朱莉娅·达洛（Julia Dallow）意识到自己看起来很不舒服。但能够以某种方式询问邻居：“你是艺术家吗？”这让她松了口气。

“我试图做到这一点，”纳什微笑着，“但我的工作材料是如此困难。”

他说这句话时，巧妙地暗示了一些神秘的事情，以至于她听到自己再次注意到他，要带他去。 “很难的材料？”

“我是在生活中工作！”

说到这里，她转过身去，给他留下的印象是她可能误解了他的讲话，认为他的意思是他借鉴了活人模型或类似的陈词滥调：好像他有可能与死人打交道。这确实不能完全解释她为何突然中断谈话。然而，加百列已经习惯了与他交谈的人突然崩溃，甚至突然破裂，没有人比他更有保持优雅的秘诀，手上拿着他的谈话用品。他看到达洛夫人走近尼克·多默（Ni​​ck Dormer），当时尼克·多默正在与使馆的一位女士交谈，显然表示她想和他说话。他站起来，他们聊了一分钟，然后转身向其他访客告别。她对她哥哥说了一句话，尼克也加入了她，然后他们一起走到门口。在这个动作中，他们必须经过纳什附近，这给了她一个向他点头告别的机会，如果尼克没有和她在一起，他绝对不确定她会这么做。年轻人停了下来；他对纳什说：“我想今晚晚些时候见到你。你一定要在某个地方遇见我。”

“好吧，散散步——我会喜欢的，”纳什回答道。 “我会在歌剧院广场拐角处的咖啡馆抽雪茄——你会在那里找到我。”他准备离开，但在这样做之前，他有义务向艾格尼丝夫人说几句话。这一努力被证明是徒劳的，因为一方面她被房间的墙壁保护着，另一方面又被米丽娅姆的母亲挡住了，她以一种很快就扎根的忠诚紧紧地抓住她，没有表现出任何停止的迹象。纳什被迫拒绝了她的女儿格蕾丝，格蕾丝对他说：“你正在和我的表弟达洛夫人说话。”

“对她来说，而不是和她一起，”他微笑着说。

“啊，她非常迷人，”格蕾丝说。

“她非常漂亮。”

“而且非常聪明，”女孩继续说道。

“非常非常聪明。”他与多默小姐的谈话仅止于此，不久他就向彼得·谢林汉姆告别了，并在握手时对他说，他对他感到非常抱歉。但他已经迎合了自己的命运。

“你说的我的命运是什么意思？”谢林汉姆问道。

“你将终生拥有它们。”

“当我现在清楚而勇敢地认识到她不好时，为什么要过一辈子呢？”

“啊，但她会变成这样，”加布里埃尔·纳什说。

“你这么认为吗？”谢林汉姆的坦白让来访者开怀大笑。

“完全 会——这更符合目的！”后者在离开时宣布。

十分钟后，艾格尼丝夫人以笼统、含糊的同意取代了所有进一步的具体同意，离开了罗斯夫人和其他带着女儿的人。彼得和毕迪很少说话，但女孩用她美丽的眼睛掩饰着失望，对他说：“你告诉我们她不知道怎么做——但她知道！”没有任何令人失望的迹象。

谢林汉姆握住她的手一会儿。 “啊，是你知道怎么做的，亲爱的毕迪！”他回答说：他意识到，如果场合更加私密，他就会合法地亲吻她。

不久，又有三位客人告辞了，纳什先生又想起了他将永远拥有他们的保证，因为他发现罗斯夫人和她的少女并没有从这么多例子中获益。洛维克夫妇留下来了——一位同事和他善于交际的妻子——彼得暗示他们不要让他只和两位女士待在那里。洛维克太太毫不狡猾地试图与她交往，米丽娅姆离开了，走到她的主人面前，仿佛她怀疑他计划从房间里偷东西，并想阻止它。

“我想再喝点茶，你能再给我一些吗？我感觉很虚弱。你似乎并没有怀疑这种事情是如何从一个人身上夺走它的。”

彼得为没有为她提供适当的茶点而过分地道歉，然后把她带到角落里的圆桌旁，上面已经放好了小菜。他给她倒了茶，给她压了面包和黄油， 小四肢，她大量而有条不紊地参与了这一切。天色已晚;下午的时间已经过去了，一盏灯被拿了进来，宽大的灯罩在茶具和精美食物的盘子上投射出美丽的光芒。洛维克夫妇和罗斯夫人坐在房间的另一端，女孩站在桌边，喝着茶，吃着面包和黄油。她如此随意地消费这些物品，以至于他怀疑她是否真的需要一顿饭——如果他们穷得不得不忍受这种匮乏。这种假设已经软化了，但还没有软到让他请她坐下的程度。她似乎确实更喜欢站着：这样她看起来更好了，好像那种自由、站起来和走上舞台的那种引人注目的感觉对她来说很舒服。当谢林汉姆模糊地在她身边徘徊时，他的双手插在口袋里，脑子里什么都没有，除了有计划地回避戏剧性的问题——有时他对此感到非常厌倦——她突然爆发：“承认你认为我坏得无法忍受！”

“难以忍受——不。”

“只能忍了！我觉得情况更糟。”

“时不时地，你会做一些非常正确的事情，”谢林汉姆说。

“我今天做了多少这样的事？”

“哦，三四个。我不知道我算得很仔细。”

她把杯子举到唇边，越过杯沿看着他——这个过程让她的眼睛露出了奇怪的表情。 “这会让你感到无聊，你会觉得这很不愉快，”她接着说道，“我的意思是一个女孩总是谈论自己。”他抗议说她永远不会让他感到无聊，她补充道：“哦，我不需要恭维——我想要残酷、珍贵的真相。女演员必须谈论自己。她还能说什么呢，可怜的虚荣的东西？”

“她有时会谈论其他女演员。”

“这也是同样的事情。你不会是认真的。我是非常认真的。”在这句话中，有一种东西引起了他的注意——一种半绝望、半争论的渴望被相信。当然，一切都不是第一天就能实现的，”她继续说道。 “我无法一下子看到所有的东西；但随着我的前进，我可以一步一步看到更多的东西；我不能吗？

“就是这样——就是这样。”他温柔地回答道。 “当你看到要做的事情时，如果你坚持下去，做事的艺术就会出现。最重要的是看到他们。”

“是的;而你认为我不够聪明，做不到这一点。”

“我特意让你来这里的，你为什么要这么说呢？”

“你叫我来，但我没有成功。”

“相反;每个人都认为你很棒。”

“哦，但他们不知道！”米丽娅姆·罗斯说。 “你没有对我说过一句话。我不介意你不表扬我；那太平庸了。但如果我很糟糕——而且我知道我很糟糕——我希望你能跟我谈谈。”

“很高兴与你交谈，”彼得发现自己说道。

“不，不是，但是很友善”；她把目光从他身上移开。

她的声音有一种让他惊呼的品质：“你时不时地‘说’些什么——！”

她把目光转回他身上，脸上闪现出光芒。 “我不希望它是偶然发生的。”然后她补充道：“如果说尝试、展示自我能带来任何好处，那么除非人们听到简单的真理，一个使人翻天覆地的真理，否则怎么可能有好处呢？这一切都是为了——知道一个人是什么，如果一个人是一根棍子的话！”

“你有很大的勇气，你有罕见的品质，”谢林汉姆冒险道。她开始触碰他，显得与众不同：他很高兴她没有离开。

但她有一会儿没有回答，放下空杯子，渴望在桌子上再吃点东西。突然，她抬起头，语气激昂：“我会，我会，我会！”

“显然，你会做你想做的事。”

“ 将 成功——我 将 棒极了。当然我知道的太少，我见过的太少。但我一直很喜欢它；我从来没有喜欢过其他的东西。当我只有五岁的时候，我就经常学习一些东西，拍一些场景，并对房间大吼大叫。”她继续说下去，语气健谈、有说服力、熟悉、自负（这是必要的），而且有点普通，或者也许只是自然；充满了回忆、理由和轶事，出人意料的丰富，带着一种同志情谊的气氛，在任何关系中都表现出自由，这似乎证明她至少有能力接受她想要从事的职业的那一面。他指出，虽然她如她所说，看到的很少，但她也看到了很多。但她的经历和她的纯真都是偶然和不规则的。她很少看过表演——剧院总是太贵了。如果她能经常去——比如六个月里每晚都去巴黎——看看最好的、最坏的、一切，她就能搞清楚事情，观察并学习什么该做，什么不该做：这将是一个学校的学校。但她不能不卖掉身上的衣服。贫穷是卑鄙和令人厌恶的，如果她知道口袋里有几个法郎的幸福，她会弥补这一点——她可以保证！除了德拉米尔夫人和可怜的鲁杰里之外，她从来没有认识过任何一个可以告诉她任何事情的人——无论是好是坏，是对是错。她猜想他们已经告诉了她很多事情，但也许他们并没有告诉她，如果情况不好，她完全愿意放弃。显然卡雷夫人也是这么想的。她觉得这太可怕了。老妇人说那些诗句、西莉的那些演讲的方式，难道不是很神圣吗？如果她能像这样偶尔让她过来听听她的话，这就是她所要求的。仅仅在那半个小时里，她就产生了很多想法。回到家后，她就一遍又一遍地练习它们。他可能会问她妈妈——他可能会问隔壁的人。如果卡雷夫人认为她不能工作，她可能会听到，也许她会在门口听到，这会告诉她一些事情。但她认为自己还没有好到可以批评——因为那不是批评，而是告诉她她的头脑很好。当然，她的头脑很好——她不需要去 偏远地区 找出答案。是她的母亲，她说话的方式，让她产生了这样的想法：她想要优雅、有道德、有道德。 世界女性 以及所有这些垃圾。当然，这会让人们望而却步，因为他们只想着真正正确的方法。米丽亚姆自己难道不知道这是唯一需要考虑的事情吗？但任何人都会善待她的母亲，只要她知道她是多么可爱的人。 “她不知道什么时候事情是对的，什么时候错的，但她是一个完美的圣人，”女孩说，大大掩盖了她的辩护。 “她不介意我按小时把事情讲一遍，让她坐在那里读书，把这些话灌进她的耳朵里。她是一位出色的读者；她在文学方面非常出色。她亲自教我一切。我的意思是诸如此类的事情。当然，我不太喜欢读书；我要去寻找生命之书。”谢林汉姆想知道她的母亲是否没有教过她这句话——他认为这很有可能。 “它会放弃 my 神经，我带领她的生活，”米里亚姆继续说道； “但她确实是一个美味的女人。”

这个奇怪的绰号让彼得笑了，总而言之，几分钟之内，这也许是他滥用自己作为一个情绪化男人的权利的标志，这位年轻的女士在他心中产生了一场好奇心的革命，让他产生了同情心。运动。当她的混合物在他面前展开时，既是一种吸引力，又是一种挑战：她敏感而厚重，她出身又优秀。当然，她是非常多变的，这很罕见。完全不是此时此刻在卡雷夫人家中费力振作起来的那个眼神沉重、受惊的生物，也不是刚才兴高采烈地滔滔不绝的“现象”，也不是和他一起散步的那个颇为做作、矛盾的年轻人。从君士坦丁堡街回家。这一系列的阶段是否表明她确实具有著名的艺术气质，具有令人兴奋和有趣的本质？谢林汉姆本人的肤色变化无常，这也许可以从他几乎同时拥有两种不同思想的奇怪能力中得到证明。米丽亚姆现在很漂亮，幸福而优雅，有一双迷人的、不寻常的眼睛。是的，他可以为她做一些事情；他已经忘记了纳什先生的讽刺和他的预言的冰冷。他甚至几乎没有意识到，他一般来说是多么不喜欢暗示、暗示、拐弯抹角、哀伤地请求帮助：毫无疑问，这也是因为这个女孩突然变得如此亲切和友善。罗斯小姐表示，他不仅可以支付她的课程费用，而且还可以支付她每晚与母亲一起参加教育性戏剧艺术展览的费用，这种迂回的方式也许确实是不公平的。这是一笔大订单，要派两人去看所有的演出。但彼得现在发现自己想到的并不是它的伟大，而是有时和他们一起去并指出道德上的——技术上的——向她展示他喜欢的东西和他不赞成的东西的可能的兴趣。她重申了她的声明，即她认识到她母亲认为女英雄具有不可思议的贞德的观点是错误的，也认识到她寻找如此非常正派的人的重要性。 “必须让她说话，但这当然会产生偏见，”她看着洛维克先生和洛维克夫人说，洛维克夫妇已经起身，结束了与罗斯夫人的交流。 “我知道，这真是一团糟，但她无法忍受任何粗俗或肮脏的事情——而且这也是对的。如果没有必要的话我也不应该这样做。但我不在乎我去哪里，只要我能去演戏，也不在乎他们是谁，只要他们愿意帮助我。我想要行动——那就是我想做的事；我不想干涉别人的事情。我可以照顾自己——我没事！”女孩大声地叫道，坦率地，带着诚实的味道，显得她粗鲁而纯洁。 “至于做坏事，我不怕。”

“坏人？”

“剧中的坏女人——比如卡雷夫人。我会做任何卑鄙的生物。”

“我认为你会做最好的自己”——谢林汉姆因为这句话而笑了。 “你真是个奇怪的女孩。”

“耶稣受难日！难道一个人不是一定要为了钱，去到一个可恶的人群面前，在一个平台上，吹着喇叭，打着大鼓，展示自己，展示自己的身体和灵魂吗？”

他看了她一会儿：她的脸色不断变化；她的脸色不断地变化。现在它有了精致的色泽和高贵的美味。 “放弃。你太优秀了，”他发现自己在恳求道。 “我怀疑你是否知道女孩必须经历什么。”

“决不，决不——决不，除非我被投掷！”她哭了。

“那就在这儿呆一会儿吧。我带你去电影院。”

“噢，亲爱的！”米丽亚姆高兴地叫道。洛维克先生和夫人在罗斯夫人的陪同下穿过房间来到他们面前，女孩用同样的语气继续说道：“亲爱的妈妈，他是我们曾经拥有过的最好的朋友——他比我们好得多。”我想。”

“你也是，小姐，”彼得·谢林汉姆说。

“哦，我信任谢林汉姆先生——我无限信任他，”罗斯夫人回答道，用她温和、可敬、哄骗的眼睛注视着他。 “每个人的善意都超越了一切。洛维克先生和夫人说得还不够。他们提供最贴心的报价。他们想让你认识他们的兄弟。”

“哦，我说，他不是我的兄弟，”洛维克先生善意地抗议道。

“他们认为他会很有启发性，他会让我们做正确的事情，”罗斯夫人继续说道。

“这只是我的一个弟弟——一个可爱、有趣、聪明的男孩，”洛维克夫人解释道。

“你知道她有九个吗？以我的名誉，她做到了！”她丈夫说。 “这是第六个。想象一下我是否必须把他们全部接管！”

“是的，这让事情变得相当尴尬，”洛维克夫人和蔼可亲地承认。 “他已经登上舞台了，可怜的宝贝——但他的表现相当不错。”

“他尝试过担任外交职务，但他并没有让考官们着迷，”洛维克先生进一步说道。

“埃德蒙对他很恶毒。舞台上有很多绅士——他不是第一个。”

“听到这个消息真是令人欣慰，”罗斯夫人说。

“我非常感谢你。他有剧院吗？”米丽亚姆问道。

“我亲爱的小姐，他甚至还没有订婚。”年轻人可怕的姐夫回答道。

“他从事这项工作的时间不长，但我相信他会继续下去。他非常认真，而且长得非常好看。我只是说如果他过来见我们，你可能会更愿意见见他。正如我丈夫所说，他可能会给你一些建议。”

“我不关心他的外表，但我应该喜欢他的建议，”米里亚姆随意地微笑着。

“他会来看你吗？”谢林汉问道，在他没有失去的这种谈话正在进行的同时，罗斯夫人用低沉的口音对自己说话。

“我想如果我能控制的话就不会！”但洛维克先生的态度如此粗鲁，并不令人尴尬。

“哦，先生，我确信您喜欢他，”当一行人一起进入前厅时，罗斯夫人抗议道。

“不，真的，我喜欢其他一些人——四五个；但我不喜欢Arty。”

“那我们就补偿他吧； we“我会喜欢他的。”米丽娅姆精神抖擞地回答道。她的声音在楼梯间响起——谢林汉姆在稍远的地方听到了他们——带着一种魅力，而她的主人在前一天的大声喧闹中却忽略了这一点。

那天晚上，尼克·多默在他们幽会的地方找到了他的朋友纳什——在温暖明亮的夜晚，在歌剧院广场一个角落的咖啡馆露台上抽着雪茄。他和他一起坐下，但五分钟结束后，他对这个地方的拥挤和混乱、张扬和粗俗、拖着脚步的人群、拥挤的顾客和服务员永不停歇的刷刷声提出了抗议。 “走开；我想和你谈谈，但我不能在这里说话。我不在乎我们去哪里。走路会很愉快；我们漫步到 西里厄区。每次我到巴黎三天后，我都会对这条有着传统的鬼脸的林荫大道感到更加厌恶。我什至讨厌穿过它——我绕了半英里以避免它。”

年轻人一起沿着和平街前往里沃利街，穿过这条街，经过杜伊勒里宫的镀金铁轨旁。夜晚的美丽——唯一的缺陷是巴黎巨大的灯光使它不够安静，使它成为一种睡意盎然、充满活力的白天——给安静的街道带来了魅力，吸引了我们的朋友到这里来。右边，到了河流和桥梁，那是一座古老而昏暗的城市。被大火烧毁的宫殿的苍白幽灵在他们身上笼罩了一会儿，然后，通过杜伊勒里花园现在随时开放的通道，他们来到了塞纳河上。他们不停地走啊走，缓慢地移动，抽烟，说话，停下来，停下来看看，强调，比较。他们陷入了讨论、信任、探究、同情或讽刺，以及需要依次解释的解释。温暖的夜晚、聊天的时间、巴黎的娱乐、年轻时光的记忆，都让这个场合变得活跃起来。尼克已经忘记了在离开彼得的茶会时他与朱莉娅的小小接触，他几乎被她严厉地谴责那个他脑子里想强加给她的可恶男人弄得不知所措。她称他为无礼和愚蠢；当尼克开始辩解说他实际上不是这些人时，尽管他可以想象他的举止有时可能会暗示这些，她已经宣布她不想争论他，也不想再听到他的消息。尼克没有指望她会喜欢加布里埃尔·纳什，但认为她不喜欢他并不重要。他给自己找了个消遣，看看她会如何看待她以前从未见过的类型，这对任何相关的人来说肯定不是残酷的。她赚的钱甚至比他预期的还要少，而她暗示他玩弄了她，这足以让他不去想，这件事在某种程度上可能是纳什干的。但他已经从怨恨中恢复过来，在一切可能的情况下，向这位人物询问他迷人的表弟给这位女士留下的印象如何。

“老实说，我亲爱的朋友，我不认为这是一个公平的问题，”加布里埃尔说。 “此外，如果你认为达洛夫人很迷人，那我的想法对你来说到底有什么必要呢？一个男人的观点相对于另一个人的观点的优越性，从来没有像对女性的观点那样大。”

“这是为了帮助我了解我对自己的看法，”尼克回答道。

“噢，那是你永远不会做的事。我会让你迷惑到底。你这么好心让我认识的那位女士是英国园林花卉的美丽典范，是高度栽培和精心照料的产物。一根高大、精致的茎，上面有头，作为一种被看到和记住的东西，它无疑应该算作是众神的礼物。她是完美的对象类型 凸 或有教养，从她肘部的角度到她发出含糊的、传统的、干巴巴的小“哦！”的方式，她身上的一切都联系在一起并促成了这种效果。这省去了所有进一步的性能。这种程度的完整性总是令人满意的。但我没有让她满意，她也不理解我。我认为他们通常不会理解。”

“那时她并不比我差。”

“啊，她没有尝试。”

“不，她没有尝试。但她可能认为你是一个自负的怪物，如果她听到你谈论她的尝试，她会更这样认为。”

“非常有可能——非常有可能，”加布里埃尔·纳什说。 “我有一个想法，很多人都这么认为。我觉得这很喜剧。我想这是我的小系统的结果。”

“什么小​​系统？”

“哦，没有什么比对每个人都一视同仁的想法更美妙的了。人们已经把自己搞糊涂了，他们最不可能想到的就是一个人应该是简单的。”

“主啊，你还以为自己很简单吗？”尼克射精了。

“绝对地;从某种意义上说，我没有自己的利益可以推动，没有秘方可以做广告，没有权力可以调解，没有斧头可以磨。我不是野蛮人——远非如此！——但我真的认为我是完全独立的。”

“嗯，这总是令人兴奋的！”尼克心知肚明地回来了。

“对于绝大多数人类同胞来说，看起来是这样；我清楚地记得我最初做出这个发现时的痛苦。当我没有想到邪恶的时候，它使我的精神变得黑暗。当我们还没有重生时，我们喜欢的是一个新来者给我们一个口令，来到我们这边，加入我们的小阵营或宗教，进入我们的小船，简而言之，无论它是什么，并帮助我们来划吧。这很自然；我们大多在不同的浴缸和鸟蛤中，一生划桨。我们的观点、我们的信念、学说和标准，只是让船继续航行的特殊因素——我们的船当然，因为它们常常可能会导致另一个人沉没。如果你不加入，人们通常会讨厌你。”

“你的比喻很蹩脚，”尼克说。 “这是一艘人满为患的船，最终沉入海底。”

“哦，我再给它一两条腿！船可以很大，在无限的空间里，而学说就像木筏，载客越多，漂浮得越好。时不时会有乘客跳下去，与其说是因为担心沉没，不如说是因为对课程或公司缺乏兴趣。他游泳、跳水、潜水、潜入水中参观鱼类、美人鱼和海底洞穴；他从一艘船到另一艘船，为了自己的利益，在蓝色、凉爽的水中嬉戏。我称之为重生者，是那些跳过去寻找更好乐趣的乘客。我早就跳过去了。”

“现在你当然是重生者的领袖了；因为，轮到你了”——尼克觉得这个数字很令人愉快——“你们组成了一群精选的海豚。”

“一点也不，而且我对头脑一无所知——就你的意思而言。如果你愿意的话，我已经长出了一条尾巴；我是自由游荡的人鱼。这是最快乐的交易！”

他们还没走多远，尼克·多默就突然问了一个问题。 “我说，我亲爱的朋友，你介意跟我提一下，你是地球上最大的骗子和江湖骗子，还是一个真正的聪明人，一个能够自我筛选的人？”

“我确实带领你们可怜的英国人跳舞——我很抱歉，”纳什和蔼地回答道。 “但我很真诚。和我 已可以选用 试图为自己解决一些问题。”

“那你为什么给人家这样的把柄？”

“这样的把柄？”

“因为你认为你是——因为你认为你只是一个 闹剧设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“我敢说这是我的风格：他们不习惯任何形式的坦诚。”

“那你为什么不尝试另一个呢？”尼克问道。

“一个人有他能做的事，而且我的方式也是我的小系统的一部分。”

“啊，如果你如此重视你的小系统，你并不比其他任何人更好，”他们继续前进时尼克回答道。

“我不会假装更好，因为我们都是悲惨的罪人；我只是以一种更愉快、更光明的方式假装坏人——就我所看到的而言。这是世界上最简单的事情；只是认为我们快乐和勇敢的权利是理所当然的。还有什么比这更仁慈、更有帮助、更仁慈呢？但沉闷、乏味、沉闷、厚重、直白的散文的传统如此封闭了人们的眼睛，以至于他们最终认为最自然的事物是最反常的。在我们可怜的小日子里，为什么还要保持这种沉闷呢？没有人能告诉我原因，而且几乎每个人都因为我问这个问题而辱骂我。但我继续说下去，因为我相信人们可以通过它做一点点好事。我非常想做一点善事，”加布里埃尔·纳什继续说道，挽着他同伴的手臂。 “我的坚持是有系统的：你没明白我的意思吗？我不会沉闷——不，不，不；我不会认识到我周围生活的沉闷是必然的，或者甚至，如果有办法摆脱的话，也不会认识到它的偶然性。这足以让人瞠目结舌：他们真是太蠢了！”

“他们认为你太无礼了，”尼克随意地解释道。

听到这，纳什小声叫了一声，阻止了他，尼克转过眼睛，在码头的灯光下看到他让朋友的脸上泛起痛苦的红晕。 “我不会那样打你吧？”

“哦‘我！’不是才承认我根本看不懂你吗？”

“这是最后一件事了！”纳什说道，仿佛他正在仔细考虑这个想法，脸上带着真正的痛苦。 “但是只要有一点耐心，我们就会一起解决这个问题——如果你足够关心的话，”他更高兴地补充道。让他的同伴继续往前走，他继续说道：“天啊，人们所说的厚颜无耻是什么意思？我想，有很多人不理解它的本质或局限性。根据我的话，我确实看到了智力或感知的速度，一两步的跳跃，谈话翅膀的一点呼呼声，被误认为是这样。是的，我遇到过一些男人和女人，他们认为如果你不像他们那么愚蠢，你就是无礼的。唯一的厚颜无耻是无端的，甚至只是无聊的侵略，我愤怒地抗议，我从来没有犯过这样的罪行 这 笨拙。啊，他们拿什么来，与 其野蛮的推定？即使为了保护自己，有时我也必须让自己相信我在乎。我总觉得自己没有成功让别人这么想。也许他们认为这样做是无礼的。但我敢说，冒犯之处在于我认为理所当然的事情。因为如果一个人试图感到高兴，那么他也许不可避免地会首先对自己感到满意。这确实不是我的情况——我发现我的快乐能力远远低于我设定的标准。这就是为什么，正如我告诉过你的，我培养它，我尝试培养它。我被积极的仁慈所驱动；我有那种厚颜无耻的自命不凡。这就是我所说的对每个人都一样、只有一种方式的意思。如果一个人有意识且巧妙地达到这一目的，那么当一个人的动机如此纯粹时，又有什么害处呢？从来没有， 决不要 做出让步，最终可能会成为一股明显的正义力量。”

“看在上帝的份上，你所说的让步是什么？”尼克问道。

“哎呀，我们来这里都是为了沉闷。如果你想永远拒绝它，有时就不可能给予它。”

“那你说的沉闷是什么意思？这是现代俚语，而且非常含糊。许多美好的事物都是沉闷的——美德、正派、慈善、毅力、勇气和荣誉。”

“立即说生活是沉闷的，我亲爱的朋友！”加布里埃尔·纳什惊呼道。

“总的来说，这就是我最困扰的印象。”

“Cest là que je vous 出席！ 我正致力于尝试采取另一种方式可以做些什么。这是我的个人小实验。生活由我们每个人的个人实验组成，而实验的意义在于它会成功。我们贡献的是我们对材料的处理、我们对文本的渲染、我们的风格。对一种风格的品质的感觉是如此罕见，以至于许多人无法阅读我们的作品，或者无论如何也无法欣赏我们的作品，这无疑是可以理解的。但这是放弃它的理由吗——在另一个领域，如果可能的话，不成为艾迪生、拉斯金、雷南？啊，我们一定要写得最好；这是我们在世界上可以做的伟大的事情，在正确的一边。人有其形， 阙迪亚布勒，以及一个人拥有的一件非常好的事情。我不害怕把所有的生命都投入到我的生命中，但又不会过度挤压它。我并不害怕将荣誉、勇气和慈善投入其中——但又不会破坏它们：相反，我只会对它们做好事。人们可能不会第一眼就读懂你，也可能不喜欢你，但他们还是有机会回心转意的；抓住机会的唯一方法就是坚持下去——永远保持下去。这就是我所做的，亲爱的朋友——如果你认为我没有毅力的话。如果这里或那里感动了某人，如果你给人留下了一点真实和魅力的印象，那就是你的奖励；当然，除了为自己带来快乐之外。”

“你不觉得你的风格有点受影响吗？”尼克要求进一步娱乐。

“这总是对个人举止的指责：如果你有任何举止，人们都会认为你做得太多了。也许，也许——谁能说呢？潜藏的未表达的东西是无限的，而矫揉造作一定是很久以前就开始了，从反思性表达的第一个行为开始——用少数清晰的词语代替哭泣、重击或拥抱。当然，一个人并不完美；但这就是艺术的令人愉快的事情，总是有更多的东西需要学习，还有更多的事情要做；人们使用它的次数越多，它就会变得越大，并且遇到的问题越多，它就会变得越多。毫无疑问，我仍然很粗鲁，但我的方向是正确的：我把为罚款作证作为我的职责。”

“啊，太好了——它就在那儿，在那儿！”尼克·多默说。 “我不太确定你的——我不知道我掌握了什么。但巴黎圣母院 is 真相;巴黎圣母院 is 魅力;在巴黎圣母院，心烦意乱的心灵可以得到休息。跟我过来看看她！”

他们来到了一座低矮的岛屿上，那里的大教堂今天摆脱了旧有的联系和粘连，高耸而美丽，她的正面美丽而雄伟，在那个时刻变暗了，或者至少简化了，在星空下，但只有在遥远的高处与凉爽的距离和夜晚的幸福结合才更加宁静和崇高。我们的年轻人，正如我让读者想象的那样自由地幻想着，跨过那座又宽又短的桥，这座桥使他们面向旧巴黎的古迹——司法宫、古监狱、圣路易教堂。他们来到教堂前，教堂俯视着一个广场，巴黎市中心曾经如此厚重的过去，现在已经变得一片空白，然而，巨大的大教堂面貌却充满了永恒的新鲜感。它以一种数百年都没有减弱的善意迎接尼克·多默和加布里埃尔·纳什。老城的灯光洗刷着它的地基，但塔楼、扶壁、拱门、画廊、雕像、巨大的玫瑰窗，庞大的整体构图，似乎随着爬得越高而越发清晰，仿佛有一种对人类向上凝视的有意识的仁慈回应。

“它如何理顺事情并吹走人们的蒸汽——任何事情 完成！”尼克说；而他的同伴则温和而深情地喊道：

“亲爱的老东西！”

“重要的是要做一些事情，而不是糊涂和质疑；天啊，这让我想要这么做！”

“想建一座大教堂吗？”纳什问道。

“是的，仅此而已。”

“困惑的是你 me 那么，我亲爱的朋友。你无法用言语来构建它们。”

“伟大的诗人是做什么的？”尼克问道。

“他们的 文字是思想——文字是图像、迷人的搭配和令人难忘的符号。但是议会演讲中的废话——！”

“好吧，”尼克坦率地叹了口气，沉思道，“你可以用很多东西建造一个伟大的结构——不仅仅是石头、木材和彩绘玻璃。”他们围着这个例子走来走去，停下来，批评，钦佩，讨论。将坟墓与欢乐、悖论与沉思融为一体。在后面和两侧，教堂那艘巨大的、昏暗的船只似乎浸入塞纳河或从塞纳河中升起，广阔地漂浮着——一艘石船，其飞扶壁像一排强大的桨一样被抛出。尼克·多默（Ni​​ck Dormer）在喜悦和舒缓的满足中徘徊在它附近，仿佛它是他所珍视的信仰的圣殿，以至于它的辖区里充满了和平与安全。此时此刻，纳什同样赞赏他的反应，通过他自己的迹象，取得了巨大的效果，在公司里也有同样的安慰和安慰。他把这一切都吸收了，然后又把它全部表达出来，这让尼克想起了他孩子气的钦佩在他身上发现的光芒，对这类事情的轻松掌握。在尼克看来，“此类的一切”是对广阔而明亮领域的描述。

他们渡到河对岸，在那里，哥特式纪念碑的影响力甚至比巴黎人的聪明还显着——市政规则和措施、强迫性的对称性、一切的“英俊”、煤气灯的奢华、永恒的单击整齐的桥梁。在左岸一家安静的小咖啡馆前，加布里埃尔·纳什说：“我们坐下吧”——他总是准备坐下。这是一家友好的酒店，但又是一个不时髦的地方，远离大篷车系列。码头上有常见的小桌子和椅子，玻璃前面后面有平纹细布窗帘，有锯末和水啤酒滴落的普遍感觉。时间已经很晚了，这里一片寂静，但并没有消失。没有车辆经过，只有巴黎人时不时有轻快的脚步声。越过护墙，他们可以听到塞纳河的水流声。尼克·多默说这让他想起了旧巴黎、伟大的革命、罗兰夫人， 什么！加布里埃尔说他们可以喝淡啤酒，但没有义务一定要喝。他们坐了很长时间。他们谈了很多，说得越多，未说出口的事情就越多。不久，纳什找到了机会抛出：“我像任何好公民一样处理我的事情——仅此而已。”

“那你有什么事吗？”

“世界奇观。”

尼克笑了出来。 “那你用它做什么呢？”

“有人用眼镜做什么？我看着它。我懂了。”

“你充满了矛盾和不一致，”尼克反对道。 “半小时前你向我描述自己是美丽的使徒。”

“哪里不一致了？无论我做什么，我都会在光天化日之下这样做：这实际上就是我的意思。如果我看世界的奇观，我会优先考虑其中的迷人之处。有时我必须走很远才能找到它——很有可能；但这就是我所做的。只要我的能力允许，我就会走得很远。去年我听说有这么一个令人愉快的小地方；一座西班牙古城的南墙外侧，长着一棵野生无花果树。有人告诉我那是一个美丽的棕色角落——冬天的阳光使它变得温暖。我一有时间就去了那里。”

“那你做了什么？”

“我躺在第一片绿草上——我喜欢它。”

“如果你完成的只是这类事情，那你就不令人鼓舞了。”

“我实现了我的幸福——在我看来这很重要。我有感情，我有感觉：让我告诉你，这并不常见。拥有它们是很罕见的，如果你有机会拥有它们，你也很难不为它们感到羞耻。我会去追他们——当我判断他们不会伤害任何人时。”

“你很幸运有钱支付旅行费用，”尼克说。

“毫无疑问，毫无疑问；但我做得很便宜。我根据我的本性和我幸运的性格来采取我的立场。我并不为此感到羞耻，我不认为这有那么可怕，我的性格。但我们已经如此迷惑和玷污了自由、自发性、良好幽默感、倾向和享受的整个问题，以至于没有什么能让人们凝视着看到一个自然的东西。”

“你总是把‘人’想得太多。”

“他们说我想得太少了，”加布里埃尔微笑道。

“好吧，我同意支持哈什，”尼克迂回地说。

“那么有钱的就是你了。”

“我没有，”尼克解释道。 “我的费用是要付的。”

“那你也必须想到‘人’。”

尼克没有回答，但过了一会儿说道：“我非常希望你能表现得更好。”

“展示什么？”

“你的小系统——审美生活。”

纳什犹豫着，宽容地，快乐地，就像他经常做的那样，带着一种尴尬的神情，在几个答案中做出选择，任何一个都是正确的。 “哦，展示一些东西真是一件糟糕的事情。这是一种对失败的承认。”

“是的，你受到的影响比其他任何事情都大。”尼克不耐烦地说。

“不，我亲爱的孩子，我脾气更好：我还没有证明这一点吗？我很失望地发现你不太容易理解深奥的教义。但我承认，还有另一种智慧层面，从其方式来看，这是可敬的、非常可敬的，从这个层面来看，有一些东西可以展示，可能合理地显得很重要。如果你必须把自己限制在那个层面上，我不会拒绝你的同情。毕竟这就是我要展示的！但我的同情程度当然必须取决于你想要示威的性质。”

“你很清楚——你已经猜到了，”尼克回答道，他有意识地、谦虚地看着自己，如果他年轻几岁的话，这种态度会被称为羞怯。

“啊，你告诉我你要回到下议院，这已经破坏了气氛，”纳什说。

“怪不得你没能成功！我的处境确实够荒唐的。我真正渴望的是成为一名画家；我认为，总的来说，还有肖像画。这就是卑鄙、粗暴、可笑的事实。在这偏僻的角落，夜深人静的时候，我冒昧地向你透露。这不就是审美生活吗？”

“你会画画吗？”纳什问道。

“一点也不。因此，任何滑稽剧元素都不会取代我的位置。”

“这没有什么区别。我很高兴。”

“很高兴我不知道如何？”

“很高兴这一切。是的，这只会让事情变得更好。你是一个令人愉快的案例，我也喜欢令人愉快的案例。我们必须坚持到底。我很高兴再次见到你。”

“你觉得我能做点什么吗？”尼克问道。

“画出好画？没有看到你的一些作品我怎么能知道呢？我难道没有想起来，你在牛津时画的素描画得非常漂亮吗？但这是最后重要的事情。”

“那又有什么关系呢？”尼克看着他的同伴问道。

“站在正确的一边——站在‘罚款’的一边。”

“如果我只生产涂抹物，那么‘精品’就很少了。”

“啊，你固守着旧的错误的成功衡量标准！我必须治愈你的这个病。会有无私和独立的美妙；以自由、勇敢、个人的方式对待世界。”

“如果可以的话，我还是会画得像样，”尼克随即说道。

“我差点就后悔了！这会让你的案例变得不那么清晰，你的例子变得不那么宏大。”

“我的榜样将足够伟大，我必须进行战斗。”

“争斗？和谁一起？”

“首先是我自己。我非常反对。”

“啊，但你会让我在另一边，”纳什微笑着。

“好吧，你将会遇到的不仅仅是一把——所有属于我的、或近或远地触动我的东西；我的家庭、我的血统、我的遗传、我的传统、我的承诺、我的环境、我的偏见；我小小的过去——就这样；我美好的未来——正如人们所想象的那样。”

“我明白了，我明白了。太棒了！”纳什惊呼道。 “达洛夫人也参与了交易，”他补充道。

“是的，达洛夫人，如果你愿意的话。”

“你爱她吗？”

“至少不是。”

“嗯，她和你在一起——所以我明白了。”

“别这么说，”尼克·多默突然严厉地说。

“啊，你是，你是！”从他的口音来看，他的同伴大声说道。

“我不知道 什么 我是——愿上帝帮助我！”尼克爆发了，他猛烈地将帽子扔到他的小锡桌上。 “我是大自然的怪胎，也是众神的嘲讽对象。他们为什么要特意让我担心呢？为什么他们要做出如此不合逻辑、如此不可能、如此荒谬的事情？这是最粗俗的恶作剧。我们中间从来没有发生过这样的事。我们都是骨子里的庸人，审美观念和那顶帽子一样多。这是极好的土壤——我并不抱怨——但不适合种植那朵花。那么魔鬼的种子是从哪里掉下来的呢？我一代又一代地回望；我翻遍了我们的编年史，没有找到任何关于祖母的素描，也没有发现任何建筑、诗歌、收藏甚至种植郁金香的祖先的迹象。他们都像蝙蝠一样盲目，但仍然为此感到高兴。我是一个肆意的变异体，一个不负责任的怪物。我亲爱的父亲，愿他的灵魂安息吧，他一生中没有怀疑过任何不能写进蓝皮书的东西，并凭借这一信念成为了一位非常杰出的人。他以同样的单纯和同样的卓越的希望抚养我长大。如果我一直这样就好了。我认为我没有做到这一点部分是你的错，”尼克继续说道。 “在牛津，你对我来说是非常糟糕的伙伴——我的邪恶天才：你睁开了我的眼睛，你传播了毒药。从那时起，它就一点一点地在我体内发挥作用；起初是模糊的、隐蔽的、无意识的，但在过去的一两年里，却变得暴力、顽固、残忍。我已经用尽了生活中的一切解药；但这没有用——我很受打击。 C'est Vénus toute entière à proie Attachée——将金星视为“艺术”。正如我所说，它把我撕成碎片。”

“我明白了，我跟着你，”纳什说，他带着浓厚的兴趣和好奇心听了这场演奏会。 “这就是为什么你要站起来。”

“没错——这是一种解药。而现在你是另一个人了。”

“其他？”

“这就是我向你扑来的原因。你们中的更多人可能会不同意我的观点，以至于我要么死，要么好起来。”

“我将控制稀释度，”纳什说。 “可怜的家伙——如果你当选了！”他加了。

“无论如何，可怜的家伙。你不知道我生活的气氛，我的叛教会引起的恐怖和丑闻，以及它会造成的伤害和痛苦。我相信这真的会杀了我妈妈。她认为我父亲在天上看着我。”

“真高兴让他跳起来！”纳什提议道。

“他确实会跳下去——直接跳到我身上。然后是它的怪诞之处—— 开始 突然到了我这个年纪。”

“这确实是完美的，这真是一个可爱的案例，”纳什赞叹道。

“想想这听起来怎么样——伦敦报纸上的一段话：‘先生。尼古拉斯·多默（Ni​​cholas Dormer），哈什选区议员，已故议员等人的儿子，即将放弃自己的席位并退出公共生活，以全身心投入肖像画的实践——而且还有更值得称道的由于他失去了所有可怕的时间而坚持不懈。鉴于此，谨此恳请订购。”

“十九世纪比我想象的更甜蜜，”纳什说。 “那么，这幅肖像是困扰你的梦吗？”

“我希望你能看到。你当然必须立即来我在伦敦的住所。”

“背信弃义的家伙，你竟然有天赋——这当然会毁了一切！”加百列嚎啕大哭。

“不，我太老了，变态太早了。现在去工厂已经太晚了。”

“你让 me 年轻的！不要错过选举，后果自负。想想它的启发。”

「熏陶——？」

“你下一刻就把它全部扔掉了。”

“这对卡特雷特先生来说会很高兴，”尼克沉思道。

“先生。卡特雷特——？”

“一位亲爱的老朋友，愿意支付我经纪人的账单。”

“为他这种堕落的品味服务吧。”

“你对我有好处，”尼克站起身转身走开时说道。

“那就别说我没用了。”

“啊，但不是按照你的意思。除非我进去了，否则我也许会用刷子安慰自己。”当他们折返时，尼克以幽默而优雅的语气回答道。

“为了所有缪斯女神的缘故，请不要站立。为你 将 进来。”

“很可能。无论如何我都答应了。”

“你答应过达洛夫人吗？”

“这是她的地盘——她会 放 我进来，”尼克说。

“恶毒的女人！不过我会把你拉出来的！”加布里埃尔·纳什喊道。

一连几天，彼得·谢林汉姆手头上的事情让他既没有时间也没有自由去积极地与加龙宫的女士们相处。有时它们会掠过他的记忆，但它们的流逝速度很快，并且没有沾染上自满的注意力。因为他不敢证明米丽亚姆是令人感兴趣还是令人厌烦的问题。第二次见面后，她带着一种强烈的同情心离开了他，但几个小时后，那火焰就熄灭了。和大多数其他人一样，他是冲动和反射的混合体，但有一点很奇怪，那就是对事情的深思熟虑几乎总是让他思考不那么方便。他发现幻想是必要的，因此为了保持足够的数量，他经常禁止自己进行任何过度的练习。罗斯夫人和她的女儿当时就在场，当然可以相信他们的表现。他意识到他们的焦虑和他们对频繁压迫的算计，并且知道无论结果如何，他都必须为他们做代价高昂的事情。一种坚韧的观念，一种令人担忧的女性持续时间，与她们的存在联系在一起。他会默默点头同意加布里埃尔·纳什（Gabriel Nash）提出的主张，即他背负着他们。治疗方法在他面前盘旋，但同时也带来了并发症。从花钱到发现自己恋爱了。后一种事故会特别乏味。他对女孩的母亲可能成功实现这一目标的艺术有着充分的了解。这不是对麻烦的补偿，而是麻烦本身就需要补偿。这位年轻女士的天才奇观是否会带来这种安慰呢？天才必须非常伟大，才能证明一位冉冉升起的年轻外交官出丑是合理的。

他以工作紧迫为借口，日复一日地拖延着罗斯小姐的工作，日复一日地盼望着能听到她敲他的门。当他们再次把他送回地球时，时间已经足够了。即使在那时，他也不明白自己到底该如何为他们服务。他鲁莽地提出了戏剧课程。但现在夏天即将开始，这将是一项相当大的个人努力——免费竞标糟糕的空气、陈旧的作品和疲惫的演员。然而，一个多星期过去了，没有人提醒他忘记他的诺言，他突然想到，他必须亲自做出一个表示尊重的迹象。如此出人意料、如此艰难的谨慎，有一种微妙之处——他因不受打扰而感动。使馆的忙碌工作结束了，他有时间问自己特别应该做什么。在与加龙河酒店沟通之前，他想要一些明确的建议。

由于这种猜测，他回到卡雷夫人那里，要求她重新考虑她的严厉判断，并给这位年轻的英国女士——为了满足他——一打她非常了解如何教授的课程。他知道这个要求根本站不住脚。因为，首先，卡雷夫人一旦得到了自己的印象，就从不重新考虑；其次，她也从不把自己的精力浪费在那些并非大自然为她荣耀而形成的主题上。他知道，如果他要求她费尽心思取悦他，她就会对他与女孩的关系，无论是实际的还是未来的关系，产生错误的想法——除非她已经有了这种想法；否则，她就会对他的行为产生误解。但他决定不必关心这个，因为米丽亚姆本人可能不会关心。他主要是想对老女演员说，她搞错了—— 年轻的英国人 不是这样的 绿蓝。这需要一些勇气，但也会为他的访问增添乐趣。

他在家里找到了她，但当他表达了自己的信念后，她就开始说：“哦，你的 年轻的英国人，我比你更了解她！她已经回来看我两次了；她没有走最长的路。她像个掷弹兵一样指责我，并要求我给她——猜猜看是什么！——私人朗诵。如果她没有成功，也不是因为她不知道如何敲门。有一天，当我进来时，她正在等我。她已经在那里呆了两个小时了。我的私人朗诵——你知道人们为它们付了多少钱吗？”

“你知道，在艺术家之间，有更容易的条件，”谢林汉姆笑着说。

“我怎么知道她是不是艺术家？她不肯向我开口；她想让我对她说一些话 这里。她确实让我——我不知道是如何——而她坐在那里，用她的大眼睛目瞪口呆地看着我。它们看起来就像是敞开的口袋！”

“我敢说她会从中受益，”谢林汉姆说。

“我敢说 您 将要！当她看着我时，她的表情很愚蠢，当她把我累坏了时，她就走开了。然而，当她回来时——！」

卡雷夫人停顿了一下，听了听，然后喊道：“我不是告诉过你了吗？”

谢林汉姆听到小前厅里有人议论，下一刻门被推开，米丽亚姆·罗斯跳进了房间。她脸色通红，气喘吁吁，没有笑容，非常直接。

“今天你愿意听我说话吗？我知道四件事，”她立即爆发出来。然后看到谢林汉姆，她用同样轻快、认真的语气补充道，好像这件事是最重要的：“哦，你怎么样？我很高兴你在这里。”除此之外，她什么也没对他说，没有以任何方式向他求助，也没有暗示他忽视了她，而是对卡雷夫人说话，就好像他不在那儿一样。不找借口，不奉承；采取一种相当权威的语气——就好像这位著名艺术家对她负有明显的责任一样。这是彼得认为的另一种变化。这与他以前见到她时的态度都不同。他突然想到，她根本不存在任何戏剧性的问题，她只是完美地总是在演戏；而且她的表演方式也很完美。她的存在是一系列暂时假设的部分，每个部分都在下一个变化，在某种好奇心、钦佩或惊奇的永恒镜子前——她在周围的人身上感知或想象的某种旁观。尽管他一直对她可能成为装饰品的职业很感兴趣，但这个想法的新颖性让他大吃一惊，甚至当场给米里亚姆·罗斯赋予了一个令人敬畏的、真正令人震惊的角色。他突然意识到，一个女人的唯一存在就是“假装相信”，假装她拥有你可能喜欢的任何一个存在，并且这将服务于一个目的并产生一定的效果，并且她的身份存在于她的连续性中。正如他对自己所说的那样，她没有道德上的隐私，而是生活在展示和形象的狂风中——这样的女人是一种怪物，必然没有什么可以“喜欢”的。的，因为没有什么可以抓住的。有一瞬间，他觉得自己在对这位女演员进行这样的分析之前没有取得成就是多么简单。现在，这个女孩的脸让他变得栩栩如生——他发现她确实没有自己的面容，而只是场合的面容，一系列的、各种各样的——可能会变得巨大的——代表性的动作。她总是为了自己的娱乐或利益而尝试、练习它们，从一种跳到另一种并扩大她的范围；毫无疑问，随着她变得轻松和自信，这将越来越成为她的职业。可以说，最接近她的表情是最接近空白的表情——当她在某种真诚的关注中忘记了自己时，一种愚蠢的神情。然后她的眼神变得沉重，她的嘴也显露出了平庸。尽管也许正是在这样的时刻，她头上的细纹说明了一切。她看上去有点 贝特 甚至当谢林汉姆在卡雷夫人家第一次见面时，他就对尼克·多默说她是悲剧缪斯的形象。

现在，无论如何，他似乎看到她可以用她的脸做她喜欢做的事。它是一种弹性物质，是古塔胶的一种成分，就像体操运动员的灵活性，就像音乐厅里从大炮口射出的女士的灵活性。看到这位女演员的粗俗形象，他有点皱起眉头。不知何故，他总是以更诗意的眼光看待那位艺术女祭司。然而，仔细想想，她这个女祭司，不就是一个女体操运动员，一个工资更​​高的江湖骗子吗？她并没有真正用脚后跟悬在空中秋千上，用牙齿咬住一个胖子，但她用舌头、眼睛和模仿技巧，就像她肌肉发达的姐姐用腿和下巴做的那样。奇怪的是，今天对他来说，罗斯小姐的脸比老卡雷夫人的脸更漂亮。毫无疑问，女孩的衣服新鲜而有力，有未来，而可怜的卡雷夫人的衣服则破旧不堪，只有过去。

老妇人一半是开玩笑，一半是真正的怨恨，讲述了年轻人的残酷，而米丽亚姆走到镜子前，迅速摘下帽子，拍拍并整理头发，作为让别人听到自己声音的第一步。谢林汉惊讶又好笑地发现，这位热心的法国女人在漫长的一生中已经耗尽了一切技巧，现在却表现出一种无助和强迫的态度，不由自主地满足了所有人的要求。她的年轻朋友只花了几天时间和几次访问就成为了一支成功的力量。她强加了自己，而卡雷夫人在笑的时候——但由于眼神和手势如此高超的技巧，看上去也很可怕——已经沦为最后一道防线了。说她粗俗、笨拙，说她可能会把她打倒，但这并不能证明什么。她说起话来并不冒犯，但她的举止却暴露了一个聪明女人的恼怒，她在高龄时第一次发现自己无法理解。她不理解的是加布里埃尔·纳什向她呈现的这种社会产品；这向谢林汉建议 年轻的英国人 也许确实很罕见，是一种新类型，因为卡雷夫人一定见过无数的品种。他看到这个女孩已经做好了被虐待的准备，她对自己的判断力的漠不关心是生命、健康和精神的证明，是有意识资源的傲慢。

当她碰了一下玻璃后，她转过身来，快速地“生态维护员！”然后倾斜了一会儿——稍微放低并向后倾斜，她的双手放在身后支撑着她——在 领事 镜子前。她等了一会儿，把目光从她的一个同伴身上转向另一个同伴——这是一个非常有意识、有意的举动，这让谢林汉姆问自己，她以前的恐惧到底发生了什么，如果那和她的眼泪已经全部消失了。这是一场喜剧：之后，她突然直起身子，开始重复一首法国短诗，这是当时的一件巧妙的事情，她诱导卡雷夫人对她说。她学会了它，练习了它，向她的母亲排练过它，现在她孩子气地渴望展示她能用它做什么。她主要做的是以粗略的保真度，但极其细致地再现她模型的语调、颤音和节奏。

“你让我觉得自己多么糟糕，如果我是你，我应该说得好得多！”这是卡雷夫人的第一个批评。

然而，米里亚姆没有给她足够的时间来发展它，因为她以最短的间隔爆发了老女演员交给她的其他几首诗的样本。它们都是当代诗人创作的精美歌词，带有温柔或讽刺的意图，但取决于品味和艺术的效果，诠释者对罕见色调和正确触感的掌握。米丽亚姆把它们吞了下去，然后她用和第一个一样的方式把它们给了出来，模仿得很近、粗鲁、大胆。有一段时间，谢林汉姆可能会担心女主人会在表演中看到她的举止、神态和优雅、著名的傻笑和鬼脸，这些都是精心设计的滑稽表演，这一切都让这些精致的出现显得如此奢侈。结束后，老妇人说道：“你现在想听听怎么做吗？ 您 做？”然后，不等回答，就从头到尾地对最后一首曲子进行了措辞和颤音，就像她的访客所做的那样，使这种模仿的模仿成为可以想象的最滑稽的事情。如果她因为少女的回声而受苦的话，那就是完美的报复了。米丽亚姆精疲力竭地倒在沙发上，她一开始瞪着眼睛，脸色通红，狂野无比。然后她坦率地让位于快乐、兴趣和大笑。后来她为自己辩护说，所讨论的诗句，实际上是她背诵的所有诗句，都是最难的：你必须这样做；你必须这样做；你必须这样做。它们不是自己做的——它们是由 一大笔钱 没有用。

“啊，我可怜的孩子，你的手段已经够多了 一大笔钱; “你似乎没有其他人了，”卡雷夫人回答道。 “你尽力而为，但还是有这样的人；这就是它们的制作方式。他们永远无法接近美好的真理，接近公正的指示。对他们来说不存在阴影，他们看不到某些差异。为了向你展示一个不同之处，我重复了那件事，就像你重复它一样，就像你代表我做的那样。如果您对这两种方式的共同点感到震惊，那就更好了。但我觉得你非常 变得更重 你接触到的一切。”

彼得从这个判断中读出了一种深深的恼怒——米里亚姆显然让她的女导师感到紧张。她按照自己的神经行事，由她纤细、自由发挥的指尖迄今为止未知的粗糙度和厚度组成。然而，这种愤怒是某种程度的奉承。这既不是冷漠，也不是简单的蔑视；它承认了一个神秘的现实 年轻的英国人 甚至有一点重要性。后者平静地说，她最想做的事情就是那些不适合做的事情。 一大笔钱，粗俗的明显闪避，任何人都能想到的惊吓和喊叫，以及 总公共 喜欢。她想做最困难的事，并且从一开始就全身心投入。她解释说，好像这是她自己的一个发现，有两种场景和演讲：那些是自己表演的，其处理是简单的，是唯一的方式，所以你只能接受它；另一种是那些自己表演的场景和演讲，它们的处理是简单的，是唯一的方式，所以你只能接受它；另一种是它们自己表演的。还有那些可以解释的，你必须每一步都努力，根据你的想法渲染、安排、做事。一些最有效、最著名和最受赞赏的段落，比如朱丽叶对她的魔药的疯狂，都属于前一种。但她最喜欢的是其他人。

考虑到它缺乏新鲜感，卡雷夫人很善意地接受了这一启示，只是嘲笑这位年轻女士在透露这一消息时看起来如此高贵的居高临下。她的笑声在一定程度上似乎是出于善意，米里亚姆表示自己对艺术中的微妙问题非常感兴趣。谢林汉姆被这个女孩的勇气迷住了——如果这是勇气而不仅仅是密度的话；为了某种目的，她以坚定的耐心屈服于老妇人的粗暴对待。他想带她走，想给她一个善意的警告，劝她不要变得无聊，不要暴露自己。但她抬起美丽的头，以表明她目前对任何暴露都漠不关心，而且（这一半是粗俗——卡雷夫人是最正确的——一半是坚韧）只要她离开，她就无意离开；有什么东西要捡的。她坐在那里，一动不动地坐着，向女主人提出各种各样的问题——有些是合理的，有些是巧妙的，有些是奇怪的徒劳，有些是非常不谨慎的；但与彼得的预期相反，所有这些的结果是，他们这位杰出的朋友对回答和解释的工作产生了热情，变得感兴趣，并满足于留下她并交谈。是的，她很轻松；她以艺术家罕见的愤世嫉俗的态度缓解了自己的情绪——对深奥的事物、个人的奥秘、方法和秘密的讨论的所有粗鲁、讽刺和激烈。这是我们的年轻人度过的最奇怪的一个小时，即使是在调查过程中，这也常常导致他陷入困境。 美食，酿酒厂或后店，令人钦佩的职业。他几次起身要走；然后他留下来，部分是为了不让米丽亚姆单独和她那个可怕的发起人在一起，部分是因为他既被逗乐又受到启发，部分是因为卡雷夫人用她敏锐、保密、苍老的眼睛吸引着他，对自己说话，米里亚姆只是一个借口和主题，一个卑鄙的例证。她从头到脚地脱掉了这位年轻女士的衣服，将她从里到外翻了个身，称重、测量并测了她的声音：对于谢林汉姆来说，这一切都是新的启示，表明在她的职业和国家中，业务情报、激烈的分析已经进行，并且开发了特殊的词汇。最让他震惊的是她知道自己的理由和理由，所以一切都在她的脑海里清晰可见，一切都在她的手中。如果她有罕见的知觉，她也会追踪它们的来源；她可以讲述自己的所作所为；她完全知道为什么，可以解释它，捍卫它，放大它，为之奋斗：所有这一切对她来说都是一种智力上的快乐，让她有机会丰富、坚持和区分。对于可怜的彼得腼腆的英国人来说，这一切有一种残酷，或者至少是坚硬，这种感觉永远无法真正调和任何方法和形式的问题，并且对“广场”有外来的情感，需要用平和的方式来平息。妥协和肤浅，普遍辩称一切都是清白的，而且往往是明目张胆的证据。理论上，他最看重的莫过于卡雷夫人的逻辑热情，但事实上，当他发现自己与这种热情近距离接触时，他就显得无事生非。

如果这位老妇人很严厉的话，那么她目前关于这个问题的许多结论也并没有那么严重。 年轻的英国人 不是纵容，而是她对伟大的方式、对与错、正义与虚假有一种远见，她是如此崇高和虔诚，以至于个人在它面前什么也不是——这是一种迅速而轻松的牺牲。这让我们的朋友感到不舒服，因为某些事情让他感到不舒服 连续，巴黎报纸上对剧院的评论，他致力于认为这些评论很重要，但当它们非常好时，他感到相当羞愧。当他们非常出色时，即当他们非常彻底时，他们就非常个人化，这在处理最个人化的艺术时是不可避免的：他们深入细节；他们把点放在 i的；他们公正地讨论了可怜的求道者的外表品质和身体天赋，发现他们在某些情况下严重不足，彼得永远无法摆脱对这些声明的厌恶；尤其是那些女演员，给他的印象是残酷和冒犯——就像一位留着小胡子的评论家拿着雪茄发起的那样，毫无男子气概。与此同时，他意识到他的反对使他陷入了困境（他讨厌它；这让他脸更红）。如果一个人关心演员的艺术是正确的，那么他应该对对其的每一个诚实的判断感兴趣，考虑到特殊的条件，这些判断将是有用的，因为它应该是免费的。如果坦率地承认这些条件的批评似乎是低劣的或不神圣的事情，那么对于艺术本身来说又该怎么说呢？如果批评只有在毫无价值的情况下才可以容忍——只要它仍然含糊和胆怯，那这意味着什么啊！这是彼得从未解开的结：他满足于认为戏剧评论家没有理由不应该是绅士，同时他经常称其为可憎的行业，没有绅士可以遵循。在巴黎如此引人注目的兄弟会中最优秀的人是那些不追随它的人——那些假装写舞台的人，却写了其他一切。

就好像卡雷夫人，出于她强烈的感觉，即艺术就是一切，而个人除了碰巧为艺术服务之外什么都不是，她说：“好吧，如果她 将 她应该拥有它；她会知道她面临着什么，我经历过什么，像我们所有人一样——所有值得的人，都曾有过这样的荣誉。她应该知道真正的观点。”就好像她仍然被罗斯夫人的胡言乱语、她的虚伪、她愚蠢的顾虑所困扰——她觉得这些东西都需要去打击、去践踏。米丽娅姆把这一切当作一次沐浴、一次洗礼，带着颤抖的喜悦和欢快的水花。凝视着，疑惑着，有时脸红，无法跟上，但没有退缩，也没有受伤；当她被定罪时，她自嘲地笑了，显然，这最终是艺术的高冷空气，一种启蒙，一种任何东西都无法撤销的纪律。谢林汉姆说他会送她回家——他想和她谈谈，而她必须和他一起走开。 “据了解，她可能会回来，”他对卡雷夫人补充道。 “它是 my 当然有事。你会对她感兴趣一两个月；她会坐在你脚边。”

这位老女演员令人钦佩地耸耸肩。 “哦，我要把她打倒——她看上去够壮的！”

当他们走到街上时，米里亚姆向彼得提到她很渴，很想喝点东西：彼得问她是否应该反对和他一起去咖啡馆。

“异议？我一生都在咖啡馆度过！冬天很温暖，而且你可以免费得到灯光，”她解释道。 “妈妈和我在里面坐了好几个小时，很多次， consommation 三个苏，以节省家里的火和蜡烛。如果你想知道的话，我们曾经住过一些无法坐下的地方——只有当我们躺在床上时，那里才有真正的空间。妈妈的钱是从英国寄出去的，有时却不见踪影。有一次，它好几个月都没有来——好几个月了。我不知道我们是怎么生活的。没有人要来；没有人可以回家。当你在一个陌生的城镇没有任何朋友的时候，这并不有趣。妈妈过去常常借钱，但人们并不总是借钱。你不必害怕——她不会借的 您。我们现在好多了——英格兰已经做了一些事情；我不明白什么。一年才五便士，却已定了；它定期出现；过去只有当我们写信、乞求并等待时，它才会到来。但这并没有什么区别——妈妈总是埋头读书。他们为她提供食物和饮料。当她没有东西吃的时候，她开始写一本十卷的小说——老式的；他们持续时间最长。她知道每一个 内阁会议 在每个城镇；我的意思是，那些又小又便宜又破旧的书，在后街，那里有奇怪的书，而且只卖一个苏，而且书太旧了，闻起来像封闭的房间。她带他们去咖啡馆——也是那些小、便宜、破旧的咖啡馆——然后她整个晚上都在那里读书。这对她来说很好，但对我来说却没什么用。我不喜欢看肮脏的旧小说。我坐在她旁边，无所事事，甚至连袜子也没有缝补。她不这么认为 COMME IL faut。我不知道人们把我当什么。然而，我们从来没有说过：任何人都可以看到妈妈是一位伟大的女士。至于我，我敢说我可能是个可怕的人。如果你想成为一名演员，你就必须习惯被人注视。英格兰曾经有人邀请我们留下来，但我们都没有留下来。他们中的一些人是我们的表兄弟——或者妈妈说他们是。我从来都不太清楚我们的表兄弟姐妹，我认为他们也根本不了解我们。他们中有些人已经死了；有些人已经死了。其他人不再问我们了。你应该听妈妈谈论我们访问英国的话题。当你的表兄弟去世时，这是非常方便的——这就解释了一切。妈妈有令人愉快的话语：“我的家人几乎灭绝了。”那么你的家人可能就是你喜欢的任何人。我们的当然很棒。我们确实住过一个地方，那里曾经有一个鹿公园，还有私人剧院。我在其中演奏；我当时只有十五岁，但我已经很大了，我以为我已经到了天堂。你想去哪里我就去哪里；你不必害怕；我们去过一些地方！通过这种方式，我学到了很多东西——坐在妈妈旁边，观察人们，他们的面孔，他们的类型，他们的动作。咖啡馆里发生了很多事情：人们来找他们谈论事情，他们的私人事务，他们的复杂事情；他们有重要的会议。哦，我观察过男人和女人之间的场景——非常安静，安静得可怕，但是可怕、可悲、悲惨！有一次，我看到一个女人做了一些事情，有一天当我很棒的时候，我也会这么做——如果我能适应这种情况的话。到时候我会告诉你那是什么——我会为你做的。哦，这是生命之书！”

当两人沿着君士坦丁堡街走去时，米丽娅姆就这样亲切地、断断续续地交谈着。在彼得精心挑选的一家酒店里，他们面对面坐在一张小大理石桌子旁，并且应她的要求，他为她安排了住宿，之后，她继续滔滔不绝地讲述着轶事和评论。 杏仁糖浆。 “我知道结果会怎样：卡雷夫人会想留下我。”这是她目前放弃的幸福之一。

“为了留住你？”

“为了法国舞台。她不会想让你拥有我的。”她说这种话时，洋溢着令人震惊的自满情绪和急功近利的想法。她很认真，显然已经准备好工作了，但她的想象力飞过了预备阶段和试用期，没有考虑到过程中的步骤，尤其是最初令人厌烦的步骤，即对诚实的艰难考验。到目前为止，他还没有为她做任何事，也没有做出实质性的利益承诺。然而她说话的语气就好像他对他的保护是有保证的，而且是嫉妒的。然而，当然，当她在巴黎咖啡馆面对他坐着时，她的青春、她的美丽和她健谈的自信，似乎确实非常属于他。这种程度的占有对他来说是非常满意的，他所要求的只是让它持续下去并走得更远。想要把她拉出来的冲动是不可抗拒的，鼓励她一路展现自己；因为如果他真的注定要掌控她的事业，他指望有一些好的等价物——比如她至少应该让他开心。

“这非常奇特；我不知道这样的事情，”他说——“你对两种语言的掌握程度相同。”

“大概有六个吧，”米丽娅姆微笑着说。

“哦，我不相信其他人到同样的程度。考虑到你无可否认的能力，我不认为你适合用德国或意大利观众的母语向他们演讲。但你可能是一个完美的法国人，而且他们是最特别的；因为他们的成语过于敏感，他们无法忍受 巴拉古纳日 外国人的声音，我们听得如此自鸣得意。事实上，你的法语比英语更好——更传统；你的英语没有什么奇怪和不纯的地方，就好像你在国外生活得太久了一样。啊，你必须这么做。”

“我会和 您。我喜欢你说话的方式。”

“你说话一定要漂亮；你必须为标准做点什么。”

“为了标准？”

“好吧，毕竟没有。”彼得有一滴。 “它已经被狗吃了。”

“噢，我会把它带回来的。我明白你的意思。”

“没有人知道，没有人关心； “这种感觉已经消失了——不在公众面前，”他继续说道，表达着一种他很难忘记的不满，这种感觉突然让他的同伴的使命充满了可能的神圣性。 “在我们的舞台上，言论的纯洁性是不存在的。每个人都随心所欲地说话，而观众却从来没有注意到；这是他们最后想到的事情。这个地方充斥着令人厌恶的方言和个人诡计，任何粗俗的行为都盛行，最重要的是，所有美国人都以各种可以想象到的粗俗行为进来，让混乱变得更加混乱。当有人哀叹时，人们会凝视；他们不知道这意味着什么。”

“你是指肯布尔家族的庄严举止、某些浮夸的发音、风格吗？”

“我的意思是任何风格 is 一种风格，一种系统，一种一致性，一种艺术，为言语带来积极的美感。当我付十先令听你演讲时，我想让你知道如何， 阙迪亚布勒！对人们这么说，他们大多会陷入昏迷状态；只有少数非常聪明的人会惊呼：“那么你希望演员受到影响吗？”

“你呢？”米丽娅姆饶有兴趣地问道。

“我可怜的孩子，在阳光下他们还能是什么呢？他们的全部艺术不就是做作吗 出类拔萃？人们听到这样说，今天公众将无法忍受这一点。如果这是真的，那就意味着戏剧，正如我所关心的，作为一种个人艺术，已经结束了。”

“永远、永远、永远！”女孩的哭声让十几个人围观。

“我有时认为——个人艺术已经结束，从今以后我们将只有舞台木匠和服装设计师的艺术，毫无疑问能够以他们的方式取得巨大的发展——事实上他们已经达到了这一目标。 。在伦敦，戏剧已经被风景淹没了。解释尽可能地混乱。为了获得过去的个人印象（过去就是一切），你必须去贫穷国家，尤其是意大利。”

“哦，我已经受够了；这是非常个人化的！”米丽娅姆心知肚明地说。

“你已经看到了舞台上的裸体，后面是可怜的、彩绘的、破烂的屏幕，而在那之前，虚空的表演者正在尽其所能地做着一切，完全占有。这种个性不是我们英国人的个性，它可能并不总是伴随着我们；但方向是对的，而且它的优势在于它是一场人性的展览，而不是机械的展览。”

“我可以像意大利人一样行事，”米里亚姆热切地宣称。

“如果英国女人愿意这么做的话，我宁愿你表现得像个英国女人。”

“哦，我给你看！”

“但你不是英国人，”彼得友好地说，他的手臂放在桌子上。

“请再说一遍。你应该听妈妈讲我们的‘种族’。”

“你是犹太人——我确信这一点，”他继续说道。

她欣然接受了这一点，正如他以后注定会看到的那样，她会欣然接受任何可能让她更有趣或更引人注目的事情；即使是那些奇怪地相互矛盾或相互排斥的事情。 “如果一个人聪明的话，这总是可能的。我非常愿意，因为我想成为英国的Rachel。”

“那么，一旦你从卡雷夫人那里得到了她能给予的东西，你就必须离开她。”

“哦，你不用害怕；你不会失去我的。”女孩带着迷人的愚蠢回答道。 “我的名字是犹太人，”她继续说道，“但那是我祖母、我父亲母亲的名字。她是德国的一位男爵夫人。也就是说，她是一位男爵的女儿。”

彼得有所保留地接受了这一说法，但他回答说：“把所有这些放在一起，就足以让你充分了解雷切尔的部落了。”

“我不在乎我在艺术上是否属于她的部落。我出身于艺术家世家——我是我的 任何其他的！我和那个女人的风格一样——我知道。”

“你说得好像你见过她一样，”他说，被她谈论“那个女人”的方式逗乐了。 “哦，我了解她的一切——我了解所有伟大演员的一切。但这并不妨碍我说美妙的英语。”

“你必须学习很多诗句；你必须向我重复一遍，”谢林汉姆继续说道。 “你必须让自己陷入困境，直到你能说什么为止。你必须学习弥尔顿的段落，华兹华斯的段落。”

“做过 他们 写剧本？”

“哦，这不仅仅是戏剧的问题！在你能说出其他所有内容、任何出现的事情之前，你无法正确地说出其中的一部分，尤其是在困难的情况下。这给了你权力。”

“哦，是的，我要去寻求权威。英语更有机会。”女孩接着说道。 “没有那么多其他的——可怕的竞争。这里有这么多人——我担心，”她继续说道。 “但是我们有美国，而他们没有。美国是个好地方。”

“你说话就像一个戏剧经纪人。他们很幸运没有像我们一样拥有它。他们中的一些人确实走了，这毁了他们。”

“为什么，它填满了他们的口袋！”米丽亚姆哭了。

“是的，但看看他们付了多少钱。向不懂他的语言的大量观众表演对于一个演员来说就是死亡。那么就什么都不是了 一大笔钱;他所有的精致都消失了。不过，他们会理解的 您设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“也许我会受到太大的影响，”她说。

“你不会比加里克、西登斯夫人、约翰·肯布尔或埃德蒙·基恩更出色。他们了解埃德蒙·基恩。所有的反射都是做作，所有的表演都是反射。”

“我不知道——我的直觉，”米丽娅姆争辩道。

“我亲爱的小姐，你说的是‘你的’；但如果我告诉你你的不存在，请不要生气。总有一天它会的——如果事情成功的话。卡雷夫人做到了，因为她已经反思了。天赋、欲望、能量是一种本能；但当这些东西成为一种表演时，它们就变成了一种本能。”

“卡雷夫人非常有哲理。我永远不会像她一样。”

“你当然不会——你会是原创的。但你会有自己的想法。”

“我敢说我会拥有很多你的”——她在桌子对面对他微笑。

他们坐了一会儿，互相看着对方。 “别卖弄风情，”彼得接着说道。 “这是浪费时间。”

“嗯，这就是文明！”女孩哭了。

“哦，我不是为了我自己，我是为了你自己，我希望你能如此真诚。我一定会给你严厉的建议。我不觉得你有卖弄风情之类的东西，这对你很有利。”

“对我有利？”

“这确实节省了时间。”

“也许这样可以节省太多。你不认为艺术家应该有激情吗？”

彼得停顿了一下。他认为研究这个问题还为时过早。 “调情不是激情，”他回答道。 “不，你很简单——至少我怀疑你是；当然，对于女人来说，知道这一点就很明智了。”

她问他为什么说她很简单，但他认为推迟对这个问题的这个分支的处理是最好的，也更符合公平竞争。为了改变话题，他说道：“确保你不要把我出卖给你的朋友纳什先生。”

“背叛你？你是说你的推荐做作吗？

“天哪，不；”他自己推荐的。也就是说，他练习了，而且是大规模练习！”

“但他让人讨厌它。”

“他证明了我的意思，”谢林汉姆说：“伟大的喜剧演员是将喜剧提升为一门科学的人。如果我们付十先令来听纳什先生的演讲，我们应该认为他很好。但我们想知道它应该是什么。”

“他谈论我们的方式太可恶了！”米丽亚姆哭着表示同意。

“关于我们'？”

“我们这些可怜的演员。”

“这是他不喜欢的竞争，”彼得笑道。

“不过，他脾气很好，他借给妈妈三十英镑。”女孩诚实地补充道。我们的年轻人得知这一消息后，无法抑制他的同伴注意到的某种轻微的刺痛，而她似乎误解了其含义。 “他当然会拿回来的，”她继续说道，而他则沉默地看着她。命运并没有为他提供大量的金钱，但他的情绪是由于没有预见到他可能还得为罗斯夫人把手伸进口袋。这只是一种挑剔的本性，对与那些勉强糊口的人之间熟悉的亲密关系产生的本能反应，同时也感觉到，如果这种亲密关系要走得更远，就必须对其进行定义。他想知道它应该是什么，就像纳什的表演一样。片刻之后，米丽亚姆更加彻底地误解了他的想法，在这样做的过程中，她身上闪现出一种预兆，那就是她时不时地令人恼火地发出一个音符，几乎有意识地粗俗，人们会因为这个原因而讨厌它，以及其他人，到那个时候就会有人爱上她。 “那么，他不会——如果你不相信的话！”她轻松地笑了。他对自己说，唯一可能的形式就是他们只能向他借钱。 “你是个有趣的人。我让你脸红。”她坚持道。

“我必须用 图夸克，虽然我对你没有那么大的影响。”

“我不明白，”女孩说。

“你是一位非凡的年轻女士。”

“你的意思是我很可怕。好吧，我敢说我是。但当你了解我时，我会变得更好。”

他没有直接反驳，但过了一会儿又说：“你妈妈必须还那笔钱。我就给她。”

“你最好给它 他！”米丽亚姆叫道。 “如果妈妈一旦有了它——！”她打断了自己的话，用另一种更柔和的语气（她的职业转变之一）说道：“我想你从来不知道有谁是穷人。”

“我自己也很穷。也就是说，我离富有还很远。但为什么要受恩惠——？」在这里，他反过来检查自己，如果他假装已经——他没有见过这对夫妇三遍——来规范他们与世界其他地方的交往，他确实背负了很大的责任。但女孩立刻就实现了他的想法，而且超出了他的想法。

“纳什先生的恩惠？噢，他不算！”

她说出这些话的方式——在舞台上会令人钦佩——让他迅速轻松地回答道：“我刚才的意思是，在我趾高气扬之后，你不要告诉他，我认为你和我真的需要拯救我们的剧院。”

“哦，如果我们能拯救它，他就会知道的！”她补充说，她必须积极回家；她的母亲会处于一种状态：她真的很少单独出去过。他可能不这么认为，但事实就是如此。她母亲的想法，那些非常正确的想法，并不是说说而已。她 做了 留住她！谢林汉姆接受了这一点——他对罗斯夫人的保守主义有充分的、甚至是分析性的看法。但他同时发现他的同伴没有站起来的动作。他也没有做任何事。他只说：

“我们说话的方式非常轻浮。你想要把脚踩到马镫上是极其困难的。一切都需要克服。你既没有订婚，也没有订婚的希望。”

“噢，你给我买一个吧！”从她的态度看来，这一点是如此确定，不值得多说。于是，她没有继续扩张，而是再次突然问道：“你为什么认为我这么简单？”

“那我不这么认为。我刚才不是告诉你，你很了不起吗？而且，这也是你来见我时用在自己身上的词——当你说一个女孩必须是某种怪物才能希望登上舞台时。它仍然是正确的术语，并且您的简单性并没有减轻它的影响。你的罕见之处在于——至少我怀疑——你没有自己的本性。”米丽娅姆听着这句话，仿佛准备与它争论或不争论，只是因为这对她来说是一个足够勇敢的画面。但到目前为止，她自然还无法理解。 “你总是在音乐会场上或在马上；没有间隔。这是没有间隔，没有 喜欢 或者背景，我不理解。你就是一件没有画布的刺绣。”

“是的——也许吧。”女孩回答道，她的头偏向一侧，仿佛正在看着这种稀有的图案。 “但我很诚实。”

“你不可能成为一切，既是完美的女演员，又是球场上的花朵。你必须做出选择。”

她看了他一会儿。 “我很高兴你认为我很棒。”

“你的假装可能是诚实的，因为你唯一的感觉就是你假装的，”彼得继续说道。 “这就是我所说的没有基础或没有间隔的意思。这是一种迷宫之类的东西！”

“我知道我是什么，”她简洁地说。

但她的同伴继续跟随他自己的火车。 “你第一天去卡雷夫人家真的那么害怕吗？”

她盯着看，然后满脸通红地仰起头。 “你觉得我是在假装吗？”

“我想你一直都是这样。然而，你的虚荣心——如果你有的话！——是很自然的。”

“我有很多这样的。拥有它我并不感到羞耻。”

“你有能力尝试‘模仿’人类孔雀。但请原谅我的大胆和粗鲁的猜测——这只是证明了我的兴趣。你知道自己是什么？

“为什么，一个艺术家。那不是画布吗？”

“是的，是知识分子，但不是道德。”

“啊，这就是一切！而且我也是个好女孩——这样不行吗？”

“这还有待观察，”谢林汉姆笑着说。 “一种绝对的生物 所有 一位艺术家——我很想看到这一点。”

“当然，它已经在很多画家、很多音乐家身上看到过。”

“是的，但那些艺术并不像你的那样个人化。我的意思不是那么多。还剩下一些东西——我该怎么称呼它呢？——性格。”

她再次用悲惨的光芒凝视着。 “那你觉得我没有性格吗？”当他犹豫的时候，她把椅子往后一推，迅速站了起来。

他立刻抬头看了她一眼——她看起来那么“可塑”；然后也站起来回答：“令人高兴的人，你已经一百了！”

夏天到了，巴黎剧院里浓浓的空气实际上变得更加复杂。然而，谢林汉姆在舞台附近放了一个盒子（通常是一个闷热、昏暗的盒子）的情况并不少见。 浴）在罗斯夫人和她女儿的支配下，他抽出时间去看了一下，正如他所说，与他们一起度过了晚上的一部分时间，并指出了表演的寓意。这些作品，冬天的成功，已经进入了自动阶段：它们凭借所获得的动力继续前进，从解释中获得了一点新鲜的生命，而在正常情况下，它们的长处，如演员所呈现的那样，本来会对于这个学生来说，这就像不断地重复一个好故事一样令人厌烦。但没过多久，他就意识到情况不一般。他的意识中注入了一种新的东西——他生命中的一种元素改变了事物的关系。在找到合适的名字之前，他并不容易——这个名字越简单、全面、可信，就越令人满意。法国意义上的新“消遣”是他自以为发现的东西。他可以尽可能自由地承认这一点，而不必将令人愉快的资源归类为新的纠缠。他的消遣既不太多，也不太少。他把平时所有的注意力都集中在工作上：他只在业余时间有一份工作，虽然不是强制性的，但比其他人有一定的连续性的优势。

然而，我赶紧补充说，他对此不太满意，但在他的朋友中，他目前对此保持着丰富的保留。他没有不可抗拒的冲动来概括地描述他是如何挖掘出一个奇怪的、英俊的女孩的，他正在为剧院抚养她。他的几位同事在他的房间里见过她，但很快就没有再出现在那里。他的矜持也许被心怀恶意的人称为掩饰，因为当大使馆的女士们问及那天巧妙地逗乐了她们的那个年轻人怎么样了时，他说她的下落不明，她的命运如何。可能晦涩难懂；总之，他让人认为他的仁慈几乎是在一次偶然的慈善场合中幸存下来的。当他继续他的日常事务时，甚至可能在交易中多了一点良心，没有任何迹象表明他正在从事一种引人入胜的私人投机活动。也许他的弱点在于他对嘲笑的恐惧太过强烈。但他的借口可能在于他认为一个公开为国家服务的人的行为明显荒谬，是不可原谅的。当然，这些官员在个人情况允许的情况下，与戏剧、抒情甚至舞蹈舞台上的明星有私交，这并非完全不合常理：高级外交官确实不少，而且不是无形地培养了这种特权并没有证明他们的声誉已被埋葬。一位不傻的绅士应该为了一位著名的女演员或歌手而同意成为一个傻瓜——所见即所得，尽管可能不值得推荐。总部并不鼓励这种倾向，即使是最有前途的年轻人也没有被煽动相信自己永远不会倒下。不过，如果保持原状，它可能会过去。在这个行业中，也有一些古老的伟人——尽管不是那些受传统帮助走得最远的人——他们认为这类东西是外交性格的优雅装饰。谢林汉姆意识到自己正在“崛起”。但米里亚姆·罗斯还不是一位著名的女演员。她只是一个正在认真成长的年轻艺术家，并受到比她更认真的母亲的拖累。她是一个 年轻的英国人——一位“女士”——对艺术、对报酬问题非常认真。他接受了一个具有影响力的职位。而这正是可能引起嘲笑的原因。他是一位侍奉天使——他的耐心和善良的本性确实使他有资格获得这个称号，毫无疑问，有一天他的回报将会自行定义。但与此同时，其他促销活动的前景也岌岌可危，即使这些促销活动的失败，即使数量充足，也无法作为补偿。他毫不尴尬地注视着唐宁街，虽然可以坦白地说，他既不是学究，也不是一本正经的人，但他记得他最想给人留下的印象是徒劳的审美主义。

然而，当他在戏剧中坐在米丽亚姆身后，越过她的肩膀看向舞台时，他觉​​得这个案子足够重要了；她的观察如此敏锐，她的评论如此活泼，出人意料，以至于他的好奇心被刷新了，他的注意力也超出了平常的范围。如果脚灯前的展览现在已经失去了一年一度的辉煌，那么她所遵循的时尚也许就足够了。此外，这个小聚会的出席大多是在法国剧院举行。已经充分表明，我们的朋友，尽管是一个怀疑论时代的孩子和愤世嫉俗的科学的拥护者，但仍然足够坦率地接受该机构的严肃的宗教观点，萨尔塞先生和未重生的人的观点省心。 “在我所从事的行业中，我们过于理性和算计地看待事物，”他曾经对他年轻的负责人说道。 “但是保持一两个迷信对心灵是有好处的；它留下了余地——就像你的马车上有第二匹马来做夜间工作一样。艺术、娱乐、生活中的审美部分，都是夜间工作，如果我可以这样说，但不暗示它们是非法的。无论如何，你想要你的第二匹马——你的迷信，当太阳高照时留在家里——带着你到处走走。法国马是我的第二匹马。”

米丽亚姆对这种兴趣的兴趣，生动地向他表明，过去她很少能做到这一点。起初，她让他很高兴，因为她喜欢一切，几乎没有发现任何差异，并且不加稀释地喝了她的浓酒。她靠在盒子的边缘，露出强烈的贪婪。深入浅出，细细品味，观察每个演员的每一个动作，把每一件事都当作最重要的事情来对待，不时发出掌声或限制的声音。这是狂喜中批判精神的迷人表现。谢林汉姆对此感到好奇，因为这位年轻女士所施加的吸引力的一部分是她让他对她所做的一切感到好奇。这实际上是一场有意识的表演，一句为了达到效果而采取的台词，所以在喜剧中她自己的表演应该是最成功的吗？这个问题与这些年轻人的自由交往有关，幸运的是，目前还没有让谢林汉姆感到恼火。他对她所扮演的角色的总体感觉有其特殊的悬念和困惑时刻，并为他们的交易增添了多样性，甚至偶尔也有一定程度的兴奋。在剧院里，大多数时候，她都因渴望而脸红。观众们用钦佩的目光注视着她在昏暗的车厢里的身影，她可能被认为是一个浪漫的人，或者至少是一个来自乡村的贪得无厌的年轻女子。

罗斯夫人的观点更为笼统，但她对这个故事表现出了极大的关注，对此她表现出了耐心的善意，这对她女儿的赞助人来说是令人惊讶和滑稽的。她觉得没有什么游戏太乏味，没有 参加 太长了，不 浴 没有太热的事件，没有太复杂的事件，没有太不自然的情况，没有太崇高的情感。她向他展示了她坐下来的力量——这是她在生存斗争中所取得的成就，可以说她已经取得了如此优越的地位。她可以胜过任何人、任何事。看起来，她似乎是在多年的小节俭和大闲暇中养成了这种习惯——在这些时期，她除了数小时、数天和数年之外一无所有，并且学会了计算在任何情况下她可以呆多久。 “留下来”常常是一种节省——节省蜡烛、火，甚至（因为它有时暗示一种零散的反射计划）食物。彼得很快就看到，她的温柔和平静的碎片和碎片是多么勇敢地挂在一起，借助任何随意的别针和其他临时物品，如果他沉迷于研究人类混合物的不同组合，就会在她身上发现一个有趣的东西。一些在严格的纪律中幸存下来的迷恋的概要。他确实毫不费力地反思，她的生活可能教会了她一些真实的东西，同时他忍不住认为她如此坚持拒绝这一教训是明智的。她似乎带着一种不以为然的、淑女般的微笑把这件事搁置了——这是在辩解自己太温柔、太平淡，不适合经历。

她从自己的历史和感受开始，对宇宙抱有精致、感伤、温柔的看法。她相信一切高尚、纯洁、无私和正统，甚至在加龙宫酒店也没有意识到世界的破旧或丑陋的一面。她从不绝望：否则成为内维尔-纽金特人还有什么用呢？只是如果没有成为这样的人，那就太令人沮丧了。她喜欢小说、诗歌、变态、歪曲和逃避​​，并且有一种圆滑、多余的伪造能力，这让我们的年轻人认为她有时是一个有趣的发明家，有时是一个乏味的发明家。但即使你相信她，她也不危险。如果你不这样做，她甚至不会发出警告。称她为伪君子是很严厉的，因为你永远无法让她恢复到原来的性格，她的花言巧语根本无法逆转。她高高在上，并不像她假装的那么和蔼可亲，只不过那也是一种伪装。她完全进入了一个优雅的寓言和幻想的世界，谢林汉姆为了米丽亚姆的缘故不得不和她一起住在那里，以一种友善、粗俗的方式住在那里，尽管他觉得这是一个相当低下的社区。他不知道如何理解她所说的话——她甜蜜而漫不经心地谈论了很多事情——直到他简单地指出，他只能将其视为不真实。当米丽娅姆嘲笑她时，他感到相当不愉快：“亲爱的妈妈的好故事”是对自古以来体弱多病的父母的充分愤世嫉俗的提及。但当女孩支持她时，正如他对自己所说的那样，他就更不喜欢了。

罗斯夫人非常喜欢道德，并且从未失去对教化的兴趣。她对这个美丽的角色感到高兴，并很高兴地发现比她在当代法国戏剧中所代表的更多的东西。她总是把米丽娅姆的注意力引到他们身上，并提醒她，生活中没有什么比崇高的行为更伟大的了，尤其是在得到崇高解释的情况下。彼得很重视母亲和女儿之间的区别，认为这是一种独特的标志——人们把一切都视为意义，或者表现得好像她这样做，只关心情节和浪漫，美德的胜利或失败。这一切的道德安慰，以及他人的生活方式，除了它的方式和艺术，真理与表象的强度。罗斯夫人充满了令人印象深刻的召唤，但他看不出她的轻率天才与米丽亚姆所表现出的症状之间有任何联系。这位可怜的女士永远不可能被指责为成功的欺骗，而欺骗的胜利正是她聪明的孩子所取得的。她甚至让真实的事情看起来像是虚构的，而米丽亚姆则努力让虚构的事情变得真实。谢林汉姆认为这是一种奇怪的、毫无前途的戏剧天赋（内维尔-纽金特家族的），直到他反思说，这种演变毕竟是自然的：母亲的比喻冲动已经变得有意识，因此变得更高，通过在女儿身上找到了目标，那就是美丽。希伯来语的鲁斯先生很可能出于对旧罐子和基督教祭坛布的热爱，为女孩的构图提供了审美元素、色彩和形式感。在他们参观剧院的过程中，罗斯夫人最坚持的莫过于欺骗的无利可图，正如最杰出的作家所表明的那样——曲折的方式是愚蠢和堕落，对精神的腐蚀作用。他们的同伴很快就放弃了将她早年生活和在英国的家庭的不协调的内容拼凑起来的徒劳任务。他甚至放弃了这样一种学说，即她所声称的伟大关系有一定的真实性，因为，无论存在与否，他同样不关心她的后果。这种冷漠的本质本质上是一种想要与米丽亚姆断绝关系、孤立她的愿望。因为在与她打交道时不独立是令人不快的，而只有当她自己独立时，他才能完全做到这一点。

那年夏天的最初几周——事实上一直持续到八月——注定会在他的记忆中成为一个充满愉快事物的季节。大使走了，彼得不得不等待自己的假期，在炎热的日子里，他心满意足地在宽敞的大厅和一个巨大、昏暗、鸟儿出没的花园里等待。官方世界和大多数其他世界都从巴黎撤出，而协和广场这片比以往任何时候都更大、更白的沙漠，由于习俗的逆转而变得可以安全地探索。香榭丽舍大街尘土飞扬，充满乡村气息，小摊位和展览嘎吱作响，发出像蚱蜢一样的噪音。凯旋门将它凉爽而厚重的阴影投射了一英里。工业宫在漫长的日子里闪闪发光。穿着红色背心的出租车司机在包厢里打瞌睡，而谢林汉姆则戴着“锅”帽，很少见到朋友。因此，米丽亚姆就像被锁链锁住的安德洛墨达一样孤岛，因此才有可能像珀尔修斯那样，以一种深深的超然态度来对待她。林荫大道上的剧院大部分都关门了，但黎塞留街的宏伟寺庙，带着审美的责任，继续平静地散发着风格的典范。卡雷夫人要去维希，但还没有起飞，这对米里亚姆来说是一个很大的优势，她现在可以在意识到自己没有约会的情况下吸引她的注意 恩维尔.

“我让她听我说——我让她告诉我，”那个热心的女孩说，她总是爬上君士坦丁堡街阴凉的斜坡，七月的早晨，潮湿的花朵里会散发出紫罗兰的气味——肥胖，白顶 花束 在门口的角度。米丽娅姆喜欢夏天早晨的巴黎，喜欢所有小生意的清新，喜欢露天生活，喜欢叫喊声，喜欢挨家挨户的谈话，这让她想起了南方，在那里，在她的居住地的多样性中，她曾经活过；最重要的是，她散步时的巨大乐趣，或者说几乎是乐趣，洗衣女工的令人羡慕的篮子里堆满了褶边和凹槽的白色衣服——当她迅速预见到自己辉煌的黎明时，她感到某种奢侈。最大的乐趣也许是认识到早起的美好情感，在那些小小绊倒的女人精心挑选的衣服中认识到早起的美好情感，与时间的特殊一致性，她们在这一天中度过了重要的优势，同时又很温柔。无论如何，她在穿过小镇时大多带来了足够的幽默感——她总是在衣服前面插一束紫罗兰——无论在卡雷夫人家等待着她什么。她向她的朋友宣称，她亲爱的女主人非常严厉，给她做最困难、最累人的练习，表现出一种闯入她的愤怒。

“那就更好了，”谢林汉适时地回答道。但他没有多问，并且很高兴让师徒一起较量。他暂时想尽可能少地了解他们在一起的方式：在参加他们的第二次采访时，他已经过度了解了这些知识。他会给卡雷夫人寄钱——她真的非常乐于助人——同时他确信米丽亚姆能够照顾好自己。有时他对她说，她不必总是和他谈论“商店”：有时他对商店——对她的商店——感到非常厌倦。而且，他坦言自己厌倦了自己，所以限制并不残酷。当她回答时，凝视着：“为什么，我以为你认为这是一门如此美丽、有趣的艺术！”他没有比“好吧，我愿意；”更富有哲理的反驳了。但有时我还是对它感到厌倦。”有时他会这样说：“哦，是的，结果，完成的东西，完美调味和上桌的菜：不是准备过程的混乱——至少并不总是这样——不是破坏材料的实验。”

“我以为你会感受到这些学习问题，艺术教育问题，就像你对我所说的那样，非常令人着迷，”女孩坚持道。她有时是如此清醒。

“好吧，毕竟我自己也不是演员。”他只能不耐烦地叹息道。

“如果你认真的话，你可能就是其中之一，”她平静地说。对此，她的朋友回答说，加布里埃尔·纳什先生应该听到这个消息；这让她冷酷地承诺她会解决这个问题 他 和他的理论有一天。不要显得太矛盾——因为当他带她去启蒙时，让她困惑是残酷的——彼得重复了一遍，对于像他这样的人来说，整个事情的利益取决于它以一种广泛的、自由的方式和广泛的考虑。一种智慧使它摆脱了贸易小伎俩的困扰，赋予它美丽和崇高。但她随即告诉他，卡雷夫人认为没有 小 技巧，每件事都有其作为达到伟大目的的手段的重要性，并且如果你不愿意尝试 深化 为什么在特定情况下你应该用左手而不是右手抓鼻子，因为你不配踏上任何尊重自身的阶段。

“那很好，但如果我一定要讲细节，请给我读一点雪莱的话，”年轻人以一种高昂的精神呻吟道。 精制.

“你比卡雷夫人还糟糕；你不知道要发明什么；你们之间，你会杀了我！”女孩宣称。 “我认为你们之间有一个秘密联盟，目的是破坏我的声音，或者至少削弱我的声音。” 杂音，在我得到它之前。但 àlaguerrecommeàlaguerre！然而，当我不理解雪莱时，我怎么能读懂他呢？”

“这正是我想让你做的。这是一般训练的一部分。当然，你可以没有这些——没有文化、品味和感知；没有这些。但那样的话你就只是一个粗俗的人 卡博汀，不会有任何后果。”他有一个理论，认为伟大的抒情诗人——他引导她阅读并背诵华兹华斯和斯温伯恩的长篇文章——会教给她许多长篇大论的秘密、节奏的神秘、风格的可传播性、语言潜在的音乐和“创作”丰富演讲的艺术以及保留自由呼吸的艺术。他非常真诚地认为，对事物、精神事物有一种普遍的感觉，这对她来说是最重要的，而且幸运的是，他有能力对此做出贡献。当她拥有更多的知识时，她会做得更好——即使这些知识可能表面上显示出与她的业务无关。演员的才华本质上是一种天赋，本身就是一种东西，是植入的、本能的、偶然的，同样与智力和美德无关——谢林汉姆完全同意这一观点；但令他震惊的是，没有 bêtise 同时相信智力——暂时不考虑美德——可以与它建立富有成效的关系。如果在不牺牲思想的情况下投射出更好的思想，那将是一件更大的事情。于是，他把她从未读过的书借给了年轻的朋友——除了喋喋不休之外，她对印刷版的书几乎是不可调和的——并在漫长的夏日里，当他有闲暇时，带她去卢浮宫欣赏伟大的绘画作品。和雕塑。在这里，就像在所有场合一样，他对她奇特的品味、她的智慧和稚气的混合感到震惊。他发现她从来没有读过他给她的东西，尽管她有时会无耻地希望他这么认为；但在著名的图画和雕像面前，她却有着非凡的洞察力。她感觉到这些东西，她喜欢它们，尽管这总是因为她有一个可以使用它们的想法。这种信念常常是自以为是的，但这表明她对自己的生意有多么敏锐的眼光。 “如果我尝试的话，我也可以看起来像那样。” “这就是我演波西亚时想穿的衣服。”这些都是她在古董大理石的暗示下或当她站在提香或布龙齐诺面前时容易得出的观察结果。

当她说出这些话以及其他许多话时，其效果有时会激怒她的导师，他不得不思考一下，她并不比做作的良心所要求的更自私。他想知道，在做作的良心中是否必然存在着一些粗俗的东西——一些只有感受到棘手的、个人的问题才受到谴责的东西。做个完全愚蠢的人，不是比只睁着一只眼睛，在世界的伟大面孔上永远挂着会意的眨眼的表情更好吗？在剧院里，在无数个七月的夜晚，当法国喜剧团在倡导者的帮助下展示剧目时，他们认为更稀疏和偏远的观众应该尝尝这个传统，她的欣赏非常专业，表明她的表演并非毫无意义。现在进进出出卡雷夫人的内心深处。但有时，即使是她的敏锐，他也觉得这件事拖了后腿，从狭隘和肤浅的角度来看待它。他自以为他想为她做的事情——并且通过她为他那个时代的舞台做的事情，因为她是一个工具，而且毫无疑问是一个优秀的工具，来到了他的手上——恰恰是把它举起来，让它成为现实。罕见，将其保留在区别和广度的范围内。然而，她无疑是对的，而他是错的，他最终推理道：只有在你没有责任的情况下，你才能含糊其辞。他有很好的想法，但她要把这些想法付诸实践，也就是应用它们，而不是他；而应用必然是一种庸俗化，比理论更小的东西。如果她有一天会提出伟大的艺术，这对她来说并不是纯粹的幻想，那么事实无疑会充分改变这一事实，并且这并不意味着前进的某些步骤应该是蹩脚的。

有好几次，当她背诵或做手势，甚至只是看起来比平时更好时，他都清楚地意识到这一点；然后她完全把他迷住了，让他不想再问任何问题，而只是让她以她自己强烈的方式摆脱困境。在这几个小时里，她时断时续地强行给他留下了美丽的印象，这本来是她的理由。现在对她的进展做出任何总体估计还为时过早。卡雷夫人终于对她有了很好的理解，同时也对她有多么糟糕有了一种痛苦的、个人的、几乎是身体上的感觉。因此，她开始了一个新的基础，回到了字母表和练习中。这是一个尴尬的阶段，就像一个年轻的游泳运动员溅水一样，但浮力肯定会从中产生。目前，这个事实基本上没有太大的改变，即当她按照自己的想法做事时，到目前为止，经过认真的判断，这些事情并不值得见鬼，正如卡雷夫人所说，当她按照自己的想法做事时，这些事情并不值得。她的女老师太容易粗俗地模仿那位女士的意图了。尽管如此，她还是瞥了一眼，而她的一瞥让他不仅觉得她不是个傻瓜——这只是小小的松了一口气——而且他自己也不是。

他让她坚持说英语，并向他大声朗读莎士比亚的作品。罗斯夫人已经认识到公寓的重要性，他们应该能够在其中接待如此仁慈的访客，现在她是一家带阳台和摇摇欲坠的花架的小沙龙的女主人，更不用说可以看到许多屋顶和花园了。烟囱——非常不平坦的打蜡地板、帝国钟、 玻璃衣橱，对于米里亚姆的姿势来说非常方便，几个橱柜门被覆盖，留下了危险的缝隙，墙上的褪色的洋红色纸。这件事很容易完成，因为谢林汉姆说过：“哦，我们必须有一个起居室来学习，你知道，我会和女房东解决这个问题，”罗斯夫人喜欢他的“我们”——确实她喜欢他的一切——他以这种方式看到，只要金钱义务被明确认为是暂时的，她就不会暴力地承担金钱义务。一旦 Miriam 推出，他就应该连本带利地拿回来，这对他来说是一种安慰，这种安慰如此深刻地暗示着，这只会增加亲密感。小阳台上的窗户开着，当太阳离开窗户时，彼得和米丽亚姆可以在那里逗留，靠在栏杆上，在巴黎喧嚣的喧嚣中交谈，除了邻近的瓷砖和高高的管子之外，什么也没有。罗斯夫人穿着松软的衣服，没有系腰带，坐在沙发上，手里拿着一本小说，这兑现了她经常说的：她可以忍受任何能给她带来这两种便利的生活。有些浪漫主义作品彼得从未读过，他隐约想知道它们是针对哪个阶层的——欧仁·苏先生的早期作品，索菲·盖伊夫人曾经流行的作品——鲁斯夫人对这些作品很熟悉，也很熟悉。如果没有什么新鲜的东西的话，她已经准备好再次享受了。她的身下总是夹着一本油腻腻的书，而她的鼻子却埋在手里的书页上。即使米丽亚姆提高声音向他们的恩人展示她能做什么，她也几乎没有抬头。这些悲惨或悲惨的音符全都传出了窗外，与巴黎难以辨认的音乐会混在一起，以至于没有邻居被它们打扰。女孩一到需要的时候就会尖叫、哭泣，而罗斯夫人只是翻了一页，以这种方式表现出极大的审美和极大的个人信任。

她的自信让来访者感到相当恼火——原因他后来才完全明白——除非米丽亚姆很好地捕捉到了某种效果或语气，以至于她让他在快乐中忘记了她父母的亲密关系。他继续反对这个女孩的英语，其中的外国语补丁在散文中可能会被接受，但在诗歌朗诵中却令人反感，他想知道为什么她不能像她母亲那样说话。他必须公正地承认罗斯夫人的声音和语气的魅力，这甚至使她所说的愚蠢的事情变得丰富。它们具有优良的岛国传统，充满了自然和教养的甜蜜，当其他迹象似乎背叛了她时，它们让他感到困惑——让她接触更常见的空气。它们就像某个遥远的导师圈子的回响。

米丽娅姆的天才的发展和偶尔去乡村旅行的必要性之间的联系——这个迷人的乡村位于巴黎以外的许多方向 暴力街区——对于肤浅的观察者来说，不会立即显而易见；但是，在凡尔赛宫度过一天，在枫丹白露度过一天，以及前往朗布依埃的一次特别和谐而愉快的旅行，在我们年轻人的计划中占据了自己的位置，成为间接但有贡献的文化的一部分，成为形成过程中的一个机构。的味道。例如，路易十四对称的宫殿和花园充分体现了宏伟的风格。彼得“崇拜”凡尔赛宫，并不止一次与加龙宫的女士们在那里漫步。他们选择安静的时间，当喷泉干涸的时候。罗斯夫人抱着一抱小说，坐在公园的长凳上，两侧是修剪过的树篱和古老的雕像，而她年轻的同伴们则悠闲地走开，走到特里亚农宫，探索树林里漫长而笔直的远景。朗布依埃的语气含糊、生动、甜美。他们觉得在那里找到了一百个明智的声音；确实有一座古老的白色城堡，除了幽灵般的声音之外什么也没有。无论如何，他们享受了一顿漫长的午餐，风景中充满了银色夏天和法国画笔的精神。

我说过，这些天谢林汉姆对很多事情感到好奇，当他休假时，这种做法已经产生了一种特殊的猜测。他很惊讶自己不应该爱上米里亚姆·罗斯，并在闲暇时考虑自己豁免的原因。从一开始他就觉得她是一个“自然”，每次她与他的目光相遇，他似乎都更直接地意识到她的美丽是罕见的。你必须清楚地看到她的脸，但当你这样做时，它就是一个很棒的移动面具。佩戴这种高级装饰品的人坦率、勇敢、多变——不寻常和意想不到的事情层出不穷。她具有很少同时出现的品质——冲动和害羞，大胆和失误，粗俗、受欢迎和坚强，所有这些都与蔑视、倦怠和紧张交织在一起。最重要的是她 那里，触手可及，几乎属于他。他巧妙地想到，他的逃脱有一个特殊的原因——他们在一起有一个积极的外部目标。可以说，他们的交流都是出于目的。不是个人和自私，而是艺术、商业和讨论的问题。讨论拯救了他，并将进一步拯救他，因为他们总是有一些事情可以争吵。谢林汉姆不是无缘无故的外交官，他有他直行的理由，既不想剥夺英国公众的一颗冉冉升起的新星，也不想用自己的实际处境来换取一个被束缚的人。 掌门人，祝福艺术的仁慈、健康和纯粹的驱魔作用。与此同时，他感觉自己对这种最奇怪的动物有了更完整的认识，而这位艺术家碰巧生来是女性，他感到自己受到警告，不要与他建立严肃的联系——他强调了“严肃的动物”的重要观点。 ”——这样的生物又滑又怕痒。两位女士只需留在巴黎，保留烛台，并按照卡雷夫人的嘱咐，练习音阶：显然，罗斯夫人秋季不会去英国乡村别墅。彼得与他们分手时达成的谅解是，他将在伦敦尽可能彻底地研究订婚问题。在他开始度假的前一天，他去见卡雷夫人，她对他说：“你一定要自由设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“她 具有 那么——？”

“她拥有最多的东西。她会走得很远。这是我一生中第一次犯错误。但不要告诉她。我不奉承她。她会太浮夸了。”

“她很自负吗？”谢林汉姆问道。

“莫韦苏耶特！“卡雷夫人说。

在前往伦敦的途中，他沉迷于对我所提到的他的状态的一些质疑。但我必须补充一点，当他到达查林十字街时——他独自一人在一个隔间里抽着一支推迟到英吉利海峡之后的雪茄——他突然意识到他们是徒劳的。现在他已经离开了那个女孩，一种颠覆性的、无意识的心跳告诉他——这让他在车厢里屏住了呼吸——他终究没有逃脱。他 是 爱上她：他从一开始就爱上了她。

从“严酷”到“地方”（当地俗称“地方”），乘快马只需不到十分钟即可到达。如果达洛夫人的小马是大快马，那么这个场合的普遍高调使一切都变得协调一致，它们应该表现出它们的速度。那天是战斗结束一小时后的投票日。一周前，小马们一直与其他驱动力并驾齐驱，一次又一次地经过这座平坦小镇整洁的窗户。达洛自满地相信，在这个王国里，没有哪个花架在硬邦邦的棉布窗帘之间看起来更受人尊敬——他们的女主人在花架后面，除了银色的轮子外，其他一切都没有。她经常由自由党候选人陪同，但即使她不在，这辆马车似乎也代表了他轻松、友好的自信。它在丝带、传单、握手和微笑的光芒中移动。贸易的加速和突然的亲密；同情是不假思索地承担的，感激是不求索的承诺的。但在朱莉娅的引导下，小马们沿着那条蜿蜒曲折的坚固、宽阔的大道踏着马蹄声，丝毫没有失去新鲜感的迹象，在很大程度上弥补了不起伏的影响，从直通城镇的大门一直通向帕拉第奥广场。一座高大、方形、灰色、干净的宅邸，矗立在公园中心的露台和喷泉之间。为了将好消息从根特带到艾克斯，牺牲了一匹慷慨的战马，但与艾格尼丝夫人交流根本没有必要如此奢侈。

她一直待在家里，没有和其他人一起去威特谢夫旅馆、自由党旅馆。更愿意私下甚至是孤独地等待民意调查的重大结果。在诉讼过程中，她对两个女孩的态度很严厉。朱莉娅没想到他们会做多大的好事，但她现在变得宽宏和宽容，慷慨地向他们提出了要求。艾格尼丝夫人的游说态度并不好，尽管她本可以表现出一位高尚、仁慈、和蔼可亲的母亲的性格——看起来和蔼可亲，但并不干涉——年轻英俊，光芒四射，令人信服，非常聪明，当然令人无法抗拒有抱负的。格蕾丝·多默（Grace Dormer）的热情没有艺术，而艾格尼丝夫人（Lady Agnes）在她丈夫在世时就看到他们的事务遵循顺从至高无上的优点的令人满意的原则，但她从未真正学到投票取决于赞成的教训。然而，如果她不能和奶酪商做爱，她可以向上帝祈祷，而尼克觉得她留在家里为他祈祷。我必须补充一点，朱莉娅·达洛现在太高兴了，在夏日明媚的空气中挥舞着鞭子，甚至不会对自己说任何不礼貌的话，比如尽管她的同伴有最亲近的女性亲戚，她还是被送回来了。除此之外，毕迪 民政事务总署 是一个玫瑰色的帮助：她看起来非常漂亮，穿着白色和蓝色的衣服，无论是在站台上还是在往返的车厢里，她都从车厢里扔出来，脸红得让人们觉得他们会记住她的眼睛，这几个词很简单地说明了一切。

达洛夫人真的太高兴了，没有任何明确的反应，甚至是个人的狂喜，以及承认自己承担了大部分工作的虚荣心。尼克进来了，现在就在她身边，疲惫、沉默、含糊，从头到尾都很出色，脾气很好，同时又聪明——仍然比她想象的要聪明。 。她感觉到她加快了他的聪明才智，并得到了回报，或者说是他的感激之情——这是同一件事——以她欣赏的方式，但她并不自信和嫉妒：在漫长的幸福休息中，它暂时消失了。紧张。因此，在前往房子的路上，他们之间没有任何交流。公园里没有任何声音，只有夏天令人愉快的沙沙声——这似乎是一种鼓掌般的低语——和车辆的快速滚动。

艾格尼丝女士已经知道了，因为结果一公布，尼克就派了一个骑马的人到她那里，带着一张潦草的卡片上的数字。他本人还远远没有立即离开，必须回应喧闹的鼓掌声，再次讲话，单独和集体感谢他的选民，不带廉价的兴高采烈地嘲笑保守党，被带到这里那里，甚至更高。所有这一切都是为了假装现在他对这个生意比以往任何时候都更感兴趣。如果他在把自己交到朱莉娅手中回家后一句话也没说，部分原因也许是因为他的意识开始在他内心闪烁，相反，这种兴趣突然减弱了。他想见他的母亲，因为他知道她想把他紧紧地搂在怀里。在过去的半个小时里，他们一直在为这个目的而开放，而她的期待，现在不再是悬念的痛苦，是朱莉娅来回走动的原因。然而她的这种不耐烦不知何故让尼克有点畏缩。见到他的母亲就像再次被选举一样。

其他人还没有回来，宽敞明亮的客厅里只剩下艾格尼丝夫人一人。当尼克和朱莉娅一起进去时，他看到她在尽头。显然她一直在整个长度上走来走去，她高大挺拔的黑色身材似乎拥有相当广阔的空间，就像空白页底部的感叹号一样。这个房间，丰富而简单，是一个完美的地方，色彩精致，辉煌灿烂，浅色锦缎墙壁上摆放着上世纪法国家具的珍贵标本，到处都是一幅几乎无价的小画。乔治·达洛（George Dallow）成功了，他关心这些事情并喜欢谈论它们——很少谈论其他事情；因此，它似乎仍然代表着他，他善良、有限的本性中最好的部分，他对和谐的友好、能干、令人厌烦的坚持——对“时代”身份的坚持。尼克还能听到他的声音，也能看到他，他太胖了，说话也有一种先天的厚重，他穿着宽松的衣服，闲坐在那儿，手里总是叼着烟。 “现在我亲爱的朋友， 这这就是我所说的形式：我不知道你怎么称呼它”——这就是他过去的开始方式。四周都是罕见的花瓶里的鲜花，但这里看起来即使没有它们，美人也会闻到甜甜的味道。

艾格尼丝夫人从其中一束玫瑰中取出一朵白玫瑰，把它举到脸上，当尼克跨过门槛时，她的脸转向了门口。她身材的表情立刻告诉他——他看到了他寄给她的一张皱巴巴的卡片，放在一张漂亮的光秃秃的桌子上——她是如何在一种庄严的满足感中上下航行的。空气中仍然弥漫着她素色长裙的膨胀感和她骄傲的脸上明亮而暗淡的光芒。不一会儿，他就吻了她，也有人在吻她，不是快速地重复，而是温柔地延长，其中混合着白玫瑰的香味。但还有别的东西——她在他耳边甜甜地说：“哦，我的孩子，我的孩子——哦，你的父亲，你的父亲！”对于艾格尼丝夫人来说，无论是快乐的感觉还是痛苦的感觉——事实上，正如这段历史所涉及的大多数人一样——都不是闲聊的解放；她的痛苦和快乐都不是一种闲聊。因此，有那么一会儿，她只说了一遍：“我想起了尼古拉斯爵士，希望他在这儿”。这句话是对朱莉娅说的，而朱莉娅却没有看那对母子，就向前走去。

“可怜的尼古拉斯爵士！”达洛太太含糊地说。

“你又发表演讲了吗？”艾格尼丝夫人问道。

“我不知道。我有吗？尼克提出上诉。

“我不知道！”——朱莉娅背对着镜子说道，一边对着玻璃前的帽子做了些什么。

“噢，当然是困惑、困惑！”艾格尼丝夫人用充满政治回忆的语气说道。

“这真的非常有趣，”达洛夫人甚至放弃了。

“最亲爱的朱莉娅！”艾格尼丝夫人深吸了一口气。然后她补充道：“是你确定的。”

“有很多人来吃晚饭，”朱莉娅说。

“也许你得再说一遍，”艾格尼丝女士对她的儿子微笑道。

“谢谢;我喜欢你说话的方式！”尼克喊道。 “我就像伊阿古一样：‘从今以后我再也不会说话了！’”

“别这么说，尼克，”他母亲严肃地说。

“别害怕——他会像喜鹊一样叽叽喳喳！”朱莉娅走出了房间。

尼克一屁股坐在沙发上，神情疲倦，但还没有完全丧失快乐。艾格尼丝夫人站在那里，抚摸着她的玫瑰，低头看着他。他的目光远离了她；它们似乎固定在她看不到的东西上。 “我希望你对朱莉娅表示了深深的谢意，”她随即说道。

“当然可以，妈妈。”

“她已经做了很多事情，就好像你不确定一样。”

“我一点也不确定——而她已经做了一切。”

“她太优秀了——但是 we已经做了一些事情。我希望你不要遗漏你的父亲，”艾格尼丝女士放大道，尼克的目光似乎在质疑她的“我们”。

“从来没有，从来没有！”尼克说这些话也许有点机械，但下一分钟他又补充道，仿佛突然想到他能说些什么才能让他的母亲最高兴：“当然，他的名字对我有用。尽管他走了，但他仍然是一支充满活力的力量。”他觉得自己很伪善，但这一年里，并不是每天都有人赢得这样的席位。也许他确实不应该再赢得一次。

“他听到你，他看着你，他为你感到高兴，”艾格尼丝女士说。

这个想法让尼克感到压抑——他的喜悦几乎和观看的一样多。他已经做出了让步，但是，为了转移他母亲的注意力，他突然爆发了：“朱莉娅是一个非常有效率的女人。”

“她当然是！”艾格尼丝夫人心知肚明地说。

“她迷人的外表就成功了一半。”尼克冷冷地解释着自己的意思。但当他听到他的同伴以同样的智慧观察时，他感到自己的冷漠不足以保护他：

“当一个女人如此喜欢一个人时，她总是很有效率。”

被描述为一个女人喜欢的人，而且非常喜欢，这让他很不安。他只是突然说道：“你什么时候走？”

“这是文明的第一个时刻——明天早上。 完全我希望会留下来。”

“呆着？我留下来干什么？”

“为什么你可能留下来表达你的谢意。”

尼克想了想。 “我有一切事情要做。”

“我以为一切都完成了，”艾格尼丝女士说。

“嗯，就是因为这个，”她儿子回答得不太清楚。 “我想做其他事情——完全不同的事情。我想乘下一班火车。”他看了看手表。

“什么时候有人来吃饭接你？”

“他们会见面 您——这样更好。”

“很抱歉有人来了，”艾格尼丝女士用一种不鼓励的语气说道，这与现实情况有所偏差。 “我希望我们单独相处——就像一家人一样。如果朱莉娅今天感到我们 ，那恭喜你， 一。明天一定要留在她身边。”

“当她独自一人时，那会怎样呢？”

“和格雷沙姆太太在一起，她不会孤单。”

“太太。格雷沙姆不算数。”

“这正是我希望你停下来的原因。还有她的表弟，几乎是她的兄弟：这真是行不通的主意！以前没人的时候你不是也住在这里吗？”

“我从来没有呆过多久，但一直都有人。无论如何，现在已经不同了。”

“只是因为不同而已。而且，这并没有什么不同，而且从来都没有不同。”艾格尼丝女士说道，她的语气比她平常遇到的情况更加语无伦次。 “她一直喜欢你，现在比以往任何时候都更喜欢你——如果你打电话给她 这 不同的！”尼克听了这句话，站了起来，没有看她的眼睛，走到一扇窗户前，背对着窗子站着，眺望着窗外的大片绿地。她看了他一会儿，当他似乎全神贯注地凝视时，她很可能一直在希望，这种感觉会以同样的力量出现在他身上——以前经常这样，但在这最后的日子里比以往任何时候都更强烈。 ——严酷的平原，在窗前延伸，法国花园的对称性，屏风和雕像，以及许多其他的东西，这些都是表面的象征，都是朱莉娅自己做的，完全一样她喜欢。然而，年轻人嘴里并没有说出任何赞赏或嫉妒的话，他的母亲立即继续说道：“在你获胜之后，你和她应该有很多事情要解决和谈论——没有尽头，还有什么比这更自然的呢？”实际问题层出不穷，紧急事务没完没了？你不是她的会员吗？她的会员就不能和她一起度过一天吗？她是一个伟大的老板？”

尼克闻言转过身来，表情有些奇怪。 “她的 会员——我是她的吗？

艾格尼丝夫人停顿了一下——她需要运用自己的机智。 “好吧，如果这个地方是她的，而你代表这个地方——！”她开始了。但她没有再继续说下去，因为尼克笑着打断了她。

“想想看，‘代表’是一件多么滑稽的事情啊！什么是 it 代表，可怜的愚蠢的小行政区，尽管我承认干净，但饭菜的味道很浓，还有奇怪的胖脸居民？你见过这么多胖脸出现在竞选活动中吗？它们看起来就像一张巨大的沙发，脸颊是褶皱，眼睛是纽扣。”

“哦，好吧，下次你会拥有一个伟大的城镇，”艾格尼丝女士回答道，微笑着，感觉她 是 委婉。

“只会是一个更大的沙发！我当然是在开玩笑吧？”尼克追问，“我应该为自己感到羞耻。他们让我荣幸地选举了我，我永远不会对他们说任何不礼貌的话，可怜的亲爱的。但即使是新成员也可能亵渎他的母亲。”

“我希望你能认真对待你的母亲”——她走近了他。

“困难在于我是两个人；这是有史以来最奇怪的事情，”尼克用他那张明亮的脸对着她承认道。 “我是两个截然不同的人，几乎没有共同点；甚至一个人对另一个人的成就或冒险的记忆也没有。一个人赢得了席位，但坐在其中的是另一个人。”

“噢，尼克，别因为你的任性而破坏了你的胜利！”她紧紧抓住他的手，哭了。

“我非常高兴地经历了这一切——我不会否认：它让我兴奋，让我感兴趣，让我开心。当我身处其中时，我就喜欢它。但现在我又摆脱困境了——！”

“摆脱了？”他的母亲凝视着。 “这不就是你现在所处的重点吗？”

“啊 现在 我只在下议院任职。”

有那么一瞬间，她似乎没听懂，正要把手指迅速放在嘴唇上“嘘！”——就好像已故的尼古拉斯爵士可能听到了“唯一”一样。然后，当她理解了年轻人的话后，立刻就不再那么冲动了，她强硬地回答道：“当你决定去上议院的那一天，你就会成为上议院的一员。”

这句徒劳的话让尼克又笑了，不仅笑了，还吻了她，这对于可怜的艾格尼丝夫人来说总是一种更强烈的神秘形式，显然也是他最喜欢施加的人；随后他说道：“奇怪的是，你知道，哈什没有想要的东西。至少它对它们的认识不是很敏锐，也不是很清晰。我们假装在一起讨论这些事情，我答应把它们记在心里。但以我的名誉担保，我不记得其中的任何一个。朱莉娅说，严酷的需求就是国家的需求——这对朱莉娅来说是一个漂亮的说法。她的意思是 她 为这个地方做一切； 她确实是他们的成员，我们是他们的立法厅所在的议院。因此 空白 我已承诺填写国家的需求。纠正其中一些问题将是一项相当艰巨的工作，不是吗？我不代表哈什的胃口——哈什已经吃饱了。我代表我党的想法。朱莉娅就是这么说的。”

“哦，别介意朱莉娅说什么！”艾格尼丝夫人不耐烦地爆发了。这种不耐烦使得她说出的下一句话变得很奇怪：“我最亲爱的儿子，我希望你能娶她。现在再合适不过了！”她补充道。

“为什么现在？”尼克皱起了眉头。

“她对你表现出了如此的同情和奉献。”

“是因为她才表现出来的吗？”

“啊，你可能 感觉——我不能告诉你！艾格尼丝夫人责备地说。

他听了这话，脸红了，仿佛他所感受到的就是责备。 “因为你喜欢她，我就一定要娶她吗？”

“我？为什么我们是 所有 我们尽我们所能地喜欢她。”

“亲爱的母亲，我希望我娶的任何一个女人不仅会是您喜欢的人，而且，既然您这么说，格蕾丝和毕迪也会喜欢。但我必须告诉你——我不会娶任何我没有明确爱上的女人。”

“那你为什么不爱朱莉娅——尽管她迷人、聪明、慷慨？”艾格尼丝夫人把手放在他身上——她紧紧地抱住他。 “最亲爱的尼克，如果你关心让我高兴的事情，你明天就留在这儿对她好一点。”

他等了一会儿。 “你的意思是向她求婚？”

“用一个词，用一个眼神，用你的小指动一下”——她停了下来，热切地、恳求地抬头看着他的脸——“在比我现在说的话更短的时间内，你可能拥有一切。”他没有回答，只是看着她的眼睛，她坚持补充道：“你知道她是个好人——你知道她是！”

“最亲爱的母亲，我似乎比世界上任何事情都更清楚的是，我热爱我的自由。我把它看得远远高于一切。”

“你的自由？贫穷有什么自由？”艾格尼丝女士激烈地要求道。 “当朱莉娅把她拥有的一切都放在你的脚下时，就说这个吧！”

“我不能谈论这个，妈妈——这个主意太糟糕了。我不能谈论 这里，也不考虑我对她的看法。你必须把它留给我。我完全公正地对待她。”

“你不这样做，否则你明天就会娶她，”她热情地争辩道。 “你会觉得这个机会如此难得，世界上有一切可以让它变得完美。你的父亲会对你看重它胜过一切。想想会得到什么 他 乐趣。这就是我刚才谈到我们大家时的意思。我想的不是格蕾丝和毕蒂——天哪！——而是他。他一直在你身边；他陪伴着你，在你身边，陪伴着你迈出的每一步。他会虔诚地祝福你和朱莉娅的婚姻；他会感受到这对你和我们所有人来说意味着什么。我不要求任何牺牲，他也不会要求任何牺牲。我们只求你不要犯罪——！”

尼克·多默又用一个吻阻止了她。他低声说道：“妈妈，妈妈，妈妈！”当他向她俯身时。他希望她不要再继续下去，让他走开。但他语气中深深的不屑并没有阻止她说道：

“你知道——你完全知道。所有的事情，甚至比我能告诉你的事情还要多，你都知道。”他把她拉得更近，再次吻了她，像抱着一个突然发作的孩子一样抱住她，默默地安抚她，直到它消退。她的热情让她流下了眼泪。当她脱离自己时，她把它们擦干了。然而下一刻，她又继续攻击他：“对于一个公众人物来说，她将是完美的伴侣。她生来就是为了公共生活而生的——她生来就光芒四射，关心伟大的事情，占据高位，帮助他前进。她会在一切事情上支持你，就像她在这件事上支持你一样。只要在一起，就没有什么做不到的。您可以拥有英格兰的第一栋房子——是的，第一栋！什么自由 is 贫穷有什么用？没有钱你怎么能做任何事，你能为自己赚什么钱——什么钱会降临到你身上？这就是犯罪——扔掉这样一个权力的工具，这样一个受祝福的善良的工具。”

“富有并不是一切，妈妈，”尼克说，用一种特别的耐心看着地板——那是一种暂时的温顺，双手插在口袋里。 “而且贫穷并不那么可怕。”

“这是卑鄙的——这是卑鄙的。难道我不知道吗？”

“你有这么急切的需求吗？”他笑了。

“啊，别让我解释你只能看的东西！”他的母亲回来了，仿佛她的命运中充满了黑暗元素。

“此外，”他轻松地继续说道，“除了朱莉娅的钱之外，世界上还有其他的钱。我可能会来一些。”

“你是说卡特雷特先生的吗？”这个问题让他笑了，就像五分钟前她微弱地向上议院提到的那样。但她继续追问，她的想法太丰富了，没有考虑到这样一个糟糕的替代品：“让我告诉你一件事，因为我认识查尔斯·卡特雷特的时间比你长得多，而且我更了解他。没有什么比嫁给朱莉娅对他更有利的了。我知道他看待事物的方式，也清楚这会给他带来怎样的打击。这会让他高兴，让他着迷；这将是最能向他证明你是认真的。你知道，你需要做一些类似的事情，”她坦白地说。

“我不是来严厉的吗？”尼克问道。

“哦，他非常精明。他喜欢看到人们富有。 然后 他相信它们——那么他可能会相信更多。他对你很好，因为你是你父亲的儿子；但我确信你的贫穷会让你损失很多。”

“他可以很容易地解决这个问题，”尼克仍然微笑着说道。 “我被茱莉亚养着就是你所说的我为自己做出的努力吗？”

艾格尼丝夫人犹豫了。然后“你不必侮辱朱莉娅！”她回应。

“此外，如果我 这里 “我不要他的钱。”尼克漫不经心地说。

他的母亲又等了一会儿才回答。之后她问道：“请问你不想独立吗？”

“你真可爱，亲爱的妈妈——你真是太可爱了！我特别喜欢你的独立观念。难道你没有想到，在紧要关头，我可以通过其他方式来改善我的财富，而不是通过雇佣婚姻或讨好一个富有的老绅士吗？你难道没有想到我可能会工作吗？

“从事政治工作？老实说，这怎么赚钱？”

“我指的不是政治。”

“那你是什么意思？”——她似乎在挑战他，如果他敢的话，就说出这句话。她的表情和声音的表现可能影响了他，因为他保持沉默，她继续说道：“你当选还是没当选？”

“这似乎是一场梦，”他相当干脆地回答道。

“如果是的话，就采取相应的行动，不要混淆像两极一样宽的东西！”她说话严厉，而他的沉默似乎再次表明她承认她的严厉对他很重要。也许她被它感动了；也许她被它感动了。过了一会儿，无论如何，他们之间没有再发生任何事情，她用一种更温和、更焦虑的语气向他求助，这种美德让他感动，他知道这绝对是她一生中第一次与她发生性关系。真的乞求什么。她从来没有被迫乞讨过。没有它她也能过得很好，大多数事情都由她来解决。因此，他可能会判断，她是如何看待这个恩惠的，在她失去亲人的晚年，她谦卑地成为了一个追求者。她是如此的骄傲，以至于他能感觉到她甚至向她的儿子下跪所付出的代价。他确实判断出他有能力使她满意；但他确实认为自己有能力满足她。由于他慷慨且富有想象力，当他想到他可以在很多事情上弥补她时，他感到激动和震惊。他几乎不需要听到她用近乎悲惨的哀号声问道：“你难道没有看到我们的处境如何吗？难道你不知道我有多不开心吗？你不知道我有多痛苦吗——？”她的声音中充满了抽泣，他清楚地认识到这最后的磨难，她生活的变化以及她从卓越到平庸的转变所造成的未愈合的伤口。 “你知道珀西瓦尔是什么，也知道他给我带来的安慰。你知道这处房产，知道他用它做什么，也知道我从中得到什么安慰 这！一切都很沉闷，但你能为我们做些什么。一切都是可憎的，甚至与不结婚的女孩住在一个洞里。格蕾丝是不可能的——我不知道她怎么了；她怎么了？没有人会看她，而且她还很自负——有时候我觉得我能打败她！毕迪永远不会结婚，我们是肮脏房子里的三个忧郁女人，而伦敦的三个忧郁女人或多或少又算什么呢？”

于是，她以一种意想不到的自我暴露的愤怒倾诉了她的失望和烦恼，撕开了她悲伤和酸痛的面纱。看到她如何憎恨自己的生活，他几乎感到害怕，尽管在另一个时候，注意到她如何鄙视她没有花园的房子可能会很有趣。当然，这不是乡间别墅，她无法习惯。比他能做的更好——因为无论如何，女人比男人更能参与这种事情——她感觉到，他与朱莉娅的婚姻将给他的姐妹们的可能性带来多大的提升，给他的姐妹们的可能性带来多大的影响。对于他们来说。他无法找出其中的差异，但他的母亲却将这一切视为一幅闪亮的图画。她现在把明亮的景象挂在他面前——她站在那里，就像一个可怜的女人哭泣着寻求仁慈。他身上的孝顺，他所欠的所有虔诚，尤其是对他父亲复活的精神的虔诚，在这样公开宣誓的日子里比以往任何时候都更加明显，从一个时刻到另一个时刻都变成了房间门的把手。的优惠。他有一种冲动，当涉及到一致的行动时，他会以一种感人的、有趣的眼光来看待他人生活中强行呈现的任何一面：这种冲动使他与某种事物结合在一起。 他的生命，在对他们的认可中，没有牺牲的痛苦，也没有功绩的意识。

很快，眼前的景象就发生在他的神眼之中。他发现自己相信，因为他的母亲传达了这样的信念，那就是，完全取决于他自己的行为，才能改变三个依附于他并声称自己被遗弃的女人的社会观。这不是最高的动机，但它包含着一股泉源，它再次触动了旧的禁令和呼吁。朱莉娅广阔的王国在他周围展开，不知怎的，他似乎也看到了自己可能的未来。他的母亲和姐妹们漂浮在玫瑰色的元素中，就好像他把它呼吸到了她们周围一样。她称其为“英格兰第一栋房子”；但它可能是欧洲第一座房子，世界上第一座房子，因为里面空气清新，人文气息浓厚。在他的实际的、物质的观点中，一切美丽的事物似乎都宣示着其前所未有的价值。这座房子在他头顶上高高耸立，就像一座陈列着精美奖品的博物馆，可怜的乔治·达洛的形象谄媚地盘旋在那里，表明他只是一个谦虚、有品位的组织者，甚至是装潢师，被任命将一切安排妥当并准时退休。艾格尼丝夫人的语气比她以前强硬地说道：“不要抛弃我们——不要抛弃我们。”时的语气更加深入人心。

“不要抛弃你——？”

“要伟大——要伟大。我老了，我活过，我见过。争取一个很好的物质地位。这将简化其他一切。”

“我会为你做我能做的——任何事，我能做的一切。相信我——别打扰我，”尼克继续说道。

“你会留下来——你会和她一起度过这一天吗？”

“我会留下来，直到她把我赶出去！”

他的母亲现在又握住了他的手：她把它举到唇边，亲吻了​​它。 “我最亲爱的儿子，我唯一的快乐！”然后：“我不知道你怎么能抗拒她，”她补充道。

“我不再这样了！”

她环顾四周——有太多可看的东西——深深地叹了一口气。 “如果你如此热爱艺术，那么还有什么艺术能与这一切媲美呢？生活在其中的乐趣——每天都能看到最好的作品！你将拥有世界所能给予的一切。”

“这正是我脑海中刚刚闪过的念头。这太多了，”尼克推理道。

“别自私！”

“自私？”他附和道。

“那就无私吧。你将与​​我们分享。”

“我希望能和朱莉娅在一起，”他说。

“上帝祝福你！”他的母亲抬头看着他，大声喊道。她突然感觉到他身上有某种她不清楚的东西，这让她的目光停留在了她的身上。但还没等她提出质疑，他突然问道：

“你为什么这么谈论可怜的毕迪？她为什么不结婚？”

“你最好问问彼得·谢林汉姆，”艾格尼丝夫人说。

“这和他有什么关系？”

“你不知道真是太奇怪了——她对他的看法如此明显，以至于这是一个常见的八卦问题。”

“是的，如果你愿意的话——我们已经做到了，她把它当作天使。但彼得喜欢她。”

“是吗？那么他的所作所为对他来说就更丢人了。他最好别打扰他那些可怜的女演员。这也是对艺术的热爱！”艾格尼丝夫人嘲笑道。

但尼克把这一切都掩饰了。 “毕蒂太迷人了，她很容易就会嫁给别人。”

“永远不会，如果她爱他的话。不过，朱莉娅会实现的——朱莉娅会帮助她。”他的母亲更加高兴地追问。 “这就是你将为我们做的事—— 贝壳 做任何事！”

“为什么那时比现在更多？”他问。

“因为我们将是你的。”

“你已经是我的了。”

“是的，但她不是。不过，她也一样好啊！”艾格尼丝夫人欣喜若狂。

“她会把我赶出家门，”尼克说。

“她什么时候来告诉我！但她就在那里——去找她吧！”她把他推向一扇通向露台的窗户。他们的女主人已经出现在外面了。她带着长长的影子沿着露台慢慢走过。 “去找她，”他的母亲重复道——“她在等你。”

尼克走出去，一副准备从那条路经过的男人的样子，就在同一时刻，他的两个姐妹，仍然因参与而红着脸，出现在另一个地方。

“我们明天回家，但尼克会待一两天，”艾格尼丝夫人对他们说。

“亲爱的老尼克！”格蕾丝紧张地看着她，射精了。

“他会说话，”她继续说道。 “但是别提了。”

“不提了？”毕迪用温和的目光问道。 “可怜的家伙，他说的还不够多吗？”

“我指的是朱莉娅，”艾格尼丝夫人回答道。

“你还不明白吗，笨蛋？”——格蕾丝转向她的妹妹。

第二天早上，这位年轻人收到了许多信件和电报，他的咖啡就放在他房间里的旁边，他一直呆在那里直到中午回复这些信件。当他出来时，他得知他的母亲和姐妹已经离开了家。这些信息是格雷沙姆夫人给他的，他发现她正在图书馆的一张桌子上处理自己的大量预算。她是一位每天收到三十封信的女士，信件的主题，以及她准时的答复，就像女经理那样“淑女”，让那些观察她的人感到困惑。

她告诉尼克，艾格尼丝女士不愿意在他工作时打扰他道别，因为她知道一两天后她就会在城里见到他。他对母亲偷偷溜走的方式感到好笑——仿佛她担心进一步的谈话可能会削弱她相信自己所施加的咒语。此外，这个地方还清除了其他访客，因此，正如格雷沙姆夫人所说，乐趣结束了。这位女士表示，这种乐趣毕竟很无聊。无论如何，现在他们可以休息了，达洛夫人、尼克和她，她很高兴尼克要留下来安静一会儿。她最喜欢严厉的时候 宴请：这样一来，人们就能看出这是一个多么令人同情的老地方了。她希望尼克没有精疲力竭——她担心朱莉娅已经精疲力尽了。然而，朱莉娅却把她的疲惫转移到了地上——她正在某个地方闲逛。她以为会有更多的人来到这所房子，有城里的人，有乡下的人，所以就出去了，以免见到他们。她并没有走多远——尼克很容易就能找到她。尼克暗示他自己并不渴望更多的人，于是格雷沙姆夫人颇为狡猾地笑了笑。 “当然你讨厌 me 因为来到这里。”他提出了一些抗议，她补充道：“但我几乎是房子的一部分，你知道——我是其中一张椅子或桌子。”尼克宣称他从未见过布置得如此精良的房子，格雷沙姆夫人说：“我相信那里有 ，那恭喜你， 被一些人吃饭；而是一种干扰，不是吗？朱莉娅在公共场合就是这样生活的。但这一切都是为了你。”过了一会儿，她补充道：“这是一个很棒的体质。”尼克一开始没能抓住她的暗示——他认为这是一种迟钝的政治暗示，是对统治他们所有人的伟大的不成文文书的突然致敬，在它的愉快运作下，他的斗争取得了如此成功。他正想说：“英国人？精彩的！”当他了解到他的同伴的意图只是为了赞扬达洛夫人的坚强时。 “表面如此精致，动作如此轻松，但框架却是钢铁般的。”

他把格雷沙姆太太留给了她的信件，然后走出了家门。他边走边想知道她是否希望他做他母亲想要的同样的事情，所以她的话是为了刺痛——这两位女士是否一起讨论过她们的愿望。格雷沙姆夫人是一位已婚妇女，通常被认为是寡妇，主要是因为她的朋友们总是“派人来找”她，而朋友们在任何情况下都不会派人去找格雷沙姆先生。她每次都来，带着她的神气 回复 以牺牲肮脏的物品为代价。她的身材受到赞赏——人们有时会提到这一点——她的穿着打扮就好像人们期望她聪明，就像商店里的年轻女子或引人注目的仆人。她溜进溜出，在钢琴旁伴奏，与被忽视的访客交谈，在雨中行走，邮递到达后通常会与女主人开会，其间她摸着下巴，看上去很负责。她的特点是，人们总是压低声音对她说话。她有各种各样的熟人，有时在小机构里写下 菜单。另一方面，伟大的人物对她来说并不可怕——她见过太多了。没有人知道是否还有其他人付钱给她。人们只知道什么 他们 做到了。

如果艾格尼丝夫人以小调与她讨论了严酷情妇与多默斯希望之间结合的适当性，那么最后一位人物就会认为这种情况是理所当然的，不会生气，甚至会有草率的纵容；因为他现在不高兴了，精神也轻松了。夏日阳光明媚，当他从露台上看去时，这个世界并没有比在纯绿色的一圈上拱起的通风蓝色拱顶更令人担忧的模糊性。公园里宽阔、静止的树木似乎在等待日常检查，而肥沃的田野，官方装饰的树篱，在阳光下微笑着，被命名和编号的英亩。尼克觉得自己捕捉到了这个微笑以及它的所有原因：它们构成了一种魅力，而他迄今为止可能还没有正确地理解它——这是他年轻时从美丽的乡村座位的艳丽“景观”中获得的印象。并通过地方法官和地主的“长凳”的肥大手，将自然拍打到最高的尊重和舒适。露台上有几只孔雀，他的目光被远处湖上天鹅的光芒吸引住了，那里还有一座岛上的小寺庙；这些物品与他的幽默感相得益彰，而在其他时候，这些物品可能会因为传统的侵略性胜利而被激怒。

随着剧情的深入，他的精神振奋起来，在他跳入竞争激烈的选举的浑水之后，他不仅能够毫无知觉地翻滚和溅水，这无疑证明了他的年轻和健康。笨拙，但具有相当大的嬉闹能力。当我们在巴黎见到他时，他表现得不温不火，他发现自己与机会的关系因他跨越英吉利海峡的短暂旅程而发生了惊人的改变，他以新的视角看待事物，呼吸着一种让他前进的空气。其中有一些东西让他头脑发热——他的母亲和姐妹、他死后的父亲、朱莉娅·达洛、自由党和一百个朋友都在秘密和公开地投入其中。即使他对胜利半信半疑，他至少也喜欢耳边传来的风声，而且他有一种普遍的感觉，即当一个人“被困住”时，总有一个最近的东西需要他拉。尴尬，即怀疑主义的复兴，可能会产生一种令人羞耻的不一致，但又难以隐藏，但以后会出现。事实上，冒着把我们的年轻人描绘成一个过于异想天开的人物的风险，我可能会暗示，这种病态的光芒甚至现在已经开始染上他四分之一的内心视野。

此外，我担心我没有比他在与他母亲的那次重要谈话中提到的更好的借口了，我认为完整地再现这一谈话很有用。他意识到自己的双重性格。他身上有两个人，截然不同，他们的主要特征几乎没有共同点，而且每个人都坚持独立地对待生活。与此同时，如果他充分意识到，如果他要躺在上面而不至于不合时宜地翻来覆去，那么他的道德存在的床就需要大量的改造，那么他也意识到不炫耀他的不一致之处，不让他的行为变得不合时宜。不受控制的激情成为庸俗人的奇观。他没有表现出深沉的愿望，而这是大多数愚蠢行为的根源。他完全愿意被认为是肤浅的人。他只渴望保持体面的连续性。当你不够浅薄时，这就会带来困难；但他会同意这样的建议，即你必须尽可能地精明，而精明的高度利用在于消耗你内心之火的烟雾。最重要的是火，而不是烟囱。他对生活的看法并不排除学习的必要性。他并没有意识到这只是一种教学，并没有什么特殊的使命。他享受生活，非常享受，并准备通过尽可能多的渠道耐心地追求它。然而，他很警惕，不要让自己出丑，也就是说，不要在公开尝试之前不考虑自己的实验。这是因为，到目前为止，他对生活的总体感觉比他自己清楚地知道的更喜欢生活，他喜欢特定的可能性，当一个选区向他伸出热情的手，而另一个选区向不同的方向伸出另一只手时，某种特定的花朵就会绽放。他身上的童年气息并没有因火柴的想法而黯淡。

他像在学校参加比赛一样勇敢地投入到战斗中，因为他的孩子气仍然可以从不顾一切地表现出敏捷中得到乐趣。他可以会见选民，安抚无聊的人，恭维女人，回答问题，发表演讲，嘲笑对手——他可以做这些事情，因为这很有趣，但有点危险，比如踢足球或爬阿尔卑斯山，这些都是大自然赋予他的消遣。这种能力与平台上的应有的健谈能力没有太大区别。有两个声音警告他，这一切根本不是真正的行动，而只是对它的胆怯模仿：其中一个声音在他自己的精神深处断断续续地响起，另一个声音用一种非常固执的模棱两可的口音说话。手，来自加布里埃尔·纳什（Gabriel Nash）一封四页的信。然而，尼克把模仿物带到了尽可能远的地方，洪水般的声音让他漂浮起来。一个工作的信心还能做些什么呢？他并没有违背这样的公理：在有疑问的情况下，人们应该推迟，因为这适用于选择，而他目前没有丝毫假装要选择。他知道他被抬高了，他所做的事情并不是一流的，这并不能解决任何问题，如果他的生活中有一个硬结，那么坚持下去只会变得更加困难。明天而不是今天进行求和并不会使求和变得更容易，但至少使今天变得更容易。

在接下来的两周里，他有时会觉得自己已经陷入了严酷的境地，因为他确信自己会输；但他却认为自己会输。有时他预见到自己会获胜，正是为了惩罚他的尝试和缺乏坦诚。当他很快获胜时，他几乎为自己的成功感到害怕。然后他觉得自己做了比不选择更糟糕的事情——他让别人替他选择。其美妙之处在于，他们的选择只考虑了自己的目标，因为他们对他奇怪的选择了解多少？他为此烦恼了两周——朱莉娅负责处理这件事——以至于他没有时间思考，除非他试图记住一句引言或一个美国故事，他的一生都变成了废话。思想无法听到自己的声音，因为噪音必须是令人愉快的和有说服力的，必须或多或少地悬挂在一起，没有它的帮助。尼克对自己的表演能力感到惊讶，常常在晚上的最后一件事中，他关上房间的门，发现自己私下里惊呼，他不知道自己是这样一个江湖骗子。

我必须补充一点，如果这种思考并没有让他占据很长时间，如果他从巴黎回来后没有长时间沉思，那么还有一个比他累了、他很忙、他欣赏命中和欢呼、欢呼和命中的巧合。这个原因就是达洛夫人，她突然成为他意识中比他积极参与政治活动更重要的事实。她 是 事实上，他确实如此——从某种意义上说，如果政治是他的，那么活动是她的，无论多么少。她有更好的方式来展示自己的聪明，而不仅仅是说一些聪明的话——一般来说，这最多只能证明一个人如果可以的话就会很聪明。已完成的事实本身几乎总是证明达洛夫人能够做到。当尼克在胜利者的宣布和喧嚣平息后醒悟过来时，她的身影是整个暴力的阴影之舞中唯一回来的、留下来的。她每时每刻都在那儿，经过、再经过、返回，在他面前、在他身边、在他身后。她让这项生意变得比没有她的情况更加美丽，添加了音乐、鲜花和冰块，增添了更美好的魅力，将其转化为一种英雄的“功能”，这是最危险的运动形式。比如说，那是一场花园聚会，由于人群的压力，一个人的生命受到威胁。因此，结束的恋情不仅给他留下了下议院的一个席位，而且让他对女性的高级化身可能会发生的事情有了一种认识，尤其是与一位女性的亲密深渊。

她把他包裹在某种东西之中，他不知道是什么——一种轻松的感觉，一种压倒性的芬芳——而他们就像一个巨大的兄弟般地一起行动。没有做爱，没有纯粹个人的接触，没有粗俗的调情：日子的匆忙和他们对外界事物的敏锐性使这一切变得无关紧要。就好像她离他太近了，他无法看到她与自己分开。但尽管如此，当他现在吸一口气并回头看时，所发生的事情就像一幅合成的图画一样出现在他的眼前——这幅图画的主题始终是朱莉娅和她的小马：朱莉娅非常漂亮，美丽，挥舞着她的鞭子，劈开马蹄。人群，高举着她的头，仿佛那是一面旗帜，微笑着望着二楼的窗户，把他抱在身边，把他带到了末日。当时他并没有计算过，在这几天里，他和她一起开车走了多少次；但它的形象就在那里，在他询问的良心中，以及在尚未冷却的个人光芒中：当它在他面前升起时，它看起来很大。他母亲对他说的话为这一切提供了足够丰富的框架，那天晚上的整个印象让他彻夜难眠。

离开格雷沙姆太太后，他正在犹豫该走哪条路，正想招呼一位园丁询问是否有人看到达洛太太，他注意到，作为一大片灌木丛中的一个彩色斑点，远处有一个- 遮阳伞朝湖的方向移动。他穿过公园朝那儿走去，撑着阳伞的人慢慢地漫步，不到五分钟，他就和她会合了。他在草地上无声无息地向她走去——起初他吹着口哨，但当他走近时就停了下来——直到他到了附近，她才环顾四周。他看着她离去，仿佛她在心里翻来覆去，她用衣服拂过平坦的人行道和干净的草坪，慢慢地让阳伞在肩上旋转，另一只手拿着一本书，他认为这本书是一本关于书的书。每月进行一次审查。

“我出来是为了逃跑，”当他开始和她一起走路时，她说道。

“离我远点？”

“啊，那不可能。”然后她补充道：“今天真是太好了。”

“天气真好，”尼克说道。 “我想你想逃离格雷沙姆太太。”

她停顿了一下。 “从一切！”

“嗯，我也想逃走。”

“这真是太吵闹了。聆听亲爱的鸟儿的声音。”

“是的，我们的噪音不如他们的好，”尼克说。 “我感觉自己好像已经结婚了，却有人向我扔鞋子和大米，”他继续说道。 “但对你来说不是，朱莉娅——没有什么比这更好的了。”

朱莉娅没有回答。她只是把目光转向他们右边延伸出去的装饰性水域。过了一会儿，她惊呼道：“这湖水看起来多么肮脏啊！”尼克从她的语气中看出了一种奇怪的害羞的迹象——在她可能只是想变得温柔的时候，却表现出一种反常的僵硬——结合她的其他品质，这远非让他不高兴，而是代表了她。最接近极致魅力的方法。 He 现在并不害羞了，因为他认为今天早上他对事物的看法非常直接，并且在某种意义上完全优越和令人愉快。这使他能够慷慨地为他的同伴感到抱歉——如果他是她感到某种程度不舒服的原因的话，但同时也让他享受到一些动作，这些动作本身不失优雅，通过这些动作，她的不舒服被暴露出来。他还不会坚持任何事情：所以他观察到她在湖中的标准太高了，然后谈论了一些他的母亲和女孩们，她们回家了，那天早上他没有看到她们，艾格尼丝夫人深感满意他的胜利，以及她必须为秋天“做点什么”的事实——买一栋房子或其他东西。

“我会借给她一套房子，”达洛夫人说。

“噢，朱莉娅，朱莉娅！”尼克半呻吟了一声。

但她没有注意他的声音；她只是举起了书评，说道：“看看我带了什么书来读——先生。”霍普斯的文章。”

“这是正确的;然后 I 不必。你会告诉我这件事。”他说出这句话时，并不相信她有意或希望阅读这篇题为“英国宪法的修订”的文章，尽管她已经被那本生硬、新鲜的杂志所困扰。他深深地意识到，她并不需要期刊文学所能提供的那种内心的消遣。他们一起走，他补充道：“但这就是我们阅读霍普斯先生的文章的目的吗？这是选民所期望的吗？或者，更糟糕的是，假装读过他的书，而实际上却没有读过？哦，我们编织了一张多么纠结的网啊！”

“人们正在谈论它。人们必须知道。这是本月的文章。”

尼克斜眼看着她。 “你时不时地说一些我真想杀了你的话。例如，“本月的文章”：我可以为此杀了你。”

“好啊，杀了我吧！”达洛夫人回来了。

“让我拿你的书吧，”他漫不经心地继续说道。她握着它的手就在他走路的那一侧，他伸出自己的手去接它。但有几分钟，她忍住不肯放弃，于是他们把它握在一起，轻轻摇晃了一下。在她交出之前，他问她要去哪里。

“去岛上，”她回答。

“好吧，我会和你一起去——然后我会在那里杀了你。”

“我说的都是正确的，”朱莉娅宣称。

“只有正确的事情才是错误的。这是因为你太政治化了。”尼克轻描淡写地解释道。 “这就是你可怕的野心。开沙龙的女士应该阅读本月的文章。看看一件可怕的事情如何导致另一件可怕的事情。”

“有些事情是不会有结果的，”达洛夫人说。

“毫无疑问——毫无疑问。那么你要怎么去你的岛呢？”

“我不知道。”

“没有船吗？”

“我不知道。”

尼克停下来四处寻找船，但他的女主人头也不回地继续走着。 “你会划船吗？”他接着问道。

“你不知道我什么都能做吗？”

“是的，当然。这就是为什么我想杀了你。船在那儿。”

“你要把我淹死吗？”她问。

“哦，让我和你一起灭亡吧！”尼克叹了口气回答道。他们被一棵大树的树干遮住了，这棵大树从水边的草丛中升起。它停泊在一个很小的登船地点，足够大，可以容纳尽可能多的人，这些人可能希望立即参观湖中央的小寺庙，尼克喜欢它，因为它很荒谬，而且达洛夫人也拥有它。从来没有特别尊重过。这座由天然泉水注入的湖泊，从公园景观的规模来看，是一片宽阔的水域。虽然它的主要优点是，从远处看，它给具体的翠绿带来了一丝抽象的光芒，在一张呆滞的脸上起到了睁开眼睛的作用，但在一个甜蜜的夏日早晨，当它出现时，也可以毫无嘲笑地走近它。它发出拍打声，并坦率地反射出可能比它本身更美好的各种事物——天空、参天大树、飞翔的鸟儿。一百年前，一位有品味的人从罗马回来，在其胸口上用人工地基建造了一座小型装饰性建筑，并努力使这种建筑上的乐趣尽可能地让人想起被毁坏的小型建筑。位于台伯河畔的圆形建筑，发音为 切塞罗尼 曾经是灶神星的神圣之地。它是圆形的，屋顶是旧瓦片，周围有白色的柱子，相当破旧。乔治·达洛对它很感兴趣——它一点也不让他想起罗马，而是让他想起其他他喜欢的东西——并且以修复它为乐。 “把手给我——坐在那里，我来送你。”尼克说。

朱莉娅照做了，在船上站在他对面。但当他拿起桨时，她宣称她更愿意留在水面上——寺庙里有太多的恶意。他问她这是什么意思，她说故意撤到一个几英尺见方的小岛上冥想是可笑的。她没有什么值得沉思的，需要那么多风景和态度。

“相反，这只是改变场景和 提出。这就是我们一周以来一直在做的事情，这就是态度；半个小时里没有人在看，也没有人坚持下去，这正是我想要度过的无所事事、不负责任的一天。我现在不会再继续下去了——我想你已经注意到了。”尼克继续说道，他们漂浮着，他几乎没有放下桨。

“我不明白你的意思”——朱莉娅向后靠在船上。

他没有做任何进一步的解释，只是立即问道：“你们今晚有人吃饭吗？”

“我相信有三四个，但如果你愿意的话，我可以推迟他们。”

“你必须 时刻 住在公共场合吗，朱莉娅？”他继续。

她看了他一会儿，他能看出她的脸色。 “我们会回家——我会推迟他们的。”

“啊不，别回家，别回家。”这里太热闹了。让他们来吧，让他们来吧，可怜的可怜虫！”

“你对我的了解是多么的少啊，”朱莉娅立刻说道，“我已经在这里住了好几个月，没有一个生物了！”

“我想，格雷沙姆夫人除外。”

“我承认，我必须让房子运转起来。”

“你是完美的，你令人钦佩，我不会批评你。”

“我不明白你的意思！”她向后仰去。

“这只会增加你为我所做的一切的慷慨，”尼克回答道，开始加快速度。他俯下桨，把船向前推进，这样持续了几分钟，期间他们都保持沉默。他的同伴在她的位置上，一动不动，斜倚着——船尾的座位最舒服——只看着水、天空和树木。最后他朝小寺庙走去，不过他首先说道：“我们不去参观一下废墟吗？”

“如果你喜欢。我不介意看看他们如何保存它。”

他们到达了通往那里的白色台阶。他扶住了船，他的同伴下了船。然后，当他把门锁好后，他们一起登上敞开的门。 “他们把这个地方维护得很好，”尼克环顾四周说道。 “这是一个值得放弃一切的地方。”

“至少你可以解释一下你的意思。”朱莉娅坐了下来。

“我打算花半个小时假装我不代表严酷的自由民。它很迷人——这是一项非常精致的工作。肯定是被修改过的。”

展馆内部有一个拱形天花板，里面有几件上世纪的家具，它们已经褪色了，备用了，颜色也相配。与墙壁的装饰。这些和天花板上覆盖着精美的装饰线条和奖章，有色，而且难免受潮。这一切构成了一个非常优雅的小茶馆，女主人坐在沙发边上，卷着阳伞，说道：“你应该给我读一下霍普斯先生的文章。”

“为什么是 Free Introduction 你的沙龙？”尼克笑了。

“是什么让你总是谈论这个？我的沙龙是你自己发明的。”

“但这不是你最努力的想法吗？”

突然，她紧张地撑起阳伞，坐到伞下，仿佛对自己在做什么一无所知。 “你多么了解我啊！我不是为了任何事情而‘工作’——你可能会猜到。”

尼克在房间里走来走去，看着里面的各种东西——桌子上的奇怪的书，架子上的古色古香的瓷器。 “他们确实把它保存得很好。你有迷人的东西。”

“他们应该每天过来照顾他们。”

“他们必须大军过来。”

“哦，没人知道。”

“它干净整洁。你把一切都完成得多么好啊！”

“我认为你有理由这么说，”达洛夫人说。她的阳伞现在已经放下了，她又把它卷紧了。

“但是你说的我不认识你是对的。为什么你这么愿意为我做这么多？”

他在她面前停了下来，她抬头看着他。她的目光长时间地落在他的身上；然后她爆发了：“你为什么这么恨我？”

“是因为你个人喜欢我吗？”尼克继续追赶，仿佛没有听到她的声音。 “你可能认为这是一个奇怪的问题，或者确实是一个令人厌恶的问题；但我想知道这不是很自然的事吗？”

“哦，如果你不知道的话！”茱莉亚绝望地叹了口气。

“这是一个确定性的问题。”

「那么，如果你不确定的话——！」

“这是为了我作为一个朋友，作为一个男人而做的吗？”

“你不是男人——你是个孩子。”女主人冷着脸说道，尽管她刚才还笑着。

“毕竟我是一个很好的候选人，”尼克继续说道。

“我关心候选人什么？”

“你是最可爱的女人，朱莉娅，”他在她身边坐下时说道，“我无法想象你所说的我恨你是什么意思。”

“如果你还没有发现我喜欢你，你也可能发现。”

“或许也能发现它吧？”

她很严肃——他从来没有见过她如此苍白，也从未见过她如此美丽。她已经不再卷遮阳伞了；她的双手交叉放在膝上，眼睛盯着它们。尼克也坐在那儿看着他们——有点尴尬。 “也可能恨我，”她说。

“这些天我们相处得如此美好：为什么我们不应该永远和睦相处呢？”他拿出来。她没有回答，突然他说：“啊朱莉娅，我不知道你对我做了什么，但你已经做到了。你用奇怪的方式做到了这一点，但它会起作用。是的，我恨你。”他用不同的语气补充道，脸靠得更近了。

“亲爱的尼克，亲爱的尼克——！”她开始了。但她停了下来，感觉到他的靠近和强度，这种靠近现在如此之近，以至于他的手臂搂住了她，他真的占有了她。她闭上眼睛，但听到他又问：“为什么不应该永远，永远？”她的声音听起来从未有过的震动。

“你已经做到了，你已经做到了，”尼克重复道。

“你想要我做什么？”她提出上诉。

“永远和我在一起——就这样。”

“啊，不是这样。”她轻声回答，但似乎很痛苦，并用某种力量努力让自己脱离。

“那就这样——或者这样！”他占尽了她的优势，不断地吻她。当他坚持时，她站了起来，但他仍然抱着她，当他这样做时，他的温柔变成了美丽的话语。 “如果你要嫁给我，为什么不应该这么简单、这么正确、这么美好呢？”他再次把她拉近，近到让她无法回答。但她停止了挣扎，在他身上休息了一分钟。她把脸埋进他的怀里。

“你太狠了，也太残忍了！”然后她惊呼一声，挣脱了束缚。

“艰难——残酷？”

“你用这么少的钱就能做到！”说完这句话，出乎尼克意料的是，朱莉娅直接泪流满面。还没等他阻止，她就已经到了亭子门口，似乎想要立刻离开。然而，他却留在那里，在她抽泣时弯下腰，对她温柔得难以言表。

“这么少？它与一切有关——与我所拥有的一切有关。”

“你说我已经做到了？你指责我做什么？”她的眼泪已经流完了。

“让我成为你的；在我看来，朱莉娅是如此珍贵，这正是一个男人想要的。我不知道你可以，”他继续说道，低头对她微笑。 “我没有——不，我没有。”

“这就是我所说的——你一直恨我。”

“我会补偿你的！”他笑了。

她靠在门口，额头靠在门楣上。 “你也不否认。”

“反驳你 现在？我承认，虽然这很垃圾，但我是故意要活下来的。”

“没关系，”她慢慢地说。 “无论你多么喜欢我，你都不会像我关心你那样多。”

“唉，我好穷啊！”尼克高兴地低声说道。

她用一种新的眼光看着他，慢慢地摇了摇头。然后她宣称：“你永远无法忍受它。”

“我喜欢！我不是已经向你求婚了吗？你什么时候问过我？”

“我生命中的每一天！正如我所说，对于一个骄傲的女人来说，这很难。”

“是的，你太骄傲了，甚至不肯回答我。”

“我们必须考虑它，我们必须谈论它。”

“想好了吗？我曾经想过很多次。”

“我的意思是在一起。这个问题里面包含了很多东西。”

“最重要的是你要向我保证。”

她又用一种奇怪的眼神看着他。然后她脱口而出：“我希望我不喜欢你！”她径直走下台阶。

“你知道，如果你现在离开我，你根本就不爱我。你为什么要去？这里是如此迷人，而我们独自一人却如此令人愉快。”

“把船解开；我们将继续在水面上，”朱莉娅说。

尼克站在台阶顶端，低头看着她。 「啊，稍等一下——do 停留！”他恳求道。

“我自己进去，我会成功的，”她简单地回答道。

这时他下来并稍微弯下腰来解开绳子。他离她很近，当他抬起头时，他感到头被卡住了。她把它抓在手里，然后把嘴唇压到他们第一次相遇的地方，他从来没有感觉到嘴唇被压过。下一瞬间，她就上了船。

这次他确实非常缓慢地划桨。虽然他们模糊地漂浮了一段比他们想象的更长的时间，但他们主要是坐着，互相发光，好像一切都已经解决了。尼克有足够的理由感到高兴。但一个奇怪的事实是，最主要的原因是他感觉自己逃脱了一个巨大而丑陋的错误。前一天他母亲向他呼吁的最终结果是他必须以无可挑剔的荣誉行事。他能够将其视为一种保证，即朱莉娅让他承担了一项绅士可以视为的义务，但只是以一种方式。如果她自己也这么理解的话，把对她为他所做的一切更紧密地联系起来的愿景，或者至少是欣赏，那么案子就明显简单了，他的做法也无疑是简单的。这就是为什么当他走出家门寻找她时，他是同性恋：当他的路线平淡时，他可能是同性恋。当然，我必须补充一点，他可以变得更加快乐，在像他半个晚上所做的那样扭转局面时，他最常出现的是认识到朱莉娅现在拥有了一种新的个人力量。她亲自投入他的生活并不是无缘无故的。她的行为使他的生活加倍紧张，而这样的办公室，这样的服务，如果一个男人接受并深深地品味它，肯定是一件让他感到荣幸的事情。他清楚地认为，他所能做的任何事情都不会因从这一点出发的任何偏离而被破坏。他母亲如此重提朱莉娅爱上他的事，让他感到不舒服——他一般不喜欢别人告诉他这样的事情；他不喜欢别人告诉他这样的事。但责任似乎更容易承担，一旦他远离其他人的目光，只有朱莉娅自己来表达这个真相，并且带着冷漠的本性，他就不再那么害羞了。再说了，今天早上他除了恋爱之外还有什么发现呢？

“你必须是一个非常伟大的人，你知道，”她在湖中央对他说。 “我不知道你说的我的沙龙是什么意思，但我 am 雄心勃勃。”

“我们必须以一种宏观、大胆的方式来看待生活，”他在停桨时表示同意。

“那就是我的意思。如果我认为你不行，我就不会看你。”

“我能做什么？”

“做你应该做的一切——我想象的、我梦想的一切。你 ，那恭喜你， 聪明：在你周二的演讲之后，你永远不可能让我相信相反的事情，别跟我说话！我见过，我听过，我知道你身上有什么。我会坚持下去。你就是你假装不是的一切。”

当她说话时，尼克看着水。 “会一直这么有趣吗？”他问。

“永远都是这样吗？”

“为什么是我的职业。”

“难道我就不能这样吗？”

“那么它将是你的——它不会是我的，”尼克说。

“啊，别这么说——别把我看成是那种女人！如果他们说是我，我就会淹死自己。”

“如果他们说你是谁？”

“为什么你还这样。如果他们应该说我推动你并为你做事。我的意思是，你自己做不到的事情。”

“好吧，你不做吗？这正是我所指望的。”

“别害怕，”朱莉娅说。 “如果我被认为是最聪明的，那将是令人厌恶的。我不想嫁给这样的男人。”

“噢，我会让你工作的，亲爱的！”

“啊 这——！”她说话的语气可能是多年后男人才会听到的。

“你会做出伟大的事情，你会让我的生活成为最好的生活，”尼克说道，仿佛他被深深的信念所感动。 “我敢说这会让我铭记在心。”

“在心里？何必不放在心上呢？”她的眼睛在他身上徘徊，搜寻他，似乎比她的嘴唇更多地询问他。

“噢，不会有事的！”他做出了回答。

“你会像其他人一样喜欢成功。别告诉我——你没那么空灵！”

“是的，我会喜欢成功。”

“我也这样吧！当然，我很高兴你现在能够做事了，”朱莉娅继续说道。 “我很高兴你能得到一些东西。我很高兴我并不穷。”

“啊，别说这个了，”尼克低声说道。 “只要对我妈妈好一点。我们一定会让她无比幸福。”

“我不会为了你的母亲而这么做——但我很高兴我喜欢你们的人民，”达洛夫人纠正道。 “把它们交给我吧！”

“你很慷慨——你很高贵，”他结结巴巴地说。

“你的母亲一定住在布罗德伍德；她必须终生拥有它。这一点也不坏。”

“啊朱莉娅，”她的同伴回答道，“很高兴我爱你！”

“你为什么不应该呢？”她笑了;此后，他们之间就不再再说什么，直到船靠岸。当她出来时，她想起已经到了吃午饭的时间了。但他们并没有采取任何行动，而是朝着不是房子的方向漫步。有一道风景吸引着他们，一条长满青草的小路绕过散落的山毛榉树根，通向一道阶梯，从那里，着迷的流浪者可能会进入达洛夫人财产的另一部分。她说了一些关于他们一直走到栅栏的事，然后下一瞬间惊呼道：“你真愚蠢——你忘了霍普斯先生！”

尼克想知道。 “我们把他留在维斯塔神庙里。亲爱的，我还有其他事情要考虑。”

“我会派人去找他，”朱莉娅说。

“王爷，您现在能想起他吗？”他问。

“我当然可以——比以往任何时候都更能。”

“我们要回去救他吗？”——然后他把车停了下来。

她没有直接回答，只是继续走，说要一直走到栅栏。 “我当然知道你非常含糊，”她很快又说道。

“我一点也不含糊。但你却这么着急地想逃走。”

“这并不意味着。我家里还有一个。”

“另一个避暑别墅？”他更轻描淡写地建议道。

“霍普斯先生的副本。”

“怜悯，你真是太喜欢他了！想要两个！”

“他给我发了杂志的编号，另一本是每个月都会来的。”

“每个月;我明白了”——但他的态度在很大程度上证明了她对含糊其辞的指责是正确的。他们已经到达了栅栏，他靠在栅栏上，看着一大片温和的草地和远处正在吃草的野兽。

“你以为他们每天都来吗？”朱莉娅继续说道。

“亲爱的，不，感谢上帝！”他们在那里停留了一会儿。他继续看着这些动物，不久又补充道：“令人愉快的英国田园风光。为什么他们说它不会画画？”

“谁说不会？”

“我不知道——其中一些。它将在法国；但不知怎的，它不会在这里。”

“你在说什么？”达洛夫人问道。

在这一点上，他似乎无法让她满意。无论如何，他没有直接回答她，而是问道：“布罗德伍德很迷人吗？”

“你从来没有去过那里吗？这表明你是如何对待我的。我们以前八月份去那里。乔治对此有想法，”她补充道。她从来没有假装不谈论她已故的丈夫，尤其是和尼克，他在某种程度上是尼克的亲戚，而且尼克比其他人更喜欢他。

“乔治对很多事情都有想法。”

但她似乎意识到在这样的场合提出这个问题会很奇怪。尼克说出这样的话甚至有些奇怪。 “布罗德伍德正好，”她最后回答道。 “它不太小也不太大，而且它会照顾自己。没有什么可做的：你不能花一分钱。”

“你不想用它吗？”

“我们可以去并留下来 他们，”朱莉娅说。

“他们会认为我给他们带来了天使。”尼克用自己的大一只手盖住了她搁在栏杆上的白手。

“因为他们将你视为天使，所以他们会认为你与同类交往是很自然的事情。”

“哦 my 种类！”他看着奶牛，嚎啕大哭。

但他的奢侈也许挽救了这一点，她转身离开他，仿佛要回家，而他则开始和她一起原路返回。突然她问道：“巴黎那天晚上你是什么意思？”

“那晚 - ？”

“当我们和彼得一起在那个地方吃完饭后，你和我一起来到酒店的时候。”

「我的意思是——？」

“关于你对美术的如此关心。看来你是想吓唬我。”

“你为什么要害怕呢？我无法想象我脑子里在想什么：现在不行。”

“您 ，那恭喜你， 含糊其辞，”朱莉娅说，脸色有点红。

“不是关于伟大的事情。”

“伟大的事情？”

“我欠你一个诚实的人所能提供的一切。我现在怎么关心美术呢？”

她停了下来，眼睛明亮地看着他。 “是不是因为你认为你 欠 它——”她停了下来，脸颊上的颜色仍然更红，然后继续——“你像在那里那样对我说话吗？”她把头转向湖边。

“我想我跟你说话是因为我忍不住。”

“您 ，那恭喜你， 模糊的！”她又继续前行。

“你对我的影响与其他女人不同。”

「啊其他女人——！为什么你现在不应该关心美术了？”她补充道。

“没有时间了。我所有的日子和岁月都不会超出你对我的期望。”

“我不期望你放弃任何东西。我只希望你能做得更多。”

“要想做得更多，我就必须做得更少。我没有天赋。”

“没有天赋？”

“我的意思是绘画。”

朱莉娅又把车停了下来。 “这太可恶了！你 已可以选用-你必须。”

他突然大笑起来。 “你真令人愉快。但你对它——对任何艺术的光荣实践——知之甚少！”

“什么叫修行？你将拥有我们所有的东西——你将生活在它们中间。”

“当然，我会喜欢看着他们，离他们这么近。”

“那你可别说我把你带走了。”

「把我带走——？」

“源于对艺术的热爱。我现在自己也喜欢它们，可怜的乔治的宝藏。我以前不太喜欢，因为在我看来，他把这些话看得太多了——他总是在说话。”

“好吧，我不会总是说话，”尼克说。

“你可以做你想做的事——它们是你的。”

“把它们献给国家，”尼克继续说道。

“我喜欢！当我们处理完他们之后。”

“当你们的范戴克斯和莫罗尼斯治愈了我的妄想时，我们就可以处理掉他们了。 其 家庭。当然，这不会花很长时间。”

“你要画画 me，”朱莉娅说。

“永远、永远、永远！”他说话的语气让他的同伴瞪大了眼睛——然后似乎对他强调的结果感到有点尴尬。当他们回到湖边停泊船的地方时，他为了解手说道：“我们真的不去找霍普斯先生吗？”

她犹豫了。 “你可以走了;我不会，拜托。”

“那不是我想要的。”

“答应我就去吧。我就在这里等。”说着，她在小楼梯平台旁的长凳上坐下。

尼克听了这句话，就上船出发了。当她坐在那里看着他时，他对她微笑。他走了一小段路，下了船，走进了亭子。但当他带着他的使命出来时，他看到她已经离开了她的岗位，回到了房子，没有他。他快速划回，跳上岸，迈着大步跟着她。显然她走得很快。当她快到门口时，他追上了她。

“你为什么卑鄙地抛弃我？”他问，温柔地阻止了她。

“我不知道。因为我太高兴了。”

“那我可以告诉妈妈吗？”

“你可以告诉她，她将拥有布罗德伍德。”

他不失时机地去见卡特雷特先生，他在选举后立即写信给卡特雷特先生，卡特雷特先生在历史平行的十二页修订版中给了他答复。他常常羡慕卡特雷特先生的闲暇​​，现在，在夏日的傍晚，当他走上山坡，朝那座安静的房子走去时，这种感觉又重新出现在他身上，那里对他来说曾经是快乐与模糊的压抑交织在一起的。在卡特雷特先生的屋檐下，他又变回了一个小男孩——一个小男孩，他已经充分认识到，在宽敞、朴素、安静的房间里，他不可以“碰触”。当他拜访他父亲的老朋友时，实际上有很多事情——很多话题——他本能地回避了。就连查特先生，这位远古的空白管家，与他的主人是如此相似，以至于他可能是双胞胎兄弟，也帮助提醒他必须做好事。在尼克看来，卡特雷特先生是一个非常严肃的人，但他感觉到查特认为他相当轻浮。

我们的年轻人总是从车站步行而来，把他的行李箱留在身上：直接的路很陡，他喜欢缓慢的接近，这让他有机会环顾四周，闻到新割的干草的味道。这个季节，空气中充满了这种味道——田野离得很近，干净、寂静的街道上也充满了这种味道。尼克绝不会想到要闯进卡特雷特先生的门，门上的一块旧铜牌上刻着主人的名字，就好像他是首席外科医生一样。房子位于高处，山下其他房子整齐的屋顶使人一眼就可以看到它，不过，这几乎不算数，因为绿色的乡村就在这些房子的下面，熟悉的、相互渗透的，形状像小而茂密的花园花园里到处都是免费的植物，但唯一的混乱是人行道上有时有燕麦。卡特雷特先生的房子附近有一条弯曲的小巷，有后门和鹅卵石，通向古老的修道院。因为修道院是博克莱尔的次要事实——它是在卡特雷先生之后出现的。卡特雷特先生有时会离开，但修道院却从不离开。然而，不知何故，这个地方的最本质之处在于，它可以夸耀居住在方形红房子中最方形的房子里，其中一个拥有最好的拱形大厅窗户，分为三部分，在最后一个部分中最宽的部分上- 世纪的门口。你从门口就能看到大教堂，当然，在花园之外，在寂静中你可以听到鸟儿在其巨大的短塔周围盘旋的振翅声。塔楼的竣工只是随着时间的推移而完成，为它们的失误提供了保证。几个世纪以来一直错误的古老纪念碑中也有一些正确的东西：当尼克看到屋顶的宏伟线条划过天空并拉长它的长度时，尼克心中通常会想到一些道德，就像博克莱尔的化身一样。

当带有黄铜板的门打开，查特先生出现在中距离时——他总是走到同一个地方，就像首相接见大使一样——尼克重新感到，如果他曾经有过一个表情。他否认自己有这种自由，从来没有表现出任何认可的迹象，就像年轻人在家里时那样。他非常关注来访者的需求，但显然担心如果他允许熟悉，可能会走得太远。总是有同样的问题要问——卡特雷先生睡完了吗？他通常都没有完成它，这给尼克留下了他喜欢的东西——有时间在花园里抽烟，甚至在晚餐前在这个地方转一圈。现在，他每次来都发现卡特雷先生的午睡时间更长一些。每年，晚宴仪式上都需要积蓄更多的力量：这是这位面容清白的老绅士表现出的主要症状——几乎是唯一的症状——不再像以前那样精神焕发。就他的年龄而言，他仍然很出色。今天他特别小心：查特甚至向尼克提到四位绅士将共进晚餐——这种兴致的部分原因可能是博顿利勋爵就是其中之一。

不知何故，博顿利勋爵的前景并不令人兴奋。这只让年轻人轻叹一声，自言自语道：“这一次我 am 就为了它！他立即又产生了一种非政治性的感觉，没有什么比安静的单身汉房子在大花园里拥有最好的房间更令人愉快的了，花园似乎通过宽大的窗户进入了他们，并使他们的沉闷变得乡村化。

“我预计这将是迟到的八点，先生，”查特先生说，他在图书馆监督大规模的茶叶生产。在尼克看来，卡特雷特先生家的一切都比其他地方的规模更大——茶杯、刀叉、门把手、椅背、羊腿、蜡烛和煤块：它们代表并显然耗尽了主人的愉悦感，因为房子没有进行其他装饰。尼克认为这确实很可怕，但他随时都能从任何具有强烈特色的事物中提取出一定程度的乐趣，而卡特雷特先生的内心表达了一种完整的生活观。我们的年轻人很慷慨，在书中找到了一百个有启发性的暗示，尽管他突然想到——就像在博克勒尔经常发生的那样——这就是他本人应该采取的观点。早餐时的煮鸡蛋从来没有这么大，也没有这么大的容器。他自己的鞋子放在房间里，在他看来，那里比家里宽敞。他走到花园里，想起他们晚餐应该吃多大的草莓。房子里有大量的兰西尔、油布、涂有油漆和“纹理”的木制品。

发现距离晚餐还有一段时间，或者在卡特雷特先生可能见到他之前，他离开了家，向修道院走去。它覆盖了山顶上数英亩的土地，其巨大的体积在某些方面让他想起了留在高高干燥的亚拉拉山上的方舟。这至少是一艘巨大残骸的形象，是一个坚不可摧的信仰之船的形象，几个世纪前被一场风暴冲刷到那里。时间的伤害加剧了这种外表——据他所知，围绕着这些弱点，复兴之战已经开始了。人们大声疾呼要拯救这堆辉煌的建筑，而纯粹主义者、感伤主义者，无论他们是什么人，都提出了反呼声，以拯救它免遭拯救。他们都在早报上互相称赞。

尼克在教堂里闲逛——花了好一会儿。他靠在低矮的东西上，抬头看着它，又抽了一支烟。他觉得触动这样的一堆东西真是太可惜了：太多的过去被埋在那里，这就像亵渎，就像挖坟墓一样。既然岁月如此温柔地让它落下，为什么要推挤缓慢指法的时间呢？渐渐消逝的午后格外纯净；这个地方空无一人；他只听见几个孩子的哭声，听起来很甜美，他们在古老坟墓的平坦地上玩耍。他知道修道院的修复将不可避免地成为晚宴的话题之一。这将引发大量有序的辩论。奇怪的是，博顿利勋爵可能会反对这个昂贵的项目，但理由是，即使态度不是，这也是他的特点。尼克的神经总是知道在这个地方需要什么来安抚；但当他看到博顿利勋爵正在处理美学问题时，他有点不耐烦地改变了立场。与大人有相同品味的想法足以让人想要站在另一边：人们会因为如此不同的原因而拥有它。

亲爱的卡特雷特先生会在各方面都深思熟虑和公平，并且会像他高贵的朋友一样，展现出比他尼克所拥有的更多的建筑知识：这对我们的年轻人来说，这并不会让它变得滑稽，因为艺术理念，所以真正被同化的东西很少，应该在那张桌子上、在那样的空气中进行讨论。它会一直在他们的思想之外，而他们的思想也会一直在它之外。然而，经过半个小时的温和担忧之后，它最终会被放弃，谈话将倾向于公共事务。卡特雷特先生会找到他的自然水平——制作有关早期部委组建的轶事。他比任何人都更了解某些内阁如果没有其他人的话，将会由哪些人物组成。他最喜欢的练习是说明一切可能与实际情况有多么不同，以及这种差异的原因如何始终是某人无法“以自己的方式”接受别人的观点——当时通常讨论这种观点对卡特雷特先生严格保密，三十年后，卡特雷特先生采取了许多预防措施来防止丑闻发生。在这种回顾性的气氛中，这位老绅士坐在桌子的一头，享受着一场听证会，或者无论如何，他要求保持沉默，通常是激烈的。每个人都把问题留给其他人来问。当其他人碰巧这样做时，每个人都会对任何人能说出任何话感到钦佩。尼克知道他自己会在什么时候喝一杯特定的波特酒，然后偷偷地看看手表，发现已经十点了。那块手表也可能标志着 1830 年。

所有这一切都是他在博克勒尔时总是感受到的休闲暗示的一部分——那是一个倾斜的海岸的形象，时间的潮汐在这里破裂，留下了微弱的涟漪，不足以构成警告。但是，在夏季时分，在大修道院附近散步时，几乎同样肯定会有另一项警告降临到他的心灵上。当光线在粗糙的红墙上徘徊，教堂墓地里孩子们的当地口音听起来很柔和时，我就沉入其中了。这就是英格兰的感觉——一种对他的国家的忧虑的启示。这个地方的昏暗历史明显地、沉重地悬在空气中——令人费解地早奠基，伟大的修道院生活，玫瑰战争，街道上的战斗和血腥，然后是令人尊敬的几个世纪的长期安静，所有的玉米田还有地方法官和牧师——这些东西都与一种情感联系在一起，这种情感来自绿色的乡村，这片富饶的土地如此无限地居住，并把一只手放在他身上，那只手幽灵般地压不下去，但不知何故又太紧急而不能轻视。这让他产生了一种无法言说的悸动，如此之深，一半是想象，一半是责任。这些印象融合在一起，产生了普遍的吸引力，而随着他作为立法者的新荣誉，他成为了有感情的主体。如果他热爱生活中的那个特定场景，那生活难道不会热爱他并对他有所期待吗？什么样的缘份能如此崇高，在民族感情中白头到老？这是一种多么美好的互惠，让所有冷漠的香膏都变得酸痛！

大教堂还开着，他走进去，在早先聚集的暮色中漫步了一会儿。整个建筑，以其巨大的高度和距离，似乎建立在巨大的事实之上——成就和耐力的事实——以及巨大的诺曼柱子，它们像英雄的幽灵一样在昏暗中若隐若现。尼克更被它厚重的尘世所打动，而不是它精美的精神参考，当他慢慢地走来走去时，他感到良心的压迫。在他看来，生活中没有什么是真正清晰的，所有的事情都是混合在一起的，爱国主义可能是一种令人振奋的激情，即使它必须考虑到博顿利勋爵和卡特雷特先生在某些方面的盲目性。不久，他注意到七点半就要到了，当他回到老朋友家时，他说不清自己是带着喜悦还是忧郁地走着。

“先生。卡特雷特将在八点一刻到达客厅，先生。”查特提到，尼克在穿衣服时问自己，如果一个人仍然对对方的暗示敏感，那么作为一名议员有什么用呢？如此一位官员，人们应该已经开始这项工作了。查特的话意味着卡特雷特先生希望在晚餐前与他进行一次轻松愉快的交谈。不过，尼克一贯的穿衣速度非常适合这个场合，所以当他下楼时，他的主人还没有出现。毫无女性气息的大厅里摆满了鲜花，里面除了动物的雕刻外，还放着几幅画。但没有什么可以阻止它让尼克想起舒适的委员会房间。

卡特雷特先生不久就拿着他的金头手杖进来了，他的笑声就像一连串警告性的咳嗽，还有我们的年轻人一开始总是在他身上看到的那种尴尬的气氛。他已经快八十了，但仍然很害羞——他经常笑，微弱而含糊，无缘无故，好像是为了弥补他听笑话时的严肃。他一开始总是把目光从对话者身上移开，直到他的眼睛慢慢地睁开。之后他们清澈而仁慈的蓝色让你想知道为什么他们应该小心谨慎。他的胡子刮得干干净净，上唇很长。当他坐下来时，他谈到了“多数派”，并表现出就自由党收益波动的一般主题进行交谈的倾向。他对这类事实有着非凡的记忆力，能够提及特定年份无数地方的回报数据。他以简单、友善、预设的方式对其中许多事实给予了高度重视。如果他说 1857 年有人拿到了 6014 而不是 6004，他会在五分钟后纠正自己。

尽管老人彬彬有礼，但听他说话时，尼克总觉得自己是个十足的伪君子——这件事本身就很迷人，说他是个令人厌烦的人就太粗鲁了。困难在于，他把各种积极的同意视为理所当然，而尼克在这样的陪伴下，发现自己沉浸在一种默契的元素中，这种元素构成了交往的媒介，但却让他在需要时有点痛苦地喘息。过了一会儿，他测量了它们。如果他能把卡特雷先生仅仅视为一个甜蜜的奇观，一个正在消失的礼仪传统的最后或几乎最后一个例证，那就没有任何虚伪了。但他所代表的不仅仅是礼仪；他所代表的不仅仅是礼仪。他代表了他所相信的道德和思想，他个人尊重这些思想——但没有发现这是多么自然——参与。尼克喜欢认为，他的父亲虽然年轻十岁，却发现与性格如此善良的主人成为他最好的朋友是很合适的：这让他的感觉变得柔和，因为想起尼古拉斯爵士曾是同样的一般类型——一种如此纯洁、如此无私、如此关心公共利益的类型。正是如此，卡特雷特先生很受他喜爱，因为他认为他的父亲做了一项明确的工作，但过早地中断了，这对英国人民来说是绝对的利益。然而，奇怪的是，尽管卡特雷特先生的面貌和他的欣赏仍然如此新鲜，但他与已故的杰出朋友的这种关系使后者在尼克看来更加不可挽回。这位善良的老人几乎有自己的词汇，由老式的政治短语组成，完全没有受到新术语的污染，这些新术语大多是从美国借来的。事实上，他的语言和语气使几乎所有可能与他交谈的人相比之下听起来都更像美国人。至少现在，他从不严厉或谴责。但有时在讲述轶事时，他会省略诸如“流氓对我说的”之类的表达方式或“粗俗的狗”之类的绰号。

尼克总是对一种罕见的单纯感到震惊——这从他的脸上表现出来——他活了这么久，见过那么多激发人类激情和邪恶的事情。他常常对自己说，卡特雷特先生一定有很多奇怪的地方，才能够用他的手段完成这么多需要聪明才智的事情。仿佛经验虽然丰富，却干净利落地对待他，没有留下任何污点，而且从未激起他任何普遍的反思。他从来没有以任何讽刺的方式从特殊到一般。当然，他从来没有对《生活》这样与议会无关的事情进行过反思。他会质疑这种奢侈的东西的品味，如果他在别人身上遇到它，他会认为它是进口的外国玩具，他不熟悉其用途。对他来说，生活纯粹是一种实用功能，而不是一个或多或少华丽措辞的问题。必须补充的是，他必须让尼克感知到他的变化——他的后窗通向更私密的场地。当他听到一些他不同意甚至不理解的内容时，他的眼神变得冰冷，他整个礼貌的脸变得相当严肃，就可以看出这一点；就好像他的谦虚并没有严格禁止怀疑他不理解的事情有可能反对它。在这种时候，他的沉默里有一种相当致命的东西，他只是一脸茫然地等待着，没有帮助他的对话者。如果尼克试图向他传达一件他不太可能理解的事情，他会感到非常抱歉。这当然切断了许多主题。

整个夜晚正如他所预见的那样过去了，甚至到了客人也明显迅速散去的时候，其中有两个是“当地人”，虽然不是特别杰出，但态度诚恳而独特。第三个是一位年轻、苗条、缺乏经验的绅士，博顿利勋爵带来了他，尼克事先就得知他已与勋爵的二女儿简阁下订婚了。人们经常提到尼克的胜利，他担心自己对胜利的兴趣可能不如公司。他对此采取了积极的预防措施，并多次感到和他们在一起有点费劲，因为这个话题总是会再次出现。然而，他们并不喜欢他的胜利，而是喜欢他们的胜利。其他客人走后，卡特雷特先生立即向他告别，用了他以前经常说的话：

“你可以坐到任何你喜欢的时间。我只是要求你不要在床上看书。”

尼克的短暂访问将在第二天午餐后立即结束：尽管老人很享受他在那里的时光，但既然它有如此大的公共用途，他也不会梦想要求更多的时间。他更喜欢他的年轻朋友忙于议会工作，而不是只忙于与他讨论。然而，讨论这个问题是次要的事情，因为第二天早餐后，卡特雷特先生向尼克展示了他的考虑。他们坐在花园里，早晨很温暖，老人旁边有一张桌子，上面摆满了邮报倾泻而出的信件和报纸。他为自己的信件感到自豪，这些信件完全是关于公共事务的，并且在某种程度上为他现在几乎可以口述一切这一事实感到自豪。这更多地体现了退休后的政治家的性格，卡特雷特先生确实没有有意识地扮演这个角色，但尼克总是心照不宣地将其归因于他，尼克从图像的角度来看这一点——每次都记得之后他已经退休了，他还算不上一位政治家。一个年轻人，一个非常敏锐、能干的年轻人，每天早上十点钟来为他写信，直到午餐。这位年轻人今天放假以纪念尼克的来访——这一事实导致尼克发表了一些不太真诚的演讲 他的 如果卡特雷特先生有压力的话，我已经准备好写任何东西了。

“啊，但是你自己的预算——那会怎么样呢？”老绅士反对，他看了一眼尼克的口袋，似乎很惊讶地发现里面没有装满装在分开的信封里的文件。他的来访者不得不承认，他并没有指示他的信件在博克莱尔与他会面：他应该在那天下午在城里找到它们。这导致了卡特雷特先生的一番说教，这让他感到非常内疚。老人说：“你不会公正地对待他们——你不会公正地对待他们。”这句话中隐含着一种被忽视的责任。他用了十分钟的时间，以丰富、简单、温文尔雅的方式讲述了落后的致命后果。他最喜欢的信条是，人应该永远早一点，而他自己极其规律的呼吸似乎说明了这一想法。一个人肯定是在前面，而在他的后面却有如此多的东西。

这导致就议会职业生涯开始时应避免的错误提出了大量一般性建议——对此，卡特雷特先生以一位在下议院任职五十年的人的经验进行了发言。尼克对他的谈话感到好笑，但也感到困惑，甚至有点恼火：它是建立在观察的基础上的，但我们的年轻人根本不能把他当作一个观察者。 “他不观察 me，”他对自己说； “如果他这么做了，他就会看到，他就不会想——！”这种私人深思熟虑的结局是对他尊敬的主人认为理所当然的所有事情感到隐隐约约的不耐烦。他没有看到尼克所看到的任何东西。其中一些是夏日早晨散落在甜美古老花园中的光线。时间在那里度过了很长一段时间，仿佛脚下踩着格子花呢，静静地坐着，而卡特雷特先生又提炼出他五十年来积累的智慧。这个巨大的术语对尼克来说有一些神话般的和可怕的东西，他想知道这是否是他的同伴所认为的那种事情 he 已经进去了。卡特雷特先生与众不同并不奇怪。他原本可能会更多——好吧，对尼克自己来说，他没有义务这么说：我们的年轻人的意思更多的是他能感觉到他的老朋友不是。即使是他，尼克，在五十年后也应该这样吗？卡特雷特先生对他的期望是，他应该更加杰出。这难道不是意味着更多类似的事情吗？当然，尼克听到了一些他以前听过的事情；例如，最初导致老人在博克莱尔定居的情况。他在遥远的几年里回到了那个行政区——这是他的第二个席位——并来到那里居住，因为他那时有一个认真的信念，事实上后来的经验改变了这一信念，即一名成员应该经常居住。现在，他谈及此事时，面带红润的微笑，就像是在谈论他年轻时的一些疯狂行为一样。然而，他提请尼克注意这样一个事实：到目前为止，他仍然坚持自己的信念——尽管他完全清楚另一方可能会敦促什么——代表至少应该尽可能是居民。这给了尼克一个口子，说出了他整个上午一直挂在嘴边的事情。

“照这样看来，我应该在哈什定居。”

“就方便而言，看到你这么做我不应该感到遗憾。”

“应该很方便吧。”尼克笑道。 “我有一条消息要告诉你，我一直保留着，就像人们保留这种事情一样——因为它非常好——直到最后。”他等了一会儿，想看看卡特雷特先生是否会猜测，起初他以为这不会有任何结果。但老人用那双看起来年轻的眼睛看了一会儿后说道：

“听说你娶妻了，我确实应该很高兴才对。”

“太太。达洛非常好心地表示她会嫁给我。”尼克回答道。

“那就非常合适了。我想它会给出答案。”

“这真是太快乐了，”尼克说。幸好卡特雷特先生并不像他的客人所说的那样善于观察，否则他可能会发现这句话的音调比其含义要低。

“你亲爱的父亲会喜欢的。”

“我妈妈是这么说的。”

“和 她 一定很高兴。”

“太太。达洛，你是说？尼克问道。

“我在想你的母亲。但我并不排除这位迷人的女士。我记得她还是个小女孩。我一定在Windrush见过她。现在我明白了她投身于你的游说的美好精神。”

“他们选了她，”尼克说。

“我不知道，”他的主人继续说道，“我是否曾经热衷于政治女性，但毫无疑问，在接近广大选民时，我会以一种优雅、和蔼可亲的方式，真正的英国女士的方式，是一股不可轻视的力量。”

“朱莉娅是一位真正的英国女士，同时也是一位非常政治化的女性，”尼克说道。

“这不就是在家里吗？我记得有一次去城里看她母亲，发现两党领导人坐在她旁边。”

“在其他人中，我最重要的朋友是她的兄弟彼得。我认为他不会为这类事情烦恼太多，”尼克说。

“他到底在烦恼什么？”卡特雷特先生语气严肃地问道。

“他在外交部门工作；他是巴黎的一名秘书。”

“这可能很严重。”老人说道。

“他对戏剧非常感兴趣。我想你会说这也可能很严重。”尼克笑道。

“噢！”——卡特雷先生看上去似乎不太明白。然后他继续说道： “嗯，它不会伤害你。”

“它不会伤害我吧？”

“如果达洛夫人对你的兴趣感兴趣。”

“当一个人处于我的处境时，他会觉得好像没有什么可以伤害他。”

“我很高兴你高兴，”卡特雷特先生说。他用温和的目光落在我们的年轻人身上，他有一种感觉，在他们的眼睛里看到了一个古老故事的微弱幽灵，最后的奇怪的闪烁，就像来自冰冷的灰烬，已经成为记忆的记忆的火焰。 。这一丝惊奇和嫉妒的光芒，以及强烈的独身生活的启示，在一瞬间令人无限感动。尼克怀有一种推测，根据他谨慎的父亲的含糊暗示，他们仁慈的朋友在年轻时曾有过一段不愉快的恋情，这导致他永远放弃了与女人的交往。当他看着他聪明的同伴时，他身上残留的有意识的放弃让他感到一阵悸动，而他的同伴却提议以相反的方式来看待这件事。 “结婚很好，我认为这是对的。我没有做对，我知道。如果她是个好女人，那就最好了，”卡特雷特先生继续说道。 “这就是我一直对你的希望。有时我也想和你谈谈。”

“她是一个非常好的女人，”尼克说。

“我希望她不穷。”卡特雷先生的讲话也同样温和。

“不，确实，她很有钱。我认识并喜欢她的丈夫，给她留下了一大笔财产。”

“那么她以什么条件享受它呢？”

“我一点也不知道，”尼克说。

卡特雷特先生想了想。 “我懂了。这与你无关。这不需要你担心，”他随即补充道。

尼克想到了他的母亲，但他回答道：“我敢说她可以用她的钱做她喜欢做的事。”

“我也可以，我亲爱的年轻朋友，”卡特雷特先生说。

尼克尽量不让自己看起来很清醒，因为他从老人的脸上感觉到了某种意义。他把自己的注意力转向了各处，但又转向了它，再次想起了他的母亲。 “如果有的话，那一定非常令人愉快。”

“我希望你能多一点。”

“我不是特别在乎，”尼克说。

“你的婚姻会帮助你； “这是你无法控制的，”卡特雷特先生宣称。 “但我希望你承担的义务不要那么重。”

「噢，真是谢谢她对我的关心——！」

“剩下的不算数吗？当然，她喜欢你真是太好了。但她为什么不应该呢？其他人也这么做。”

“其中一些让我感觉好像我滥用了它，”尼克看着他的主人说。 “也就是说，他们并没有创造我，但我感觉到了，”他纠正道。

“我没有儿子”——卡特雷特先生说得好像他的同伴也不确定。 “你不应该对她很好吗？”他追了上去。 “你会满足她的野心。”

“哦，她认为我比我自己聪明。”

“那是因为她恋爱了。”老先生暗示道，仿佛这很微妙。 “不过，你一定像我们想象的那样聪明。如果你不证明这一点——！”他双手合十停了下来。

“好吧，如果我不这样做呢？”尼克问道。

“噢，不行——不行。”卡特雷特先生用他的同伴后来注定会记住的语气说道。 “我说我没有儿子，”他继续说道。 “但如果我有一个，他应该会升得很高。”

“对我来说，这样的人不存在是件好事。我不应该轻易找到一个妻子。”

“他会带着一点钱去祭坛。”

“先生，这本来是他最微不足道的优势，”尼克宣称。

“你们什么时候结婚？”卡特雷特先生问道。

“啊，这就是问题所在。朱莉娅还不会说。”

“好吧，”老人毫不客气地说，“你可以考虑一下，等事情成功了，我会给你一个和解。”

“我对你的善意之感难以言表，”尼克回答道。 “但那可能是我最不想要什么的时刻。”

“你稍后就会欣赏它——很快你就会欣赏它。我希望你能欣赏它。”卡特雷特先生继续说道，仿佛他对一个有正直精神的年轻人应该有的感受有着正确的看法。然后他补充道； “你父亲希望你能欣赏它。”

“可怜的父亲！”尼克含糊地、相当尴尬地喊道，思考着这种奇怪的处境，作为一个富婆的丈夫，他抬起头来的理由就是他接受了来自其他来源的金钱礼物。很明显，他注定不会追求独立。他对自己最多的就是一种感激的依赖：“你对我的期望有多少？”他板着脸问道。

“好吧，尼古拉斯，只是你父亲所做的。我记得，最后一次，就在你单独和他在一起之后，他经常谈到你——你知道我当时看到了他。他对你的采访非常感动，我也被他告诉我的事情所感动。他说他应该在你身上继续生活——他应该在你身上工作。如果可以用这个词来形容的话，它总是给我一种关于你的特殊感觉。”

“亲爱的卡特雷特先生，这种感情确实不寻常，其形式如此慷慨。但你确实——哦，你确实——期望太多了，”尼克强迫自己说道。

“我希望你能回报我！”老人高高兴兴地回来了。 “至于形式，我心里有数了。”

“还款方式？”

“还款方式！”

“啊，现在别谈这个了，”尼克说，“因为，你看，其他的事情都还没有解决。除了我母亲之外，没有人知道这件事。她只是同意我告诉你而已。”

“艾格尼丝女士，您是说？”

“啊不；亲爱的妈妈想把它发表在屋顶上。她很高兴——她希望我们明天再谈。但朱莉娅本人，”尼克解释道，“希望等待。因此，暂时不要向任何人提及此事。”

“我亲爱的孩子，照这样下去，没什么可说的了！朱莉娅还想等什么？”

“直到我更喜欢她为止——她就是这么说的。”

“这是让你更喜欢她的方式，”卡特雷特先生故意宣称。 “她难道没有你的爱吗？”

“以至于她的拖延让我非常不高兴。”

卡特雷特先生看着他年轻的朋友，好像他并不觉得他很可怜。但他提出了问题：“那她还想要什么呢？”尼克听了这句话，哈哈大笑，尽管他明白主人的意思并不是警句。后者继续说道：“我不明白。你要么订婚了，要么没订婚。”

“她是，但我不是。她就是这么说的。问题是她不相信我。”

卡特雷特先生的坦率令人印象深刻。 “那她不爱你吗？”

“这就是我问她的。她的回答是她太爱我了。她非常害怕成为我的负担，所以她给了我自由，直到我又花了一年的时间来思考。”

“我喜欢你谈论其他年份的方式！”卡特雷特先生哭了。 “你最好趁我在这儿祝福你的时候做这件事。”

“她认为我向她求婚是因为她让我陷入了严厉的境地，”尼克说。

“嗯，我相信这将是一个非常可观的回报。”

“啊，她不相信我，”年轻人重复道。

“那我不相信 这里设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“别这么说——别这么说。她是一个非常罕见的生物。但她很骄傲、害羞、多疑。”

“怀疑什么？”

“一切。她认为我不坚持。”

“哦，哦！”——尼克的主人不赞成这种自由。

“她不敢相信我会达到真正的显赫地位。”

“一个好妻子应该相信她丈夫所相信的，”卡特雷特先生说。

“啊，不幸的是”——尼克连忙接过这句话——“我也不相信。”

卡特雷特先生可能一直在观察一种奇怪的身体冲动，他说话的语气有些干巴巴的。 “你亲爱的父亲做到了。”

“我想到了——我想到了，”尼克回答道。

“这当然会对我有帮助。如果我说我们订婚了，”他继续说道，“那是因为我这么认为。她给了我自由，但我不接受。”

“她希望你收回你的话吗？”

“这就是我问她的。 她 永不。因此我们几乎打成平手。”

“我不喜欢它，”卡特雷特先生过了一会儿说道。 “我不喜欢模棱两可、不确定的情况。当它们明确而清晰时，我会更高兴。”他脸上的表情已经消失了——当他不想受到鼓励时，他就会表现出这种表情。但过了一会儿，他用一种更私人的语气补充道：“别让我失望，亲爱的孩子。”

“啊不甘心啊！”他的访客抗议道。

“我已经告诉过你我想为你做什么了。确保我所需要的条件迅速出现 五月，做吧。你确定你所做的一切都是为了让达洛夫人满意吗？卡特雷特先生继续说道。

“我想我对她很好，”尼克宣称。 “但她是如此雄心勃勃。说实话，她喜欢我，真是可惜了。”

“她没办法！”老者迷人的说道。

” “有可能。但这难道不是让我接受现在的我的理由吗？她想做的就是接受一年后的我。”

“我不明白——因为你告诉我，即使那样她也不会收回她的诺言，”卡特雷特先生说。

“如果她不嫁给我，我想她永远不会再结婚了。”

“那么，拖延对她有什么好处呢？”

“简单来说，据我所知，”尼克说——“她会觉得自己非常宽宏大量。她不必责怪自己没有给我改变的机会。”

“改变？她认为你有什么责任？”

尼克停顿了一下。 “我不知道！”然后他说道——一点也不坦白。

“一切都变了：我们那个时代的年轻人更加自然地看待这些问题，”卡特雷特先生说道。 “恋爱中的女人不需要大度。如果她玩得太公平，她就不会恋爱。”他精明地补充道。

“哦，朱莉娅很安全——她很安全，”尼克微笑道。

“如果这是你和另一位绅士之间的问题，人们可能会理解。但在你和虚无之间，这意味着什么呢？”

“我非常感谢你，先生，”尼克回答道。 “问题是她不知道自己掌握了什么。”

“啊，如果你不能向她说清楚的话！”——他的朋友露出了不耐烦的表情。

“我真是个骗子，”年轻人说。当他的同伴盯着他看时，他继续说道：“我无意中欺骗了人们。”

“你到底是什么意思？你是在骗我吗？”

“我不知道——这取决于你的想法。”

“我认为你很轻浮，”卡特雷特先生说，他的态度是尼克在他身上观察到的最接近的严厉。 “我以前从来没有这么想过。”

“对不起;没关系。我并不轻浮；我向你保证我不是。”

“您 已可以选用 如果你是的话，那就是在欺骗我。”

“没关系，”尼克红着脸结结巴巴地说。

“记住你的名字——高举它。”

“我会——尽可能高。”

“你没有任何借口。别告诉我，在你在严酷的演讲之后！”尼克正要再次宣称自己是个骗子，他内心对自己做作的公开言论的看法是如此生动，这些言论具有给他带来可怕的责任和顽固的轻信的可恶特性。如果 he 是“聪明”（啊，愚蠢的“聪明”！）许多其他人是多么愚蠢！他压抑住自己的冲动，卡特雷特先生追了上去。 “如果，正如你所表达的那样，达洛夫人不知道她掌握了什么，那么通过告诉她，你结婚的前一天肯定会举行婚礼，你会不会把事情弄清楚一点？进入一些舒服的事情吗？”

卡特雷特先生可能会认为舒服的东西在尼克面前快速闪过，但这并没有阻止他回答：“哦，恐怕这不会有任何好处。这会让她更喜欢你，但不会让她喜欢我。我担心她不会在意从她以外的其他人手中给我带来的任何好处。她的感情是一种非常嫉妒的感情。”

“这是一个非常奇特的人！”卡特雷特先生叹了口气。 “我的也是一种嫉妒的情绪。不过，如果她这么认为，就不要告诉她。”

“她一醒来我就会通知你。”尼克说。

“你会告诉你妈妈，”卡特雷特先生回答道。 “我会喜欢 这里 要知道。”

“这对她来说将是一个令人高兴的消息。但她已经足够热心了。”

“我知道。我现在可以提一下，她写信给我了。”老人补充道。

“所以我怀疑。”

“我们已经——已经——就这个话题进行了通信，”卡特雷特先生继续承认。 “我对这种联盟的优势的看法与她的完全一致。”

“你真是好心，让我先发言，”尼克说。

“如果你没有这么做，我会感到失望。我不喜欢你告诉我的一切。不过现在别让我失望了。”

“亲爱的卡特雷特先生！”尼克的声音含糊而丰富。

“我不会让人失望 您”那位绅士一边看着他那块老式的大手表，一边继续说下去。

起初，彼得·谢林汉姆（Peter Sherringham）想要求调到另一个职位，结果在伦敦接受了他认为在这个问题上好的建议。也许他觉得这个建议更好，因为它强烈建议不要做如此愚蠢的事情。有人向他提到了两三个原因，说明为什么在这种特殊情况下，这样的要求不会提高他在上级中的尊重，他立即认识到了他们的力量。接下来他意识到，申请延长休假可能对他有帮助——不是向他的上级，而是向他自己，然后经过进一步的反思，他发现，尽管存在一些危险，但逃跑是完全符合荣誉的。这场特殊的战斗，对于各方来说，还是现场打比较好。假期期间，他的竞选计划给了他充足的时间。他翻新了自己的武器，完善了自己的策略，奠定了自己的防线。

一生中只有一件事他已经下定决心，但在这个问题上他从未动摇过：他会在自己的职业生涯中尽最大努力。在这一点上，对他人不友善是完全合法的——保持警惕、热切、多疑、自私。事实上，他对别人并不是不友善，因为他的事情不需要这样做：他相处得很好，没有铁石心肠。命运对他很仁慈，他一路上超越了很多竞争对手，所以他可以放弃嫉妒，变得慷慨。但他总是自以为当他发现有必要把苦涩倒入杯子里的那一天，他的手不会颤抖。这一天一定会到来，因为任何事业都不可能一直一帆风顺。然后他就会准备好献祭。他的头脑对牺牲的想法很熟悉：确实，事先并没有对场合、对象或受害者进行任何明确的说明。特别突出的是，赎罪祭必须是某种珍贵的享受。事实上，这种享受很可能与另一个人的魅力联系在一起——这种可能性孕育着这样的想法：这种魅力必须从人们的视线中消失。无论如何，谢林汉姆从来没有想到他自己可能会成为牺牲品。你必须付费才能继续生活，但至少你是向别人借了钱才得以实现的。当你借不到钱的时候，你就过不下去，因为你自己在生活中的什么情况下满足了整个要求？

我们的朋友最没有想到的是，这个扳手可能来自于他对尼克·多默（Ni​​ck Dormer）所集结的艺术分支的兴趣。对戏剧的热爱之美恰恰在于它是一种以最简单的方式表达出来的热情。这不是责任区。其朴素的态度遭到了嗤之以鼻，甚至令人怀疑。但如果不是像这些人所说的那样，是一个严肃的领域，补偿不就是让你不能认真地纠缠其中吗？谢林汉姆认为这件事的最大优势在于，他始终保持自己对戏剧的品味。他爱开玩笑的表弟可以假装这件事贯穿了他的一生。但这是无稽之谈，任何不带偏见的观察者都会毫不犹豫地证明这一点。那里没有丝毫杂乱，而且他确信，他对加里克艺术的兴趣从来没有让他有任何程度的可笑。它从来没有从上面发出任何接近谴责、抗议或评论的声音。谢林汉姆对自己的谨慎感到非常自豪，因为他对自己对舞台的了解也感到非常自豪。微不足道，他的很多同伴在生活中都有着不那么有启发性和不那么坦白的迷恋。难道他不认识那些收集旧邀请卡并准备做出承诺的人吗？ 贝塞斯 对于十八世纪的人来说？难道他不知道其他人对沙狐球有着秘密的热情吗？他的小弱点是智力上的——它们是精神生活的一部分。尽管如此，在它们表现出干扰症状的那一天，应该用手腕将它们拔掉。

谢林汉姆现在嗅到了干扰的味道，而且是一种相当令人反感的干扰。从职业的角度来看，作为一个舞台评论家，发现自己爱上了一个人，可能会很无聊。 荡妇;但如果发现自己爱上了一个性格尚待估量的年轻女子，那就更令人厌烦了。米丽娅姆·罗斯非鱼非肉：她既没有自己阶级的保障，也没有她所属阶级的豁免权。什么 是 如果有人想到那是她的吗？在这一点上罕见的含糊不清是她抛弃他而结束的迷恋的一部分。可怜的彼得的生活计划并没有包含任何阻止他坠入爱河的附加条件，但它包含了一个关于惊喜的重要条款。坠入爱河总是令人惊讶的，特别是如果一个人一直在寻找爱情的话。因此，这种偶然事件不值得官方文件提及。但他是一个尊重他为国家所做的服务的人，他警惕困境，唯一的问题是婚姻的严格性。事业上的野心可能与结婚是一致的——但前提是要睁大眼睛去实现它。这就是致命的意外——在梦中被带到祭坛前。谢林汉姆对这一步骤的礼节的看法是高尚而严格的。如果他认为一个处于他地位的人，首先是随着地位的提高，本质上是他的国家伟大的代表，他认为这样一位人物的妻子将发挥她的学位——例如在外国法庭——这一功能同样具有象征意义。简而言之，她永远是一个非常重要的人物，场景中布满了这一普遍真理的例证。她可能会帮上很大的忙，也可能会带来很大的麻烦，出于一般的谨慎，需要提前对她进行一些测试。谢林汉姆见过职业生涯中的女性，她们要么愚蠢要么粗俗，把事情搞得一团糟，让你心痛不已。然后他对完美的大使夫人有了积极的想法，她是未来盛开的百合花。对于这个想法，米里亚姆·罗斯没有提出任何类比。

女孩以特有的直率形容自己“还好”。她可能是这样，她确实是这样：只是为了什么呢？他已经看出她并不多愁善感——无论她有什么能力来回应奉献或渴望这种奉献，无论如何，她都不会走向模糊的调情。和他在一起，她当然没有花心的倾向。谢林汉姆几乎不敢再细想这件事，生怕这会激起他的愤怒，主要转化为更加关心她。无论愤怒与否，只要没有任何并发​​症，爱上她就会很迷人。但复杂性正是前景中最明显的。他也许会冷血地想到这些，但必须记住，这些是他所接受的训练让他能够应对的特殊事物。无论如何，他还不算太冷血，在假期的两个月里，他内心对任何比米丽亚姆的脸更抽象的东西都没有什么看法。想要再次见到它的愿望就像口渴一样迫切，但他试图练习沙漠旅行者的耐力。他把英吉利海峡保留在他们之间，但他的精神每天都在消耗一英寸的间隔，直到——而且时间不长——已经没有更多的英寸了。他最没想到未来的大使夫人会是这样 剧院圆角。对这一反对意见的回答当然是，米丽娅姆还不够成熟，但他可以很容易地通过一个漂亮的“世俗”提议来阻止她的发展。然后是令人担忧的反驳，其中最主要的是他的感觉，从他的艺术良心来看，阻止她的发展将是一个结合了他的愚蠢和卑鄙的计划，更不用说是低能了。这正是为了她的发展，这个可怜的女孩拥有最大的权利，他不应该通过剥夺她的权利来真正改变任何事情。难道她不是一位彻头彻尾的艺术家吗——世界上从来没有哪位大使夫人——如果有人让她偏离正轨，她难道不会用别的东西来发泄它吗？那种恶魔般的天赋是如此确定，那就是坚持自己的力量。

除了， 可以 一个让她偏离？如果她没有花心的倾向，他有什么理由认为她会变得受人尊敬呢？他的职业生涯——他的职业生涯——如何能与他的性格相呼应，这种性格对如此不同的范围有着生动而又粗俗的一瞥，而对于他来说，成功意味着另一种调味料呢？与彼得谢林汉姆结婚的辉煌会是一种放弃的贿赂吗？如果没有他假装不炫耀的那种自命不凡，他怎么能这么想呢？——他怎么能把自己摆在如此高的地位？对于一位自以为是且野心勃勃的年轻女士来说，放弃发挥罕见才能的机会本质上并不是一件容易的事。此外，她可能会鱼与熊掌兼得——可能会在舞台上和世界上都发财。功成名就的女演员最后都嫁给了公爵，这不是比默默无闻、嫁给平民更好吗？有时他试图宣称女孩的“天赋”不是一种不可忽视的力量；到目前为止，还没有什么可以证明这一点的东西，以至于他可能会突然不再相信它。但他确信这是真实的，这太令人不安了，无法让这样的实验和平进行，而且，他又回到了他最深刻的印象——她是一个内在的模子，唯一的一致性是天才的发挥。卡雷夫人最后不是宣称她可以“做任何事情”吗？确实，如果卡雷夫人一开始就犯了错误，那么她第二次也可能犯了错误。但在后一种情况下，她就会误解他了——而且这样的错误太像事实了。

更进一步，我们该如何准确地衡量他——谢林汉姆对米丽亚姆在他身上所拥有的优势感到不舒服——她以一种使他可能怀有的任何激情都包含着责任和快乐的光芒来呈现自己的优势？至于为什么会有这种暗示，他也说不出来。有时，他因为看到了这一点而感到自己相当卑微，或者至少是荒谬的迷信。他不知道，他几乎无法想象，在另一个相同类型的案例中他会认出它。在外国，很少有像罗斯小姐所从事的职业的女士不认为这是一个过于严厉的命令，为了安慰她们不被允许进入客厅，她们除了在生活中表现出美德之外，别无补偿。没有人会相信这一点。这是因为在外国，女演员是不被允许进入客厅的：那是一种纯粹的英国式的滑稽表演，对真正的表演和这些度假胜地的高调同样没有多大帮助。难道是因为她是英国人，所以不得不与他的年轻朋友打交道成为一种负担？彼得可以回忆起这种特权尽可能少地作为一种限制的例子。这句话来自罗斯夫人，他在她身上深思熟虑，通过在可怕的痴迷中“实践”一种无可指责的生活的想法，她可以为她的女儿取得什么成就。她浪漫的想法丝毫不会妨碍她把这个想法视为一笔巨大的资本，可以用来获得最大的世俗利益。米丽亚姆本质上的不敬态度足以以借口将其变成肉末——他确信这一点；因为她所认可的唯一资本是人才，有一天经理和经纪人会互相出高价来购买。然而，作为一个在很多方面都很随和的人，她很喜欢她的母亲，愿意做任何事来帮助她——这可能会以各种方式起作用——而且可能会喜欢无罪的宽松拖鞋，也可能会喜欢必须满足一些对方阵营的酷儿高标准。

我可以补充一下，谢林汉姆并不希望她有不同的偏好：为了他的利益而计算一位年轻女士行为不端的概率对他来说是令人厌恶的——这在他看来绝对是卑鄙的——而且他会认为自己是一个无赖。即使当他成为欲望的牺牲品时，他也没有希望得到最适合其目的的东西。对于米丽亚姆来说，最好的事情可能就是成为她应该倾听的男人的妻子。然而，这对这位绅士来说绝不是最好的事情，然而，同样的，谢林汉姆的最终信念是，他永远不会扮演那个假设人物的角色。他要求不被调动，也不要求延长休假，他在缺席期间从未向加龙省酒店打过电话，从而向自己证明了自己是多么清楚自己在做什么。他会径直走过去，对彼得·谢林汉姆造成的伤害和对其他人一样少。他一直离开到他的特权的最后一个小时，并在返回巴黎后的几天里继续表现得很清醒，与这对母女没有任何关系。

一周后的一天下午，当这项纪律结束时，他才最感受到我们刚才提到的罗斯夫人的私人算计的力量。他发现她独自在家，在灯下写信。他一进门，她就大声喊道，这封信就是写给他的。她再也无法忍受了；她允许自己责备他可怕的沉默——质问他为什么完全抛弃了他们。这说明了她的来访者对她的看法，他对桌子上皱巴巴的纸的描述不太相信。他甚至不确定自己是否相信米丽亚姆刚刚出去了。他告诉她的母亲，他不在的这段时间他有多忙，尤其是他必须在伦敦花多少时间代表她女儿去见见与剧院有关的人。

“啊，如果你可怜我，就告诉我你已经和她订婚了！”罗斯夫人紧握双手，哭了。

“我费了很大的劲；我写了很多笔记，寻求介绍，与人交谈——其中有一些是不可思议的人。简而言之，我敲了每一扇门，详尽地探讨了这个问题。”他列举了他做过的事情，报告了他收集到的一些知识。困难是巨大的，即使以他所能发挥的影响力，面对这些困难也几乎无济于事。尽管如此，他还是取得了进展：两三个平易近人的家伙，那些剧院条件较差的人，比其他人更能听他讲话，特别是其中一个，他希望他真的会对他感兴趣。他从他那里得到了善意的保证：这个人会见到米丽亚姆，会听她的话，会为她做他能做的一切。麻烦在于，除非有无数的人为她举手，否则没有人会为她动一根手指头。然而，除非有无数的人动了她的手指头，否则她永远不会为人所知。除非你会游泳，否则你不能下水，除非你已经在水里了，否则你不能游泳。

“但是新的表演者出现了； “他们有剧院、有观众、在报纸上看到通知，”罗斯夫人反对道。 “我只知道米丽亚姆告诉我的这些事情。我生来就没有知识。”

“这是完全正确的。这一切都是用钱完成的。”

“那么他们是怎么来钱的呢？”鲁斯夫人坦诚地问道。

“当她们是女性时，人们就会把它给她们。”

“那么，现在是什么人呢？”

“相信他们的人。”

“你相信米丽亚姆吗？”

彼得停顿了一下。 “不，完全不同。穷人的信仰与富人的信仰不同。”

“啊，别说自己是穷人！”罗斯夫人呻吟道。

“富有对我有什么好处？”

“为什么你可以去剧院。这一切你都可以自己做。”

“那对我有什么好处呢？”

“啊，你不为她的天才感到高兴吗？”罗斯夫人问道。

“我很喜欢她的母亲。你以为我比实际情况更无私。”谢林汉姆带着某种恼怒的酸痛补充道。

“我知道你为什么不写了！”罗斯夫人调皮地宣称。

“你必须去伦敦，”彼得没有理会这句话，说道。

“啊，如果我们能到达那里那就太好了。我应该长长地吸一口气。至少我知道我在哪里，人们是谁。但这里有人住在空地上！”

“你越早离开越好，”我们的年轻人继续说道。

“我知道你为什么这么说。”

“这正是我要解释的。”

“如果我不是对米丽亚姆那么有信心，我就不可能坚持下来，”鲁斯夫人说。

“好了，你不用再坚持了。”

“别 您 相信她吗？”谢林汉姆的女主人问道。

“相信她吗？”

“你不相信自己。这就是为什么你保持沉默，为什么我们会认为你死了，为什么我们可能会死掉。”

“我想我不理解你；我不知道你在说什么。”彼得回答道。 “不过没关系。”

“不是吗？放自己走。何必去挣扎呢？”老妇人愉快地问道。

她出乎意料的坚持惹恼了她的来访者，他又沉默了，带着保留地看着她的眼睛，正要告诉她他不喜欢她的语气。但他的舌头受到了如此的控制，以至于他很快就能够说而不是这样——对他的反应发出清晰的声音对他来说是一种解脱——“无论哪种方式，对于一个男人来说，恋爱都是一个巨大的错误”和一位女演员。要么就是没有什么严重的意义，那有什么用呢？或者它意味着一切，那就更加虚幻了。”

“妄想？”

“闲着，无利可图。”

“当然，纯粹的感情本身就是美丽的回报，”罗斯夫人温柔地合理地恳求道。

“既然如此，怎么可能是纯粹的呢？”

“我以为你说的是​​一位英国绅士，”她回答道。

“无论你喜欢怎样称呼这个可怜的家伙：一个有他的生活要过的人，他要创造的方式，他的工作，他的职责，他的事业要照顾的人。如果它毫无意义的话，正如我所说，最不重要的就是婚姻。”

“哦，我自己的米丽亚姆！”罗斯夫人号啕大哭。

“另一方面，想想当这样一个男人娶了一个舞台上的女人时，会出现什么复杂的情况。”

罗斯夫人看上去似乎想跟上。 “米里亚姆还没上台。”

“去伦敦吧，她很快就会去。”

“是的，然后你就有借口了。”

“我的借口？”

“完全抛弃了我们。”

听到这里，他笑了，这逻辑实在是太滑稽了。然后他接着说：“给我一些好演技，我不会抛弃你的。”

“演技好？啊，与真正的英国女士的地位相比，什么是最好的表演？如果你接受她本来的样子，你就可能拥有她。”罗斯夫人突然补充道。

“就她现在的样子，她的野心还没有减弱吗？”

“结婚 您——这难道不是一个野心吗？”

“一个非常微不足道的东西。不要替她回答，不要尝试这样做，”彼得说。 “你可以做得更好。”

“你认为 您 能？”罗斯夫人微笑着。

“我不想；我只想放过它。她是一位艺术家； “你必须把她的头给她。”年轻人追问道。 “你必须始终给艺术家一个头脑。”

“但我认识一些伟大的女士，她们都是艺术家。在英国社会总有一个领域。”

“别跟我谈论英国社会！谢天谢地，首先，我不住在里面。你想让她放弃她的天赋吗？”他问道。

“我还以为你不关心这个呢。”

“她会说，‘不，我谢谢你，亲爱的妈妈。’”

“我的好孩子！”罗斯夫人几乎理解地低声说道。

“你向她求婚过吗？”

“提议的？”

“她应该放弃尝试。”

罗斯夫人犹豫了一下，低下头。 “不是因为你的意思。我们不谈爱情。”她笑着说。

“这样一来，浪费的时间就少得多了。不要把你的手伸向更糟糕的地方，因为有一天它可能会抓住更好的东西，”彼得继续说道。罗斯夫人抬起眼睛看着他，仿佛认识到其中可能存在的力量，他补充道：“让她燃烧起来，让她环顾四周。那么如果你愿意的话可以和我谈谈。”

“真是令人费解啊！”老妇人无情地叹了口气。

他又笑了，然后说道：“现在别告诉我我不是一个好朋友。”

“你确实——你是一位非常高贵的绅士。这就是为什么和你一起过安静的生活——”

“这不会安静 me！”他插嘴道：“米丽亚姆不是生来就是为了这个的。”

“不要这么说 为了我的宝贝！”罗斯夫人浑身发抖。

“去伦敦——去伦敦，”她的访客重复道。

过了一会儿，她若有所思地伸出手，从桌上取出了他发现她正在写的那封信。然后她迅速地把它撕碎了。 “达什伍德先生就是这么说的。”

“先生。达什伍德？”

“我忘了你不认识他。他是我们那天见到的那位女士的兄弟，您热情地接待了我们。那位对我们如此友善的人——夫人。洛维克。”

“我从没听说过他。”

“你不记得她是如何谈论他的，洛维克先生似乎对他不太好？她告诉我们，如果他要见我们——她很好地暗示他会很高兴这样做——正如她所说，他可能会给我们小费。”

彼得努力回忆起来。 “是的，他回到了我身边。他是演员。”

“他也是一位绅士，”罗斯夫人说。

“你见过他，他 具有 给你小费了吗？”

“正如我所说，他希望我们去伦敦。”

「我明白了，不过我也可以告诉你。」

“哦，是的，”罗斯夫人说。 “但 he 说他可以帮助我们。”

“那就留住他吧，如果他是干这行的，”Peter 完全赞成。

“他是一位完美的绅士，”罗斯夫人说。 “他对米丽亚姆印象非常深刻。”

“越来越好。抓住他。”

“好吧，我很高兴你不反对，”她做了个鬼脸。

“我为什么要反对？”

“你不把我们视为 所有 你自己？”

“我自己的？哎呀，我把你视为公众的——全世界的。”

她有点颤抖。 “这里面有一种寒意。很壮观，但是很冷。不过，我可以毫不犹豫地告诉你，达什伍德·米里亚姆先生已经出去了。”

“何必犹豫呢，仁慈的上天？”但下一刻，谢林汉问道：“他们去哪儿了？”

“你不喜欢！”他的女主人笑了。

“为什么它应该是一件值得热衷的事情呢？”

“嗯，他很有魅力，而且 I 相信他。”

“我也是，”谢林汉姆说。

“他们去见卡雷夫人了。”

“那她回来了？”

“预计她上周会回来。米里亚姆想向她展示她是如何进步的。”

“和 具有 她进步了吗？

“我怎么知道——用我母亲的心？”罗斯夫人问道。 “我不评判；我只能等待和祈祷。但达什伍德先生认为她很棒。”

“这是一种祝福。还有他什么时候出现的？”

“大约两周前。我们在英国教堂遇到了洛维克夫人，她很友善地认出了我们并与我们交谈。她说她和孩子们出去了——否则她就会来看我们。她刚刚回到巴黎。”

“是的，我还没见过她。我看到了洛维克，”彼得补充道，“但他没有谈论他的姐夫。”

“那天我不喜欢他谈论他的语气，”罗斯夫人说。 “教堂结束后，我们和洛维克夫人走了一段路，她向米里亚姆询问了她的前景以及她是否在工作。米里亚姆说她没有前途。”

“这对我来说不太好，”谢林汉姆评论道。

“但是当你把我们留在黑暗中时 为 我们的前景？”

“我懂了。没关系。继续。”

“然后洛维克夫人说她哥哥要来巴黎几天，她会让他来看我们。他来了，她告诉他，他就来了。 瞧！”罗斯夫人说。

“所以现在——到目前为止 he 担心——罗斯小姐有前途吗？”

“不幸的是，他不是经理，”她补充道。

“他在哪里行动？”

“他现在不是在表演，而是在表演。”他出国了。我相信他去过意大利，并且在前往伦敦的途中在此停留。”

“我懂了;他 is 一位完美的绅士，”谢林汉姆说。

“啊，你嫉妒他了！”

“不，但你却想让我这么做。为了让她脱颖而出的荣耀，竞争者越多，对她来说就越好。”

“先生。达什伍德想要开一家剧院，”罗斯夫人说。

“那么也许他就是我们的人了。”

“哦，如果你愿意帮助他就好了！”她放声大哭。

“帮助他？”

“帮助他帮助我们。”

“我们将共同努力； “那会非常愉快的。”谢林汉姆高兴地说。 “这是一项神圣的事业，对艺术的热爱，我们将成为一支快乐的乐队。他叫达什伍德吗？他随即补充道。 “太太。洛维克不是达什伍德人。”

“是他的 剧院之名——巴兹尔·达什伍德。你喜欢它？”罗斯夫人精彩地问道。

“你会这么说，就像米丽亚姆可能会说的那样。她的才华令人着迷！”

“她总是在练习——总是一遍又一遍地说话，以抓住语气。我的耳边有她的声音。他要 这里 没有任何。”

“没有什么？”

“任何 剧院之名。他希望她用自己的；他非常喜欢它。他说它会做得很好——你不能做得更好了。”

“他是一名资本顾问，”谢林汉姆站起来说道。 “我明天就回来。”

“我不会让你等他们——可能会等很长时间，”他的女主人回答道。

“他会和她一起回来吗？”彼得一边抚平帽子，一边问道。

“我希望如此，就在这个时候。带着孩子走在街上，我浑身发抖。我们并不像你想象的那样住在出租车里。”

“他们是步行去的吗？”谢林汉姆继续说道。

“哦是的;他们一开始兴高采烈。”

“巴兹尔·达什伍德先生认识卡雷夫人吗？”

“啊不，但他渴望被介绍给她；他说服米丽亚姆带他去。她自然愿意答应他。她对他很好——如果他能做点什么的话。”

“完全正确;就是这个方法！”彼得高兴地喊道。

“她还想让他看看她能为这位伟大的批评家做些什么，”罗斯夫人补充道——“那个戴着红色假发的可怕老妇人。”

“这也是我希望看到的，”彼得承认。

“哦，她已经走了；她对自己很满意。 “工作，工作，工作，”卡雷夫人说。嗯，她工作了，工作了，工作了。这就是达什伍德先生比其他事情更满意的地方。”

“你说的其他事情是什么意思？”

“哦，她的天才和她美丽的外表。”

“他认可她的漂亮外表？我问这个问题是因为你认为他知道会发生什么。”

“我知道你为什么这么问！”罗斯夫人勇敢地嘲笑。 “他说这对她来说价值数十万。”

“这就是我喜欢听的事情，”彼得回答道。 “我明天过来，”他重复道。

“达什·伍德先生在这儿你介意吗？”

“他每天都来吗？”

“哦，他们总是在这么做。”

「在那个——？」他含糊其辞。

“为什么她对他采取行动——无论什么事情——他都会说是否可以。”

“那他来这里多少天了？”

罗斯夫人沉思道。 “噢，我不知道！自从他出现以来，他们就过得这么快。”

“我根本不‘介意’它，我渴望见到他，”谢林汉姆宣称。 “我想象不出比你所描述的更好的了——如果他不是个糟糕的混蛋的话。”

“天哪，如果他不聪明，你必须告诉我们：我们不能被欺骗！”罗斯夫人天真地哭了起来。 “我们知道什么——我们如何判断？”她提出上诉。

他停顿了一下，把手放在门闩上。 “哦，我就坦白地告诉你我对他的看法吧！”

当他走到街上时，他环顾四周寻找一辆出租车，但不得不走了一段距离才遇到一辆出租车。在这短暂的间隙里，他看不出有什么理由改变他走下加龙宫陡峭楼梯时所下的决心。事实上，这种欲望只会加快他的步伐。他还有一个小时的空闲时间，也会去看望卡雷夫人。如果米丽娅姆和她的同伴步行前往君士坦丁堡街，他可能会和他们一起到达那所房子。这一切都很合乎逻辑：他渴望见到米丽亚姆——这是很自然的；他渴望见到米丽亚姆。他向罗斯夫人承认，他对洛维克夫人的戏剧弟弟这个话题很感兴趣，这种有效的帮助也许就在他身上。米丽亚姆在她相信自己已经完成的跳跃之后，真正向这位老女演员展示了自己——因为那是她的差事——将是一次非常愉快的经历，想到这一点就让她的恩人不耐烦了。他很快就找到了自己的出租车，跳上车后，吩咐车夫开快点。他从卡雷夫人的女门童那里得知，她的显赫地位 房客 当时他在家，一位女士和一位先生之前已经上楼去了。

入院后，在小前厅里，他听到沙龙里传来高亢的声音，他停下来听了一会儿，发现米里亚姆已经开始朗诵了。他能听清这句话，更何况，在他阻止动静之前，带他进去的女仆已经打开了房门——其中的一片叶子，就像大多数房间一样，都在里面。法式门，其中两扇——门前，里面挂着厚重的窗帘。米丽亚姆正在表演英国诗剧中的一些台词——

“因为我病了并且有恐惧的能力，
受到错误的压迫，因此充满恐惧。”

他认出了莎士比亚笔下康斯坦斯的长篇大论，并看到她刚刚开始了第三幕开头的壮丽场景。 约翰王，其中充满激情、受伤的母亲和寡妇用狂野的风琴音调扫荡了她的讽刺和愤怒的整个范围。窗帘遮住了他，在他向门做了个手势后，他潜伏了三分钟。 女佣 踮起脚尖退休。沙龙里的三人正全神贯注地表演，显然没有听到他的进来，也没有听到开门声，被女孩精彩的朗诵所掩盖。彼得专心地听着，被她攻击令人敬畏的诗句时所表现出的精神所吸引。他需要听到她浮在水面上的声音，但要听到十几声才能衡量她在他不在的时候迈出的大步；他们向他保证，她已经拥有了自己的财产。他留在原地直到她到达

“那就再说吧；不全是你以前的故事，
但就这一句话，不管你的故事是真是假。”

这个撇号，用另一种声音简短地回应，给了他快速拉起窗帘现身的时间，带着“继续，继续！”的声音走进房间。以及一个强烈反对停车的手势。

米丽亚姆在她的角色中，停顿了片刻，让自己再次响起，而彼得则坐到最近的椅子上，她用她那双明亮的眼睛，也就是用胡言乱语的康斯坦斯的眼睛，盯着他。卡雷夫人埋在椅子里，向他亲吻了自己的手，女孩旁边站着一个年轻人做出暗示，隔着一本小书盯着他。 “令人钦佩，宏伟，继续，”谢林汉姆重复道——“继续到场景的结尾，全部完成！”米丽亚姆的脸涨得通红，但他很快就感觉到，再次见到他时，她并没有什么私人感情。冰冷的艺术热情高高地悬挂在她的旗帜上，她用警惕的耳朵倾听自己的声音，仿佛她是拉小提琴弓的帕格尼尼。随着她继续前进，这种效果加深了，在这个伟大的场合，她的动作异常轻松，以最大、最清晰的风格达到了她的想法的令人晕眩的高度。她有一个想法是显而易见的，而且整个事情与谢林汉姆迄今为止听到的她的尝试非常不同。它完全属于另一类努力。她现在已经是从地面升到基座上的成品雕像了。就好像她才华横溢的太阳已经升起在山丘之上，她知道自己正在前进，并且将永远在它的指引下前进。这种信念是一种朴素的东西，透过康斯坦斯的悲剧面具，像年轻的欢乐一样闪烁着光芒，当谢林汉姆在她脸上看到它时，他的心跳得更快。这只能说明她聪明一些，但也曾有一段时间，他觉得她很蠢！掌控了她演绎这一场景的整个精神，让他从一点到另一点对自己哭泣，“她是如何感受它、看到它并真正‘渲染’它的！”

他时不时地看看卡雷夫人，发现她腿上放着一本打开的书，显然是她的访客带来的法国散文版戏剧；但她从来没有看他一眼，也没有看那本书：她只是坐在那儿，用那双冷酷而明亮的眼睛注视着女孩，那双眼睛被经验擦亮了，就像精美的老黄铜一样。年轻人在说出其他发言者的台词时，又表现出了另一个程度的专注。他在自己的副本中跟随米里亚姆，以确保线索。但他很高兴，表情丰富，显然甚至感到惊讶。他脸红了，微笑着，当表演者表演完她的台词，庄严地坐在“巨大而坚实的大地”上后，当他伸出手扶康斯坦斯站起来时，他向她鞠了一躬，仿佛她是他的。名副其实的主权。他是一个英俊的年轻人，身材高大，身材匀称，五官端正，皮肤白皙，显然无论在什么场合，首先要说的就是他明显具有绅士的印记。他赢得了这一形象，事实证明这是根深蒂固和纠缠不休的，以至于几乎否定了它的精神：因此提出了一个问题：将任何角色，甚至是那个特定的角色，如此多地表现在一个人的袖子上是否可以有良好的品味。 。这个年轻人的袖子上确实有一部分是他自己的。因为它在很大程度上体现在他的衣服上，尤其是一件紧身的深蓝色礼服外套，合身的奇迹，恰到好处地塑造了他的少年感，但又不过分，正如谢林汉姆后来注定要认识到的那样，他的永久制服或徽章。直到后来，彼得才开始对巴兹尔·达什伍德的“类型”感到恼火——这个年轻的陌生人当然是巴兹尔·达什伍德——甚至对他那件蓝色礼服大衣——他一贯的、一成不变的、镇定自若的良好形象——感到恼火。这种不专业的神态最终让观察者感到震惊，因为他所从事的职业正是他所从事的，而且就目前而言，确实是他的模仿资本，他在舞台上的主要资格。

米丽亚姆处理场景的丰富而有力的方式给人留下了充分的印象，她克服困难的艺术，她满足对声音的巨大要求的慷慨，以及她投入洪流中的各种表达方式。质疑。这是一部真实的作品，其中充满了令人压抑的致敬的段落，似乎表明一个有能力进行这样的表演的人才有能力做任何事情。

“但是你很美丽，在你出生时，亲爱的孩子，
自然与财富的结合让你变得伟大：
你可以用百合花来夸耀大自然的恩赐，
还有那朵半开的玫瑰。”

当女孩用这个精致的撇号转向她想象中的孩子时——她称呼达什伍德先生，就好像他在扮演亚瑟一样，他低下书本，垂下头和眼睛，看上去英俊而天真——她突然打开了谢林汉姆的书。设想他们会看到她比其他任何事情都更好地表达温柔。她的声音在这些台词中很迷人，她表演的美妙之处在于，虽然她说出了这部分的全部愤怒，但她没有错过其中的诗意。

“她从哪里得到的——她从哪里得到的？”彼得的整个感官都在颤动，心中充满了疑问。 “我走的时候她还没有拿到它。”他再次确信她已经找到了打开宝箱的钥匙。夏天，在他们频繁见面的几周里，她只是摸索了一下门锁。十月的一天，当他不在的时候，钥匙滑了进去，安装好了，或者她的手指终于触到了正确的弹簧，反复无常的棺材飞开了。

正是在目前的庄严气氛中，他对她出来的方式感到兴奋，脑海中盘旋着一百个关于她的激动人心的想法，他第一次、最生动地感受到了一种感觉，最终与他变得频繁起来——完美的心态，不困惑，不被情感所催促，这是任何艺术表演所需要的，而且所有的一切，无论使用什么乐器，都需要完全相同的程度：换句话说，应用清晰且经过计算，可以说是水晶般坚固，在经验、痛苦和欢乐的光芒中孕育出的想法。后来他经常与米里亚姆谈论这个问题，然而，米里亚姆始终无法向他提供关于这个主题的简洁理论。她不知道这件事已被公开讨论；她在实践中只是站在那些认为艺术家在创作时不能太有自己的智慧的人一边。当彼得向她指出那些坚持认为在这样的危机下办公室不再被关注的人的意见时，她惊讶地瞪大了眼睛，然后爆发出：“啊，可怜的白痴！”在她的判断中，她最终变得不耐烦，表现出轻蔑，非常自由和绝对不敬。

“骂得好漂亮啊！”当教皇使节入口处，她的同伴当场合上书本时，这位新来者惊呼道。彼得把嘴唇贴在卡雷夫人的指尖上。老女演员站起来，向米里亚姆伸出双臂。当女孩进入那位女士的怀抱并留在那里时，她的目光一直没有离开过谢林汉姆。他们充满了一贯的阴郁之火，而且总是表达太多他们能表达的东西；但现在他们不再是挑衅，甚至不再是得意洋洋——他们只是进行了深刻的阐释。他们似乎在说：“我就是这个意思；当我请你尝试为我做点什么时，我就是这么想的。”卡雷夫人将瞳孔抱在怀里，像老侯爵夫人那样抱着她。 爱情喜剧 也许在最后一幕中她的教女 天真.

“你给我订婚了吗？”——年轻女子急切地向她的朋友求助。 “是的，他为我做了一件了不起的事，”她继续对卡雷夫人说，她的手爱抚地放在一位女演员的手上，而老妇人和达什伍德先生交谈，达什伍德先生用非常漂亮的法语告诉她，他非常出色。对罗斯小姐很兴奋。卡雷夫人看着他，仿佛想知道他平静时的样子，以及作为一名戏剧艺术家，他如何表达这种状态。

“是的，是的，这是一个美妙的开始，”彼得满面笑容地、鲁莽地回答道。现在只觉得他会说任何话、做任何事来取悦她。他在想象中当场花掉了最后一分钱。

“可惜你没能跟上； “你会更喜欢它，”达什伍德先生对女主人说道。

“跟不上？你把我当成 乌恩索特？”这位著名艺术家哭了。 “我怀疑我跟着它 先生，您好”

“啊，你看，这门语言真是太好了，”巴兹尔·达什伍德看着自己的鞋子回答道。

“语言？为什么她像个鱼妻一样抱怨。这就是你所谓的语言吗？我们的业务是另一项业务。”

“如果你理解了，如果你理解了，你就会看到它的伟大之处，”米里亚姆宣称。然后又用另一种语气说：“多美妙的表情啊！”

“关于这就是特雷斯堡。但谁能知道你说的是不是真的呢？”卡雷夫人问道。

“啊， 例如， 我可以！”谢林汉姆回答道。

“哦，你——你是法国人。”

“如果他不这么做的话，他就不能明白吗？”巴兹尔·达什伍德问道。

老妇人耸了耸肩。 “他不会知道。”

“这让我很受宠若惊。”

“噢，你——你别假装抱怨吗？”卡雷夫人说。 “我更喜欢 我们的 咒骂——那些卡米尔的咒骂，”她继续说道。 “她们有美丽 des plus 美女选择设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“我也可以说，”米里亚姆插话道。

“厚脸皮！”卡雷夫人微笑着。 “卡米尔并没有蹲在他们中间的地板上。

“因为悲伤是骄傲的，会让他的主人屈服。
对我和我极度悲伤的状态
让国王们聚集吧”

米丽亚姆连忙说道。 “啊，如果你没有感觉到她登上王座的方式！”

“这真的非常好， 谢尔夫人，”谢林汉姆说。 “没有什么比这更好的了。”

“你无法忍受”老妇人回答道。 “和我们在一起。我来教你菲德尔。”

“啊菲德拉，菲德拉！”巴兹尔·达什伍德隐隐约约地射精了，看上去比以前更有绅士风度了。

“我教给你的东西你都学会了，但我没学会的东西你到底从哪里学会的呢？”卡雷夫人继续说道。

“我工作过——我工作过；你可以称之为工作——整个明媚的夏末，整个炎热、沉闷、空虚的日子。我敲开了门——有一天我确实听到了门的撞击声。但我还没有那么好。我只是朝着正确的方向前进。”

“马利丘斯！”卡雷夫人咆哮道。

“哦，我能打败它，”女孩继续说道。

“有一天早上你醒来，发现自己长出了一对翅膀吗？”彼得问。 “因为这就是差异所在——你真的会飞翔。而且，你还是个天使，”他补充道，被她的出人意料和她忍耐责备他没有给她写信的善良本性所迷住。他私下里似乎觉得她 是 当她回答这个问题时，她非常温和地说道：

“你知道你读过 约翰王 在你离开之前和我在一起。你说的话我深思熟虑了。我当时不太明白——我太傻了。但这一切都是我后来才想到的。”

“我希望你能看到你自己，”彼得回答道。

“我亲爱的朋友，我愿意。你把我当成什么傻瓜了？我没有错过我声音的任何颤动，我长袍的褶皱。”

“好吧，我没看到你为此烦恼，”彼得帅气地坚持道。

“没有人会这么做。你认为我会表现出来吗？

“青蒿，”巴兹尔·达什伍德开玩笑地说。

“你首先必须掌握隐藏的技巧，”谢林汉姆说，她有点想知道为什么米里亚姆不把她年轻的朋友介绍给他。然而，无论是当时还是后来，她都完全忽视了这种关心，从不思考，从不关心其他人如何相处。当她发现他们没有合上时，她嘲笑他们：这是她最接近为他们安排的事情。我们的年轻人注意到，从她感觉到自己的力量的那一刻起，她对细节的幽默感就大大增强了——所有的细节都保存在她的工作上，为了工作，她准备牺牲感情的大屠杀，而这些感情是别人的。这让她受到了极大的亵渎，在她的社会关系中缺乏仪式感，这既有趣，因为这表明她会接受她所给予的东西，又令人畏惧，因为这很不方便，而且你可能不在乎给予她想要的东西。拿。

“如果你没有任何艺术，那就和你没有隐藏它不太一样，不是吗？”巴兹尔·达什伍德巧妙地扔了出去。

“对了——说一件你聪明的事情吧！”米丽亚姆甜蜜地回应道。

“你总是在演戏，”他用英语宣布，并带着简单的笑声，而谢林汉姆仍然对他表达了几周前他自己的感受感到惊讶。

“当你向公众展示你的鱼妻时 下德拉，你接下来要做什么？卡雷夫人问道。

“我会演朱丽叶——我会演克利奥帕特拉。”

“相当大的账单，不是吗？”达什伍德先生以友好但有区别的方式自愿加入谢林汉姆。

“康斯坦斯和朱丽叶——小心别把他们搞混了，”谢林汉姆说。

“我想要变得不同。你曾经告诉过我，我有一百个字符。”米里亚姆回答道。

“啊， 你是我的？”老女演员喊道。 “你可能有一百个角色，但你只有三部戏。我听说这就是全部英文内容。”

令人钦佩的是，米丽娅姆对这一指控漠不关心，向彼得求助。 “你们做了什么安排？老百姓想要什么？”

“剧院里的人？”

“我担心他们不想 约翰王，我不相信他们渴望 安东尼与克莉奥佩特拉”，巴兹尔·达什伍德建议道。 “船只、围攻、军队和金字塔，你知道：我们不能太重。”

“哦，我讨厌风景！”女孩叹了口气。

“埃莱·埃斯特·桑伯，”卡雷夫人说。 “你必须把这些作品放到舞台上：你会怎么做？”

“哦，我们知道如何在伦敦演出，卡雷夫人”——卡雷先生。达什伍德非常和蔼可亲。 “你知道，他们投入了金钱。”

“在上面？但他们放了什么 in 它？谁来解读它们？谁能驾驭这样的风格——她刚才重复的狂想曲就是这种风格的典范？你听说过谁？

“哦，一旦她开始，你就会听到很多好消息，”达什伍德高兴地争辩道。

卡雷夫人看了他一会儿。然后，“我觉得你会变得很糟糕，”她对米里亚姆说。 “我很高兴我不会看到它。”

“人们会为我做事——我会做的，”女孩宣称。 “我会激励他们，让他们有想法。”

“什么人，祈祷？”

“啊，可怕的女人！”彼得戏剧性地呻吟了一声。

“我们翻译你的作品——会有很多部分，”巴兹尔·达什伍德说。

“那为什么要从门出去，从窗户进来呢？——尤其是如果你把它砸碎的话！法国作品的英语改编是一位背对着背的漂亮女人。”

“你真的想留下她吗？”谢林汉姆向卡雷夫人询问——仿佛思考了一会儿这毕竟是可能的。

她用奇怪的眼睛看着他。 “不，你们在一起太奇怪了。我们懒得理你，你也不值得。”

“我很高兴我们‘在一起’了——我们可以互相安慰。”

“如果你愿意的话；但你似乎不这么认为！简而言之，我不理解你——我放弃你。但这并不重要，”老妇人疲倦地说，“因为剧院已经死了，甚至你， 马图特贝尔，不会让它复活。一切都在变得越来越糟，而我不在乎你会怎样。你在这里不会理解我们，在那里他们也不会理解你，一切都是不可能的，没有人更明智，而且这并不是最不重要的。只有当你举起手臂时，它们才会举得更高一点，”卡雷夫人补充道。

“我妈妈会更幸福 家“米丽亚姆说着，双臂伸直，做了一个高贵而悲壮的动作。

“除非你的母亲陷入绝望，否则你根本就不会走在正确的道路上。”

“好吧，也许我们甚至可以在伦敦实现这一点，”谢林汉姆耐心地笑道。

“亲爱的罗斯夫人——她非常有趣，”达什伍德先生平静地说道。

米丽亚姆将阴沉的目光转移到他身上，就像在练习一样。 “完全 无论如何，不​​会让她不高兴。”然后她带着美丽而致命的面具站在女主人面前。 “我也想做现代的。我想要做 戏剧，具有强烈的现实效果。”

“你想看起来像为葬礼铺上玛德琳教堂的门廊吗？”她的导师嘲笑道。 “从来没有，从来没有。我不相信你与众不同：那不是我看待你的方式。你是纯粹的悲剧， 伟大的声音 以伟大的风格，否则你什么都不是。”

“要美丽——仅此而已，”彼得饶有兴趣地催促道。 “成为你能做到的最好的人——人们可能会为了一睹完美而求助，以摆脱当今所有的庸俗。”

就这样，女孩突然爆发出拉辛的《费德拉》中的一篇演讲，立刻让她的同伴安静下来。 “你将成为英国的雷切尔，”巴兹尔·达什伍德在她停下来时说道。

“用法语表演！”卡雷夫人修正了。 “我不相信英国的雷切尔。”

“我必须弄清楚，我将成为什么样的人，”米里亚姆以一种丰富的沉思效果总结道。

“你今天的状态非常好，”谢林汉姆对她说。他的感激之情揭示了他无法向同伴隐瞒的个人服从，尽管他很希望如此。

“我真的想尽一切努力。”

“很好;毕竟加里克做到了。”

“那么我将成为我性别中的加里克。”

“有一位非常聪明的作者为我做了一些事情；我希望你能看到它，”巴兹尔·达什伍德说道，他同时对米丽亚姆和她的外交朋友说。

“啊，如果你们有非常聪明的作者的话——！”卡雷夫人将这声音变成了最美妙的讽刺。

“我会很高兴看到它，”彼得回答道。

这个回应是如此仁慈，以至于巴兹尔·达什伍德立即开始说道：“请问您在哪家剧院做了安排？”

谢林汉姆看了他一会儿。 “来大使馆见我，我会告诉你。”然后他补充道：“我认识你的妹妹，洛维克夫人。”

“所以我想：这就是我冒昧问这样一个问题的原因。”

“这不是自由，但谢林汉姆先生似乎无法告诉你，”米里亚姆说。

“嗯，你知道，这是一个非常好奇的世界，那里有那么多戏剧人物，”彼得承认。

“啊，当我是他们中的一员时，不要说任何反对他们的话，”巴兹尔·达什伍德笑道。

“我可能会以缺乏信息为由，”彼得回答道，“因为罗斯小姐没有让我们认识。”

米丽亚姆隐隐约约地笑了笑。 “我对你们俩了解太少了。”但她向他们展示了一种庄严的气氛，两人握手，卡雷夫人注视着他们。

“天狮！你们是第一次在这里见面吗？你们做对了，成为朋友——这是最好的事情。和平共处，相互信任。 这就是圣人的美丽设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“当然，对于同僚来说，”谢林汉姆说。

下一刻，他开始向他的新朋友重复一些他在伦敦听到的事情；但他们的女主人阻止了他，用迷人的过度舞台恐怖和马里沃女主角年轻的双手打断了他的谈话。 “啊，等你走——就为了那个！你以为我关心你们江湖骗子摊位的消息吗？

正如许多人所知，在著名的法国剧院里，并没有十多个可供女士使用的好座位。除了巨大的马蹄铁两端的几把椅子之外，这一切都是错觉。但有两个优秀的 前卫场景区，这确实绝不是总是可以拥有的。然而，谢林汉姆回到巴黎后，立即迎来了罗斯夫人和她的女儿，并由巴兹尔·达什伍德进一步护送，其中之一就是谢林汉姆。他选择了著名的瓦桑小姐再次出现的那天晚上——她一直在享受着 离开 三个月的时间——米丽娅姆以前见过这位女演员好几次，她对她的方法表示高度赞赏，尽管有些批评。彼得一直在等待这位迷人的表演者的回归，以回应米里亚姆最热切的愿望——在剧院里待一个小时。 艺术家门厅 大剧院的。她是他在莫里哀家里最了解的人。他可以指望有一天晚上，当她在“账单”上时，她会给他们带来荣誉，并使这个场合变得融洽。米丽亚姆对此已经不耐烦了——她坚信自己的眼睛会在至圣所里睁开。但正如他特别希望参与到她的印象中一样，他已经向她保证，如果没有他，她不会尝到这种经历——例如，不要让卡雷夫人在他不在的时候带她去。女孩想向瓦桑小姐提出一些问题——在阳台上欣赏过她之后，她觉得自己正是回答这些问题的人。毕竟，她现在比卡雷夫人更“投入”，尽管她的才华较弱：她更年轻、更新鲜、更现代，而且——米里亚姆发现这个词——不那么学术化。她还好少“老酒”。彼得完美地预见到有一天，他的年轻朋友会对可怜的卡雷夫人给予宽容的照顾，把她当作一个善意的老妇人来照顾。

[*：1890]

今晚的戏剧已经上演了六个月，是一部由最杰出的作家创作的大型、严肃、成功的喜剧，有一篇论文、一个角色所体现的合唱、一个 现场 对于瓦桑小姐来说，这也是一个充满机会的部分。关于这位艺术家，有很多话要说，对她的艺术总体质量的批评要放弃，米里亚姆现在向后靠了靠，发表她的评论，好像这些评论让她付出了更少的代价，但这位女演员有知识、有特色、有悲情，而且我们的小姐重复了好几遍：“她多么安静，多么安静啊！除了她的脸和声音之外，几乎没有其他东西在动。 罕见的，但当它到来时却非常富有表现力。我喜欢那种经济；这是让这一姿态变得有意义的唯一方法。”

“我不欣赏她握住手臂的方式，”巴兹尔·达什·伍德说：“就像一个 德马加桑少女 试穿一件夹克。”

“好吧，无论如何，她拿着它们。我敢说这比你自己做的还要多。”

“哦，是的，她拿着它们；这没有错。 “我握着它们，我希望， 海因？她似乎对全屋子的人说。”这位年轻的英国专业人士幽默地笑了，谢林汉姆对他与他们勇敢的同伴建立的愉快的熟悉感感到震惊。他知道并准备好了，他在第一时间就说 参加——他们在等待第二个落后——有趣的、有洞察力的事情。 “他们教导她们要像淑女一样，而沃赞总是试图表现出这一点。 '看看我如何走路，如何坐，如何安静以及我如何 罕见的事。现在你能说我不是女士了吗？她做这一切就像在上课一样。”

“好吧，今晚我是她的班级，”米里亚姆说。

“哦，我不是指女演员，而是指 世界女性。她向他们展示了如何在社会中行事。”

“你最好去上几堂课。”米丽娅姆反驳道。

“啊，你应该看看社会上的沃赞，”彼得插话道。

“她会参与其中吗？”罗斯夫人饶有兴趣地问道。

她的朋友犹豫了。 “她接待了很多人。”

“当他们很好的时候，为什么不应该这样做呢？”鲁思夫人坦率地想知道。

“当人们友善的时候？”米丽亚姆问道。

“现在别告诉我她不是人们所希望的那样，”罗斯夫人对谢林汉姆说。

“这取决于那是什么，”他阴沉地笑道。

“如果她是我的女儿，我该多希望啊。”老妇人温和地回答道。

“啊，希望你的女儿也能演得那么好，你就会为她做一件帅气的事！”

“嗯，她 似乎 感受她所说的话，”罗斯夫人虔诚地冒险。

“她有一些生硬的话要说。我指的是她的过去，”巴兹尔·达什伍德说道。 “过去——可怕的过去——在舞台上！”

“等到最后，看她怎么样。我们都要慈悲为怀！”罗斯夫人叹了口气。

“我们以前见过；你知道会发生什么，”米里亚姆对她母亲说道。

“我见过很多，我把它们混为一谈。”

“是的，他们都陷入了奇怪的困境。可怜的老母亲——我们给你看的是什么！”女孩笑道。

“啊，这会是什么 您 让我看看——一些高贵而智慧的东西！”

“我想做这个;这是一个伟大的部分，”米里亚姆说。

“你不能在伦敦穿上它——他们不会吞下它，”巴兹尔·达什伍德宣称。

“他们没有做一些事情来克服困难吗？”女孩问道。

“你无法克服什么 她做过！”——她的同伴做了个悲伤的鬼脸。

“是的，我们必须付出，我们必须赎罪！”当幕布再次升起时，罗斯夫人呻吟着。

当第二幕结束时，我们的朋友们昏倒了 浴 进入那些苦难的走廊，在那里， 滥用就像一个经营着生意兴隆的当铺的当铺，在一堆堆异质的衣服上站岗，爬上精美的楼梯顶部，楼梯形成国事入口，连接着地下室的雕像前厅和一排宏伟的箱子，打开了一扇模糊的门由小镜子组成，发现自己处于入会者的社会中。看门人都是彬彬有礼的人，他们像熟人一样向谢林汉打招呼，他毫不费力地带领着他的小队走向门厅。他们穿过一个低矮的、弯曲的大厅，大厅里挂着画，配有天鹅绒覆盖的长凳，几个不认识的男女用没有敌意的目光看着他们，然后到达右边的一个开口，从那里走一小段台阶，有一个下降到舞台的一侧翼。说到这里，米丽亚姆停了下来，她沉默不语，兴奋不已，就像一位年轻的战士被战场的一瞥所吸引。她的视线穿过一条光路，到达了演员占据房子的有利位置。但这个地方有一个安静的守卫，好奇心只能扫一眼，然后就过去了。

然后她和她的同伴来到一个地板光亮的客厅，房间不大，而且相当空旷，她的注意力高兴地转向角落里的衣帽架，上面挂着三四件衣服——她立刻就认出了这些衣服。成为那天晚上戏剧中的服装——伴随着一碟东西和随意放在沙发上的一个破旧的粉扑。这是从一进门就开始给人的高雅礼仪印象中的一个熟悉的音符——这个地方有一种威严的感觉。米里亚姆冲向粉扑——房间里没有人——把它抓起来，带着滑稽的崇拜目光凝视着它，然后在迷人的衬裙前全神贯注地站了一会儿（“这是杜诺耶的第一条内衣，”她对母亲说）谢林汉姆解释说，在这间公寓里，女演员通常会在交易足够简单时更换礼服，以节省她长途攀登的时间 洛格。他觉得自己是一个向一群外省人展示教堂的导游。确实，空气中弥漫着一种庄重的热情，夹杂着某种学术性的、重要的东西，一种机构、一座寺庙的基调，这使得他们所有人，出于尊重和体贴，屏住呼吸，谨慎地踏在闪亮的地板上。 。

这些预防措施增加了——夫人。罗斯像一只友好但未驯化的猫一样爬来爬去——在他们进入门厅后，这是一个方形、宽敞的沙龙，上面挂满了图画和文物，并覆盖着官方的绿色天鹅绒， 天才基因座 一年中每晚都会举办招待会。这种效果对彼得来说是新鲜迷人的。他喜欢这个地方，总是很高兴地再次看到它，享受它尊贵的外观和方式，在肖像和卷轴中，在辉煌的历史记录中，在绿色的天鹅绒和打蜡的地板中， 天才基因座 在安静的灯光下，仿佛回到了“家”。房间尽头的一个大烟囱里燃着一堆木头火。米丽娅姆什么也没说。他们环顾四周，注意到大多数肖像和图片都是“过时的”，巴兹尔·达什伍德对他们最想看到的人缺席表示失望。三四位穿着晚礼服的绅士慢慢地走来走去，像他们自己一样看着照片，另一位绅士站在一位女士面前，他正与这位女士靠墙坐着交谈。在这种情况下，门厅就像一个舞厅，在客人或音乐到来之前就为舞会腾出了空间。

“哦，看够了 Free Introduction;它让我心跳加速，”米里亚姆说。 “它充满了消失的过去，它让我哭泣。我在这里感受到了他们，所有我永远见不到的伟大艺术家。想想雷切尔——看看她那张宏伟的肖像！——以及她如何站在这些木板上，拖着赫敏和菲德尔的长袍。”女孩戏剧性地爆发了，当场就对了，一点也不害怕她的声音一穿过房间；当她的同伴们站在枝形吊灯下时，她向他们发出了呼吁，并让在场的其他人（他们已经对她有所关注）转过身来盯着这位不寻常的英国小姐。当她注意到这一点时，她笑得很开心，而她的母亲感到震惊，恳求她放低语气。 “没关系。我创造了一种效果，”米里亚姆说，“不能说我在莫里哀宫也没有取得过小小的成功。”谢林汉姆重复说，没关系——这个地方充满了欢乐和激情，那里经常有精彩的谈话，只是环境安静而庄严。碰巧今天晚上——事前并不知道——场面并不像往常那样辉煌。但为了证实他的说法，就在他说话的时候，剧中的杜诺耶小姐在两位先生的陪同下走进了房间。

她是著名的、永恒的、必要的 天真，以她所有的才华无法代表她实际年龄的女性。她有小鸟滑翔、跳跃的动作，同样的与时间无关的神态，以及清晰、确定、刺耳的音符，精确发声的奇迹。她嘲笑她的同伴，她嘲笑整个房间。她可能是一个非常聪明的小女孩，试图扮演一个更天真的大女孩。她散布着她的和蔼可亲——向米丽娅姆展示了莫里哀的孩子们是如何轻松自在的——这很快使她与彼得·谢林汉姆进行了最友好的交流，彼得·谢林汉姆已经很享受与她相识，现在将这种友谊扩展到他的同伴，特别是年轻人。女士 在剧院入口处。

“你应该得到更幸福的生活，”这位女演员说道，她明亮地抬头看着米里亚姆，仿佛看到了一个很高的高度，并把她纳入眼中。随后，谢林汉姆让他们稍微待在一起，并引导罗斯夫人和年轻的达什伍德进一步考虑一些照片。

“最令人高兴，最令人好奇，”老妇人低声说道。巴兹尔·达什伍德在大多数肖像面前惊呼道：“但是他们的丑陋——他们的丑陋：你见过如此一群丑陋的人吗？而那些本来应该好看的——过去的美女——却比其他人差。啊，你可以说你想说的话， nous sommes mieux que ça！”谢林汉姆怀疑他很烦躁，不喜欢把这个伟大的敌对国家的戏剧强行塞进他的喉咙里。他们回到米里亚姆和杜诺耶小姐身边，彼得向女演员询问了有关其中一幅没有署名的肖像的问题。她像一个只在房间里玩耍的孩子一样回答说，她是 全部 无法告诉他原件：她已经忘记了，她从来没有问过——”你好，请告诉我！”她向在场的其他人发出呼吁，他们为她组成了一个画廊，并对他们的建议发出了愉快的笑声，而她则用嘲笑来掩盖这些建议。她激动起来；她宣称她会确定，除非她确定了，否则她不会高兴，然后用最漂亮的桨游出房间，去获取信息，留下一股微妙的友善和欢乐的香气。最重要的是，她看起来很乐于助人，彼得说她在台下几乎和在台上一样自然。她没有回来。

我无法判断他是否已经预先安排好，但是沃桑小姐为了展示自己而拖延了很长时间，以至于希望看到该剧其余部分的罗斯夫人，尽管她曾在另一个场合旁听过，但她还是表达了一种回归的兴趣。为她的一角 浴 并给了她的列车员一个最好的借口，让他请求巴兹尔·达什伍德好心护送她回来。彼得很清楚这位年轻演员的个人喜好，他毫无忧郁地领着罗斯夫人离开，这表明他与一位绅士的惊人相似之处并没有被放在脚灯下，另外两人坐在了客厅里的一张长沙发上。房间里离入口最远的一部分，这样就给了他们一定程度的隐私，米里亚姆看着他们的同伴和不定的人来来往往，他们依附于剧院，闲逛着，而她的同伴则报出了名字其中一些人物是巴黎名人。

“想象一下可怜的达什伍德和妈妈一起关在那里！”女孩异想天开地喊道。

“你对他太残忍了；但这是当然的，”谢林汉姆说。

“在我看来，我和你一样善良；你把他送走了。”

“那是给你母亲的；她累了。”

“哦，金门！为什么，如果我 为 残酷，当然应该这样吗？”

“因为你必须破坏、折磨、疲惫——这就是你的本性。但你无法控制你的类型，不是吗？”

“我的风格？”她附和道。

“这很糟糕、不正当、危险。这本质上是无礼的。”

“请问，当你这样说话时，你的是什么？如果你不了解我的善良本性，你会说出这样的话吗？”

“你的善良本性都归结于此，”谢林汉姆说。 “对于其他人来说，这是一个毁灭的深渊。你没有尊重。我说的是艺术特征——在你所拥有的方向和丰富程度上。这是不择手段的、紧张的、任性的、肆意的。”

“我不懂尊重。一个人可以是个好人，”米里亚姆沉思着，推理道。

“只要强大就没关系，”他回答道。 “我们不可能拥有一切，当然我们应该明白，我们必须为事物付出代价。像你们这样为了特殊目的而建立的出色组织是如此稀有、丰富和优秀，我们不应该吝惜它的条件。”

“你把它的条件称为什么？”米丽亚姆转身看着他问道。

“哦，需要轻松自在，占据空间，让自己在这个世界上感到宾至如归，摆好肘部并敲打其他人。那很大而且免费；这就是你所说的善良。你必须搜寻、破坏并在身后留下足迹；你必须以你所穿越的国家为生。而且你给我们带来了如此大的快乐，毕竟，你是受欢迎的——你是无限受欢迎的！”

“我不知道你的意思。我只关心这个想法，”女孩说。

“这正是我所假装的——我们都必须帮助你做到这一点。你利用我们，你逼迫我们，你拆散我们。我们是您的桌子和椅子，是您生活中的简单家具。”

“你说的‘我们’是指谁？”

彼得讽刺地笑了一声。 “哦，别害怕——还有很多人！”

她没有再回话，但片刻之后又爆发了。 “可怜的达什伍德和妈妈在一起——他就像一把被放在角落里的跛脚椅子。”

“在他服役之前，不要拆散他。我真的相信他会做出一些事情，”她的同伴继续说道。 “然而，你会先拆散我，”他补充道，“而他可能永远不会。”

“那我为什么要更加尊敬你呢？”

“因为我是一篇更好的文章，你会感觉到的。”

“你有谦虚的优势——我明白了。”

“我比一个年轻的江湖骗子强——我有足够的虚荣心才能这么说。”

她转过身来看着他，脸颊涨得通红，脸上的表情十分戏剧化。 “你多么恨我们啊！是的，在最底层，在你那小小的冰冷味道之下，你 恨 我们！”她重复道。

他也涨红了脸，与她的目光相遇，凝视了一会儿，似乎接受了这个指责，然后很快说道：“算了，跟我走吧。”

“和你一起走吗？”

“离开这个地方。放弃。”

“你把我带到这里来，你坚持说应该只有你一个人，现在你必须留下来。”她摇着头，态度高傲地宣称。 “你应该知道自己想要什么，亲爱的谢林汉姆先生。”

“我知道——我现在知道了。在见到她之前就走开。”

“前 - ？”她似乎很想知道。

“她是成功的，这位出色的瓦赞，她是胜利，她是圆满的成就：我想为你避免的事情的艰难而辉煌的实现。”米丽亚姆默默地看着他，脸上依然带着冷光，他重复道：“放弃吧——放弃吧。”

过了一会儿，她的眼神变得柔和了。她微笑着说：“是的，你比可怜的达什伍德强。”

“放弃它，我们就会为自己而活，为自己而活，为一种神圣的东西而活。”

“尽管如此，你还是恨我们，”女孩继续说道。

“我不想自负，但我的意思是，我足够优秀和复杂来诱惑你。我是一块昂贵的现代手表，有一个很棒的擒纵机构——所以如果你能的话，你就要把我砸碎。”

“决不——决不！”她站起来说道。 “你把时间告诉我太清楚了。”她离开了她的同伴，站在那里看着杰罗姆为苍白的雷切尔绘制的精美肖像，这幅肖像赋予了悲剧的古老特征。幕布的升起，吸引了大部分人。彼得坐在长凳上，稍微看了看他的朋友，把目光从她身上转向死去的女演员的生动形象，心想她在这种并置中所受的痛苦是多么的小。不一会儿，他又过来和她站在一起，她继续说道：“我不知道你表弟是不是这么想的。”

“我的表弟 - ？”

“他叫什么名字？多默先生；在卡雷夫人家的第一天。他提出要为我画肖像。”

“我记得。是我让他这么做的。”

“他有这个想法吗？”

“我怀疑他是否见过它。我敢说我是。”

“好吧，当我们去伦敦时，他必须这样做，”米里亚姆说。

“哦，不着急，”彼得很感动地回答道。

“你不想要我的照片吗？”女孩用她成功的一招问道。

“我不确定我想要它 他。我不太清楚他会怎么看你。”

“他看起来很聪明——我喜欢他。我在你的聚会上又见到他了。”

“他是一个非常好的人；但是，”彼得对她说，“对于一位去下议院寻求灵感的画家，该怎么说呢？

“去下议院？”她附和道。

“他最近当选了。”

“天啊，真是可惜啊！我想为他坐一坐。但也许他不会接受我——因为我不是议会议员。”

“更确切地说，是我姐姐把他弄进来的。”

“那天你姐姐在你家吗？这跟她有什么关系？”米丽亚姆问道。

“为什么她和我一样都是他的表弟。此外，”谢林汉姆继续说道，“她还要嫁给他。”

“结婚了——真的吗？”她停顿了一下，但还是继续说道。 “所以他画 这里， 我想？”

“可能不多。他在这方面的天赋并不是她最看重的。”

“那不太好吧？”

“我没有一点想法。”

“那么在政治路线上呢？”女孩坚持说。

“我几乎说不出来。他非常聪明。”

“那么，他画得不错吗？”

“我敢说。”

米丽娅姆又看了一眼杰罗姆的照片。 “想象他进入下议院吧！你姐姐把他放在那里了？”

“她工作，她拉票。”

“啊，你们真是个奇怪的家庭！”她叹了口气，听到脚步声转​​过身来。

“我们迷路了——瓦桑小姐来了，”谢林汉姆说。

这位名人微笑着向米里亚姆讲话。 “我的表演是为了 您 今晚——我已经尽力了。”

“很高兴能和你说话，谢谢你！”少女赞叹地低声说道。她既震惊又眼花缭乱。

“以前我没能来找你，但现在我休息了——半个小时，”女演员继续说道。她亲切而被动，仿佛有些疲惫，让谢林汉姆看也不看他，握住她的手，举到唇边。 “我很抱歉我让你失去了其他人——他们在这方面表现得非常出色，”她补充道。

“我们以前见过他们，没有什么比你更好的了，”米丽亚姆立即回答道。

“我喜欢我的角色，”瓦桑小姐温柔地说，她的眼睛清澈迷人，仍然对我们的年轻女士微笑。 “在这种情况下，一个人总是更好。”

“她有时很糟糕，你知道的！”彼得对米丽亚姆开玩笑；女演员因此在短暂的沉默中亲切而含糊地看了他一眼，你不能认为她感到尴尬，但仍然不那么做作。

“来到这里真是太有趣了——太有趣了！”米丽亚姆抗议道。

“啊，你喜欢我们的老房子吗？是的，我们对此感到非常自豪。”瓦桑小姐再次对谢林汉姆露出幽默的微笑，但仿佛在说：“好了，我来了，你想要我做什么？不要让我自己发明它，但如果你告诉我，我就会这么做。”米丽亚姆很欣赏她声音中谨慎审问的语气——对他们的“老房子”被喜欢感到有点惊讶。这位表演者令人惊讶，因为从近处看，她看起来更加完美——但这并不是，女孩有一个想法，表演者通常会做什么。这对她来说非常鼓舞——这拓宽了一位即将从事风景事业的年轻女士的计划。在脚灯前有这么多东西可以展示，但当你离开时却还剩下这么多——这真的很棒。瓦桑小姐的眼睛，当人们看着他们时，仍然比远处的旁观者所想象的更加令人愉快。她的外表有一种极端的气质，这立刻让米丽娅姆觉得，相比之下，她自己又大又粗。

“今晚你很可爱——你特别可爱。”谢林汉姆非常坦白地说，翻译了米里亚姆自己的印象，同时也向她展示了至少在巴黎，绅士们向明星们表达自己的方式。戏剧的。她认为她非常了解她的同伴，并且亲眼目睹了在这样的一般情况下，他的熟悉程度会增加；但他对眼前这位苗条、高贵、和谐的女人的称呼却有不同的性质，带有一种特殊的用法。如果说米丽娅姆担心这种直率可能会被认为是过分的话，那么瓦桑小姐回来的方式就消除了这种担心：

“哦，一个人化妆后总是很好；总是一模一样的。”这就是一个例子，说明戏剧明星可以凭借高品味获得缺乏原创性的敬意。米丽亚姆当场就认定就应该这样 她 永远会收到它。她的新相识更加优雅，因为她所说的人造花朵是一门如此完善的科学的结果，没有任何面具的粗俗。对这一切的感知令我们年轻的求道者兴奋不已，她的兴奋在询问中得到了缓解，但她一说出这句话就觉得很粗鲁：

“你是为了‘我’演戏？你怎么知道？我对你来说是什么？”

“谢林汉姆先生告诉过我关于你的事。他说我们在你面前什么都不是——你将成为未来的伟大之星。我很自豪你能看到我。”

“这当然是我告诉每个人的，”彼得向米丽亚姆承认有点尴尬。

“当我看到你的时候我就相信了。 我很高兴观察，”这位女演员以甜美和解的语气继续说道。

米丽娅姆的目光从一位对话者转向另一位对话者，仿佛她对谢林汉姆的言论感到高兴——然而，这种喜悦伴随着并在一定程度上减轻了，因为她更快地看到了一位大使馆秘书和一个这样的生物之间可能发生的事情。精致如Mademoiselle Voisin。 “啊，你们都是很棒的人——这是一个最有趣的印象！”她渴望地叹了口气。

“我刚才在找你;他让我做好了准备。我们真是老朋友了！”女演员用一种礼貌而无意的语气说道：谢林汉姆再次握住她的手，把它举到唇边，她的整个外表似乎都在表明她的温柔，一种实际的考虑和小心翼翼的触摸，仿佛她是一件珍贵而脆弱的物品，是一种能发出罕见声音的乐器，需要像一把传奇的小提琴一样使用，并认识到它的价值。

“你的更衣室真漂亮——给她看看你的更衣室，”他继续说道。

“如果她愿意的话，我愿意。” 你保存这就是 une montée。”

“将其强加于人是一种耻辱 您，”米里亚姆反对道。

“评论 唐? 如果你至少对它感兴趣的话！”他们互相礼貌地交流，几乎是爱抚，试图对对方表现出最好的态度。最让米丽娅姆印象深刻的是这位女演员的举止。它表明了这样的训练，如此多的品味，表达了如此成熟的文雅概念。

“难怪她表现得很好，因为她有那种机智——感觉、感知，是如此非凡， 我的上帝，我的上帝！” 当他们跟着女售票员走进另一条走廊，登上宽阔朴素的楼梯时，女孩自言自语道。楼梯又宽敞又长，这部分建筑阴沉而安静，有大学或修道院的庄严感。他们到达了另一条通道，两旁都是小门，每扇门上都画着一个喜剧演员的名字，这里的景色变得更加修道院，就像一排孤独的牢房。瓦桑小姐殷勤地领着她到自己家门口，仿佛是想热情好客一样。一路上她并没有做出任何柔和而友好的解释。在她的门槛处，修道院生活停止了——米里亚姆发现自己身处一个装饰精美的角落，灯光和精致的印花布组成的巢穴。除了那副长眼镜，它可能是一个小闺房，每块拉伸材料的面板上都有一幅有价值的水彩画，还有噼啪作响的火焰和迷人的秩序。它非常明亮，而且非常热，非常漂亮，而且没有垃圾。周围什么也没有，只有一个挂着帘子的小门通向一个内部圣所。对米丽娅姆来说，这似乎是皇家的。它立即使喜剧演员的艺术成为世界上最杰出的事物。这就是他们这样的地方 应该 如果他们被期望成为伟大的艺术家，他们的时间间隔就会有。这是与瓦赞小姐本人相同进化的结果——并不是我们的年轻女士找到了这个特定的术语来表达她的想法。但她的脑海中充满了一种风格、精致和传统的长期延续的印象。女演员说， “瞧，这就是兜售！” 好像这还不够，甚至有些笨拙，她无缘无故地把他们带到那么远的地方，而他们都坐在那里，互相看着对方，直到她换衣服的时候了。但对米丽亚姆来说，记录她的所作所为已经足够了：这些事情以及她的整个人和举止都让我们的年轻女子觉得它们在适应特定场合方面非常精致。她一直认为外国女演员更适合 卡博汀 订单，但她的女主人向她建议更多的是公主而不是公主 卡博汀。她会做她喜欢做的事，而且直接做：米丽亚姆无法想象她在排练中受到的摸索和羞辱。她身上的一切都经过了筛选和成型，她的语气完美，她的和蔼可亲，她就像一位迷人的年轻国务卿妻子正在接待一对有身份的陌生人。少女观察着她的一举一动。然后，正如谢林汉姆所说，她特别可爱。但她突然告诉这位先生，她必须把他 在门口——她想换件衣服。他告退并回到门厅，米丽娅姆在与瓦桑小姐一起停留了几分钟并与她一起下楼后，将重新与他会合。他等待着他的同伴，走来走去，下定决心。当她进来时，他对她说：

“请不要回去看剩下的戏。待在这。”现在他们几乎独享了门厅。

“我想留在这里。我更喜欢它。”她走回壁炉边，上面挂着雷切尔冰冷的肖像，俯视着下方，他一边陪着她，一边继续说道：

“我刚才说的就是这个意思。”

“你对沃赞说了什么？”

“不，不;给你。放弃并忍受 我。”

“放弃？”她把舞台上的脸转向他。

“放弃吧，明天我就嫁给你。”

“这是一个快乐的时刻！”她非常高兴地说道。 “而且这是个好地方！”

“确实非常好，这就是我这么说的原因：这是一个让人们做出选择的地方——它将一切都摆在了人们面前。”

“为了使 您 选择，你的意思是。我非常感激，但这不是我的选择，”米里亚姆笑道。

“你可以成为任何你喜欢的人，除了这个。”

“除了我最想成为的人？我 am 多谢。”

“你不关心我吗？难道你就没有一点感恩之心吗？”谢林汉姆坚持道。

“感谢你好心地把圣杯从我唇边拿开？我想成为什么 她 是——我比以往任何时候都更想要它。”

「啊啊，她到底是——！」他不耐烦地接过。

“你的意思是我不能？好吧，看看我是否可以。告诉我更多关于她的事——告诉我一切。”

“你不是亲眼所见，了解了事情，就不能做出判断吗？”

“她很奇怪，很神秘，”米里亚姆看着火承认道。 “她没有向我们展示任何东西——没有展示她真实的自我。”

“从各方面考虑，那就更好了。”

“她的生活中还有其他各种各样的事情吗？这就是我所相信的，”女孩继续说道，抬起眼睛看着他。

“我无法告诉你这样一个女人的生活是什么样的。”

“想象一下——当她如此完美时！”她若有所思地喊道。 “啊，她挡住了我——她挡住了我！她那迷人的举止，本身就是一种蔑视。这是一个深渊——这是中国的长城。她有着坚硬的抛光面和无与伦比的表面，就像一些精美的瓷器，但价格比你想象的要高。”

“你想变成那样吗？”谢林汉姆问道。

“如果可以的话，我应该会着迷。人们总是可以尝试的。”

“你一定比她表现得更好，”他继续说道。

“更好的？我以为你想让我放弃。”

“啊，我不知道我想要什么，”他喊道，“而你却折磨我，把我翻个底朝天！我想要的就是你自己。”

“哦，别担心，”米丽亚姆说道——现在一切都很友善了。然后她补充说，瓦赞小姐邀请她“打电话”；谢林汉姆干巴巴地回答说，她可能觉得没有必要。这让女孩一愣，问道：“你的意思是说，因为妈妈的偏见，不行吗？”

“这次是为了我的缘故说的。”

“你的意思是因为她有情人？”

“她的情人不关我们的事。”

“我明白了，不是我的。那么你也是他们中的一员？”

“没有这样的运气！”

“真可惜！”她放声痛哭。 “我本来希望看到这一点。一个人必须看到一切——才能做到一切。”当他追问她具体想看什么时，她回答说：“就像这样的女人接待旧人的方式一样。”

彼得对此呻吟了一声，同时又有些笑意，然后转身倒在长凳上，喊道：“你会做的——你会做的！”

他手肘撑在膝盖上，双手捂着脸，坐了几分钟。他的朋友一直看着雷切尔的肖像，然后对他说：“这样的女人难道不接待——接待所有人吗？”

“毫无疑问，每个去看她的人都是如此。”

“那谁去呢？”

“很多人——聪明的人，杰出的人。”

“啊，多么迷人的生活啊！那她不出去吗？”

“这不是我们非利士人的意思——不进入社会，永远不会。她从不进女士的客厅。”

“多么奇怪，当一个人如此杰出时；除了她必须避免很多愚蠢的事情 v。那她从哪里学来这样的礼仪呢？”

“她教导礼仪， 此刻：她不需要学习它们。”

“哦，她给了我想法！但在伦敦，女演员进入社会，”米里亚姆继续说道。

“噢，我们的，就是这样。在伦敦 流派的本质设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“那我不去吗——我是说如果我愿意的话？”

“你会拥有一切让自己感到无聊的设施。别怀疑。”

“她不觉得自己被排斥了吗？”米丽亚姆问道。

“排除在什么之外？她拥有最充实的生活。”

“最饱满的？”

“强烈的艺术生活。巴黎最聪明的男人和她谈论她的工作；戏剧的主要作者与她的主题和人物以及治疗问题进行讨论。她生活在艺术的世界里。”

“艺术界啊，我多么羡慕她啊！你还给我达什伍德！”

谢林汉情绪激动起来。 “我‘提议’你——？”

米丽亚姆突然大笑起来。 “你看起来真滑稽！那么，你就把自己献给我，而不是所有这些东西。”

“我亲爱的孩子，我也是一个非常聪明的人，”他说道，试图让自己呆住了一会儿的意识沉下去。

“你是——你是；我以你为乐。根本没有女士——没有 女人是不是错了？ 她又开始说。

“啊做什么 他们 事情？你的事业就是艺术生活！”他突然爆发出无关紧要的声音，而且，当他再次听到她发出那个微不足道的声音时，他感到很恼火。

“你真是个亲爱的——你迷人的判断力又回来了！那你想要我怎样？”

“我想要你是为了我自己，而不是为了别人；现在，及时，在任何事情完成之前。”

“那你为什么带我来这里？一切都完成了——今晚我就感觉到了。”

“我知道你应该如何看待它——如果你真的看的话，”谢林汉姆承认。

“那太容易了！我以为你那么喜欢这个舞台。”米里亚姆巧妙地补充道。

“你不想让我成为一个伟大的人物吗？”

“你不想 me 成为？”

“您 将 是——你将分享我的荣耀。”

“那么你愿意分享我的吗？”

“演员的丈夫？是的，我自己也这么认为！”彼得带着一种坦率的厌恶叫了起来。

“毫无疑问，这是一个愚蠢的立场。但如果你太擅长了，为什么还要谈论它呢？你不觉得我很重要吗？”她问道。同伴与她四目相对，突然换了一种语气说道：“啊，你这么善良，这么大方，我们何必吵架呢？难道我们就不能永远是朋友——最真诚的朋友吗？”

她的声音降到了最甜美的韵律，她的目光落在他身上，充满感激和善意。她有时说的话是如此完美，以至于显得不诚实，但在这种情况下，他被激怒了，做出了富有表现力的回应。然而，就在他做这件事的时候，他被感动地说出了另外一句话：“小心，这里是达什伍德！”罗斯夫人的侍从就在门口。他回来是说他们真的必须解救他。

议会会议结束后不久，达洛夫人就来到了伦敦。她毫不掩饰自己喜欢“城镇”的事实，而且在目前的情况下，它对她的吸引力当然不会减弱。但她准备在复活节假期再次休养，不是回哈什，而是去几次乡村访问。然而，她并没有随人群离开——她从未对人群做任何事情——而是等到了议会起床后的星期一；然后她才离开。在大斯坦霍普街，她镇定自若地面对着星期天休会所带来的恐怖，正如她被教导要考虑的那样。那天晚上，她邀请了几个“流浪汉”和她一起吃饭，尽了一切努力来缓解这些问题。下午，这个郁郁寡欢的阶层中的几位成员到大斯坦霍普街寻求安慰，她还邀请他们中的大部分人在八点钟返回。因此，吃饭的人几乎太多了；甚至还有几个妻子。尼克·多默尔当时也在场，尽管他下午并未在场。其他人进来时都说：“所以你没有走——我非常高兴。”达洛夫人回答说：“不，我没有去。”但她没有补充说她很高兴，也没有提供任何解释。她从不做出解释；她总是认为没有人能像那些拥有华丽品味的人一样将它们发明得如此出色。

在这种情况下，她是对的，因为很可能她的访客中很少有人不对自己说，她没有去可能与多默有关。对于达洛夫人的许多朋友来说，这可能是一种解释，他们一般都没有病态的分析能力。尤其是对于那些在晚餐时理所当然地见到尼克的人。他对这位女士的娱乐活动的看法，每当蜡烛点燃时他都会出现在她的房子里，这被认为是他们之间有某种相当特别的东西的标志。尼克不止一次地对她说过，人们会想知道他们为什么不结婚；但是，他们却没有结婚。但他在这一点上错了，因为他们的许多朋友都不会想到他的地位可以得到改善。他们是表兄弟这一事实对其他人来说并不像对他们自己那么明显，因此他们显得非常亲密。对这件事看得最清楚的人是格雷沙姆太太，她生活在这个世界上太久了，时不时地离开自己的陪伴已经成为她真正社交的想法。她非常清楚，如果她私下与像尼克·多默这样和蔼可亲的年轻人订婚，她就会设法避免公众的关注在他们的交往中扮演如此重要的角色；她暗自蔑视那些愚蠢的人，他们对尼克与朱莉娅的关系的看法是基于尼克总是参加她的聚会这一事实。 “如果他不在那儿，他们可能会说话，”她对自己说。但格雷沙姆夫人却非常狡猾。对她来说，她的朋友应该去哈什并确保这位年轻人在那里呆两周，以庆祝议会休会，这似乎是很自然的事；但她并没有这样做。她意识到达洛夫人的实际计划是一个相对较差的替代方案——在别人家里度过假期的计划，尼克也答应了。格雷沙姆夫人很浪漫。她想知道，在大而寂静的日子里，仅仅片段和片段有什么好处，任何人都可能拥有的机会 两个 向你敞开——其中一半神圣的机会存在于他们所排除的东西之中。然而，达洛夫人和她的古怪亲戚之间还有更多悬而未决的事情，甚至超出了格雷沙姆夫人的敏锐洞察力所能接受的范围。复活节前的周日晚上，她并没有出现在大斯坦霍普街的客人中；她没有出现在大斯坦霍普街的客人中。但如果她是朱莉娅，她对观察的奇特冷漠就会阻止她在其他人离开后继续留在客厅里，和尼克一起。我想补充一点，格雷沙姆夫人的极度好奇心并没有让她有勇气这样做。她会理所当然地认为两人希望单独在一起，尽管她认为这只是一个片段。无论如何，大家都待得很晚，当最后一个人站在他们离开的房间里的火炉前，向他的同伴冲出时，已经快十二点了：

“听着，朱莉娅，你到底希望我忍受这种事情多久？”朱莉娅没有回答他。她只是靠在椅子上，眼睛盯着他的眼睛。他与她的目光相遇了一会儿。然后他转向火堆，又看了一会儿。说完，他又对着女主人感叹道：“真是愚蠢——真是愚蠢透顶！”

她仍然什么也没说，但过了一会儿她却没有回答他。 “我周二等你，希望你能坐一趟像样的火车来。”

“你所说的像样的火车是什么意思？”

“我的意思是，我希望你不要把它留到晚餐前的最后一件事，这样我们就可以散散步什么的。”

“散步什么的？为什么，如果你这么重视我来格里芬，你到底想让我来吗？”

她犹豫了一下；然后她回来了； “我就知道你讨厌它！”

“你这样激怒我，”尼克说。 “我想，你可以尝试一下。”

“而几号的情况更糟。如果可以的话，你会摆脱这种困境的。”达洛夫人继续说道。

“如果我能？有什么可以阻止我？”

“你答应过怀特罗伊女士。但当然那没什么。”

“我对怀特罗伊女士一点兴趣都没有。”

“而你也答应过我。但这还不够。”

“它 is 愚蠢——这太愚蠢了。”尼克双手插在口袋里，眼睛盯着天花板说道。

又是一阵沉默，最后朱莉娅说道：“当麦克乔治先生对你说话时，你可能已经回答了。”

“先生。麦克乔治——这和他有什么关系？”

“他和你相处得有点关系。如果你认为是这样的话——！」

尼克大笑起来。 “我喜欢你给我上的关于如何相处的课——换句话说，我想你指的是彬彬有礼的课——朱莉娅！”

“为什么不是我的？”

“因为你无能为力。你无法通过表现出讨好的态度来得到一些东西：所以你为什么要指望我这么做呢？你不讨人喜欢——也就是说，你很严肃——与可能得到的东西成正比。”

她从椅子上跳起来，朝他走来。 “这个世界上我想要的只有一件事——你很清楚。”

“是的，你太想要它了，以至于当它强加在你身上时你甚至都不愿意接受。你真的希望我能忍受多久？”尼克重复道。

“我从来没有要求你做任何卑鄙的事，”她站在他面前说道。 “如果我不聪明地全身心投入到事情中，那你就更应该这样做了。”

“如果你不聪明的话，我亲爱的朱莉娅——？”尼克靠近她，双手放在她的肩膀上，温柔而热情地摇晃着她。 “你很聪明，有时会让我生气！”

她低头看着扇子打开又合上，同时屈服于他温和的暴力。 “我想要的是，当像麦克乔治先生这样的人跟你说话时，你不应该显得无聊得要死。那些苦难之下，你曾经是那么迷人。现在你似乎对任何事情都没有兴趣。今晚的晚餐时，你几乎没有张开嘴唇；你对待他们所有人就好像你只希望他们走一样。”

“我确实希望他们能够走。我对你们沙龙的看法不是已经告诉过你们一百遍了吗？”

“那你想让我怎么活？”她问。 “我家里不该有一个生物吗？”

“你喜欢多少生物就多少。你的自由是完全的，而且就我而言，永远都是。只有当你挑战我并彻底改变我时——我认为不公正——我才必须承认一个简单的事实，即我不喜欢你的很多朋友。”

“哦 选择您 愉快的人的想法！”朱莉娅哀叹道。 “我想彻底了解一下它到底是什么。”

“我可以告诉你它到底不是：它不是麦克乔治先生。他是一个近乎荒唐地受限的人。”

“他会在你永远不会在的地方——除非你改变。”

“我非常渴望去麦克乔治先生不在的地方。所以我为什么要改变呢？”尼克问道。 “然而，我一点也不想对他无礼，我也不认为我是这样，”他继续说道。 “如果我没有美德，我会尽我最大的努力去假设它；但显然我还不够当喜剧演员。”

“如果你没有呢？”她附和道。 “当你说出这样的话时，你就变得非常无聊。就好像有什么东西是你没有或可能没有的！”

尼克转过身去，不看她。他在房间里不耐烦地走了几步，看着地毯，双手始终插在口袋里。然后他带着这样的观察回到火堆旁：“当一个人试图如此完美地扮演自己的角色时，很难被发现如此有需要。”他停了下来，目光注视着她，然后声音颤抖地继续说道：“我尝试过的所有我不关心的事情已经危及了我不朽的灵魂，或者至少迷惑了我的智力。”那些我曾试图去做的事情，所有我厌恶的事情，所有我永远不可能成为的事情，而我却试图表现得好像我是的——所有的外表和模仿，我的伪装和虚伪。我已经沉浸在眼睛里；到最后（这对我来说是对的！）我的回报只是知道我还不够欺骗！”

他一说完这句话，朱莉娅就把目光从他身上移开。她的目光落在他身后的时钟上，漫不经心地说道：“我很抱歉，但我想你最好还是走吧。”我不喜欢你在午夜之后留下来。”

“啊，你喜欢什么，不喜欢什么，一个从哪里开始，另一个从哪里结束——这一切都是一个难以理解的谜！”年轻人宣称。但他并没有进一步注意到她对他离开的暗示，而是用不同的语气补充道：“‘像麦克乔治先生这样的人’！当你以某种特定的方式说出这样的话时，我宁愿让你灭亡。”

达洛夫人凝视着。有那么一瞬间，她可能看起来像是在努力让自己看起来很愚蠢。 “如果几年后他肯定会成为任何自由党政府的首脑，我该怎么办？”

“我们当然无能为力，但我们可以帮助谈论它，”尼克微笑道。 “如果我们不提及，可能不会被注意到。”

“你想惹我生气。你的心情很恶劣。”她回答道，吹灭了壁炉架上一根即将熄灭的蜡烛。

“我很恼火，我已经很荣幸地积极地通知你了。尽管如此，我仍坚称我在晚餐时无可挑剔。我不想让你认为我会永远那么好。”

“你看起来很不适应；你心情郁闷，仿佛尘世的所有希望都已离你而去，而且你对任何讨论都没有做出任何贡献。你以为我没有观察到你吗？”她问道，语气中带着讽刺，却又隐藏着一丝温柔。

“啊，亲爱的，你观察到了什么——！”尼克带着某种苦涩的乐趣哭了起来。但下一刻他又严肃地补充道，语气似乎很不尊重：“毫无疑问，你把我探得一清二楚。”

“如果你不想的话，你就不必来格里芬或几尼兹。”

“你自己放弃它们；和我一起呆在这！”

当他说完这句话时，她的脸色迅速变红，然后大声说道：“主啊，你多么讨厌政治家啊！”

“你怎么能说，从二月到八月，我都在一个幸福的夜晚度过呢？”

“是的，最讨厌的是。”

“其中一半的人也是如此。亲爱的，你一定拥有很多东西，很多人，很多 濑恩现场 尼克继续说道。 “永远的运动，永远的访问，永远的人群！如果你到乡下去，你每天都会见到四十个人，整天和他们混在一起。在城里度过安静的两周，每个人都会因为一种快乐而愚蠢的迷信而摆脱困境，这会让你感到不安和恐惧。正是在这个时间，在这个地点，做一点工作并拥有自己的灵魂。”

这番激烈的话语让她显然有些措手不及。但她很聪明，暂时没有试图进行笼统的反驳，而是抓住一句话说：“工作？这种时候你在伦敦能做什么工作呢？”

尼克想了想。 “我可能会告诉你，我想学习很多科目，坐在家里阅读蓝皮书；但这不完全是我的意思。”

“你的意思是你想画画？”

“是的，就是这样，既然你把它从我身上挖走了。”

“你为什么要把这件事搞得这么神秘？你有完全的自由，”朱莉娅说。

她伸出手想把它放在壁炉架上，但她的同伴在路上接过它，并用自己的双手握住它。 “朱莉娅，你真令人愉快，当你用那样的语气说话时，我就知道我为什么爱你了。但如果我去格里芬，如果我去几内亚，我什么也做不了。”

“我明白了——我明白了，”她若有所思地、友善地回答。

“我已经好几个月没进工作室了，我很想家。在那里度过几天安静的日子的想法占据了我的心：我宁愿坚持下去。”

“你有一个工作室看起来很奇怪！”朱莉娅停了下来，语速太快，几乎无法理解。

“这听起来不是很荒谬吗，因为它对我有好处，或者我确实 in 它？当然，在这样的条件下，一个人只能生产出垃圾——没有连续性或持久性，只有几天的时间。毫无疑问，我应该为自己感到羞耻；但即使是我的垃圾也让我感兴趣。 'Guenille si l'on veut，ma guenille m'est chère.'但我一会儿会和你一起去严酷的地方，朱莉娅，”尼克继续说道，“如果我们能在那里安静地呆着，没有人，没有生物，那就太好了；如果我们能在那里保持安静，没有人，没有生物，那就太好了。我真的应该非常满足了。你会很漂亮地为我坐着；这将是我们经常想要但从未找到的机会。”

她慢慢地摇摇头，脸上带着对他有意义的微笑。 “谢了亲爱的;没有什么能促使我和你一起去严酷的地方。”

他严肃地看着她。 “每当出现此类问题时，到底是怎么回事？你怕我吗？”她迅速把手从他身上抽开，转身走开。但他继续说道：“那就留在我这里吧，等一切都好起来的时候。”我们会做得很漂亮——拥有整个地方，拥有一整天，属于我们自己。挂起你的婚约吧！电报你不会来。我们将住在工作室——你每天都会坐在我旁边。机不可失，时不再来——我们什么时候才能拥有这么好的机会呢？想想这将是多么迷人！我会让你非常希望我能做点什么。”

“我无法离开格里芬——这是不可能的，”朱莉娅说着，走得更远，背对着他。

“然后你 ，那恭喜你， 怕我——就是怕我！”

她直接转过身来，脸色苍白。 “我当然是。欢迎您了解。”

他朝她走去，有那么一会儿，她似乎又做出了轻微的后退动作。然而，这一点几乎是难以察觉的，他站在那里说话时的合理恳求的语气中并没有什么值得惊慌的。 “朱莉娅，结束我们荒谬的处境吧——它真的不能再继续下去了。你没有权利期望一个男人在如此错误的处境下感到快乐或舒适。我们受到了可恶的谈论——这一点我们可以肯定；但我们这样做有什么好处呢？

“说到了？我关心这个吗？”

“你的意思是说，你之所以无动于衷，是因为没有根据吗？这就是我讨厌它的原因。”

“我不知道你在说什么！”她带着强烈的蔑视回来了。

“明天做我的妻子——下周做我的妻子。让我们结束这段奇妙的缓刑并感到高兴吧。”

“现在就离开我——明天再来。我会写信给你。”她现在的表情就像是在恳求他，就像他在哀求一样。

“你不能屈服于一个人‘不顾一切’的想法！”尼克笑了。

“明天午饭前来吧，”她继续说道。

“被告知我必须再等六个月，然后才被派去处理我的事务？啊，朱莉娅，朱莉娅！”年轻人呻吟道。

这句简单的哀歌中的某些东西——听起来很自然，完全没有经过任何刻意的修饰——似乎立刻就给她留下了深刻的印象。 “你不能再等了，”短暂的沉默后她说道。

“不再是什么意思？”

“给我大约五个星期的时间——比如直到圣灵降临节休会为止。”

“五周时间很长，”尼克微笑着说。

“有些事情要做——你应该明白。”

“我只明白我有多爱你。”

她放开了自己——“亲爱的尼克！”——他抓住了她，把她抱在怀里。

“那么我有你的承诺，从五个星期到一天？”当她终于放开手时，他问道。

“我们会解决这个问题——确切的日期；有一些事情需要考虑和安排。明天来吃午饭吧。”

“我会早点来——我会一点点来，”他说。有那么一刻，他们深深地、亲密地站在一起，互相吸引着对方。

“你认为我 想 比你还要等吗？”她这样问道。

“我现在没那么难受了！”他以回答的方式宣布。 “你现在当然会留下来——你会放弃你的拜访吗？”

她抓住了他外套的衣襟；即使她脱离了他的怀抱，她也一直把它握在手里。他的扣眼里有一朵白花，她看了看，把玩了一会儿，然后说道： “我有一个更好的主意——你不必来格里芬。呆在你的工作室里——做你喜欢做的事——画几十幅画。”

“许多？野蛮人！”尼克嚎啕大哭。

这个绰号显然对她有一种可爱的暗示。无论如何，这让她让他占有了她的头，然后抱着它，吻了她——让她说：“我到底想要什么，但你应该完全随心所欲，像你一样快乐”能？”

此时他在另一个地方吻了她；但他把它交给了她； “现在有什么可怕的提议来了？”

“我会离开并完成我的访问然后再回来。”

“然后让我一个人静一静？”

“别受影响！你知道没有我你会工作得更好。你会住在你的工作室里——我不会妨碍你。”

“这不是人们想要的保姆。我要怎么画你呢？”

“你可以用你的余生来画我。我将成为永远的保姆。”

“我相信我可以在不看你的情况下画你”——他明亮的脸照在她身上。 “那么你能原谅我离开那些沉闷的地方吗？”

“听了你说的这些日子的快乐，我还能坚持吗？”她令人钦佩地——非常真诚地——问道。

“你是世界上最好的女人——尽管我们的小事一处理完你就匆匆离开，这确实很奇怪。”

“我们会弥补的。我知道我在做什么。现在就走吧！”最后她几乎把他推出了房间。

考虑到其他事情，尼克在她离开小镇后坐在他的工作室里，就努力塑造出某种美丽的形式而言，他不应该因为没有一位朋友而感到更加寒冷，这当然是奇怪的。就是美的化身。 她不在，他想念她、渴望她，但没有她，这个地方就更充满了他想在其中找到的东西。 他怀着迷茫的心情走进了这里，其中最强烈的是一种释放感和娱乐感。 它看起来枯萎、孤独、布满灰尘，而当他翻遍旧书时，他对它们的印象甚至不如上次他冒险面对它们时那么有灵感。 但在这些被忽视的垃圾中，在一扇需要清洗的高北窗户的无色和遮挡的光线中，他更接近品尝积极幸福的可能性：在他看来，正如他对朱莉娅所说的那样，他更拥有他的灵魂。 花宝贵的时间去研究他已经放弃的艺术的徒劳工具，这是轻浮和愚蠢的，也是幼稚的。周日晚上，他在向朱莉娅提出请求时感到某种羞耻，这种羞耻感不是因为他坚持了什么，而是因为他放弃了什么。 他已经放弃了严肃的工作，所以现在陶艺成了他唯一的愿望。 它不可能有成果，除了可笑，几乎是不光彩的之外，什么也没有。但这却安抚了他的神经，这本质上是一种秘密的放纵。 他从来没有想到有一天他自己也会有勇气去依靠。但在他显然要放弃一些珍贵的东西的那天，他就发现了这种可能性。 他很高兴不必向批评者证明自己的合理性，因为这可能是一件微妙的事情。 批评者大多缺席。再说了，整天关在工作室里，他怎么能见到他们呢？ 这是世界上他感觉离选民最远的地方。 这是乐趣的一部分——意识到这一个小时海岸是晴朗的，他的思想是独立的。 他的母亲和妹妹去了布罗德伍德：艾格尼丝夫人——这句话听起来很残酷，但却代表了他的心态——完全不碍事。 朱莉娅离开小镇后，他就给她写了信——他告诉她他的婚礼日期已经确定：这对可怜的艾格尼丝夫人来说是一种解脱，让她摆脱了一段难以忍受的神秘感、黑暗、愚蠢的疑惑和注视。 她说过她是在哈什投票日说的。她太骄傲了，不敢问，也太谨慎，不敢“唠叨”。所以她只能等待，但没有到来的事情。 布罗德伍德的无条件贷款当然是对耐心的贿赂：她起初觉得，在她应该拥有那座首府房屋的那一天，朱莉娅似乎确实进入了这个家庭。 但这份礼物所证实的期望却足以让失望变得更加痛苦。当她没能发现到底出了什么问题时，她的不适感就越大。 她的女儿格蕾丝对这个问题很感兴趣，并以一种让夫人感到恼火的方式提出来讨论这个问题，夫人本来有一个对此保持沉默的高理论，但从长远来看，当她更不高兴时，受到训斥后，女孩根本没有提出任何理由，而她提出的理由却很愚蠢。

尼克在受难周的第一天收到了她对他的重要通讯的回复信，这是他当时唯一读过的一封信。当然，这还不包括达洛夫人从格里芬写给他的几封信。据他所知，加尔各答花园里堆满了信件，他的仆人被严格命令不得将其带到工作室。尼克现在睡在这个隐居所附属的卧室里。从加尔各答花园得到了他想要的东西；他在他的俱乐部里吃了晚饭，在那里，一两个幸存的流浪朋友看到他晚上在图书馆里徘徊，很自然地将这种怪癖归咎于某种微妙的政治基础。当他想起那些被忽视的信件时，他想起了卡特雷特先生关于不“落后”的信念；在略显喧闹的画室里，当他弯腰看着他冒险把它转向灯光的一张旧画布时，它们让他笑了。然而，他完全下定决心，要在下楼之前处理好他的信件，这是议会重新集会之前的最后一件事，在博克莱尔再呆一天。在尼克看来，掌握信件就意味着打开信封。这个想法几乎没有涉及写答案。但卡特雷特先生绝不会猜到这一点。尼克甚至没有写信告诉他与朱莉娅的风流韵事即将以他所希望的形式出现：他保留了对这一消息的高兴，以进行个人采访。

耶稣受难日的前一天早上，工作室外门上的“哒哒哒”声打破了他的平静，显然是由手杖的旋钮控制的。他的仆人出去了，他走到门口，想知道这个时候他的访客会是谁，尤其是相当自以为是的阶级。来访者没有寻找铃铛就表明了这堂课——因为那里 是 一个钟，尽管它需要一些研究。一会儿谜团就解开了：站在门口对他微笑的那位绅士只能是加布里埃尔·纳什。尼克已经好几个月没有见到这个异想天开的人物了，除了一般暗示他正在异国他乡追随自己的幻想之外，没有任何关于他的消息。当他们在巴黎重聚时，他的老朋友已经让他做好了充分的准备，以应对交往中断断续续的想法。他并非不知道，当他从巴黎回来时，如果他不是太忙而没有时间利用的话，他应该有机会想念他。在伦敦，在严酷事件发生后，加布里埃尔没有再出现：考虑到他们一起步行到巴黎圣母院并讨论重要问题的那天晚上，他没有兑现任何誓言。他本来应该干预尼克的命运，但他没有干预。他本来应该用力拉他，而且拉的方式与朱莉娅相反，但没有用力。正如他所说，他本该救他的，但尼克却迷路了。这种情况确实成了他的借口：Harsh的成员竟然如此肆意地走向灭亡。尼克这一个小时真心希望能留住他：他认为他能带来有益的影响。然而，当我们的年轻人在当选后清醒过来时，他意识到纳什很可能已经反思了这样一个狡猾的话题的吃力不讨好——可能已经放弃了他的誓言。当然，特别是在自由党获胜的情况下，他曾威胁要让自己受到关注。如果火焰已经很高，从燃烧中拔出的烙铁头的效果会大得多。然而尼克并没有让他信守诺言，并且完全承认一个彻底的鉴赏家，更不用说一个忠实的朋友，有权利对他失去耐心，所以他现在远没有以责备的方式迎接他的访客。他感觉自己更加需要为自己辩护。

然而，加百列一开始并没有攻击他。他只带来了温和和仁慈，以及对服从神秘声音的极大满足——这确实是一个非凡的第二视力的例子——它低声告诉他，他盛年时胆怯的战友就在城里。他刚刚从西西里岛回来，按照他常去的习俗，在南方的冬天过后，他被一种神奇的预感所感动，尽管目前看来不太有利，他还是去加尔各答花园找尼克，他在那里提取了他朋友的仆人寄来了一个不为世人所知的地址。他向尼克展示了害怕枯燥的提审是多么错误，以及他如何习惯性地忽略所有的失误，只是通过将一百件美好的事情视为理所当然来保持标准。他也比以往任何时候都更加丰富自己的感觉，提醒他如释重负的听众，任何关于他的回忆，任何不在场的唤起，都无法公正地对待他。当你回忆起他时，你似乎会夸大他，然后当你看到他时，你承认你的夸张是不够的。他从模糊中浮现出来——他的西西里岛可能是世界上的西西里岛。 冬天的故事——显然会被重新吸收；但他的存在是积极和普遍的。在他坚持的过程中，他表现得很“紧张”。像往常一样，他与美丽、彬彬有礼和健谈有联系，但他们组成了一个你在宫廷指南中找不到的圈子。尼克有一种感觉，他认识“很多有审美的人”，但他处理的更多的是想法，而不是姓名和地址。他和蔼可亲，幽默风趣，皮肤黝黑，充满浪漫的暗示。据推测，他已经在一座撒拉逊人的塔楼里住了很多天，他的主要职责是监视西方的潮水。他保持了自己观点的平静，并以一种坦诚的态度，对许多共同尊敬的对象进行了轻松的阐述，唯一的缺陷显然是，这还不够有意识的美德。当尼克问他在做什么时，他回答说：“哦，活着，你知道的”；言语的语气让他们觉得这是一个伟大事迹的故事。他的访问时间很长，吃午饭时和午饭后都留下来，因此这个小工作室一下子就听到了比其历史前几年更多的勇敢言论。我们的故事还有很多内容要讲，遗憾的是，这次谈话的内容在这里报道得很少。因为，随着事情的发展，这确实标志着——如果问题是要注意确切的要点的话——尼克·多默尔个人处境的潮流发生了转变。他注定会记住纳什在画出各种业余认真的样本时所用的口音：

“我说——我说——我说！”

他环顾四周，脸色变得更红了。 “他们很糟糕，嗯？”

“哦，你是个深奥的人，”纳什继续说道。

“怎么了？”

“你的行为算得上是正人君子吗？”

” “也许不太可能。但是当没有人看到他们的时候——！”

“这就是你的恶行。 C'est de l'exquis，du pur exquis。来吧，我亲爱的朋友，这件事非常严重——这是一件糟糕的事情，”加布里埃尔·纳什说。然后他近乎严肃地补充道：“你一定能把这个房间里的每一块油漆、每一张草图和碎片都放在我面前。”

尼克幽默地答应了。他翻出盒子和抽屉，铲出鼓鼓囊囊的文件夹里的东西，坐在椅子上，解开那些被严重“打滑”的旧画布。他谦虚、温顺、耐心、有趣，最重要的是，他非常兴奋——为在今天这么晚的时候引起赞赏的想法而兴奋不已。最奇怪的是，他现在居然发现自己把价值归咎于他的来访者——在更加混乱的属性中，他把判断力的尊严和知识的权威归给了他。纳什的性格很模糊，但却是一个很好的试金石。两人一时间很少说话，沉默了将近半个小时，期间我们的年轻人匆忙即兴做了一个展览后，只剩下一口香烟的声音。加布里埃尔走来走去，看看这个，看看那个，粗略地研究了一下，又放下来，问一个事实问题，用雨伞在地板上一堆杂乱的草图中间钓鱼。尼克开玩笑地接受了悬念的态度，但他心里的悬念比表面上的还要多。很少有人看过他年轻的作品——几乎没有人真正有价值。他为此感到羞耻，从未表现出它来得出结论，因为结论正是他所害怕的。他现在吹了声口哨，让他的同伴慢慢来。他用袖子擦拭旧面板，并用湿海绵擦拭凹陷的表面。他已经很久没有感到如此快乐和奇怪了，对于一个最近在他的紧急恳求下才确定结婚日期的年轻人来说，这样的断言听起来很奇怪。他留在城里独自发挥想象力，突然间，矛盾的是，可怜的纳什感受到了这个结果。

“尼古拉斯·多默尔，”这位人物最后说道，“就道德的严重性而言，我想我从未见过能与你相提并论的人。”

“这听起来太好了，”尼克回答道，“我不愿意冒破坏它的风险，希望它能得到解释。”

“你难道不认识到 任何 程度的责任的宏伟理念？

“如果我不能坚定地抓住它，我就是一个致命的失败，因为我是在这方面长大的，”尼克说。

“那你确实是我认识的最悲惨的失败者。毕竟，生活是丑陋的。”

“我是否认为您本人承认您所提到的秩序的义务？”

“你们‘聚集’吗？”纳什凝视着。 “为什么，它们不是我信仰的火焰，我歌曲的负担？”

“我亲爱的朋友，责任就是做事，我推断你认为做事相当糟糕——它会破坏一个人的风格。”

“肯定是做错事了。”

“但是你怎么称呼是对的呢？你的确定标准是什么？尼克问道。

“我们内心的良心——那迷人的、可交谈的、无限的东西，是我们所知道的最强烈的东西。但如果你想让神谕说话，你就必须礼貌地对待它。当清教徒士兵踏进可爱的古老修道院时，你不能穿着沾满泥巴的长筒靴，头上戴着帽子大步走进寺庙。一个人必须尽最大努力找出正义，而你的犯罪行为似乎在于你没有接受最常见的麻烦。”

“我没有要你问，”尼克微笑道。 “但我觉得责任是做一些特别的事情。如果你太害怕，这可能是错误的事情，你可能会放弃一切。”

“存在就是做事，如果做事就是责任，那么存在就是责任。你跟着吗？

“距离非常远。”

“成为什么样的人 五月 真正有效地，”纳什继续说道，“去感受它、理解它、接受它、采用它、拥抱它——这就是行为，这就是生活。”

“假设一个人是畜生或驴子，那么功效在哪里呢？”

“一个人非常缺乏智慧。在这种情况下，人们就出局了——问题不存在；问题就解决了。一个人只是成为他人责任的一部分。尼克的来访者说，这头畜生、这头驴子，“既不感觉也不理解，既不接受也不采纳。这些精细的过程本身就对我们进行了分类。他们教育、他们提升、他们保存；因此，为了从中受益，我们必须尽可能具有洞察力。我们必须认识到我们独特的形式，我们每个人——我们每个携带任何东西的人——在他的存在中携带的工具。掌握这种乐器，学习完美地演奏它——这就是我所说的责任，我所说的行为，我所说的成功。”

尼克友好地倾听着，脸上洋溢着赞同的神情，说道：“那么每个人都有它，这根单独的烟斗吗？”

“‘每个人’，我亲爱的朋友，说得太过分了，因为世界上充满了最粗鲁的人。 填充。这本生命之书是经过填充的，啊，不过是经过填充的——可悲的是缺乏编辑！我说的是每一个人。当然还有管子和管子——颤动的小笛子用于一致的动作，而大的笛子则用于演奏。 活塞短号 为伟大的独奏。”

“我明白了，我明白了。你的乐器可能是什么？

纳什一刻也没有犹豫。他的回答光芒四射。 “与人交谈就像我对你说话一样。例如，为了防止犯下重大错误。”

“大错特错——？”

“是的——对人类来说。我说话——我说话；我说别人不说的话、他们不能说的话、他们不会说的话，”加布里埃尔以他无与伦比的坦率继续说道。

“如果这是一个掌握和完美的问题，你当然有它们，”他的同伴回答道。

” “唉，你却没有；这就是它的遗憾，这就是丑闻。这是我想纠正的错误，以免它变得太公开而令人羞愧。如果我刚才说你非常不道德，那是因为你所呈现的景象——一个天真的年轻人看不见的景象：一个人忽视了自己的小提琴，却误打误撞地去演奏他同伴的小提琴。我们不能承受这样的错误，我们不能容忍这样的许可。”

“你认为那我 已可以选用 小提琴？”——而我们的年轻人，不由自主地对这个问题产生了一丝悬念，毫无疑问，比他曾经说过的任何问题都更微妙。

“一把普通的斯特拉迪瓦里小提琴！你向我展示的所有这些东西都非常有趣。你拥有一种极其纯粹的天赋。”

“我说——我说——我说！”尼克喊道，双手插在口袋里，脸上泛着红晕，在原地徘徊，同时他改变了口音，重复了纳什半小时前的喊叫声。

“我喜欢你的才华；我衡量它，我欣赏它，我坚持它，”这位评论家在吸着香烟的间隙继续说道。 “我必须非常明智和善良才能做到这一点，但幸运的是我是。在这种情况下，这就是我的职责。我会让你暂时成为我的事。因此，”他虔诚地补充道； “别说我没有意识到道德法则。”

“斯特拉迪瓦里小提琴？”尼克睁大眼睛疑惑地说。他心里的想法是，这与他去格里芬队相比有多么不同。

他的顾问有很多进一步的机会来发展这一点和其他比喻性的言论，因为他不仅在工作室里度过了一天中的几个小时，而且在晚上回来了——两人在一家外国小餐馆一起吃饭。苏荷区，在这个场合向尼克透露了这一重大问题，并讨论到深夜。最大的问题是，在他们的谈话场景中，尼克·多默展示了他能力的例子，尼克·多默是否有理由“真正投入”绘画艺术的实践。许多读过他的历史的读者可能会觉得这是一次有限的、甚至是微不足道的探究，其中几乎没有英雄或浪漫的色彩。但我们热情的年轻人仍然将这一点发挥到了极致。尼克怀疑纳什夸大了他的鼓励，以便对政界玩一个恶毒的把戏，而他却喜欢以此为代价来转移自己的注意力——实际上并没有让这个组织明显动摇——并提醒他，他目前对不道德行为的指控奇怪地不一致他在巴黎表达了肆意的希望，希望哈什的自由党候选人能够返回。纳什首先回答说：“哦，那时我还没来过这个地方！”但他后来更有效地为自己辩护说，他抱怨的并不是尼克当选：而是他明显犹豫是否要放弃自己的座位。尼克恳求他不要提及此事，但他的殷勤并没有使他无法说：“事实是我没有勇气这样做。”然后他们聊了一会儿他的事情 可以 做他做不到的事；再现和再现的奥秘和奇迹；艺术生活中强烈而理智的乐趣。尼克更加充分地再次承认，他个人的幸福理想是一位伟大的肖像画家的生活。他如此丰富而清晰地表达了他对这个问题的想法，以至于纳什自己的丰富性都静止了，他听着几乎就像在听一些新的东西一样——很难对这样一个他不熟悉的事情提出一个观点。 。

“就是这样，”尼克最后说道，“这是一个赤裸裸的、荒谬的事实：如果我完全按照自己喜欢的方式去做，我就应该用我的岁月来再现我的同胞们或多或少空洞的面容。我应该找到平静、快乐、智慧和价值，我应该在其中找到魅力和一定程度的成功——摆脱喧嚣、尘土和混乱，摆脱政党标签、政党呼声、政党讨价还价和政党背叛的世界：欺骗、虚伪和虚伪。它的干净和安静，独立地努力做某事，在嚎叫声消失到最后的回声之后很久，留下一些给人类带来欢乐的东西——这样的景象在夜更时吸引着我，几乎是不可抗拒的力量。”

当他说出这些话时，他懒洋洋地躺在一张大沙发上，一条长腿折叠起来，而他的访客在房间里模糊而轻柔地走动后停在他面前，几乎是踮起脚尖，以免打扰他。 “你说话时，”纳什说，“当一个人实际上放弃了正确的观点并可怕地陷入错误时，他的口中就会出现一种特殊而可怕的雄辩，无论他的理论是什么。然后他对权利的遗憾，以及对权利的某种精致的欣赏，就带有一种我很清楚如何识别的口音。”

尼克抬头看了他一会儿。 “如果你的意思是我没有辞职而且我也不打算辞职，那么你就说对了。”

“我以为你接受它只是为了放弃它。你不记得我们在巴黎的谈话吗？”

“我喜欢成为让你开心的奇观的一部分，”尼克回答道，“但我几乎不可能为此付出如此多的麻烦。”

“那么，你的生活难道不是一场荒诞喜剧吗？”

“喜剧还是悲剧——我不知道是哪一个；不管是什么，我似乎有能力取悦两三个人。”

“然后你 能够 找麻烦吗？纳什说。

“是的，为了我要娶的女人。”

“噢，你要结婚了？”

“自从我们在巴黎见面以来，就发生了这样的事情，”尼克解释道，“它确实带来了不同。”

“啊，我可怜的朋友，”加布里埃尔微笑着，显得很拘谨，“难怪你有口才，有口音！”

“很遗憾我把它们放在了错误的地方。我希望他们能进入下议院。”

“当你在那里发表告别演说时，你会宣布你放弃了。我可以冒昧地问一下谁会成为你的妻子吗？来人追了上去。

“太太。达洛善意地同意接受这个枷锁。我想你在巴黎见过她。”

“啊，是的：你跟我谈到过她，我记得当时就问过你是否爱她。”

“那时我还没有，”尼克说。

纳什严重停顿了一下。 “那你现在呢？”

“哦，亲爱的，是的。”

“那就更好了——如果不是更糟的话。”

“没有比这更好的了，”尼克宣称。 “这是发生在我身上的最好的事情。”

“好吧，”他的朋友继续说道，“你必须让我非常恭敬地接近这位女士。你必须让我带她过来。”

“带她过来干什么？”

“对一切。和她谈谈。”

“跟她说话！”尼克笑了——不过他开这个玩笑是为了赢得时间。他记得这位顾问对朱莉娅产生的影响——这种影响对再次会面的想法几乎没有帮助。朱莉娅没有机会再次提及尼克那位冷静的朋友；她已经没有机会再次提及尼克的那位冷静的朋友了。他立刻就永远地从她的生活中消失了。但她很快就想起了他让她表达出的蔑视，同时她也觉得自己应该放弃两次愉快的拜访来培养这样的伙伴，这是多么奇怪。

“对你能做的事情感到适当的自豪，”纳什回答道——“如果她愿意帮助你，你最重要的是能做的事情。”

“我不知道她能帮我什么忙，”尼克若有所思地说。

“在我记忆中，她非常英俊。你可以做伟大的事情 这里设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“啊，问题就在这里，”尼克继续说道。 “我想让她这周替我坐，但她不听。”

“《Elle a bien 侵权》。你应该攻击一些优秀的强类型。达洛夫人在伦敦吗？纳什问道。

“你拿她做什么？她正在拜访。”

“那我有一个模型给你。”

“然后 您 有-？”尼克凝视着。 “这和达洛夫人不在身边有什么关系呢？”

“这不是给你更多的时间吗？”

“哦，时间过得真快！”尼克自发地叹了口气，这让他的同伴再次大笑起来——有那么一刻，他自己也颇为遗憾地加入了这场示威。

“她喜欢你画画吗？”那人用一种坦诚的语气问道。

“所以她说。”

“好吧，做点好事让她看看。”

“我宁愿给你看，”尼克承认。

“我亲爱的朋友，我从这里看到了这一点——如果你尽了你的职责。你还记得悲剧缪斯吗？”纳什补充解释。

“悲剧缪斯？”

“那个巴黎的女孩，我们在老女演员家听说过她，后来又在你表弟举办的迷人招待会上认识了——不是吗？——大使馆秘书。”

“噢，彼得的女儿！我当然记得她。”

“别叫她彼得的；她是彼得的。”称她为我的，”纳什轻松地纠正道。 “我发明了她。我介绍了她。我揭露了她。”

“我以为你反而是在嘲笑她、否定她。”

“作为一个美丽、英俊的年轻女子，当然不是——我自己似乎一直在为她服务。我说过我不喜欢茶党里的咆哮者，我确实如此；但如果我对她力量的估计低于标准，她对我的惩罚就不止于此了。”

“她做了什么？”尼克问道。

“她变得很有趣，我想你也知道。”

“我怎么知道？”

“好吧，你必须看到她，你必须画她，”纳什回答道。 “她告诉我那天在卡雷夫人那里有人谈论过这件事。”

“噢，我记得——彼得说的。”

“那么谢林汉姆先生就会高兴——你会很高兴这么做的。我想你知道他为米丽亚姆所做的一切吧？”加百列追了上去。

“一点也不，我对彼得的事一无所知，”尼克说，“除非一般来说他喜欢江湖骗子和哑剧，而且我突然听到我的一个姐妹提到过——谣言已经传了过来。”对她来说——他一直在支持罗斯小姐。”

“罗斯小姐很高兴谈论他的善良；当她说起这件事时，她很迷人。多亏了他的斡旋，她才得以出现在这里。”

“这里？”尼克的兴趣上升了。 “她在伦敦吗？”

“你的坟墓？我以为你们都读过报纸呢。”

“有时，当我坐下来阅读他们放入的东西时，我应该读什么？”

“我当然明白这一点——你对自己的综艺节目的投入，及其无休止的‘轮流’，让你无法去参加其他节目。然后，你要知道，”加布里埃尔·纳什说，“你有一个伟大的竞争对手，但你显然不是，就像你想象的那样， 此 喜剧演员的崛起。悲剧缪斯是现代伟大人物。你没有听人谈论过她吗？你没有被带去见她吗？”

尼克自己想道。 “我敢说我听说过她，但由于脑子里有很多其他事情，我已经忘记了。”

“当然，我能想象你心里在想什么。无论如何，她还记得你；她以同情报答忽视。她想，”纳什说，“来看你。”

“'看我？”现在这一切对尼克来说都是一个奇迹。

“被你看到——这都是同样的事情。她确实值得一看；你必须让我带她来；你会发现她很有启发性。你应该画她的想法——她似乎认为这是一种讨价还价。”

“便宜吗？”正如我们的年轻人所相信的那样，他进入了这件事的幽默之中。 “她会给我什么？”

“一个出色的模型。她 is 灿烂。”

“哦，那就带她来吧，”尼克说。

第二天，纳什就带来了她，正如他所描述的那样，这位伟大的现代人物，他的朋友很快就证实了他对米里亚姆·罗斯现在非常出色的确信。十个月前，她给他留下了深刻的印象，但这种印象只困扰了他一天，很快就被其他形象所覆盖。然而，纳什谈起她一会儿后，对她的回忆就更清楚了。她的一些态度、一些神情、一些语气开始在他面前盘旋。他事先就被画她的想法迷住了。然而，当她真的站在那里时，他觉得自己记错了。这位勇敢、自由、相当伟大的生物立刻在他的工作室里充满了如此无与伦比的存在，她摆脱了她的笨拙、粗鲁和粗鲁，使他怜悯她，摆脱了整个地方和“二流”的一面。罗斯小姐今天轻松、明亮、直接——直接而不僵硬，明亮而不花哨。在尼克也许不够成熟的头脑中，模特、女演员都是粗俗环境中的人物。但不可能比这位极其自然而又极其杰出、渴望出名的人更能表现出这种污点了。她甚至比加布里埃尔·纳什还要自然——“自然”仍然是尼克对他有趣的老朋友的称呼——而在她身边，他显得几乎很平常。

纳什以一种对他们两人来说都值得尊敬的坦率承认了她的优越性——以这种方式证明了他的感觉：他们都是严肃的存在，值得面对美好的现实。她吸引了大批观众来到她的剧院，但对于他对这样一个事实的欣赏来说，无疑是重要的，他已经表达了一些限制。现在，他觉得必须完全诚实地记录下他的看法，即她总体上（除了票房问题之外）具有非凡的、非常非凡的艺术天性。他承认她在这里让他感到惊讶。其他日子里对她的了解主要是她渴望从事一个被高估的职业，他并没有将正常的智力标准归咎于她。现在他发现——他已经和她谈过一些话了——她几乎能够进行暴力的心理游戏；如此之多，以至于他为这会给她带来的尴尬感到抱歉。尼克可以想象在这种情况下安排任何与心灵本质有关的事情是多么的不舒服。 “她是一个有着最好意图的女人，真的是最好的女人，”纳什亲切而清晰地解释道，几乎像父亲一样，“而且你可以亲眼看到她的头脑是非常罕见的。”

米丽亚姆微笑着坐在一把古老的威尼斯椅子上，高举着她身体上受到这种庇护的那四分之一，具有最高贵的效果，对她的主人说，虽然看起来很奇怪，但她非常喜欢可怜的纳什先生：她可以让他和她一起去——这对她母亲来说是一种解脱。

“当我带走他时，她就完全平静了，”女孩说。 “然后她就可以呆在家里见面试官了。她对此感到高兴，而我讨厌它，所以我们的朋友在这里给了我很大的安慰。当然是一个 戏剧界的女人本来应该可以一个人出去，但是有一种‘聪明’，”一位补充道。 别致，在拥有一些。人们认为他是我的“伴侣”；我确信他们喜欢我付钱给他。如果他愿意的话，我会付钱给他——也许他会的！——而不是放弃他，因为他不是女士并不重要。他 is 正如你所看到的，一个机智而富有同情心的人。他认为我所做的事情很卑鄙，他无法远离剧院。当你受到庆祝时，人们会看着你，而他们以前永远无法亲自找出为什么他们应该这样做。”

“当你受到庆祝时，你会变得更帅；至少这就是发生在你身上的事，尽管你已经太老了。”加百列平静地争辩道。 “我去剧院看你的头；这给了我最大的快乐。我一发现类似的东西就会立即拿起它。人们永远不知道它会持续多久。”

“你是把这种不确定性归咎于我的外表吗？”米丽亚姆漂亮地问道。

“亲爱的，不，为了我自己的高兴，它第一次绽放出珍贵的花朵，”纳什继续说道。 “至少，让我公正地告诉你，多默还没等到你庆祝的时候就想再次见到你——他睁着眼睛站在那里——原因很简单，他根本不知道你的情况。”名声。我必须向他宣布这件事。”

“你没看过我演戏吗？”米丽娅姆毫无责备地向她的主人说道。

“我今晚就去，”他帅气地宣布。

“你有你那可怕的房子，不是吗？他们称之为什么——公共生活的需求？”米里亚姆继续说道：加布里埃尔在回答时解释说，他也有私人生活的要求，因为他恋爱了——他即将结婚。她参与地听着；然后她说：“啊，那就带上你的——他们用英语怎么称呼她？我总是害怕说一些不恰当的话——你的 未来。在这种情况下，我会给你寄一个盒子；你会更喜欢这样的。”她补充说，如果他要画她，他就必须经常在舞台上看到她，不是吗？来获利 场景光学——他们叫什么 这 用英语？——研究她并确定他的印象。但在他有时间回答这个提议之前，她问他，听到她这样说话是否会让他感到厌恶，仿佛她总是摆出姿势，只考虑自己，活着只是为了被人看，把自己的身体向前推进。她已经厌倦了这样做，但是 àlaguerrecommeàlaguerre.

“这就是艺术的本质，你看，她身上爆发出一种神圣的厌恶，”纳什解释道。

“当然，如果你‘完全’想画我的话。我对自己认为这是理所当然的方式感到震惊，”女孩得体地继续说道。 “当纳什先生向我谈到这件事时，我欣喜若狂。我记得我们在巴黎的会面以及你对我说的善意的话。但毫无疑问，当某个想法代表着他人的重大牺牲时，人们不应该欣然接受。”

“她说话不好吗？”纳什对尼克提出了要求。 “哦，她会走得很远！”

“能够为你画画是我的荣幸：我到底有什么资格冒充这样的模特呢？”尼克回复了米里亚姆。 “牺牲是你的——牺牲时间、善良的本性和轻信。你带着你灿烂的美丽和你的天才来到这个破旧的地方，在那里我没有什么值得一提的东西可以向你展示，也不能向你提供任何保证；我想知道我做了什么值得众神的礼物。”

“不 he 说得好听吗？”——纳什满面笑容地向他们的同伴呼吁。

她没有理睬他，只是向尼克重复说，她没有忘记他在巴黎的友善态度。当他回答说他确实没做什么时，她爆发了，首先用深沉而理智的微笑将目光停留在他身上，然后迅速跳了起来。 “啊，好吧，如果我必须证明自己的话，我喜欢你！”

“看我出现来挑战你吧！”尼克不以为然地笑道。 “再次见到你就意味着非常想尝试一些事情。但你必须有无限的耐心，因为我是个糟糕的笨蛋。”

她环顾四周的墙壁。 “我明白你做了什么——最好的选择设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“她明白——她明白，”加百列低声说道。他对来访者补充道：“想象一下，当他可以做某事时，他选择了一种虚假的生活！从本质上来说，他和你一样——有着美妙的艺术天性。”

“我会有耐心的，”女孩对尼克微笑着说道。

“那么，我的孩子们，我要离开你们了——愿主的平安与你们同在。”纳什说完这句话就离开了。

在这位年轻女子处于多种不同的态度和不同的光线下之后，其他人为她选择了一个位置。但一个小时过去了，尼克开始工作——开始在一块大画布上，用他的话说“把她敲进去”。他甚至被激动的细微因素所阻碍，这种情绪发现自己在晴朗的天空中，面对这样的主题并开始执行这样的任务。就在他正式放弃一切“艺术”之后，情况还能有什么不协调的呢？——这种放弃的生效，丝毫不亚于他有意识地对待自己的心血来潮。 as 一个心血来潮（这是他最不该做的事情！） 两周以来，他反复翻弄旧草图，目的是像他可能会说的那样，烧掉它们，清理他的工作室并终止租约。在这个奇怪的机会中，他既感到尴尬，又感到鼓舞，因为他发现自己仍然可以应付这样的场合，他的跳跃让他有点喘不过气来，同时，这个想法——一种无法抗拒的魔杖触动了他，他想到了如何利用这种材料。在他内心的想象中，米丽亚姆当场就变成了一个丰富的结果，将一百种形成力量从他们不安的睡眠中拉了出来，在他私下感觉最强的地方反抗他，并以自己的力量胜利地展现了自己。他有幸，不用擦火柴，就能在鲜明的灯光下看到她作为一个主体，他的快速尝试就像突然的驰骋一样令人兴奋——他就像是跨在无边无际的田野上，一匹脱缰的马。 。

她的方式是如此得好，他只能想着如何“做”她：这种艰难的计算很快就平息了他最初活跃的意识，即她是一位美丽的女人，是他在退休后寻找他的。在他们第一次会面结束时，她这样做似乎是世界上最自然的事情：他完全有权利在那里招待她——解释和复杂的事情都被富有成效的心情所吞没。 “勾引她”这件事让他看到了她的美丽，向他展示了她的美丽，以及她无限的有趣。他不想爱上她——那个 将卖掉吧，他对自己说——而她很快就变得太有趣了。为简单起见，尼克可能会像他的表弟彼得那样反映，但更有效的是，他正在与罗斯小姐从事一项根本不涉及他们自己的事业，他们正在认真地合作，并且体面的工作完全不符合我们所说的敏感性——只有那些骗人的人才能摆脱这种感觉。但在她第一次坐下之后——她来了，可怜的女孩，不过两次——这种驱魔的需要从他的精神中消失了：他如此彻底、如此实际地接受了她。至于他的来访者是否有同样明亮而平静的合作意识，以达到明确的目的，对每个可能产生的问题的答案的独特技术性质的感觉，只有在这种情况下，这个谜团才会被揭开。我们可以通过其他媒介而不是通过她朋友的思想来看待这位年轻女士。碰巧的是，我们选择了间接视觉，因为它具有一些巨大的优势。它还没有告诉我们——尼克在不再关心之前当然想知道什么，正如他确实向她暗示的那样——为什么一个崭露头角的名人会梦想在如此破败的地方为她带来一些东西。她应该去找一位普通人，伟大的人：他们会张开双臂欢迎她。当尼克问她是否有一些 RA 没有表达过想要攻击她时，她回答说：“哦，天哪，不，只有那些令人厌烦的摄影师；”和花哨的 他们 将来。如果妈妈能做的话 这 为我！”她补充道，她在这些时间里表现出迷人的友谊：“你知道，我认为没有人像你一样对我如此着迷。”

“连彼得·谢林汉姆也不行吗？”她的主人一边开玩笑一边后退一步判断台词的效果。

“噢，谢林汉姆先生不一样。你是一位艺术家。”

“看在怜悯的份上，别这么说！”他哭了。 “至于 选择您 我认为彼得比任何人都懂得艺术。”

“啊，你太严厉了，”米丽娅姆说。

“严重-？”

“因为那是可怜的亲爱的人的想法。但他确实知道很多——他对我来说是天意。”

“那他为什么不来看你演戏呢？”

她停顿了一下。 “你怎么知道他没来？”

“因为我想当然地认为，如果他有的话，他一定会来拜访我。”

“他很喜欢你吗？”女孩问道。

“我不知道。我喜欢 他设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“他是一位绅士——倒塞拉，“ 她说。

“噢，是的，就是为了这个！”尼克心不在焉地继续努力。

“但他害怕我——害怕见到我。”

“他还觉得你不够好吗？”

“相反——他相信我会把他带走，而且他害怕我这么做。”

“他应该喜欢这样。”尼克有意识地愚蠢地说。

“That’s what I mean when I say he’s not an artist. However, he declares he does like it, only it appears to be not the right thing for him. Oh the right thing—he’s ravenous for that. But it’s not for me to blame him, since I am too. He’s coming some night, however. Then,” she added almost grimly, “he shall have a dose.”

“Poor Peter!” Nick returned with a compassion none the less real because it was mirthful: the girl’s tone was so expressive of easy unscrupulous power.

“He’s such a curious mixture,” she luxuriously went on; “sometimes I quite lose patience with him. It isn’t exactly trying to serve both God and Mammon, but it’s muddling up the stage and the world. The world be hanged! The stage, or anything of that sort—I mean one’s artistic conscience, one’s true faith—comes first.”

“Brava, brava! you do me good,” Nick murmured, still amused, beguiled, and at work. “But it’s very kind of you, when I was in this absurd state of ignorance, to impute to me the honour of having been more struck with you than any one else,” he continued after a moment.

“Yes, I confess I don’t quite see—when the shops were full of my photographs.”

“Oh I’m so poor—I don’t go into shops,” he explained.

“Are you very poor?”

“I live on alms.”

“And don’t they pay you—the government, the ministry?”

“Dear young lady, for what?—for shutting myself up with beautiful women?”

“Ah you’ve others then?” she extravagantly groaned.

“They’re not so kind as you, I confess.”

“I’ll buy it from you—what you’re doing: I’ll pay you well when it’s done,” said the girl. “I’ve got money now. I make it, you know—a good lot of it. It’s too delightful after scraping and starving. Try it and you’ll see. Give up the base, bad world.”

“But isn’t it supposed to be the base, bad world that pays?”

“Precisely; make it pay without mercy—knock it silly, squeeze it dry. That’s what it’s meant for—to pay for art. Ah if it wasn’t for that! I’ll bring you a quantity of photographs to-morrow—you must let me come back to-morrow: it’s so amusing to have them, by the hundred, all for nothing, to give away. That’s what takes mamma most: she can’t get over it. That’s luxury and glory; even at Castle Nugent they didn’t do that. People used to sketch me, but not so much as mamma veut bien le dire; and in all my life I never had but one poor little carte-de-visite, when I was sixteen, in a plaid frock, with the banks of a river, at three francs the dozen.”

It was success, the member for Harsh felt, that had made her finer—the full possession of her talent and the sense of the recognition of it. There was an intimation in her presence (if he had given his mind to it) that for him too the same cause would produce the same effect—that is would show him how being launched in the practice of an art makes strange and prompt revelations. Nick felt clumsy beside a person who manifestly, now, had such an extraordinary familiarity with the esthetic point of view. He remembered too the clumsiness that had been in his visitor—something silly and shabby, pert rather than proper, and of quite another value than her actual smartness, as London people would call it, her well-appointedness and her evident command of more than one manner. Handsome as she had been the year before, she had suggested sordid lodgings, bread and butter, heavy tragedy and tears; and if then she was an ill-dressed girl with thick hair who wanted to be an actress, she was already in these few weeks a performer who could even produce an impression of not performing. She showed what a light hand she could have, forbore to startle and looked as well, for unprofessional life, as Julia: which was only the perfection of her professional character.

This function came out much in her talk, for there were many little bursts of confidence as well as many familiar pauses as she sat there; and she was ready to tell Nick the whole history of her 开始—the chance that had suddenly turned up and that she had caught, with a fierce leap, as it passed. He missed some of the details in his attention to his own task, and some of them he failed to understand, attached as they were to the name of Mr. Basil Dashwood, which he heard for the first time. It was through Mr. Dashwood’s extraordinary exertions that a hearing—a morning performance at a London theatre—had been obtained for her. That had been the great step, for it had led to the putting on at night of the play, at the same theatre, in place of a wretched thing they were trying (it was no use) to keep on its feet, and to her engagement for the principal part. She had made a hit in it—she couldn’t pretend not to know that; but she was already tired of it, there were so many other things she wanted to do; and when she thought it would probably run a month or two more she fell to cursing the odious conditions of artistic production in such an age. The play was a more or less idiotised version of a new French piece, a thing that had taken in Paris at a third-rate theatre and was now proving itself in London good enough for houses mainly made up of ten-shilling stalls. It was Dashwood who had said it would go if they could get the rights and a fellow to make some changes: he had discovered it at a nasty little place she had never been to, over the Seine. They had got the rights, and the fellow who had made the changes was practically Dashwood himself; there was another man in London, Mr. Gushmore—Miriam didn’t know if Nick had heard of him (Nick hadn’t) who had done some of it. It had been awfully chopped down, to a mere bone, with the meat all gone; but that was what people in London seemed to like. They were very innocent—thousands of little dogs amusing themselves with a bone. At any rate she had made something, she had made a figure, of the woman—a dreadful stick, with what Dashwood had muddled her into; and Miriam added in the complacency of her young expansion: “Oh give me fifty words any time and the ghost of a situation, and I’ll set you up somebody. Besides, I mustn’t abuse poor Yolande—she has saved us,” she said.

“‘Yolande’—?”

“Our ridiculous play. That’s the name of the impossible woman. She has put bread into our mouths and she’s a loaf on the shelf for the future. The rights are mine.”

“You’re lucky to have them,” said Nick a little vaguely, troubled about his sitter’s nose, which was somehow Jewish without the convex arch.

“Indeed I am. He gave them to me. Wasn’t it charming?”

“‘He’ gave them—Mr. Dashwood?”

“Dear me, no—where should poor Dashwood have got them? He hasn’t a penny in the world. Besides, if he had got them he’d have kept them. I mean your blessed cousin.”

“I see—they’re a present from Peter.”

“Like many other things. Isn’t he a dear? If it hadn’t been for him the shelf would have remained bare. He bought the play for this country and America for four hundred pounds, and on the chance: fancy! There was no rush for it, and how could he tell? And then he gracefully pressed it on me. So I’ve my little capital. Isn’t he a duck? You’ve nice cousins.”

Nick assented to the proposition, only inserting an amendment to the effect that surely Peter had nice cousins too, and making, as he went on with his work, a tacit, preoccupied reflexion or two; such as that it must be pleasant to render little services like that to youth, beauty and genius—he rather wondered how Peter could afford them—and that, “duck” as he was, Miss Rooth’s benefactor was rather taken for granted. Sic vos non vobis softly sounded in his brain. This community of interests, or at least of relations, quickened the flight of time, so that he was still fresh when the sitting came to an end. It was settled Miriam should come back on the morrow, to enable her artist to make the most of the few days of the parliamentary recess; and just before she left him she asked:

“然后你 将 come to-night?”

“Without fail. I hate to lose an hour of you.”

“Then I’ll place you. It will be my affair.”

“You’re very kind”—he quite rose to it. “Isn’t it a simple matter for me to take a stall? This week I suppose they’re to be had.”

“I’ll send you a box,” said Miriam. “You shall do it well. There are plenty now.”

“Why should I be lost, all alone, in the grandeur of a box?”

“Can’t you bring your friend?”

“我的朋友？”

“The lady you’re engaged to.”

“Unfortunately she’s out of town.”

Miriam looked at him in the grand manner. “Does she leave you alone like that?”

“She thought I should like it—I should be more free to paint. You see I am.”

“Yes, perhaps it’s good for me. Have you got her portrait?” Miriam asked.

“She doesn’t like me to paint her.”

“Really? Perhaps then she won’t like you to paint me.”

“That’s why I want to be quick!” laughed Nick.

“Before she knows it?”

“Shell know it to-morrow. I shall write to her.”

The girl faced him again portentously. “I see you’re afraid of her.” But she added: “Mention my name; they’ll give you the box at the office.”

Whether or no Nick were afraid of Mrs. Dallow he still waved away this bounty, protesting that he would rather take a stall according to his wont and pay for it. Which led his guest to declare with a sudden flicker of passion that if he didn’t do as she wished she would never sit to him again.

“Ah then you have me,” he had to reply. “Only I 别 see why you should give me so many things.”

“What in the world have I given you?”

“Why an idea.” And Nick looked at his picture rather ruefully. “I don’t mean to say though that I haven’t let it fall and smashed it.”

“Ah an idea—that is a great thing for people in our line. But you’ll see me much better from the box and I’ll send you Gabriel Nash.” She got into the hansom her host’s servant had fetched for her, and as Nick turned back into his studio after watching her drive away he laughed at the conception that they were in the same “line.”

He did share, in the event, his box at the theatre with Nash, who talked during the 行动 not in the least about the performance or the performer, but about the possible greatness of the art of the portraitist—its reach, its range, its fascination, the magnificent examples it had left us in the past: windows open into history, into psychology, things that were among the most precious possessions of the human race. He insisted above all on the interest, the importance of this great peculiarity of it, that unlike most other forms it was a revelation of two realities, the man whom it was the artist’s conscious effort to reveal and the man—the interpreter—expressed in the very quality and temper of that effort. It offered a double vision, the strongest dose of life that art could give, the strongest dose of art that life could give. Nick Dormer had already become aware of having two states of mind when listening to this philosopher; one in which he laughed, doubted, sometimes even reprobated, failed to follow or accept, and another in which his old friend seemed to take the words out of his mouth, to utter for him, better and more completely, the very things he was on the point of saying. Gabriel’s saying them at such moments appeared to make them true, to set them up in the world, and to-night he said a good many, especially as to the happiness of cultivating one’s own garden, growing there, in stillness and freedom, certain strong, pure flowers that would bloom for ever, bloom long after the rank weeds of the hour were withered and blown away.

It was to keep Miriam Rooth in his eye for his current work that Nick had come to the play; and she dwelt there all the evening, being constantly on the stage. He was so occupied in watching her face—for he now saw pretty clearly what he should attempt to make of it—that he was conscious only in a secondary degree of the story she illustrated, and had in regard to her acting a surprised sense that she was extraordinarily quiet. He remembered her loudness, her violence in Paris, at Peter Sherringham’s, her wild wails, the first time, at Madame Carré’s; compared with which her present manner was eminently temperate and modern. Nick Dormer was not critical at the theatre; he believed what he saw and had a pleasant sense of the inevitable; therefore he wouldn’t have guessed what Gabriel Nash had to tell him—that for this young woman, with her tragic cast and her peculiar attributes, her present performance, full of actuality, of light fine indications and at moments of pointed touches of comedy, was a rare 绝技. It went on altogether in a register he hadn’t supposed her to possess and in which, as he said, she didn’t touch her capital, doing it all with her wonderful little savings. It conveyed to him that she was capable of almost anything.

In one of the intervals they went round to see her; but for Nick this purpose was partly defeated by the extravagant transports, as they struck him, of Mrs. Rooth, whom they found sitting with her daughter and who attacked him with a hundred questions about his dear mother and his charming sisters. She had volumes to say about the day in Paris when they had shown her the kindness she should never forget. She abounded also in admiration of the portrait he had so cleverly begun, declaring she was so eager to see it, however little he might as yet have accomplished, that she should do herself the honour to wait upon him in the morning when Miriam came to sit.

“I’m acting for you to-night,” the girl more effectively said before he returned to his place.

“No, that’s exactly what you’re not doing,” Nash interposed with one of his happy sagacities. “You’ve stopped acting, you’ve reduced it to the least that will do, you simply are—you’re just the visible image, the picture on the wall. It keeps you wonderfully in focus. I’ve never seen you so beautiful.”

Miriam stared at this; then it could be seen that she coloured. “What a luxury in life to have everything explained! He’s the great explainer,” she herself explained to Nick.

He shook hands with her for good-night. “Well then, we must give him lots to do.”

She came to his studio in the morning, but unaccompanied by her mother, in allusion to whom she simply said, “Mamma wished to come but I wouldn’t let her.” They proceeded promptly to business. The girl divested herself of her hat and coat, taking the position already determined. After they had worked more than an hour with much less talk than the day before, Nick being extremely absorbed and Miriam wearing in silence an air of noble compunction for the burden imposed on him, at the end of this period of patience, pervaded by a holy calm, our young lady suddenly got up and exclaimed, “I say, I must see it!”—with which, quickly, she stepped down from her place and came round to the canvas. She had at Nick’s request not looked at his work the day before. He fell back, glad to rest, and put down his palette and brushes.

“Ah bien, c’est tapé!” she cried as she stood before the easel. Nick was pleased with her ejaculation, he was even pleased with what he had done; he had had a long, happy spurt and felt excited and sanctioned. Miriam, retreating also a little, sank into a high-backed, old-fashioned chair that stood two or three yards from the picture and reclined in it, her head on one side, looking at the rough resemblance. She made a remark or two about it, to which Nick replied, standing behind her and after a moment leaning on the top of the chair. He was away from his work and his eyes searched it with a shy fondness of hope. They rose, however, as he presently became conscious that the door of the large room opposite him had opened without making a sound and that some one stood upon the threshold. The person on the threshold was Julia Dallow.

As soon as he was aware Nick wished he had posted a letter to her the night before. He had written only that morning. There was nevertheless genuine joy in the words with which he bounded toward her—”Ah my dear Julia, what a jolly surprise!”—for her unannounced descent spoke to him above all of an irresistible desire to see him again sooner than they had arranged. She had taken a step forward, but she had done no more, stopping short at the sight of the strange woman, so divested of visiting-gear that she looked half-undressed, who lounged familiarly in the middle of the room and over whom Nick had been still more familiarly hanging. Julia’s eyes rested on this embodied unexpectedness, and as they did so she grew pale—so pale that Nick, observing it, instinctively looked back to see what Miriam had done to produce such an effect. She had done nothing at all, which was precisely what was embarrassing; she only stared at the intruder, motionless and superb. She seemed somehow in easy possession of the place, and even at that instant Nick noted how handsome she looked; so that he said to himself inaudibly, in some deeper depth of consciousness, “How I should like to paint her that way!” Mrs. Dallow’s eyes moved for a single moment to her friend’s; then they turned away—away from Miriam, ranging over the room.

“I’ve got a sitter, but you mustn’t mind that; we’re taking a rest. I’m delighted to see you”—he was all cordiality. He closed the door of the studio behind her; his servant was still at the outer door, which was open and through which he saw Julia’s carriage drawn up. This made her advance a little further, but still she said nothing; she dropped no answer even when Nick went on with a sense of awkwardness: “When did you come back? I hope nothing has gone wrong. You come at a very interesting moment,” he continued, aware as soon as he had spoken of something in his words that might have made her laugh. She was far from laughing, however; she only managed to look neither at him nor at Miriam and to say, after a little, when he had repeated his question about her return:

“I came back this morning—I came straight here.”

“And nothing’s wrong, I hope?”

“Oh no—everything’s all right,” she returned very quickly and without expression. She vouchsafed no explanation of her premature descent and took no notice of the seat Nick offered her; neither did she appear to hear him when he begged her not to look yet at the work on the easel—it was in such a dreadful state. He was conscious, as he phrased it, that this request gave to Miriam’s position, directly in front of his canvas, an air of privilege which her neglect to recognise in any way Mrs. Dallow’s entrance or her importance did nothing to correct. But that mattered less if the appeal failed to reach Julia’s intelligence, as he judged, seeing presently how deeply she was agitated. Nothing mattered in face of the sense of danger taking possession of him after she had been in the room a few moments. He wanted to say, “What’s the difficulty? Has anything happened?” but he felt how little she would like him to utter words so intimate in presence of the person she had been rudely startled to find between them. He pronounced Miriam’s name to her and her own to Miriam, but Julia’s recognition of the ceremony was so slight as to be scarcely perceptible. Miriam had the air of waiting for something more before she herself made a sign; and as nothing more came she continued to say nothing and not to budge. Nick added a remark to the effect that Julia would remember to have had the pleasure of meeting her the year before—in Paris, that day at old Peter’s; to which Mrs. Dallow made answer, “Ah yes,” without any qualification, while she looked down at some rather rusty studies on panels ranged along the floor and resting against the base of the wall. Her discomposure was a clear pain to herself; she had had a shock of extreme violence, and Nick saw that as Miriam showed no symptom of offering to give up her sitting her stay would be of the briefest. He wished that young woman would do something—say she would go, get up, move about; as it was she had the appearance of watching from her point of vantage the other’s upset. He made a series of inquiries about Julia’s doings in the country, to two or three of which she gave answers monosyllabic and scarcely comprehensible, only turning her eyes round and round the room as in search of something she couldn’t find—of an escape, of something that was not Miriam. At last she said—it was at the end of a very few minutes:

“I didn’t come to stay—when you’re so busy. I only looked in to see if you were here. Good-bye.”

“It’s charming of you to have come. I’m so glad you’ve seen for yourself how well I’m occupied,” Nick replied, not unconscious of how red he was. This made Mrs. Dallow look at him while Miriam considered them both. Julia’s eyes had a strange light he had never seen before—a flash of fear by which he was himself frightened. “Of course I’ll see you later,” he added in awkward, in really misplaced gaiety while she reached the door, which she opened herself, getting out with no further attention to Miriam. “I wrote to you this morning—you’ve missed my letter,” he repeated behind her, having already given her this information. The door of the studio was very near that of the house, but before she had reached the street the visitors’ bell was set ringing. The passage was narrow and she kept in advance of Nick, anticipating his motion to open the street-door. The bell was tinkling still when, by the action of her own hand, a gentleman on the step stood revealed.

“Ah my dear, don’t go!” Nick heard pronounced in quick, soft dissuasion and in the now familiar accents of Gabriel Nash. The rectification followed more quickly still, if that were a rectification which so little improved the matter: “I beg a thousand pardons—I thought you were Miriam.”

Gabriel gave way and Julia the more sharply pursued her retreat. Her carriage, a victoria with a pair of precious heated horses, had taken a turn up the street, but the coachman had already seen his mistress and was rapidly coming back. He drew near; not so fast, however, but that Gabriel Nash had time to accompany Mrs. Dallow to the edge of the pavement with an apology for the freedom into which he had blundered. Nick was at her other hand, waiting to put her into the carriage and freshly disconcerted by the encounter with Nash, who somehow, as he stood making Julia an explanation that she didn’t listen to, looked less eminent than usual, though not more conscious of difficulties. Our young man coloured deeper and watched the footman spring down as the victoria drove up; he heard Nash say something about the honour of having met Mrs. Dallow in Paris. Nick wanted him to go into the house; he damned inwardly his lack of delicacy. He desired a word with Julia alone—as much alone as the two annoying servants would allow. But Nash was not too much discouraged to say: “You came for a glimpse of the great model? Doesn’t she sit? That’s what I wanted too, this morning—just a look, for a blessing on the day. Ah but you, madam—”

Julia had sprung into her corner while he was still speaking and had flashed out to the coachman a “Home!” which of itself set the horses in motion. The carriage went a few yards, but while Gabriel, with an undiscouraged bow, turned away, Nick Dormer, his hand on the edge of the hood, moved with it.

“You don’t like it, but I’ll explain,” he tried to say for its occupant alone.

“Explain what?” she asked, still very pale and grave, but in a voice that showed nothing. She was thinking of the servants—she could think of them even then.

“Oh it’s all right. I’ll come in at five,” Nick returned, gallantly jocular, while she was whirled away.

Gabriel had gone into the studio and Nick found him standing in admiration before Miriam, who had resumed the position in which she was sitting. “Lord, she’s good to-day! Isn’t she good to-day?” he broke out, seizing their host by the arm to give him a particular view. Miriam looked indeed still handsomer than before, and she had taken up her attitude again with a splendid, sphinx-like air of being capable of keeping it for ever. Nick said nothing, but went back to work with a tingle of confusion, which began to act after he had resumed his palette as a sharp, a delightful stimulus. Miriam spoke never a word, but she was doubly grand, and for more than an hour, till Nick, exhausted, declared he must stop, the industrious silence was broken only by the desultory discourse of their friend.

Nick went to Great Stanhope Street at five o’clock and learned, rather to his surprise, that Julia was not at home—to his surprise because he had told her he would come at that hour, and he attributed to her, with a certain simplicity, an eager state of mind in regard to his explanation. Apparently she was not eager; the eagerness was his own—he was eager to explain. He recognised, not without a certain consciousness of magnanimity in doing so, that there had been some reason for her quick withdrawal from his studio or at any rate for her extreme discomposure there. He had a few days before put in a plea for a snatch of worship in that sanctuary and she had accepted and approved it; but the worship, when the curtain happened to blow back, showed for that of a magnificent young woman, an actress with disordered hair, who wore in a singular degree the appearance of a person settled for many hours. The explanation was easy: it dwelt in the simple truth that when one was painting, even very badly and only for a moment, one had to have models. Nick was impatient to give it with frank, affectionate lips and a full, pleasant admission that it was natural Julia should have been startled; and he was the more impatient that, though he would not in the least have expected her to like finding a strange woman intimately installed with him, she had disliked it even more than would have seemed probable or natural. That was because, not having heard from him about the matter, the impression was for the moment irresistible with her that a trick had been played her. But three minutes with him alone would make the difference.

They would indeed have a considerable difference to make, Nick reflected, as minutes much more numerous elapsed without bringing Mrs. Dallow home. For he had said to the butler that he would come in and wait—though it was odd she should not have left a message for him: she would doubtless return from one moment to the other. He had of course full licence to wait anywhere he preferred; and he was ushered into Julia’s particular sitting-room and supplied with tea and the evening papers. After a quarter of an hour, however, he gave little attention to these beguilements, thanks to his feeling still more acutely that since she definitely knew he was coming she might have taken the trouble to be at home. He walked up and down and looked out of the window, took up her books and dropped them again, and then, as half an hour had elapsed, became aware he was really sore. What could she be about when, with London a thankless void, she was of course not paying visits? A footman came in to attend to the fire, whereupon Nick questioned him as to the manner in which she was possibly engaged. The man disclosed the fact that his mistress had gone out but a quarter of an hour before Nick’s arrival, and, as if appreciating the opportunity for a little decorous conversation, gave him still more information than he invited. From this it appeared that, as Nick knew, or could surmise, she had the evening before, from the country, wired for the victoria to meet her in the morning at Paddington and then gone straight from the station to the studio, while her maid, with her luggage, proceeded in a cab to Great Stanhope Street. On leaving the studio, however, she had not come directly home; she had chosen this unusual season for an hour’s drive in the Park. She had finally re-entered her house, but had remained upstairs all day, seeing no one and not coming down to luncheon. At four o’clock she had ordered the brougham for four forty-five, and had got into it punctually, saying, “To the Park!” as she did so.

Nick, after the footman had left him, made what he could of Julia’s sudden passion for the banks of the Serpentine, forsaken and foggy now, inasmuch as the afternoon had come on grey and the light was waning. She usually hated the Park and hated a closed carriage. He had a gruesome vision of her, shrunken into a corner of her brougham and veiled as if in consequence of tears, revolving round the solitude of the Drive. She had of course been deeply displeased and was not herself; the motion of the carriage soothed her, had an effect on her nerves. Nick remembered that in the morning, at his door, she had appeared to be going home; so she had plunged into the drearier resort on second thoughts and as she noted herself near it. He lingered another half-hour, walked up and down the room many times and thought of many things. Had she misunderstood him when he said he would come at five? Couldn’t she be sure, even if she had, that he would come early rather than late, and mightn’t she have left a message for him on the chance? Going out that way a few minutes before he was to come had even a little the air of a thing done on purpose to offend him; as if she had been so displeased that she had taken the nearest occasion of giving him a sign she meant to break with him. But were these the things Julia did and was that the way she did them—his fine, proud, delicate, generous Julia?

When six o’clock came poor Nick felt distinctly resentful; but he stayed ten minutes longer on the possibility that she would in the morning have understood him to mention that hour. The April dusk began to gather and the unsociability of her behaviour, especially if she were still rumbling round the Park, became absurd. Anecdotes came back to him, vaguely remembered, heard he couldn’t have said when or where, of poor artists for whom life had been rendered difficult by wives who wouldn’t allow them the use of the living female model and who made scenes if they encountered on the staircase such sources of inspiration. These ladies struck him as vulgar and odious persons, with whom it seemed grotesque that Julia should have anything in common. Of course she was not his wife yet, and of course if she were he should have washed his hands of every form of activity requiring the services of the sitter; but even these qualifications left him with a power to wince at the way in which the woman he was so sure he loved just escaped ranking herself with the Philistines.

At a quarter past six he rang a bell and told the servant who answered it that he was going and that Mrs. Dallow was to be informed as soon as she came in that he had expected to find her and had waited an hour and a quarter. But he had just reached the doorstep of departure when her brougham, emerging from the evening mist, stopped in front of the house. Nick stood there hanging back till she got out, allowing the servants only to help her. She saw him—she was less veiled than his mental vision of her; but this didn’t prevent her pausing to give an order to the coachman, a matter apparently requiring some discussion. When she came to the door her visitor remarked that he had been waiting an eternity; to which she replied that he must make no grievance of that—she was too unwell to do him justice. He immediately professed regret and sympathy, adding, however, that in that case she had much better not have gone out. She made no answer to this—there were three servants in the hall who looked as if they might understand at least what was not said to them; only when he followed her in she asked if his idea had been to stay longer.

“Certainly, if you’re not too ill to see me.”

“Come in then,” Julia said, turning back after having gone to the foot of the stairs.

This struck him immediately as a further restriction of his visit: she wouldn’t readmit him to the drawing-room or to her boudoir; she would receive him in the impersonal apartment downstairs where she saw people on business. What did she want to do to him? He was prepared by this time for a scene of jealousy, since he was sure he had learned to read her character justly in feeling that if she had the appearance of a cold woman a forked flame in her was liable on occasion to break out. She was very still, but from time to time she would fire off a pistol. As soon as he had closed the door she said without sitting down:

“I daresay you saw I didn’t like that at all.”

“My having a sitter in that professional way? I was very much annoyed at it myself,” Nick answered.

“Why were 您 annoyed? She’s very handsome,” Mrs. Dallow perversely said.

“I didn’t know you had looked at her!” Nick laughed.

Julia had a pause. “Was I very rude?”

“Oh it was all right; it was only awkward for me because you didn’t know,” he replied.

“I did know; that’s why I came.”

“How do you mean? My letter couldn’t have reached you.”

“I don’t know anything about your letter,” Julia cast about her for a chair and then seated herself on the edge of a sofa with her eyes on the floor.

“She sat to me yesterday; she was there all the morning; but I didn’t write to tell you. I went at her with great energy and, absurd as it may seem to you, found myself very tired afterwards. Besides, in the evening I went to see her act.”

“Does she act?” asked Mrs. Dallow.

“She’s an actress: it’s her profession. Don’t you remember her that day at Peter’s in Paris? She’s already a celebrity; she has great talent; she’s engaged at a theatre here and is making a sensation. As I tell you, I saw her last night.”

“You needn’t tell me,” Julia returned, looking up at him with a face of which the intense, the tragic sadness startled him.

He had been standing before her, but at this he instantly sat down close, taking her passive hand. “I want to, please; otherwise it must seem so odd to you. I knew she was coming when I wrote to you the day before yesterday. But I didn’t tell you then because I didn’t know how it would turn out, and I didn’t want to exult in advance over a poor little attempt that might come to nothing. Moreover, it was no use speaking of the matter at all unless I told you exactly how it had come about,” Nick went on, explaining kindly and copiously. “It was the result of a visit unexpectedly paid me by Gabriel Nash.”

“That man—the man who spoke to me?” Her memory of him shuddered into life.

“He did what he thought would please you, but I daresay it didn’t. You met him in Paris and didn’t like him; so I judged best to hold my tongue about him.”

“做 您 喜欢他？”

“非常。”

“Great heaven!” Julia ejaculated, almost under her breath.

“The reason I was annoyed was because, somehow, when you came in, I suddenly had the air of having got out of those visits and shut myself up in town to do something that I had kept from you. And I have been very unhappy till I could explain.”

“You don’t explain—you can’t explain,” Mrs Dallow declared, turning on her companion eyes which, in spite of her studied stillness, expressed deep excitement. “I knew it—I knew everything; that’s why I came.”

“It was a sort of second-sight—what they call a brainwave,” Nick smiled.

“I felt uneasy, I felt a kind of call; it came suddenly, yesterday. It was irresistible; nothing could have kept me this morning.”

“That’s very serious, but it’s still more delightful. You mustn’t go away again,” said Nick. “We must stick together—forever and ever.”

He put his arm round her, but she detached herself as soon as she felt its pressure. She rose quickly, moving away, while, mystified, he sat looking up at her as she had looked a few moments before at him. “I’ve thought it all over; I’ve been thinking of it all day,” she began. “That’s why I didn’t come in.”

“Don’t think of it too much; it isn’t worth it.”

“You like it more than anything else. You do—you can’t deny it,” she went on.

“My dear child, what are you talking about?” Nick asked, gently…

“That’s what you like—doing what you were this morning; with women lolling, with their things off, to be painted, and people like that man.”

Nick slowly got up, hesitating. “My dear Julia, apart from the surprise this morning, do you object to the living model?”

“Not a bit, for you.”

“What’s the inconvenience then, since in my studio they’re only for me?”

“You love it, you revel in it; that’s what you want—the only thing you want!” Julia broke out.

“To have models, lolling undressed women, do you mean?”

“That’s what I felt, what I knew,” she went on—”what came over me and haunted me yesterday so that I couldn’t throw it off. It seemed to me that if I could see it with my eyes and have the perfect proof I should feel better, I should be quiet. And now I am quiet—after a struggle of some hours, I confess. I 已可以选用 seen; the whole thing’s before me and I’m satisfied.”

“I’m not—to me neither the whole thing nor half of it is before me. What exactly are you talking about?” Nick demanded.

“About what you were doing this morning. That’s your innermost preference, that’s your secret passion.”

“A feeble scratch at something serious? Yes, it was almost serious,” he said. “But it was an accident, this morning and yesterday: I got on less wretchedly than I intended.”

“I’m sure you’ve immense talent,” Julia returned with a dreariness that was almost droll.

“No, no, I might have had. I’ve plucked it up: it’s too late for it to flower. My dear Julia, I’m perfectly incompetent and perfectly resigned.”

“Yes, you looked so this morning, when you hung over her. Oh she’ll bring back your talent!”

“She’s an obliging and even an intelligent creature, and I’ve no doubt she would if she could,” Nick conceded. “But I’ve received from you all the help any woman’s destined to give me. No one can do for me again what you’ve done.”

“I shouldn’t try it again; I acted in ignorance. Oh I’ve thought it all out!” Julia declared. And then with a strange face of anguish resting on his own: “Before it’s too late—before it’s too late!”

“迟到什么？”

“For you to be free—for you to be free. And for me—for me to be free too. You hate everything I like!” she flashed out. “Don’t pretend, don’t pretend!” she went on as a sound of protest broke from him.

“I thought you so awfully 通缉 me to paint,” he gasped, flushed and staring.

“I do—I do. That’s why you must be free, why we must part?”

“Why we must part—?”

“Oh I’ve turned it well over. I’ve faced the hard truth. It wouldn’t do at all!” Julia rang out.

“I like the way you talk of it—as if it were a trimming for your dress!” Nick retorted with bitterness. “Won’t it do for you to be loved and cherished as well as any woman in England?”

She turned away from him, closing her eyes as not to see something dangerous. “You mustn’t give anything up for me. I should feel it all the while and I should hate it. I’m not afraid of the truth, but you are.”

“The truth, dear Julia? I only want to know it,” Nick insisted. “It seems to me in fact just what I’ve got hold of. When two persons are united by the tenderest affection and are sane and generous and just, no difficulties that occur in the union their life makes for them are insurmountable, no problems are insoluble.”

She appeared for a moment to reflect upon this: it was spoken in a tone that might have touched her. Yet at the end of the moment, lifting her eyes, she brought out: “I hate art, as you call it. I thought I did, I knew I did; but till this morning I didn’t know how much.”

“Bless your dear soul, 这 wasn’t art,” Nick pleaded. “The real thing will be a thousand miles away from us; it will never come into the house, soyez tranquille. It knows where to look in and where to flee shrieking. Why then should you worry?”

“Because I want to understand, I want to know what I’m doing. You’re an artist: you are, you are!” Julia cried, accusing him passionately.

“My poor Julia, it isn’t so easy as that, nor a character one can take on from one day to the other. There are all sorts of things; one must be caught young and put through the mill—one must see things as they are. There are very few professions that goes with. There would be sacrifices I never can make.”

“Well then, there are sacrifices for both of us, and I can’t make them either. I daresay it’s all right for you, but for me it would be a terrible mistake. When I think I’m doing a certain thing I mustn’t do just the opposite,” she kept on as for true lucidity. “There are things I’ve thought of, the things I like best; and they’re not what you mean. It would be a great deception, and it’s not the way I see my life, and it would be misery if we don’t understand.”

He looked at her with eyes not lighted by her words. “If we don’t understand what?”

“That we’re utterly different—that you’re doing it all for me设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“And is that an objection to me—what I do for you?” he asked.

“You do too much. You’re awfully good, you’re generous, you’re a dear, oh yes—a dear. But that doesn’t make me believe in it. I didn’t at bottom, from the first—that’s why I made you wait, why I gave you your freedom. Oh I’ve suspected you,” Julia continued, “I had my ideas. It’s all right for you, but it won’t do for me: I’m different altogether. Why should it always be put upon me when I hate it? What have I done? I was drenched with it before.” These last words, as they broke forth, were attended with a quick blush; so that Nick could as quickly discern in them the uncalculated betrayal of an old irritation, an old shame almost—her late husband’s flat, inglorious taste for pretty things, his indifference to every chance to play a public part. This had been the humiliation of her youth, and it was indeed a perversity of fate that a new alliance should contain for her even an oblique demand for the same spirit of accommodation, impose on her the secret bitterness of the same concessions. As Nick stood there before her, struggling sincerely with the force that he now felt to be strong in her, the intense resolution to break with him, a force matured in a few hours, he read a riddle that hitherto had baffled him, saw a great mystery become simple. A personal passion for him had all but thrown her into his arms (the sort of thing that even a vain man—and Nick was not especially vain—might hesitate to recognise the strength of); held in check at moments, with a strain of the cord that he could still feel vibrate, by her deep, her rare ambition, and arrested at the last only just in time to save her calculations. His present glimpse of the immense extent of these calculations didn’t make him think her cold or poor; there was in fact a positive strange heat in them and they struck him rather as grand and high. The fact that she could drop him even while she longed for him—drop him because it was now fixed in her mind that he wouldn’t after all serve her resolve to be associated, so far as a woman could, with great affairs; that she could postpone, and postpone to an uncertainty, the satisfaction of an aching tenderness and plan for the long run—this exhibition of will and courage, of the larger scheme that possessed her, commanded his admiration on the spot. He paid the heavy price of the man of imagination; he was capable of far excursions of the spirit, disloyalties to habit and even to faith, he was open to rare communications. He ached, on his side, for the moment, to convince her that he would achieve what he wouldn’t, for the vision of his future she had tried to entertain shone before him as a bribe and a challenge. It struck him there was nothing he couldn’t work for enough with her to be so worked with by her. Presently he said:

“You want to be sure the man you marry will be prime minister of England. But how can you be really sure with any one?”

“I can be really sure some men won’t!” Julia returned.

“The only safe thing perhaps would be to-marry Mr. Macgeorge,” he suggested.

“Possibly not even him.”

“You’re a prime minister yourself,” Nick made answer. “To hold fast to you as I hold, to be determined to be of your party—isn’t that political enough, since you’re the incarnation of politics?”

“Ah how you hate them!” she wailed again. “I saw that when I saw you this morning. The whole place reeked of your aversion.”

“My dear child, the greatest statesmen have had their distractions. What do you make of my hereditary talent? That’s a tremendous force.”

“It wouldn’t carry you far.” Then she terribly added, “You must be a great artist.” He tossed his head at the involuntary contempt of this, but she went on: “It’s beautiful of you to want to give up anything, and I like you for it. I shall always like you. We shall be friends, and I shall always take an interest—!”

But he stopped her there, made a movement which interrupted her phrase, and she suffered him to hold her hand as if she were not afraid of him now. “It isn’t only for you,” he argued gently; “you’re a great deal, but you’re not everything. Innumerable vows and pledges repose upon my head. I’m inextricably committed and dedicated. I was brought up in the temple like an infant Samuel; my father was a high-priest and I’m a child of the Lord. And then the life itself—when 您 speak of it I feel stirred to my depths; it’s like a herald’s trumpet. Fight me, Julia—not against me! Be on my side and we shall do everything. It is uplifting to be a great man before the people—to be loved by them, to be followed by them. An artist isn’t—never, never. Why 应该 he be? Don’t forget how clever I am.”

“Oh if it wasn’t for that!” she panted, pale with the effort to resist his tone. Then she put it to him: “Do you pretend that if I were to die to-morrow you’d stay in the House?”

“If you were to die? God knows! But you do singularly little justice to my incentives,” he pursued. “My political career’s everything to my mother.”

This but made her say after a moment: “Are you afraid of your mother?”

“Yes, immensely; for she represents ever so many possibilities of disappointment and distress. She represents all my father’s as well as all her own, and in them my father tragically lives again. On the other hand I see him in bliss, as I see my mother, over our marriage and our life of common aspirations—though of course that’s not a consideration that I can expect to have power with you.”

She shook her head slowly, even smiling with her recovered calmness and lucidity. “You’ll never hold high office.”

“But why not take me as I am?”

“Because I’m abominably keen about that sort of thing—I must recognise my keenness. I must face the ugly truth. I’ve been through the worst; it’s all settled.”

“The worst, I suppose, was when you found me this morning.”

“Oh that was all right—for you.”

“You’re magnanimous, Julia; but evidently what’s good enough for me isn’t good enough for you.” Nick spoke with bitterness.

“I don’t like you enough—that’s the obstacle,” she held herself in hand to say.

“You did a year ago; you confessed to it.”

“Well, a year ago was a year ago. Things are changed to-day.”

“You’re very fortunate—to be able to throw away a real devotion,” Nick returned.

She had her pocket-handkerchief in her hand, and at this she quickly pressed it to her lips as to check an exclamation. Then for an instant she appeared to be listening to some sound from outside. He interpreted her movement as an honourable impulse to repress the “Do you mean the devotion I was witness of this morning?” But immediately afterwards she said something very different: “I thought I heard a ring. I’ve telegraphed for Mrs. Gresham.”

He wondered. “Why did you do that?”

“Oh I want her.”

He walked to the window, where the curtains had not been drawn, and saw in the dusk a cab at the door. When he turned back he went on: “Why won’t you trust me to make you like me, as you call it, better? If I make you like me as well as I like you it will be about enough, I think.”

“Oh I like you enough for 选择您 happiness. And I don’t throw away a devotion,” Mrs. Dallow continued. “I shall be constantly kind to you. I shall be beautiful to you.”

“You’ll make me lose a fortune,” Nick after a moment said.

It brought a slight convulsion, instantly repressed, into her face. “Ah you may have all the money you want!”

“I don’t mean yours,” he answered with plenty of expression of his own. He had determined on the instant, since it might serve, to tell her what he had never breathed to her before. “Mr. Carteret last year promised me a pot of money on the day we should be man and wife. He has thoroughly set his heart on it.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint Mr. Carteret,” said Julia. “I’ll go and see him. I’ll make it all right,” she went on. “Then your work, you know, will bring you an income. The great men get a thousand just for a head.”

“I’m only joking,” Nick returned with sombre eyes that contradicted this profession. “But what things you deserve I should do!”

“Do you mean striking likenesses?”

He watched her a moment. “You do hate it! Pushed to that point, it’s curious,” he audibly mused.

“Do you mean you’re joking about Mr. Carteret’s promise?”

“No—the promise is real, but I don’t seriously offer it as a reason.”

“I shall go to Beauclere,” Julia said. “You’re an hour late,” she added in a different tone; for at that moment the door of the room was thrown open and Mrs. Gresham, the butler pronouncing her name, ushered in.

“Ah don’t impugn my punctuality—it’s my character!” the useful lady protested, putting a sixpence from the cabman into her purse. Nick went off at this with a simplified farewell—went off foreseeing exactly what he found the next day, that the useful lady would have received orders not to budge from her hostess’s side. He called on the morrow, late in the afternoon, and Julia saw him liberally, in the spirit of her assurance that she would be “beautiful” to him, that she had not thrown away his devotion; but Mrs. Gresham remained, with whatever delicacies of deprecation, a spectator of her liberality. Julia looked at him kindly, but her companion was more benignant still; so that what Nick did with his own eyes was not to appeal to her to see him a moment alone, but to solicit, in the name of this luxury, the second occupant of the drawing-room. Mrs. Gresham seemed to say, while Julia said so little, “I understand, my poor friend, I know everything—she has told me only 这里 side, but I’m so competent that I know yours too—and I enter into the whole thing deeply. But it would be as much as my place is worth to accommodate you.” Still, she didn’t go so far as to give him an inkling of what he learned on the third day and what he had not gone so far as to suspect—that the two ladies had made rapid arrangements for a scheme of foreign travel. These arrangements had already been carried out when, at the door of the house in Great Stanhope Street, the announcement was made him that the subtle creatures had started that morning for Paris.

They spent on their way to Florence several days in Paris, where Peter Sherringham had as much free talk with his sister as it often befell one member of their family to have with another. He enjoyed, that is, on two different occasions, half an hour’s gossip with her in her sitting-room at the hotel. On one of these he took the liberty of asking her whether or no, decidedly, she meant to marry Nick Dormer. Julia expressed to him that she appreciated his curiosity, but that Nick and she were nothing more than relations and good friends. “He tremendously wants it,” Peter none the less observed; to which she simply made answer, “Well then, he may want!”

After this, for a while, they sat as silent as if the subject had been quite threshed out between them. Peter felt no impulse to penetrate further, for it was not a habit of the Sherringhams to talk with each other of their love-affairs; and he was conscious of the particular deterrent that he and Julia entertained in general such different sentiments that they could never go far together in discussion. He liked her and was sorry for her, thought her life lonely and wondered she didn’t make a “great” marriage. Moreover he pitied her for being without the interests and consolations he himself had found substantial: those of the intellectual, the studious order he considered these to be, not knowing how much she supposed she reflected and studied and what an education she had found in her political aspirations, viewed by him as scarce more a personal part of her than the livery of her servants or the jewels George Dallow’s money had bought. Her relations with Nick struck him as queer, but were fortunately none of his business. No business of Julia’s was sufficiently his to justify him in an attempt to understand it. That there should have been a question of her marrying Nick was the funny thing rather than that the question should have been dropped. He liked his clever cousin very well as he was—enough for a vague sense that he might be spoiled by alteration to a brother-in-law. Moreover, though not perhaps distinctly conscious of this, Peter pressed lightly on Julia’s doings from a tacit understanding that in this case she would let him off as easily. He couldn’t have said exactly what it was he judged it pertinent to be let off from: perhaps from irritating inquiry as to whether he had given any more tea-parties for gross young women connected with the theatre.

Peter’s forbearance, however, brought him not quite all the security he prefigured. After an interval he indeed went so far as to ask Julia if Nick had been wanting in respect to her; but this was an appeal intended for sympathy, not for other intervention. She answered: “Dear no—though he’s very provoking.” Thus Peter guessed that they had had a quarrel in which it didn’t concern him to meddle: he added her epithet and her flight from England together, and they made up to his perception one of the little magnified embroilments which do duty for the real in superficial lives. It was worse to provoke Julia than not, and Peter thought Nick’s doing so not particularly characteristic of his versatility for good. He might wonder why she didn’t marry the member for Harsh if the subject had pressingly come up between them; but he wondered still more why Nick didn’t marry that gentleman’s great backer. Julia said nothing again, as if to give him a chance to address her some challenge that would save her from gushing; but as his impulse appeared to be to change the subject, and as he changed it only by silence, she was reduced to resuming presently:

“I should have thought you’d have come over to see your friend the actress.”

“Which of my friends? I know so many actresses,” Peter pleaded.

“The woman you inflicted on us in this place a year ago—the one who’s in London now.”

“Oh Miriam Rooth? I should have liked to come over, but I’ve been tied fast. Have you seen her there?”

“Yes, I’ve seen her.”

“你喜欢她吗？”

“不是。”

“She has a lovely voice,” Peter hazarded after a moment.

“I don’t know anything about her voice—I haven’t heard it.”

“But she doesn’t act in pantomime, does she?”

“I don’t know anything about her acting. I saw her in private—at Nick Dormer’s studio.”

“At Nick’s—?” He was interested now.

“她在那里做什么？”

“She was sprawling over the room and—rather insolently—staring at me.”

If Mrs. Dallow had wished to “draw” her brother she must at this point have suspected she succeeded, in spite of his care to divest his tone of all emotion. “Why, does he know her so well? I didn’t know.”

“She’s sitting to him for her portrait—at least she was then.”

“Oh yes, I remember—I put him up to that. I’m greatly interested. Is the portrait good?”

“I haven’t the least idea—I didn’t look at it. I daresay it’s like,” Julia threw off.

“But how in the world”—and Peter’s interest grew franker—”does Nick find time to paint?”

“I don’t know. That horrid man brought her.”

“Which horrid man?”—he spoke as if they had their choice.

“The one Nick thinks so clever—the vulgar little man who was at your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me—as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl.”

“Oh I recollect him—I had a discussion with him,” Peter patiently said.

“How could you? I must go and dress,” his sister went on more importantly.

“他 是 clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me.”

“What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!” cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up.

“Oh you’re severe,” said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of.

That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn’t render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham’s now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia’s coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia’s own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well—there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister’s saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he 民政事务总署 done so—believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew—the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, 世界上最好的, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and—Julia didn’t mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no—was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through—she’d answer for it that he’d have but to speak. Biddy’s life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her—the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy’s life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia’s disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself—this was the rest of his wonder—why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself—he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one’s head—most of all into the girl’s own—that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn’t in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn’t thinking of marrying any one—he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn’t mind telling her that there were several he had taken.

“I don’t know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you’d be quite in shelter, you’d know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn’t be bad.” The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: “Do go and see her and be nice to her; she’ll save you disappointments.”

These last words reverberated for him—there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister’s house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their “form.” In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital—in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post.

He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address—Balaklava Place, Saint John’s Wood—the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action 民政事务总署 to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions.

He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o’clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn’t touch lemonade.

It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the “retreat,” he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother—they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening—he hardly played fair—and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated “libraries,” to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him—they hadn’t a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion.

Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn’t go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer’s portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn’t keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter’s debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one’s intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy—which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself—how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes—he would have in decency to go to see her some time—at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home?

Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter’s informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter’s asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: “Oh I think—a—the a-sculpture, you know, sir.” Peter knew, but Biddy’s lesson in “a-sculpture”—it sounded on the butler’s lips like a fashionable new art—struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill—perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn’t know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train—he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer.

When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, “Oh Peter!” and then, “I’m all alone.”

“So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn’t come in?”

“Dear no—do come in. You’ve just missed Nick; he has gone to the country—half an hour ago.” She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter’s eye, and she said: “I’m just scraping here a little—you mustn’t mind me. What I do is awful, you know. , Peter, don’t look, I’ve been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn’t particularly like it at home. I’ve had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn’t suppose it to see what I do. Nick’s so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he’s gone—he’d have been so glad. I’m really alone—I hope you don’t mind. Peter, 请 don’t look.”

Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy’s own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother’s quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it—just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy’s knowledge. It wasn’t that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her—if she liked him enough to consent—in Julia’s perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl’s secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend’s views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don’t still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn’t be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn’t without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn’t occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick.

He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick’s things; watched her at moments in silence—which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn’t care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn’t require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn’t know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common—ever so many things as to which they’d always understand each other à半动. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him—people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French conseil de famille and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy.

“I don’t think she has been very happy or very pleased of late,” the girl said. “I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They’ve gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know—she’s tremendously old—was papa’s godmother. It’s not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she’ll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa.”

Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was—well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn’t come, that they didn’t get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn’t get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married.

“That’s too unselfish of her,” he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. “Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted.”

“Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn’t sacrifice us that way!” Biddy protested. “Besides, I’m the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I 想 to,” said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice—and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis.

“But doesn’t your mother want the rest of you to get married—Percival and Nick and you?” Peter asked.

“Oh she has given up Percy. I don’t suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course—that’s just what she does want.”

He had a pause. “And you, Biddy?”

“Oh I daresay. But that doesn’t signify—I never shall.”

Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on.

“What do you mean by getting on?”—and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio.

“I mean crying one’s eyes out!” Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: “Of course it’s about Nick that she’s really broken-hearted.”

“What’s the matter with Nick?” he went on with all his diplomacy.

“Oh Peter, what’s the matter with Julia?” Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. “I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won’t!” said the girl.

“Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn’t that have been it—or something like that? But it’s indeed visibly clouded. What’s the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?” Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. “Don’t they know how to love?” he speculated as he seated himself again.

“It seems a kind of fatality!” Biddy sighed.

He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother’s absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days—to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian’s identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes’s precautions she wasn’t a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner.

“And are you to dine at home?” said Peter.

“Certainly; where else?”

“And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?”

“It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn’t in modesty to speak for poor Florence.”

“It isn’t fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her.”

“Do you mean you, Peter?” the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it.

“Try me. I’ll come like a shot.”

“That’s kind,” said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: “Florence will like that immensely.”

“I’m delighted to please Florence—your description of her’s so attractive!” Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn’t millions—when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They’d have to dine early—he wanted not to miss a moment.

“The theatre—Miss Tressilian?” she stared, interrupted and in suspense again.

“Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go—if you are free.”

She began almost to rave with pleasure. “Dear Peter, how good you are! They’ll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad.”

“And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?”

“Miss Rooth?” the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, “No, no, I’ve not seen her.” Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn’t asked her, and she went on: “We shall be too delighted. I saw her—perhaps you remember—in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one’s talking of her here. But we don’t go to the theatre much, you know: we don’t have boxes offered us except when 您 come. Poor Nick’s too much taken up in the evening. I’ve wanted awfully to see her. They say she’s magnificent.”

“I don’t know,” Peter was glad to be able honestly to answer. “I haven’t seen her.”

“你没见过她？”

“Never, Biddy. I mean on the stage. In private often—yes,” he conscientiously added.

“Oh!” Biddy exclaimed, bending her face on Nick’s bust again. She asked him no question about the new star, and he offered her no further information. There were things in his mind pulling him different ways, so that for some minutes silence was the result of the conflict. At last he said, after an hesitation caused by the possibility that she was ignorant of the fact he had lately elicited from Julia, though it was more probable she might have learned it from the same source:

“Am I perhaps indiscreet in alluding to the circumstance that Nick has been painting Miss Rooth’s portrait?”

“You’re not indiscreet in alluding to it to me, because I know it.”

“Then there’s no secret nor mystery about it?”

Biddy just considered. “I don’t think mamma knows it.”

“You mean you’ve been keeping it from her because she wouldn’t like it?”

“We’re afraid she may think papa wouldn’t have liked it.”

This was said with an absence of humour at which Peter could but show amusement, though he quickly recovered himself, repenting of any apparent failure of respect to the high memory of his late celebrated relative. He threw off rather vaguely: “Ah yes, I remember that great man’s ideas,” and then went on: “May I ask if you know it, the fact we’re talking of, through Julia or through Nick?”

“I know it from both of them.”

“Then if you’re in their confidence may I further ask if this undertaking of Nick’s is the reason why things seem to be at an end between them?”

“Oh I don’t think she likes it,” Biddy had to say.

“Isn’t it good?”

“Oh I don’t mean the picture—she hasn’t seen it. But his having done it.”

“Does she dislike it so much that that’s why she won’t marry him?”

Biddy gave up her work, moving away from it to look at it. She came and sat down on the long bench on which Sherringham had placed himself. Then she broke out: “Oh Peter, it’s a great trouble—it’s a very great trouble; and I can’t tell you, for I don’t understand it.”

“If I ask you,” he said, “it’s not to pry into what doesn’t concern me; but Julia’s my sister, and I can’t after all help taking some interest in her life. She tells me herself so little. She doesn’t think me worthy.”

“Ah poor Julia!” Biddy wailed defensively. Her tone recalled to him that Julia had at least thought him worthy to unite himself to Bridget Dormer, and inevitably betrayed that the girl was thinking of that also. While they both thought of it they sat looking into each other’s eyes.

“Nick, I’m sure, doesn’t treat 您 that way; I’m sure he confides in you; he talks to you about his occupations, his ambitions,” Peter continued. “And you understand him, you enter into them, you’re nice to him, you help him.”

“Oh Nick’s life—it’s very dear to me,” Biddy granted.

“That must be jolly for him.”

“It makes me very happy.”

Peter uttered a low, ambiguous groan; then he cried with irritation; “What the deuce is the matter with them then? Why can’t they hit it off together and be quiet and rational and do what every one wants them to?”

“Oh Peter, it’s awfully complicated!” the girl sighed with sagacity.

“Do you mean that Nick’s in love with her?”

“In love with Julia?”

“No, no, with Miriam Rooth.”

She shook her head slowly, then with a smile which struck him as one of the sweetest things he had ever seen—it conveyed, at the expense of her own prospects, such a shy, generous little mercy of reassurance—”He isn’t, Peter,” she brought out. “Julia thinks it trifling—all that sort of thing,” she added “She wants him to go in for different honours.”

“Julia’s the oddest woman. I mean I thought she loved him,” Peter explained. “And when you love a person—!” He continued to make it out, leaving his sentence impatiently unfinished, while Biddy, with lowered eyes, sat waiting—it so interested her—to learn what you did when you loved a person. “I can’t conceive her giving him up. He has great ability, besides being such a good fellow.”

“It’s for his happiness, Peter—that’s the way she reasons,” Biddy set forth. “She does it for an idea; she has told me a great deal about it, and I see the way she feels.”

“You try to, Biddy, because you’re such a dear good-natured girl, but I don’t believe you do in the least,” he took the liberty of replying. “It’s too little the way you yourself would feel. Julia’s idea, as you call it, must be curious.”

“Well, it is, Peter,” Biddy mournfully admitted. “She won’t risk not coming out at the top.”

“At the top of what?”

“Oh of everything.” Her tone showed a trace of awe of such high views.

“Surely one’s at the top of everything when one’s in love.”

“I don’t know,” said the girl.

“Do you doubt it?” Peter asked.

“I’ve never been in love and I never shall be.”

“You’re as perverse, in your way, as Julia,” he returned to this. “But I confess I don’t understand Nick’s attitude any better. He seems to me, if I may say so, neither fish nor flesh.”

“Oh his attitude’s very noble, Peter; his state of mind’s wonderfully interesting,” Biddy pleaded. “Surely 您 must be in favour of art,” she beautifully said.

It made him look at her a moment. “Dear Biddy, your little digs are as soft as zephyrs.”

She coloured, but she protested. “My little digs? What do you mean? Aren’t you in favour of art?”

“The question’s delightfully simple. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Everything has its place. A parliamentary life,” he opined, “scarce seems to me the situation for portrait-painting.”

“That’s just what Nick says.”

“You talk of it together a great deal?”

“Yes, Nick’s very good to me.”

“Clever Nick! And what do you advise him?”

“Oh to do 东西“。

“That’s valuable,” Peter laughed. “Not to give up his sweetheart for the sake of a paint-pot, I hope?”

“Never, never, Peter! It’s not a question of his giving up,” Biddy pursued, “for Julia has herself shaken free. I think she never really felt safe—she loved him, but was afraid of him. Now she’s only afraid—she has lost the confidence she tried to have. Nick has tried to hold her, but she has wrested herself away. Do you know what she said to me? She said, ‘My confidence has gone for ever.'”

“I didn’t know she was such a prig!” Julia’s brother commented. “They’re queer people, verily, with water in their veins instead of blood. You and I wouldn’t be like that, should we?—though you 已可以选用 taken up such a discouraging position about caring for a fellow.”

“I care for art,” poor Biddy returned.

“You do, to some purpose”—and Peter glanced at the bust.

“To that of making you laugh at me.”

But this he didn’t heed. “Would you give a good man up for ‘art’?”

“A good man? What man?”

“Well, say me—if I wanted to marry you.”

She had the briefest of pauses. “Of course I would—in a moment. At any rate I’d give up the House of Commons,” she amended. “That’s what Nick’s going to do now—only you mustn’t tell any one.”

Peter wondered. “He’s going to chuck up his seat?”

“I think his mind is made up to it. He has talked me over—we’ve had some deep discussions. Yes, I’m on the side of art!” she ardently said.

“Do you mean in order to paint—to paint that girl?” Peter went on.

“To paint every one—that’s what he wants. By keeping his seat he hasn’t kept Julia, and she was the thing he cared for most in public life. When he has got out of the whole thing his attitude, as he says, will be at least clear. He’s tremendously interesting about it, Peter,” Biddy declared; “has talked to me wonderfully—has won me over. Mamma’s heart-broken; telling 这里 will be the hardest part.”

“If she doesn’t know,” he asked, “why then is she heart-broken?”

“Oh at the hitch about their marriage—she knows that. Their marriage has been so what she wanted. She thought it perfection. She blames Nick fearfully. She thinks he held the whole thing in his hand and that he has thrown away a magnificent opportunity.”

“And what does Nick say to her?”

“He says, ‘Dear old mummy!'”

“That’s good,” Peter pronounced.

“I don’t know what will become of her when this other blow arrives,” Biddy went on. “Poor Nick wants to please her—he does, he does. But, as he says, you can’t please every one and you must before you die please yourself a little.”

Nick’s kinsman, whose brother-in-law he was to have been, sat looking at the floor; the colour had risen to his face while he listened. Then he sprang up and took another turn about the room. His companion’s artless but vivid recital had set his blood in motion. He had taken Nick’s political prospects very much for granted, thought of them as definite and almost dazzling. To learn there was something for which he was ready to renounce such honours, and to recognise the nature of that bribe, affected our young man powerfully and strangely. He felt as if he had heard the sudden blare of a trumpet, yet felt at the same time as if he had received a sudden slap in the face. Nick’s bribe was “art”—the strange temptress with whom he himself had been wrestling and over whom he had finally ventured to believe that wisdom and training had won a victory. There was something in the conduct of his old friend and playfellow that made all his reasonings small. So unexpected, so courageous a choice moved him as a reproach and a challenge. He felt ashamed of having placed himself so unromantically on his guard, and rapidly said to himself that if Nick could afford to allow so much for “art” he might surely exhibit some of the same confidence. There had never been the least avowed competition between the cousins—their lines lay too far apart for that; but they nevertheless rode their course in sight of each other, and Peter had now the impression of suddenly seeing Nick Dormer give his horse the spur, bound forward and fly over a wall. He was put on his mettle and hadn’t to look long to spy an obstacle he too might ride at. High rose his curiosity to see what warrant his kinsman might have for such risks—how he was mounted for such exploits. He really knew little about Nick’s talent—so little as to feel no right to exclaim “What an ass!” when Biddy mentioned the fact which the existence of real talent alone could redeem from absurdity. All his eagerness to see what Nick had been able to make of such a subject as Miriam Rooth came back to him: though it was what mainly had brought him to Rosedale Road he had forgotten it in the happy accident of his encounter with the girl. He was conscious that if the surprise of a revelation of power were in store for him Nick would be justified more than he himself would feel reinstated in self-respect; since the courage of renouncing the forum for the studio hovered before him as greater than the courage of marrying an actress whom one was in love with: the reward was in the latter case so much more immediate. Peter at any rate asked Biddy what Nick had done with his portrait of Miriam. He hadn’t seen it anywhere in rummaging about the room.

“I think it’s here somewhere, but I don’t know,” she replied, getting up to look vaguely round her.

“Haven’t you seen it? Hasn’t he shown it to you?”

She rested her eyes on him strangely a moment, then turned them away with a mechanical air of still searching. “I think it’s in the room, put away with its face to the wall.”

“One of those dozen canvases with their backs to us?”

“One of those perhaps.”

“Haven’t you tried to see?”

“I haven’t touched them”—and Biddy had a colour.

“Hasn’t Nick had it out to show you?”

“He says it’s in too bad a state—it isn’t finished—it won’t do.”

“And haven’t you had the curiosity to turn it round for yourself?”

The embarrassed look in her face deepened under his insistence and it seemed to him that her eyes pleaded with him a moment almost to tears. “I’ve had an idea he wouldn’t like it.”

Her visitor’s own desire, however, had become too sharp for easy forbearance. He laid his hand on two or three canvases which proved, as he extricated them, to be either blank or covered with rudimentary forms. “Dear Biddy, have you such intense delicacy?” he asked, pulling out something else.

The inquiry was meant in familiar kindness, for Peter was struck even to admiration with her having a sense of honour that all girls haven’t. She must in this particular case have longed for a sight of Nick’s work—the work that had brought about such a crisis in his life. But she had passed hours in his studio alone without permitting herself a stolen peep; she was capable of that if she believed it would please him. Peter liked a charming girl’s being capable of that—he had known charming girls who wouldn’t in the least have been—and his question was really a form of homage. Biddy, however, apparently discovered some light mockery in it, and she broke out incongruously:

“I haven’t wanted so much to see it! I don’t care for her so much as that!”

“So much as what?” He couldn’t but wonder.

“I don’t care for his actress—for that vulgar creature. I don’t like her!” said Biddy almost startlingly.

Peter stared. “I thought you hadn’t seen her.”

“I saw her in Paris—twice. She was wonderfully clever, but she didn’t charm me.”

He quickly considered, saying then all kindly: “I won’t inflict the thing on you in that case—we’ll leave it alone for the present.” Biddy made no reply to this at first, but after a moment went straight over to the row of stacked canvases and exposed several of them to the light. “Why did you say you wished to go to the theatre to-night?” her companion continued.

Still she was silent; after which, with her back turned to him and a little tremor in her voice while she drew forth successively her brother’s studies, she made answer: “For the sake of your company, Peter! Here it is, I think,” she added, moving a large canvas with some effort. “No, no, I’ll hold it for you. Is that the light?”

She wouldn’t let him take it; she bade him stand off and allow her to place it in the right position. In this position she carefully presented it, supporting it at the proper angle from behind and showing her head and shoulders above it. From the moment his eyes rested on the picture Peter accepted this service without protest. Unfinished, simplified and in some portions merely suggested, it was strong, vivid and assured, it had already the look of life and the promise of power. Peter felt all this and was startled, was strangely affected—he had no idea Nick moved with that stride. Miriam, seated, was represented in three-quarters, almost to her feet. She leaned forward with one of her legs crossed over the other, her arms extended and foreshortened, her hands locked together round her knee. Her beautiful head was bent a little, broodingly, and her splendid face seemed to look down at life. She had a grand appearance of being raised aloft, with a wide regard, a survey from a height of intelligence, for the great field of the artist, all the figures and passions he may represent. Peter asked himself where his kinsman had learned to paint like that. He almost gasped at the composition of the thing and at the drawing of the difficult arms. Biddy abstained from looking round the corner of the canvas as she held it; she only watched, in Peter’s eyes, for this gentleman’s impression of it. That she easily caught, and he measured her impression—her impression of 他的impression—when he went after a few minutes to relieve her. She let him lift the thing out of her grasp; he moved it and rested it, so that they could still see it, against the high back of a chair. “It’s tremendously good,” he then handsomely pronounced.

“Dear, dear Nick,” Biddy murmured, looking at it now.

“Poor, poor Julia!” Peter was prompted to exclaim in a different tone. His companion made no rejoinder to this, and they stood another minute or two side by side and in silence, gazing at the portrait. At last he took up his hat—he had no more time, he must go. “Will you come to-night all the same?” he asked with a laugh that was somewhat awkward and an offer of a hand-shake.

“All the same?” Biddy seemed to wonder.

“Why you say she’s a terrible creature,” Peter completed with his eyes on the painted face.

“Oh anything for art!” Biddy smiled.

“Well, at seven o’clock then.” And Sherringham departed, leaving the girl alone with the Tragic Muse and feeling with a quickened rush the beauty of that young woman as well as, all freshly, the peculiar possibilities of Nick.

It was not till after the noon of the next day that he was to see Miriam Rooth. He wrote her a note that evening, to be delivered to her at the theatre, and during the performance she sent round to him a card with “All right, come to luncheon to-morrow” scrawled on it in pencil.

When he presented himself at Balaklava Place he learned that the two ladies had not come in—they had gone again early to rehearsal; but they had left word that he was to be pleased to wait, they would appear from one moment to the other. It was further mentioned to him, as he was ushered into the drawing-room, that Mr. Dashwood was in possession of that ground. This circumstance, however, Peter barely noted: he had been soaring so high for the past twelve hours that he had almost lost consciousness of the minor differences of earthly things. He had taken Biddy Dormer and her friend Miss Tressilian home from the play and after leaving them had walked about the streets, had roamed back to his sister’s house, in a state of exaltation the intenser from his having for the previous time contained himself, thinking it more decorous and considerate, less invidious and less blatant, not to “rave.” Sitting there in the shade of the box with his companions he had watched Miriam in attentive but inexpressive silence, glowing and vibrating inwardly, yet for these fine, deep reasons not committing himself to the spoken rapture. Delicacy, it appeared to him, should rule the hour; and indeed he had never had a pleasure less alloyed than this little period of still observation and repressed ecstasy. Miriam’s art lost nothing by it, and Biddy’s mild nearness only gained. This young lady was virtually mute as well—wonderingly, dauntedly, as if she too associated with the performer various other questions than that of her mastery of her art. To this mastery Biddy’s attitude was a candid and liberal tribute: the poor girl sat quenched and pale, as if in the blinding light of a comparison by which it would be presumptuous even to be annihilated. Her subjection, however, was a gratified, a charmed subjection: there was beneficence in such beauty—the beauty of the figure that moved before the footlights and spoke in music—even if it deprived one of hope. Peter didn’t say to her in vulgar elation and in reference to her whimsical profession of dislike at the studio, “Well, do you find our friend so disagreeable now?” and she was grateful to him for his forbearance, for the tacit kindness of which the idea seemed to be: “My poor child, I’d prefer you if I could; but—judge for yourself—how can I? Expect of me only the possible. Expect that certainly, but only that.” In the same degree Peter liked Biddy’s sweet, hushed air of judging for herself, of recognising his discretion and letting him off while she was lost in the illusion, in the convincing picture of the stage. Miss Tressilian did most of the criticism: she broke out cheerfully and sonorously from time to time, in reference to the actress, “Most striking certainly,” or “She is clever, isn’t she?” She uttered a series of propositions to which her companions found it impossible to respond. Miss Tressilian was disappointed in nothing but their enjoyment: they didn’t seem to think the exhibition as amusing as she.

Walking away through the ordered void of Lady Agnes’s quarter, with the four acts of the play glowing again before him in the smokeless London night, Peter found the liveliest thing in his impression the certitude that if he had never seen Miriam before and she had had for him none of the advantages of association, he would still have recognised in her performance the richest interest the theatre had ever offered him. He floated in the felicity of it, in the general encouragement of a sense of the perfectly 完成, in the almost aggressive bravery of still larger claims for an art which could so triumphantly, so exquisitely render life. “Render it?” he said to himself. “Create it and reveal it, rather; give us something new and large and of the first order!” He had 看到 Miriam now; he had never seen her before; he had never seen her till he saw her in her conditions. Oh her conditions—there were many things to be said about them; they were paltry enough as yet, inferior, inadequate, obstructive, as compared with the right, full, finished setting of such a talent; but the essence of them was now, irremovably, in our young man’s eyes, the vision of how the uplifted stage and the listening house transformed her. That idea of her having no character of her own came back to him with a force that made him laugh in the empty street: this was a disadvantage she reduced so to nothing that obviously he hadn’t known her till to-night. Her character was simply to hold you by the particular spell; any other—the good nature of home, the relation to her mother, her friends, her lovers, her debts, the practice of virtues or industries or vices—was not worth speaking of. These things were the fictions and shadows; the representation was the deep substance.

Peter had as he went an intense vision—he had often had it before—of the conditions still absent, the great and complete ones, those which would give the girl’s talent a superior, a discussable stage. More than ever he desired them, mentally invoked them, filled them out in imagination, cheated himself with the idea that they were possible. He saw them in a momentary illusion and confusion: a great academic, artistic theatre, subsidised and unburdened with money-getting, rich in its repertory, rich in the high quality and the wide array of its servants, rich above all in the authority of an impossible administrator—a manager personally disinterested, not an actor with an eye to the main chance; pouring forth a continuity of tradition, striving for perfection, laying a splendid literature under contribution. He saw the heroine of a hundred “situations,” variously dramatic and vividly real; he saw comedy and drama and passion and character and English life; he saw all humanity and history and poetry, and then perpetually, in the midst of them, shining out in the high relief of some great moment, an image as fresh as an unveiled statue. He was not unconscious that he was taking all sorts of impossibilities and miracles for granted; but he was under the conviction, for the time, that the woman he had been watching three hours, the incarnation of the serious drama, would be a new and vivifying force. The world was just then so bright to him that even Basil Dashwood struck him at first as a conceivable agent of his dream.

It must be added that before Miriam arrived the breeze that filled Sherringham’s sail began to sink a little. He passed out of the eminently “let” drawing-room, where twenty large photographs of the young actress bloomed in the desert; he went into the garden by a glass door that stood open, and found Mr. Dashwood lolling on a bench and smoking cigarettes. This young man’s conversation was a different music—it took him down, as he felt; showed him, very sensibly and intelligibly, it must be confessed, the actual theatre, the one they were all concerned with, the one they would have to make the miserable best of. It was fortunate that he kept his intoxication mainly to himself: the Englishman’s habit of not being effusive still prevailed with him after his years of exposure to the foreign infection. Nothing could have been less exclamatory than the meeting of the two men, with its question or two, its remark or two, about the new visitor’s arrival in London; its off-hand “I noticed you last night, I was glad you turned up at last” on one side and its attenuated “Oh yes, it was the first time; I was very much interested” on the other. Basil Dashwood played a part in Yolande and Peter had not failed to take with some comfort the measure of his aptitude. He judged it to be of the small order, as indeed the part, which was neither that of the virtuous nor that of the villainous hero, restricted him to two or three inconspicuous effects and three or four changes of dress. He represented an ardent but respectful young lover whom the distracted heroine found time to pity a little and even to rail at; but it was impressed upon his critic that he scarcely represented young love. He looked very well, but Peter had heard him already in a hundred contemporary pieces; he never got out of rehearsal. He uttered sentiments and breathed vows with a nice voice, with a shy, boyish tremor, but as if he were afraid of being chaffed for it afterwards; giving the spectator in the stalls the sense of holding the prompt-book and listening to a recitation. He made one think of country-houses and lawn-tennis and private theatricals; than which there couldn’t be, to Peter’s mind, a range of association more disconnected from the actor’s art.

Dashwood knew all about the new thing, the piece in rehearsal; he knew all about everything—receipts and salaries and expenses and newspaper articles, and what old Baskerville said and what Mrs. Ruffler thought: matters of superficial concern to his fellow-guest, who wondered, before they had sight of Miriam, if she talked with her “walking-gentleman” about them by the hour, deep in them and finding them not vulgar and boring but the natural air of her life and the essence of her profession. Of course she did—she naturally would; it was all in the day’s work and he might feel sure she wouldn’t turn up her nose at the shop. He had to remind himself that he didn’t care if she didn’t, that he would really think worse of her if she should. She certainly was in deep with her bland playmate, talking shop by the hour: he could see this from the fellow’s ease of attitude, the air of a man at home and doing the honours. He divined a great intimacy between the two young artists, but asked himself at the same time what he, Peter Sherringham, had to say about it. He didn’t pretend to control Miriam’s intimacies, it was to be supposed; and if he had encouraged her to adopt a profession rich in opportunities for comradeship it was not for him to cry out because she had taken to it kindly. He had already descried a fund of utility in Mrs. Lovick’s light brother; but it irritated him, all the same, after a while, to hear the youth represent himself as almost indispensable. He was practical—there was no doubt of that; and this idea added to Peter’s paradoxical sense that as regards the matters actually in question he himself had not this virtue. Dashwood had got Mrs. Rooth the house; it happened by a lucky chance that Laura Lumley, to whom it belonged—Sherringham would know Laura Lumley?—wanted to get rid, for a mere song, of the remainder of the lease. She was going to Australia with a troupe of her own. They just stepped into it; it was good air—the best sort of London air to live in, to sleep in, for people of their trade. Peter came back to his wonder at what Miriam’s personal relations with this deucedly knowing gentleman might be, and was again able to assure himself that they might be anything in the world she liked, for any stake he, the familiar of the Foreign Office, had in them. Dashwood told him of all the smart people who had tried to take up the new star—the way the London world had already held out its hand; and perhaps it was Sherringham’s irritation, the crushed sentiment I just mentioned, that gave a little heave in the exclamation, “Oh that—that’s all rubbish: the less of that the better!” At this Mr. Dashwood sniffed a little, rather resentful; he had expected Peter to be pleased with the names of the eager ladies who had “called”—which proved how low a view he took of his art. Our friend explained—it is to be hoped not pedantically—that this art was serious work and that society was humbug and imbecility; also that of old the great comedians wouldn’t have known such people.

“No, I suppose they didn’t ‘call’ in the old narrow-minded time,” said Basil Dashwood.

“Your profession didn’t call. They had better company—that of the romantic gallant characters they represented. They lived with 他们, so it was better all round.” And Peter asked himself—for that clearly struck the young man as a dreary period—if he only, for Miriam, in her new life and among the futilities of those who tried to lionise her, expressed the artistic idea. This at least, Sherringham reflected, was a situation that could be improved.

He learned from his companion that the new play, the thing they were rehearsing, was an old play, a romantic drama of thirty years before, very frequently revived and threadbare with honourable service. Dashwood had a part in it, but there was an act in which he didn’t appear, and this was the act they were doing that morning. Yolande had done all Yolande could do; the visitor was mistaken if he supposed Yolande such a tremendous hit. It had done very well, it had run three months, but they were by no means coining money with it. It wouldn’t take them to the end of the season; they had seen for a month past that they would have to put on something else. Miss Rooth, moreover, wanted a new part; she was above all impatient to show her big range. She had grand ideas; she thought herself very good-natured to repeat the same stuff for three months. The young man lighted another cigarette and described to his listener some of Miss Rooth’s ideas. He abounded in information about her—about her character, her temper, her peculiarities, her little ways, her manner of producing some of her effects. He spoke with familiarity and confidence, as if knowing more about her than any one else—as if he had invented or discovered her, were in a sense her proprietor or guarantor. It was the talk of the shop, both with a native sharpness and a touching young candour; the expansion of the commercial spirit when it relaxes and generalises, is conscious of safety with another member of the guild.

Peter at any rate couldn’t help protesting against the lame old war-horse it was proposed to bring into action, who had been ridden to death and had saved a thousand desperate fields; and he exclaimed on the strange passion of the good British public for sitting again and again through expected situations, watching for speeches they had heard and surprises that struck the hour. Dashwood defended the taste of London, praised it as loyal, constant, faithful; to which his interlocutor retorted with some vivacity that it was faithful to sad trash. He justified this sally by declaring the play in rehearsal sad trash, clumsy mediocrity with all its convenience gone, and that the fault was the want of life in the critical sense of the public, which was ignobly docile, opening its mouth for its dose like the pupils of Dotheboys Hall; not insisting on something different, on a fresh brew altogether. Dashwood asked him if he then wished their friend to go on playing for ever a part she had repeated more than eighty nights on end: he thought the modern “run” was just what he had heard him denounce in Paris as the disease the theatre was dying of. This imputation Peter quite denied, wanting to know if she couldn’t change to something less stale than the greatest staleness of all. Dashwood opined that Miss Rooth must have a strong part and that there happened to be one for her in the before-mentioned venerable novelty. She had to take what she could get—she wasn’t a person to cry for the moon. This was a stop-gap—she would try other things later; she would have to look round her; you couldn’t have a new piece, one that would do, left at your door every day with the milk. On one point Sherringham’s mind might be at rest: Miss Rooth was a woman who would do every blessed thing there was to do. Give her time and she would walk straight through the repertory. She was a woman who would do this—she was a woman who would do that: her spokesman employed this phrase so often that Peter, nervous, got up and threw an unsmoked cigarette away. Of course she was a woman; there was no need of his saying it a hundred times.

As for the repertory, the young man went on, the most beautiful girl in the world could give but what she had. He explained, after their visitor sat down again, that the noise made by Miss Rooth was not exactly what this admirer appeared to suppose. Sherringham had seen the house the night before and would recognise that, though good, it was very far from great. She had done very well, it was all right, but she had never gone above a point which Dashwood expressed in pounds sterling, to the edification of his companion, who vaguely thought the figure high. Peter remembered that he had been unable to get a stall, but Dashwood insisted that “Miriam” had not leaped into commanding fame: that was a thing that never happened in fact—it happened only in grotesque works of fiction. She had attracted notice, unusual notice for a woman whose name, the day before, had never been heard of: she was recognised as having, for a novice, extraordinary cleverness and confidence—in addition to her looks, of course, which were the thing that had really fetched the crowd. But she hadn’t been the talk of London; she had only been the talk of Gabriel Nash. He wasn’t London, more was the pity. He knew the esthetic people—the worldly, semi-smart ones, not the frumpy, sickly lot who wore dirty drapery; and the esthetic people had run after her. Mr. Dashwood sketchily instructed the pilgrim from Paris as to the different sects in the great religion of beauty, and was able to give him the particular “note” of the critical clique to which Miriam had begun so quickly to owe it that she had a vogue. The information made our friend feel very ignorant of the world, very uninitiated and buried in his little professional hole. Dashwood warned him that it would be a long time before the general public would wake up to Miss Rooth, even after she had waked up to herself; she would have to do some really big thing first. 他们 knew it was in her, the big thing—Peter and he and even poor Nash—because they had seen her as no one else had; but London never took any one on trust—it had to be cash down. It would take their young lady two or three years to pay out her cash and get her equivalent. But of course the equivalent would be simply a gold-mine. Within its limits, however, certainly, the mark she had made was already quite a fairy-tale: there was magic in the way she had concealed from the first her want of experience. She absolutely made you think she had a lot of it, more than any one else. Mr. Dashwood repeated several times that she was a cool hand—a deucedly cool hand, and that he watched her himself, saw ideas come to her, saw her have different notions, and more or less put them to the test, on different nights. She was always alive—she liked it herself. She gave him ideas, long as he had been on the stage. Naturally she had a great deal to learn, no end even of quite basic things; a cosmopolite like Sherringham would understand that a girl of that age, who had never had a friend but her mother—her mother was greater fun than ever now—naturally 将 have. Sherringham winced at being dubbed a “cosmopolite” by his young entertainer, just as he had winced a moment before at hearing himself lumped in esoteric knowledge with Dashwood and Gabriel Nash; but the former of these gentlemen took no account of his sensibility while he enumerated a few of the elements of the “basic.” He was a mixture of acuteness and innocent fatuity; and Peter had to recognise in him a rudiment or two of criticism when he said that the wonderful thing in the girl was that she learned so fast—learned something every night, learned from the same old piece a lot more than any one else would have learned from twenty. “That’s what it is to be a genius,” Peter concurred. “Genius is only the art of getting your experience fast, of stealing it, as it were; and in this sense Miss Rooth’s a regular brigand.” Dashwood condoned the subtlety and added less analytically, “Oh she’ll do!” It was exactly in these simple words, addressed to her, that her other admirer had phrased the same truth; yet he didn’t enjoy hearing them on his neighbour’s lips: they had a profane, patronising sound and suggested displeasing equalities.

The two men sat in silence for some minutes, watching a fat robin hop about on the little seedy lawn; at the end of which they heard a vehicle stop on the other side of the garden-wall and the voices of occupants alighting. “Here they come, the dear creatures,” said Basil Dashwood without moving; and from where they sat Peter saw the small door in the wall pushed open. The dear creatures were three in number, for a gentleman had added himself to Mrs. Rooth and her daughter. As soon as Miriam’s eyes took in her Parisian friend she fell into a large, droll, theatrical attitude and, seizing her mother’s arm, exclaimed passionately: “Look where he sits, the author of all my woes—cold, cynical, cruel!” She was evidently in the highest spirits; of which Mrs. Rooth partook as she cried indulgently, giving her a slap, “Oh get along, you gypsy!”

“She’s always up to something,” Dashwood laughed as Miriam, radiant and with a conscious stage tread, glided toward Sherringham as if she were coming to the footlights. He rose slowly from his seat, looking at her and struck with her beauty: he had been impatient to see her, yet in the act his impatience had had a disconcerting check.

He had had time to note that the man who had come in with her was Gabriel Nash, and this recognition brought a low sigh to his lips as he held out his hand to her—a sigh expressive of the sudden sense that his interest in her now could only be a gross community. Of course that didn’t matter, since he had set it, at the most, such rigid limits; but he none the less felt vividly reminded that it would be public and notorious, that inferior people would be inveterately mixed up with it, that she had crossed the line and sold herself to the vulgar, making him indeed only one of an equalised multitude. The way Nash turned up there just when he didn’t want to see him proved how complicated a thing it was to have a friendship with a young woman so clearly booked for renown. He quite forgot that the intruder had had this object of interest long before his own first view of it and had been present at that passage, which he had in a measure brought about. Had Sherringham not been so cut out to make trouble of this particular joy he might have found some adequate assurance that their young hostess distinguished him in the way in which, taking his hand in both of hers, she looked up at him and murmured, “Dear old master!” Then as if this were not acknowledgment enough she raised her head still higher and, whimsically, gratefully, charmingly, almost nobly, kissed him on the lips before the other men, before the good mother whose “Oh you honest creature!” made everything regular.

If he was ruffled by some of her conditions there was thus comfort and consolation to be drawn from others, beside the essential fascination—so small the doubt of that now—of the young lady’s own society. He spent the afternoon, they all spent the afternoon, and the occasion reminded him of pages in 威廉·迈斯特（Wilhelm Meister）. He himself could pass for Wilhelm, and if Mrs. Rooth had little resemblance to Mignon, Miriam was remarkably like Philina. The movable feast awaiting them—luncheon, tea, dinner?—was delayed two or three hours; but the interval was a source of gaiety, for they all smoked cigarettes in the garden and Miriam gave striking illustrations of the parts she was studying. Peter was in the state of a man whose toothache has suddenly stopped—he was exhilarated by the cessation of pain. The pain had been the effort to remain in Paris after the creature in the world in whom he was most interested had gone to London, and the balm of seeing her now was the measure of the previous soreness.

Gabriel Nash had, as usual, plenty to say, and he talked of Nick’s picture so long that Peter wondered if he did it on purpose to vex him. They went in and out of the house; they made excursions to see what form the vague meal was taking; and Sherringham got half an hour alone, or virtually alone, with the mistress of his unsanctioned passion—drawing her publicly away from the others and making her sit with him in the most sequestered part of the little gravelled grounds. There was summer enough for the trees to shut out the adjacent villas, and Basil Dashwood and Gabriel Nash lounged together at a convenient distance while Nick’s whimsical friend dropped polished pebbles, sometimes audibly splashing, into the deep well of the histrionic simplicity. Miriam confessed that like all comedians they ate at queer hours; she sent Dashwood in for biscuits and sherry—she proposed sending him round to the grocer’s in the Circus Road for superior wine. Peter judged him the factotum of the little household: he knew where the biscuits were kept and the state of the grocer’s account. When he himself congratulated her on having so useful an inmate she said genially, but as if the words disposed of him, “Oh he’s awfully handy.” To this she added, “You’re not, you know”; resting the kindest, most pitying eyes on him. The sensation they gave him was as sweet as if she had stroked his cheek, and her manner was responsive even to tenderness. She called him “Dear master” again and again, and still often “Cher maître,” and appeared to express gratitude and reverence by every intonation.

“You’re doing the humble dependent now,” he said: “you do it beautifully, as you do everything.” She replied that she didn’t make it humble enough—she couldn’t; she was too proud, too insolent in her triumph. She liked that, the triumph, too much, and she didn’t mind telling him she was perfectly happy. Of course as yet the triumph was very limited; but success was success, whatever its quantity; the dish was a small one but had the right taste. Her imagination had already bounded beyond the first phase unexpectedly great as this had been: her position struck her as modest compared with the probably future now vivid to her. Peter had never seen her so soft and sympathetic; she had insisted in Paris that her personal character was that of the good girl—she used the term in a fine loose way—and it was impossible to be a better girl than she showed herself this pleasant afternoon. She was full of gossip and anecdote and drollery; she had exactly the air he would have wished her to have—that of thinking of no end of things to tell him. It was as if she had just returned from a long journey and had had strange adventures and made wonderful discoveries. She began to speak of this and that, then broke off to speak of something else; she talked of the theatre, of the “critics,” and above all of London, of the people she had met and the extraordinary things they said to her, of the parts she was going to take up, of lots of new ideas that had come to her about the art of comedy. She wanted to do comedy now—to do the comedy of London life. She was delighted to find that seeing more of the world suggested things to her; they came straight from the fact, from nature, if you could call it nature; she was thus convinced more than ever that the artist ought to 生活 so as to get on with his business, gathering ideas and lights from experience—ought to welcome any experience that would give him lights. But work of course 是 experience, and everything in one’s life that was good was work. That was the jolly thing in the actor’s trade—it made up for other elements that were odious: if you only kept your eyes open nothing could happen to you that wouldn’t be food for observation and grist to your mill, showing you how people looked and moved and spoke, cried and grimaced, writhed and dissimulated, in given situations. She saw all round her things she wanted to “do”—London bristled with them if you had eyes to see. She was fierce to know why people didn’t take them up, put them into plays and parts, give one a chance with them; she expressed her sharp impatience of the general literary 贝蒂斯. She had never been chary of this particular displeasure, and there were moments—it was an old story and a subject of frank raillery to Sherringham—when to hear her you might have thought there was no cleverness anywhere but in her own splendid impatience. She wanted tremendous things done that she might use them, but she didn’t pretend to say exactly what they were to be, nor even approximately how they were to be handled: her ground was rather that if 她 only had a pen—it was exasperating to have to explain! She mainly contented herself with the view that nothing had really been touched: she felt that more and more as she saw more of people’s goings-on.

Peter went to her theatre again that evening and indeed made no scruple of going every night for a week. Rather perhaps I should say he made a scruple, but a high part of the pleasure of his life during these arbitrary days was to overcome it. The only way to prove he could overcome it was to go; and he was satisfied, after he had been seven times, not only with the spectacle on the stage but with his perfect independence. He knew no satiety, however, with the spectacle on the stage, which induced for him but a further curiosity. Miriam’s performance was a thing alive, with a power to change, to grow, to develop, to beget new forms of the same life. Peter contributed to it in his amateurish way and watched with solicitude the effect of his care and the fortune of his hints. He talked it over in Balaklava Place, suggested modifications and variations worth trying. She professed herself thankful for any refreshment that could be administered to her interest in 约朗德, and with an energy that showed large resource touched up her part and drew several new airs from it. Peter’s liberties bore on her way of uttering certain speeches, the intonations that would have more beauty or make the words mean more. She had her ideas, or rather she had her instincts, which she defended and illustrated, with a vividness superior to argument, by a happy pictorial phrase or a snatch of mimicry; but she was always for trying; she liked experiments and caught at them, and she was especially thankful when some one gave her a showy reason, a plausible formula, in a case where she only stood on an intuition. She pretended to despise reasons and to like and dislike at her sovereign pleasure; but she always honoured the exotic gift, so that Sherringham was amused with the liberal way she produced it, as if she had been a naked islander rejoicing in a present of crimson cloth.

Day after day he spent most of his time in her society, and Miss Laura Lumley’s recent habitation became the place in London to which his thoughts and his steps were most attached. He was highly conscious of his not now carrying out that principle of abstention he had brought to such maturity before leaving Paris; but he contented himself with a much cruder justification of this lapse than he would have thought adequate in advance. It consisted simply in the idea that to be identified with the first fresh exploits of a young genius was a delightful experience. What was the harm of it when the genius was real? His main security was thus that his relations with Miriam had been placed under the protection of that idea of approved extravagance. In this department they made a very creditable figure and required much less watching and pruning than when it had been his effort to adjust them to a worldly plan. He had in fine a sense of real wisdom when he pronounced it surely enough that this momentary intellectual participation in the girl’s dawning fame was a charming thing. Charming things were not frequent enough in a busy man’s life to be kicked out of the way. Balaklava Place, looked at in this philosophic way, became almost idyllic: it gave Peter the pleasantest impression he had ever had of London.

The season happened to be remarkably fine; the temperature was high, but not so high as to keep people from the theatre. Miriam’s “business” visibly increased, so that the question of putting on the second play underwent some revision. The girl persisted, showing in her persistence a temper of which Peter had already caught some sharp gleams. It was plain that through her career she would expect to carry things with a high hand. Her managers and agents wouldn’t find her an easy victim or a calculable force; but the public would adore her, surround her with the popularity that attaches to a good-natured and free-spoken princess, and her comrades would have a kindness for her because she wouldn’t be selfish. They too would, besides representing her body-guard, form in a manner a portion of her affectionate public. This was the way her friend read the signs, liking her whimsical tolerance of some of her vulgar playfellows almost well enough to forgive their presence in Balaklava Place, where they were a sore trial to her mother, who wanted her to multiply her points of contact only with the higher orders. There were hours when Peter seemed to make out that her principal relation to the proper world would be to have within two or three years a grand battle with it resulting in its taking her, should she let it have her at all, absolutely on her own terms: a picture which led our young man to ask himself with a helplessness that was not exempt, as he perfectly knew, from absurdity, what part he should find himself playing in such a contest and if it would be reserved to him to be the more ridiculous as a peacemaker or as a heavy backer.

“She might know any one she would, and the only person she appears to take any pleasure in is that dreadful Miss Rover,” Mrs. Rooth whimpered to him more than once—leading him thus to recognise in the young lady so designated the principal complication of Balaklava Place. Miss Rover was a little actress who played at Miriam’s theatre, combining with an unusual aptitude for delicate comedy a less exceptional absence of rigour in private life. She was pretty and quick and brave, and had a fineness that Miriam professed herself already in a position to estimate as rare. She had no control of her inclinations, yet sometimes they were wholly laudable, like the devotion she had formed for her beautiful colleague, whom she admired not only as an ornament of the profession but as a being altogether of a more fortunate essence. She had had an idea that real ladies were “nasty,” but Miriam was not nasty, and who could gainsay that Miriam was a real lady? The girl justified herself to her patron from Paris, who had found no fault with her; she knew how much her mother feared the proper world wouldn’t come in if they knew that the improper, in the person of pretty Miss Rover, was on the ground. What did she care who came and who didn’t, and what was to be gained by receiving half the snobs in London? People would have to take her exactly as they found her—that they would have to learn; and they would be much mistaken if they thought her capable of turning snob too for the sake of their sweet company. She didn’t pretend to be anything but what she meant to be, the best general actress of her time; and what had that to do with her seeing or not seeing a poor ignorant girl who had loved—well, she needn’t say what Fanny had done. They had met in the way of business; she didn’t say she would have run after her. She had liked her because she wasn’t a slick, and when Fanny Rover had asked her quite wistfully if she mightn’t come and see her and like her she hadn’t bristled with scandalised virtue. Miss Rover wasn’t a bit more stupid or more ill-natured than any one else; it would be time enough to shut the door when she should become so.

Peter commended even to extravagance the liberality of such comradeship; said that of course a woman didn’t go into that profession to see how little she could swallow. She was right to live with the others so long as they were at all possible, and it was for her and only for her to judge how long that might be. This was rather heroic on his part, for his assumed detachment from the girl’s personal life still left him a margin for some forms of uneasiness. It would have made in his spirit a great difference for the worse that the woman he loved, and for whom he wished no baser lover than himself, should have embraced the prospect of consorting only with the cheaper kind. It was all very well, but Fanny Rover was simply a rank 卡博汀, and that sort of association was an odd training for a young woman who was to have been good enough—he couldn’t forget that, but kept remembering it as if it might still have a future use—to be his admired wife. Certainly he ought to have thought of such things before he permitted himself to become so interested in a theatrical nature. His heroism did him service, however, for the hour; it helped him by the end of the week to feel quite broken in to Miriam’s little circle. What helped him most indeed was to reflect that she would get tired of a good many of its members herself in time; for if it was not that they were shocking—very few of them shone with that intense light—they could yet be thoroughly trusted in the long run to bore you.

There was a lovely Sunday in particular, spent by him almost all in Balaklava Place—he arrived so early—when, in the afternoon, every sort of odd person dropped in. Miriam held a reception in the little garden and insisted on all the company’s staying to supper. Her mother shed tears to Peter, in the desecrated house, because they had accepted, Miriam and she, an invitation—and in Cromwell Road too—for the evening. Miriam had now decreed they shouldn’t go—they would have so much better fun with their good friends at home. She was sending off a message—it was a terrible distance—by a cabman, and Peter had the privilege of paying the messenger. Basil Dashwood, in another vehicle, proceeded to an hotel known to him, a mile away, for supplementary provisions, and came back with a cold ham and a dozen of champagne. It was all very Bohemian and dishevelled and delightful, very supposedly droll and enviable to outsiders; and Miriam told anecdotes and gave imitations of the people she would have met if she had gone out, so that no one had a sense of loss—the two occasions were fantastically united. Mrs. Rooth drank champagne for consolation, though the consolation was imperfect when she remembered she might have drunk it, though not quite so much perhaps, in Cromwell Road.

Taken in connection with the evening before, the day formed for our friend the most complete exhibition of his young woman he had yet enjoyed. He had been at the theatre, to which the Saturday night happened to have brought the very fullest house she had played to, and he came early to Balaklava Place, to tell her once again—he had told her half-a-dozen times the evening before—that with the excitement of her biggest audience she had surpassed herself, acted with remarkable intensity. It pleased her to hear this, and the spirit with which she interpreted the signs of the future and, during an hour he spent alone with her, Mrs. Rooth being upstairs and Basil Dashwood luckily absent, treated him to twenty specimens of feigned passion and character, was beyond any natural abundance he had yet seen in a woman. The impression could scarcely have been other if she had been playing wild snatches to him at the piano: the bright up-darting flame of her talk rose and fell like an improvisation on the keys. Later, the rest of the day, he could as little miss the good grace with which she fraternised with her visitors, finding always the fair word for each—the key to a common ease, the right turn to keep vanity quiet and make humility brave. It was a wonderful expenditure of generous, nervous life. But what he read in it above all was the sense of success in youth, with the future loose and big, and the action of that charm on the faculties. Miriam’s limited past had yet pinched her enough to make emancipation sweet, and the emancipation had come at last in an hour. She had stepped into her magic shoes, divined and appropriated everything they could help her to, become in a day a really original contemporary. He was of course not less conscious of that than Nick Dormer had been when in the cold light of his studio this more detached observer saw too how she had altered.

But the great thing to his mind, and during these first days the irresistible seduction of the theatre, was that she was a rare revelation of beauty. Beauty was the principle of everything she did and of the way she unerringly did it—an exquisite harmony of line and motion and attitude and tone, what was at once most general and most special in her performance. Accidents and instincts played together to this end and constituted something that was independent of her talent or of her merit in a given case, and which as a value to Peter’s imagination was far superior to any merit and any talent. He could but call it a felicity and an importance incalculable, and but know that it connected itself with universal values. To see this force in operation, to sit within its radius and feel it shift and revolve and change and never fail, was a corrective to the depression, the humiliation, the bewilderment of life. It transported our troubled friend from the vulgar hour and the ugly fact; drew him to something that had no warrant but its sweetness, no name nor place save as the pure, the remote, the antique. It was what most made him say to himself “Oh hang it, what does it matter?” when he reflected that an 严肃的人, as they said in Paris, rather gave himself away, as they said in America, by going every night to the same sordid stall at which all the world might stare. It was what kept him from doing anything but hover round Miriam—kept him from paying any other visits, from attending to any business, from going back to Calcutta Gardens. It was a spell he shrank intensely from breaking and the cause of a hundred postponements, confusions, and absurdities. It put him in a false position altogether, but it made of the crooked little stucco villa in Saint John’s Wood a place in the upper air, commanding the prospect; a nest of winged liberties and ironies far aloft above the huddled town. One should live at altitudes when one could—they braced and simplified; and for a happy interval he never touched the earth.

It was not that there were no influences tending at moments to drag him down—an abasement from which he escaped only because he was up so high. We have seen that Basil Dashwood could affect him at times as a chunk of wood tied to his ankle—this through the circumstance that he made Miriam’s famous conditions, those of the public exhibition of her genius, seem small and prosaic; so that Peter had to remind himself how much this smallness was perhaps involved in their being at all. She carried his imagination off into infinite spaces, whereas she carried Dashwood’s only into the box-office and the revival of plays that were barbarously bad. The worst was its being so open to him to see that a sharp young man really in the business might know better than he. Another vessel of superior knowledge—he talked, that is, as if he knew better than any one—was Gabriel Nash, who lacked no leisure for hatefully haunting Balaklava Place, or in other words appeared to enjoy the same command of his time as Peter Sherringham. The pilgrim from Paris regarded him with mingled feelings, for he had not forgotten the contentious character of their first meeting or the degree to which he had been moved to urge upon Nick Dormer’s consideration that his talkative friend was probably one of the most eminent of asses. This personage turned up now as an admirer of the charming creature he had scoffed at, and there was much to exasperate in the smooth gloss of his inconsistency, at which he never cast an embarrassed glance. He practised indeed such loose license of regard to every question that it was difficult, in vulgar parlance, to “have” him; his sympathies hummed about like bees in a garden, with no visible plan, no economy in their flight. He thought meanly of the modern theatre and yet had discovered a fund of satisfaction in the most promising of its exponents; and Peter could more than once but say to him that he should really, to keep his opinions at all in hand, attach more value to the stage or less to the interesting a tress. Miriam took her perfect ease at his expense and treated him as the most abject of her slaves: all of which was worth seeing as an exhibition, on Nash’s part, of the beautifully imperturbable. When Peter all too grossly pronounced him “damned” impudent he always felt guilty later on of an injustice—Nash had so little the air of a man with something to gain. He was aware nevertheless of a certain itching in his boot-toe when his fellow-visitor brought out, and for the most part to Miriam herself, in answer to any charge of tergiversation, “Oh it’s all right; it’s the voice, you know—the enchanting voice!” Nash meant by this, as indeed he more fully set forth, that he came to the theatre or to the villa simply to treat his ear to the sound—the richest then to be heard on earth, as he maintained—issuing from Miriam’s lips. Its richness was quite independent of the words she might pronounce or the poor fable they might subserve, and if the pleasure of hearing her in public was the greater by reason of the larger volume of her utterance it was still highly agreeable to see her at home, for it was there the strictly mimetic gift he freely conceded to her came out most.

He was perpetually in the field, sociable, amiable, communicative, inveterately contradicted but never confounded, ready to talk to any one about anything and making disagreement—of which he left the responsibility wholly to others—a basis of harmony. Every one knew what he thought of the theatrical profession, and yet who could say he didn’t regard, its members as embodiments of comedy when he touched with such a hand the spring of their foibles?—touched it with an art that made even Peter laugh, notwithstanding his attitude of reserve where this interloper was concerned. At any rate, though he had committed himself as to their general fatuity he put up with their company, for the sake of Miriam’s vocal vibrations, with a practical philosophy that was all his own. And she frankly took him for her supreme, her incorrigible adorer, masquerading as a critic to save his vanity and tolerated for his secret constancy in spite of being a bore. He was meanwhile really not a bore to Peter, who failed of the luxury of being able to regard him as one. He had seen too many strange countries and curious things, observed and explored too much, to be void of illustration. Peter had a sense that if he himself was in the grandes espacesGabriel had probably, as a finer critic, a still wider range. If among Miriam’s associates Mr. Dashwood dragged him down, the other main sharer of his privilege challenged him rather to higher and more fantastic flights. If he saw the girl in larger relations than the young actor, who mainly saw her in ill-written parts, Nash went a step further and regarded her, irresponsibly and sublimely, as a priestess of harmony, a figure with which the vulgar ideas of success and failure had nothing to do. He laughed at her “parts,” holding that without them she would still be great. Peter envied him his power to content himself with the pleasures he could get; Peter had a shrewd impression that contentment wouldn’t be the final sweetener of his own repast.

Above all Nash held his attention by a constant element of easy reference to Nick Dormer, who, as we know, had suddenly become much more interesting to his kinsman. Peter found food for observation, and in some measure for perplexity, in the relations of all these clever people with each other. He knew why his sister, who had a personal impatience of unapplied ideas, had not been agreeably affected by Miriam’s prime patron and had not felt happy about the attribution of value to “such people” by the man she was to marry. This was a side on which he had no desire to resemble Julia, for he needed no teaching to divine that Nash must have found her accessible to no light—none even about himself. He, Peter, would have been sorry to have to confess he couldn’t more or less understand him. He understood furthermore that Miriam, in Nick’s studio, might very well have appeared to Julia a formidable force. She was younger and would have “seen nothing,” but she had quite as much her own resources and was beautiful enough to have made Nick compare her with the lady of Harsh even if he had been in love with that benefactress—a pretension as to which her brother, as we know, entertained doubts.

Peter at all events saw for many days nothing of his cousin, though it might have been said that Nick participated by implication at least in the life of Balaklava Place. Had he given Julia tangible grounds and was his unexpectedly fine rendering of Miriam an act of virtual infidelity? In that case to what degree was the girl to be regarded as an accomplice in his defection, and what was the real nature of Miriam’s esteem for her new and (as he might be called) distinguished ally? These questions would have given Peter still more to think about had he not flattered himself he had made up his mind that they concerned Nick and his sitter herself infinitely more than they concerned any one else. That young lady meanwhile was personally before him, so that he had no need to consult for his pleasure his fresh recollection of the portrait. But he thought of this striking production each time he thought of his so good-looking kinsman’s variety of range. And that happened often, for in his hearing Miriam often discussed the happy artist and his possibilities with Gabriel Nash, and Nash broke out about them to all who might hear. Her own tone on the subject was uniform: she kept it on record to a degree slightly irritating that Mr. Dormer had been unforgettably—Peter particularly noted “unforgettably”—kind to her. She never mentioned Julia’s irruption to Julia’s brother; she only referred to the portrait, with inscrutable amenity, as a direct consequence of this gentleman’s fortunate suggestion that first day at Madame Carré’s. Nash showed, however, such a disposition to dwell sociably and luminously on the peculiarly interesting character of what he called Dormer’s predicament and on the fine suspense it was fitted to kindle in the breast of the truly discerning, that Peter wondered, as I have already hinted, if this insistence were not a subtle perversity, a devilish little invention to torment a man whose jealousy was presumable. Yet his fellow-pilgrim struck him as on the whole but scantly devilish and as still less occupied with the prefigurement of so plain a man’s emotions. Indeed he threw a glamour of romance over Nick; tossed off toward him such illuminating yet mystifying references that they operated quite as a bait to curiosity, invested with amusement the view of the possible, any wish to follow out the chain of events. He learned from Gabriel that Nick was still away, and he then felt he could almost submit to instruction, to initiation. The loose charm of these days was troubled, however—it ceased to be idyllic—when late on the evening of the second Sunday he walked away with Nash southward from Saint John’s Wood. For then something came out.

It mattered not so much what the doctors thought—and Sir Matthew Hope, the greatest of them all, had been down twice in one week—as that Mr. Chayter, the omniscient butler, declared with all the authority of his position and his experience that Mr. Carteret was very bad indeed. Nick Dormer had a long talk with him—it lasted six minutes—the day he hurried to Beauclere in response to a telegram. It was Mr. Chayter who had taken upon himself to telegraph in spite of the presence in the house of Mr. Carteret’s nearest relation and only surviving sister, Mrs. Lendon. This lady, a large, mild, healthy woman with a heavy tread, a person who preferred early breakfasts, uncomfortable chairs and the advertisement-sheet of the 时, had arrived the week before and was awaiting the turn of events. She was a widow and occupied in Cornwall a house nine miles from a station, which had, to make up for this inconvenience as she had once told Nick, a fine old herbaceous garden. She was extremely fond of an herbaceous garden—her main consciousness was of herbaceous possibilities. Nick had often seen her—she had always come to Beauclere once or twice a year. Her sojourn there made no great difference; she was only an “Urania dear” for Mr. Carteret to look across the table at when, on the close of dinner, it was time for her to retire. She went out of the room always as if it were after some one else; and on the gentlemen’s “joining” her later—the junction was not very close—she received them with an air of gratified surprise.

Chayter honoured Nick with a regard which approached, though not improperly competing with it, the affection his master had placed on the same young head, and Chayter knew a good many things. Among them he knew his place; but it was wonderful how little that knowledge had rendered him inaccessible to other kinds. He took upon himself to send for Nick without speaking to Mrs. Lendon, whose influence was now a good deal like that of some large occasional piece of furniture introduced on a contingency. She was one of the solid conveniences that a comfortable house would have, but you couldn’t talk with a mahogany sofa or a folding screen. Chayter knew how much she had “had” from her brother, and how much her two daughters had each received on marriage; and he was of the opinion that it was quite enough, especially considering the society in which they—you could scarcely call it—moved. He knew beyond this that they would all have more, and that was why he hesitated little about communicating with Nick. If Mrs. Lendon should be ruffled at the intrusion of a young man who neither was the child of a cousin nor had been formally adopted, Chayter was parliamentary enough to see that the forms of debate were observed. He had indeed a slightly compassionate sense that Mrs. Lendon was not easily ruffled. She was always down an extraordinary time before breakfast—Chayter refused to take it as in the least admonitory—but usually went straight into the garden as if to see that none of the plants had been stolen in the night, and had in the end to be looked for by the footman in some out-of-the-way spot behind the shrubbery, where, plumped upon the ground, she was mostly doing something “rum” to a flower.

Mr. Carteret himself had expressed no wishes. He slept most of the time—his failure at the last had been sudden, but he was rheumatic and seventy-seven—and the situation was in Chayter’s hands. Sir Matthew Hope had opined even on a second visit that he would rally and go on, in rudimentary comfort, some time longer; but Chayter took a different and a still more intimate view. Nick was embarrassed: he scarcely knew what he was there for from the moment he could give his good old friend no conscious satisfaction. The doctors, the nurses, the servants, Mrs. Lendon, and above all the settled equilibrium of the square thick house, where an immutable order appeared to slant through the polished windows and tinkle in the quieter bells, all these things represented best the kind of supreme solace to which the master was most accessible.

It was judged best that for the first day Nick should not be introduced into the darkened room. This was the decision of the two decorous nurses, of whom the visitor had had a glimpse and who, with their black uniforms and fresh faces of business, suggested the barmaid emulating the nun. He was depressed and restless, felt himself in a false position, and thought it lucky Mrs. Lendon had powers of placid acceptance. They were old acquaintances: she treated him formally, anxiously, but it was not the rigour of mistrust. It was much more an expression of remote Cornish respect for young abilities and distinguished connexions, inasmuch as she asked him rather yearningly about Lady Agnes and about Lady Flora and Lady Elizabeth. He knew she was kind and ungrudging, and his main regret was for his meagre knowledge and poor responses in regard to his large blank aunts. He sat in the garden with newspapers and looked at the lowered blinds in Mr. Carteret’s windows; he wandered round the abbey with cigarettes and lightened his tread and felt grave, wishing everything might be over. He would have liked much to see Mr. Carteret again, but had no desire that Mr. Carteret should see him. In the evening he dined with Mrs. Lendon, and she talked to him at his request and as much as she could about her brother’s early years, his beginnings of life. She was so much younger that they appeared to have been rather a tradition of her own youth; but her talk made Nick feel how tremendously different Mr. Carteret had been at that period from what he, Nick, was to-day. He had published at the age of thirty a little volume, thought at the time wonderfully clever, called The Incidence of Rates; but Nick had not yet collected the material for any such treatise. After dinner Mrs. Lendon, who was in merciless full dress, retired to the drawing-room, where at the end of ten minutes she was followed by Nick, who had remained behind only because he thought Chayter would expect it. Mrs. Lendon almost shook hands with him again and then Chayter brought in coffee. Almost in no time afterwards he brought in tea, and the occupants of the drawing-room sat for a slow half-hour, during which the lady looked round at the apartment with a sigh and said: “Don’t you think poor Charles had exquisite taste?”

Fortunately the “local man” was at this moment ushered in. He had been upstairs and he smiled himself in with the remark: “It’s quite wonderful, quite wonderful.” What was wonderful was a marked improvement in the breathing, a distinct indication of revival. The doctor had some tea and chatted for a quarter of an hour in a way that showed what a “good” manner and how large an experience a local man could have. When he retired Nick walked out with him. The doctor’s house was near by and he had come on foot. He left the visitor with the assurance that in all probability Mr. Carteret, who was certainly picking up, would be able to see him on the morrow. Our young man turned his steps again to the abbey and took a stroll about it in the starlight. It never looked so huge as when it reared itself into the night, and Nick had never felt more fond of it than on this occasion, more comforted and confirmed by its beauty. When he came back he was readmitted by Chayter, who surveyed him in respectful deprecation of the frivolity which had led him to attempt to help himself through such an evening in such a way.

He went to bed early and slept badly, which was unusual with him; but it was a pleasure to him to be told almost as soon as he appeared that Mr. Carteret had asked for him. He went in to see him and was struck with the change in his appearance. He had, however, spent a day with him just after the New Year and another at the beginning of March, and had then noted in him the menace of the final weakness. A week after Julia Dallow’s departure for the Continent he had again devoted several hours to the place and to the intention of telling his old friend how the happy event had been brought to naught—the advantage he had been so good as to desire for him and to make the condition of a splendid gift. Before this, for a few days, he had been keeping back, to announce it personally, the good news that Julia had at last set their situation in order: he wanted to enjoy the old man’s pleasure—so sore a trial had her arbitrary behaviour been for a year. If she had offered Mr. Carteret a conciliatory visit before Christmas, had come down from London one day to lunch with him, this had but contributed to make him subsequently exhibit to poor Nick, as the victim of her elegant perversity, a great deal of earnest commiseration in a jocose form. Upon his honour, as he said, she was as clever and “specious” a woman—this was his odd expression—as he had ever seen in his life. The merit of her behaviour on that occasion, as Nick knew, was that she had not been specious at her lover’s expense: she had breathed no doubt of his public purpose and had had the strange grace to say that in truth she was older than he, so that it was only fair to give his affections time to mature. But when Nick saw their hopeful host after the rupture at which we have been present he found him in no state to deal with worries: he was seriously ailing, it was the beginning of worse things and not a time to put his attention to the stretch. After this excursion Nick had gone back to town saddened by his patient’s now unmistakably settled decline, but rather relieved that he had had himself to make no confession. It had even occurred to him that the need for making one at all might never come up. Certainly it wouldn’t if the ebb of Mr. Carteret’s strength should continue unchecked. He might pass away in the persuasion that everything would happen as he wished it, though indeed without enriching Nick on his wedding-day to the tune he had promised. Very likely he had made legal arrangements in virtue of which his bounty would take effect in case of the right event and in that case alone. At present Nick had a bigger, an uglier truth to tell—the last three days had made the difference; but, oddly enough, though his responsibility had increased his reluctance to speak had vanished: he was positively eager to clear up a situation over which it was not consistent with his honour to leave a shade.

The doctor had been right on coming in after dinner; it was clear in the morning that they had not seen the last of Mr. Carteret’s power of picking up. Chayter, who had waited on him, refused austerely to change his opinion with every change in his master’s temperature; but the nurses took the cheering view that it would do their charge good for Mr. Dormer to sit with him a little. One of them remained in the room in the deep window-seat, and Nick spent twenty minutes by the bedside. It was not a case for much conversation, but his helpless host seemed still to like to look at him. There was life in his kind old eyes, a stir of something that would express itself yet in some further wise provision. He laid his liberal hand on Nick’s with a confidence that showed how little it was really disabled. He said very little, and the nurse had recommended that the visitor himself should not overflow in speech; but from time to time he murmured with a faint smile: “To-night’s division, you know—you mustn’t miss it.” There was probably to be no division that night, as happened, but even Mr. Carteret’s aberrations were parliamentary. Before Nick withdrew he had been able to assure him he was rapidly getting better and that such valuable hours, the young man’s own, mustn’t be wasted. “Come back on Friday if they come to the second reading.” These were the words with which Nick was dismissed, and at noon the doctor said the invalid was doing very well, but that Nick had better leave him quiet for that day. Our young man accordingly determined to go up to town for the night, and even, should he receive no summons, for the next day. He arranged with Chayter that he should be telegraphed to if Mr. Carteret were either better or worse.

“Oh he can’t very well be worse, sir,” Chayter replied inexorably; but he relaxed so far as to remark that of course it wouldn’t do for Nick to neglect the House.

“Oh the House!”—Nick was ambiguous and avoided the butler’s eye. It would be easy enough to tell Mr. Carteret, but nothing would have sustained him in the effort to make a clean breast to Chayter.

He might equivocate about the House, but he had the sense of things to be done awaiting him in London. He telegraphed to his servant and spent that night in Rosedale Road. The things to be done were apparently to be done in his studio: his servant met him there with a large bundle of letters. He failed that evening to stray within two miles of Westminster, and the legislature of his country reassembled without his support. The next morning he received a telegram from Chayter, to whom he had given Rosedale Road as an address. This missive simply informed him that Mr. Carteret wished to see him; it seemed a sign that he was better, though Chayter wouldn’t say so. Nick again accordingly took his place in the train to Beauclere. He had been there very often, but it was present to him that now, after a little, he should go only once more—for a particular dismal occasion. All that was over, everything that belonged to it was over. He learned on his arrival—he saw Mrs. Lendon immediately—that his old friend had continued to pick up. He had expressed a strong and a perfectly rational desire to talk with his expected visitor, and the doctor had said that if it was about anything important they should forbear to oppose him. “He says it’s about something very important,” Mrs. Lendon remarked, resting shy eyes on him while she added that she herself was now sitting with her dear brother. She had sent those wonderful young ladies out to see the abbey. Nick paused with her outside Mr. Carteret’s door. He wanted to say something rather intimate and all soothing to her in return for her homely charity—give her a hint, for which she was far from looking, that practically he had now no interest in her brother’s estate. This was of course impossible; her lack of irony, of play of mind, gave him no pretext, and such a reference would be an insult to her simple discretion. She was either not thinking of his interest at all, or was thinking of it with the tolerance of a nature trained to a hundred decent submissions. Nick looked a little into her mild, uninvestigating eyes, and it came over him supremely that the goodness of these people was singularly pure: they were a part of what was cleanest and sanest and dullest in humanity. There had been just a little mocking inflexion in Mrs. Lendon’s pleasant voice; but it was dedicated to the young ladies in the black uniforms—she could perhaps be humorous about 他们—and not to the theory of the “importance” of Nick’s interview with her brother. His arrested desire to let her know he was not greedy translated itself into a vague friendliness and into the abrupt, rather bewildering words: “I can’t tell you half the good I think of you.” As he passed into Mr. Carteret’s room it occurred to him that she would perhaps interpret this speech as an acknowledgment of obligation—of her good nature in not keeping him away from the rich old man.

The rich old man was propped up on pillows, and in this attitude, beneath the high, spare canopy of his bed, presented himself to Nick’s picture-seeking vision as a figure in a clever composition or a “story.” He had gathered strength, though this strength was not much in his voice; it was mainly in his brighter eyes and his air of being pleased with himself. He put out his hand and said, “I daresay you know why I sent for you”; on which Nick sank into the seat he had occupied the day before, replying that he had been delighted to come, whatever the reason. Mr. Carteret said nothing more about the division or the second reading; he only murmured that they were keeping the newspapers for him. “I’m rather behind—I’m rather behind,” he went on; “but two or three quiet mornings will make it all right. You can go back to-night, you know—you can easily go back.” This was the only thing not quite straight that Nick found in him—his making light of his young friend’s flying to and fro. The young friend sat looking at him with a sense that was half compunction and half the idea of the rare beauty of his face, to which, strangely, the waste of illness now seemed to have restored something of its youth. Mr. Carteret was evidently conscious that this morning he shouldn’t be able to go on long, so that he must be practical and concise. “I daresay you know—you’ve only to remember,” he continued.

“I needn’t tell you what a pleasure it is to me to see you—there can be no better reason than that,” was what Nick could say.

“Hasn’t the year come round—the year of that foolish arrangement?”

Nick thought a little, asking himself if it were really necessary to disturb his companion’s earnest faith. Then the consciousness of the falsity of his own position surged over him again and he replied: “Do you mean the period for which Mrs. Dallow insisted on keeping me dangling? Oh 这是 over!” he almost gaily brought out.

“And are you married—has it come off?” the old man asked eagerly. “How long have I been ill?”

“We’re uncomfortable, unreasonable people, not deserving of your interest. We’re not married,” Nick said.

“Then I haven’t been ill so long?” his host quavered with vague relief.

“Not very long—but things ，那恭喜你， different,” he went on.

The old man’s eyes rested on his—he noted how much larger they appeared. “You mean the arrangements are made—the day’s at hand?”

“There are no arrangements,” Nick smiled. “But why should it trouble you?”

“What then will you do—without arrangements?” The inquiry was plaintive and childlike.

“We shall do nothing—there’s nothing to be done. We’re not to be married—it’s all off,” said poor Nick. Then he added: “Mrs. Dallow has gone abroad.”

The old man, motionless among his pillows, gave a long groan. “Ah I don’t like that.”

“No more do I, sir.”

“What’s the matter? It was so good—so good.”

“It wasn’t good enough for Julia,” Nick declared.

“For Julia? Is Julia so great as that? She told me she had the greatest regard for you. You’re good enough for the best, my dear boy,” Mr. Carteret pursued.

“You don’t know me: I am disappointing. She had, I believe, a great regard for me, but I’ve forfeited her good opinion.”

The old man stared at this cynical announcement: he searched his visitor’s face for some attenuation of the words. But Nick apparently struck him as unashamed, and a faint colour coming into his withered cheek indicated his mystification and alarm. “Have you been unfaithful to her?” he still considerately asked.

“She thinks so—it comes to the same thing. As I told you a year ago, she doesn’t believe in me.”

“You ought to have made her—you ought to have made her,” said Mr. Carteret. Nick was about to plead some reason when he continued: “Do you remember what I told you I’d give you if you did? Do you remember what I told you I’d give you on your wedding-day?”

“You expressed the most generous intentions; and I remember them as much as a man may do who has no wish to remind you of them.”

“The money’s there—I’ve put it aside.”

“I haven’t earned it—I haven’t earned a penny of it. Give it to those who deserve it more,” said Nick.

“I don’t understand, I don’t understand,” Mr. Carteret whimpered, the tears of weakness in his eyes. His face flushed and he added: “I’m not good for much discussion; I’m very much disappointed.”

“I think I may say it’s not my fault—I’ve done what I can,” Nick declared.

“But when people are in love they do more than that.”

“Oh it’s all over!” said our young man; not caring much now, for the moment, how disconcerted his companion might be, so long as he disabused him of the idea that they were partners to a bargain. “We’ve tormented each other and we’ve tormented you—and that’s all that has come of it.”

His companion’s eyes seemed to stare at strange things. “Don’t you care for what I’d have done for you—shouldn’t you have liked it?”

“Of course one likes kindness—one likes money. But it’s all over,” Nick repeated. Then he added: “I fatigue you, I knock you up, with telling you these troubles. I only do so because it seems to me right you should know. But don’t be worried—everything’s for the best.”

He patted the pale hand reassuringly, inclined himself affectionately, but Mr. Carteret was not easily soothed. He had practised lucidity all his life, had expected it of others and had never given his assent to an indistinct proposition. He was weak, yet not too weak to recognise that he had formed a calculation now vitiated by a wrong factor—put his name to a contract of which the other side had not been carried out. More than fifty years of conscious success pressed him to try to understand; he had never muddled his affairs and he couldn’t muddle them now. At the same time he was aware of the necessity of economising his effort, and he would gather that inward force, patiently and almost cunningly, for the right question and the right induction. He was still able to make his agitation reflective, and it could still consort with his high hopes of Nick that he should find himself regarding mere vague, verbal comfort, words in the air, as an inadequate guarantee. So after he had attached his dim vision to his young friend’s face a moment he brought out: “Have you done anything bad?”

“Nothing worse than usual,” Nick laughed.

“Ah everything should have been better than usual.”

“Well, it hasn’t been that—that I must say.”

“Do you sometimes think of your father?” Mr. Carteret continued.

Nick had a decent pause. “完全 make me think of him—you’ve always that pleasant effect.”

“His name would have lived—it mustn’t be lost.”

“Yes, but the competition to-day is terrible,” Nick returned.

His host considered this as if he found a serious flaw in it; after which he began again: “I never supposed you a trifler.”

“I’m determined not to be.”

“I thought her charming. Don’t you love Mrs. Dallow?” Mr. Carteret profoundly asked.

“Don’t put it to me so to-day, for I feel sore and injured. I don’t think she has treated me well.”

“You should have held her—you shouldn’t have let her go,” the old man returned with unexpected fire.

His visitor flushed at this, so strange was it to receive a lesson in energy from a dying octogenarian. Yet after an instant Nick answered with due modesty: “I haven’t been clever enough, no doubt.”

“Don’t say that, don’t say that—!” Mr. Carteret shrunk from the thought. “Don’t think I can allow you any easing-off of that sort. I know how well you’ve done. You’re taking your place. Several gentlemen have told me. Hasn’t she felt a scruple, knowing my settlement on you to depend——?” he pursued.

“Oh she hasn’t known—hasn’t known anything about it.”

“I don’t understand; though I think you explained somewhat a year ago”—the poor gentleman gave it up. “I think she wanted to speak to me—of any intentions I might have in regard to you—the day she was here. Very nicely, very properly she’d have done it, I’m sure. I think her idea was that I ought to make any settlement quite independent of your marrying her or not marrying her. But I tried to convey to her—I don’t know whether she understood me—that I liked her too much for that, I wanted too much to make sure of her.”

“To make sure of me, you mean,” said Nick. “And now after all you see you haven’t.”

“Well, perhaps it was that,” sighed the old man confusedly.

“All this is very bad for you—we’ll talk again,” Nick urged.

“No, no—let us finish it now. I like to know what I’m doing. I shall rest better when I do know. There are great things to be done; the future will be full—the future will be fine,” Mr. Carteret wandered.

“Let me be distinct about this for Julia: that if we hadn’t been sundered her generosity to me would have been complete—she’d have put her great fortune absolutely at my disposal,” Nick said after a moment. “Her consciousness of all that naturally carries her over any particular distress in regard to what won’t come to me now from another source.”

“Ah don’t lose it!” the old man painfully pleaded.

“It’s in your hands, sir,” Nick returned.

“I mean Mrs. Dallow’s fortune. It will be of the highest utility. That was what your father missed.”

“I shall miss more than my father did,” said Nick.

“Shell come back to you—I can’t look at you and doubt that.”

Nick smiled with a slow headshake. “Never, never, never! You look at me, my grand old friend, but you don’t see me. I’m not what you think.”

“What is it—what is it? 有 you been bad?” Mr. Carteret panted.

“No, no; I’m not bad. But I’m different.”

“Different——?”

“Different from my father. Different from Mrs. Dallow. Different from you.”

“Ah why do you perplex me?” the old man moaned. “You’ve done something.”

“I don’t want to perplex you, but I have done something,” said Nick, getting up.

He had heard the door open softly behind him and Mrs. Lendon come forward with precautions. “What has he done—what has he done?” quavered Mr. Carteret to his sister. She, however, after a glance at the patient, motioned their young friend away and, bending over the bed, replied, in a voice expressive at that moment of an ample provision of vital comfort:

“He has only excited you, I’m afraid, a little more than is good for you. Isn’t your dear old head a little too high?” Nick regarded himself as justly banished, and he quitted the room with a ready acquiescence in any power to carry on the scene of which Mrs. Lendon might find herself possessed. He felt distinctly brutal as he heard his host emit a weak exhalation of assent to some change of position. But he would have reproached himself more if he had wished less to guard against the acceptance of an equivalent for duties unperformed. Mr. Carteret had had in his mind, characteristically, the idea of a fine high contract, and there was something more to be said about that.

Nick went out of the house and stayed away for two or three hours, quite ready to regard the place as quieter and safer without him. He haunted the abbey as usual and sat a long time in its simplifying stillness, turning over many things. He came back again at the luncheon-hour, through the garden, and heard, somewhat to his surprise and greatly to his relief, that his host had composed himself promptly enough after their agitating interview. Mrs. Lendon talked at luncheon much as if she expected her brother to be, as she said, really quite fit again. She asked Nick no awkward question; which was uncommonly good of her, he thought, considering that she might have said, “What in the world were you trying to get out of him?” She only reported to our young man that the invalid had every hope of a short interview about half-past seven, a 非常 short one: this gentle emphasis was Mrs. Lendon’s single tribute to the critical spirit. Nick divined that Mr. Carteret’s desire for further explanations was really strong and had been capable of sustaining him through a bad morning, capable even of helping him—it would have been a secret and wonderful momentary conquest of weakness—to pass it off for a good one. He wished he might make a sketch of him, from the life, as he had seen him after breakfast; he had a conviction he could make a strong one, which would be a precious memento. But he shrank from proposing this—the dear man might think it unparliamentary. The doctor had called while Nick was out, and he came again at five o’clock without that inmate’s seeing him. The latter was busy in his room at that hour: he wrote a short letter which took him a long time. But apparently there had been no veto on a resumption of talk, for at half-past seven his friend sent for him. The nurse at the door said, “Only a moment, I hope, sir?” but took him in and then withdrew.

The prolonged daylight was in the room and its occupant again established on his pile of pillows, but with his head a little lower. Nick sat down by him and expressed the hope of not having upset him in the morning; but the old man, with fixed, enlarged eyes, took up their conversation exactly where they had left it. “What have you done—what have you done? Have you associated yourself with some other woman?”

“No, no; I don’t think she can accuse me of that.”

“Well then she’ll come back to you if you take the right way with her.”

It might have been droll to hear the poor gentleman, in his situation, give his views on the right way with women; but Nick was not moved to enjoy that diversion. “I’ve taken the wrong way. I’ve done something that must spoil my prospects in that direction for ever. I’ve written a letter,” the visitor went on; but his companion had already interrupted him.

“You’ve written a letter?”

“To my constituents, informing them of my determination to resign my seat.”

“To resign your seat?”

“I’ve made up my mind, after no end of reflexion, dear Mr. Carteret, to work on quite other lines. I’ve a plan of becoming a painter. So I’ve given up the idea of a political life.”

“A painter?” Mr. Carteret seemed to turn whiter. “I’m going in for the portrait in oils. It sounds absurd, I know, and I’m thus specific only to show you I don’t in the least expect you to count on me.” The invalid had continued to stare at first; then his eyes slowly closed and he lay motionless and blank. “Don’t let it trouble you now; it’s a long story and rather a poor one; when you get better I’ll tell you all about it. Well talk it over amicably and I’ll bring you to my view,” Nick went on hypocritically. He had laid his hand again on the hand beside him; it felt cold, and as the old man remained silent he had a moment of exaggerated fear.

“This is dreadful news”—and Mr. Carteret opened his eyes.

“Certainly it must seem so to you, for I’ve always kept from you—I was ashamed, and my present confusion is a just chastisement—the great interest I have always taken in the——!” But Nick broke down with a gasp, to add presently, with an intention of the pleasant and a sense of the foolish: “In the pencil and the brush.” He spoke of his current confusion, though his manner might have been thought to show it but little. He was himself surprised at his brazen assurance and had to recognise that at the point things had come to now he was profoundly obstinate and quiet.

“The pencil—the brush? They’re not the weapons of a gentleman,” Mr. Carteret pronounced.

“I was sure that would be your feeling. I repeat that I mention them only because you once said you intended to do something for me, as the phrase is, and I thought you oughtn’t to do it in ignorance.”

“My ignorance was better. Such knowledge isn’t good for me.”

“Forgive me, my dear old friend,” Nick kept it bravely up. “When you’re better you’ll see it differently.”

“I shall never be better now.”

“Ah no,” Nick insisted; “it will really do you good after a little. Think it over quietly and you’ll be glad I’ve stopped humbugging.”

“I loved you—I loved you as my son,” the old man wailed.

He sank on his knee beside the bed and leaned over him tenderly. “Get better, get better, and I’ll be your son for the rest of your life.”

“Poor Dormer—poor Dormer!” Mr. Carteret continued to lament.

“I admit that if he had lived I probably shouldn’t have done it,” said Nick. “I daresay I should have deferred to his prejudices even though thinking them narrow.”

“Do you turn against your father?” his host asked, making, to disengage his arm from the young man’s touch, an effort betraying the irritation of conscious weakness. Nick got up at this and stood a moment looking down at him while he went on: “Do you give up your name, do you give up your country?”

“If I do something good my country may like it.” Nick spoke as if he had thought that out.

“Do you regard them as equal, the two glories?”

“Here comes your nurse to blow me up and turn me out,” said Nick.

The nurse had come in, but Mr. Carteret directed to her an audible dry, courteous “Be so good as to wait till I send for you,” which arrested her in the large room at some distance from the bed and then had the effect of making her turn on her heel with a professional laugh. She clearly judged that an old gentleman with the fine manner of his prime might still be trusted to take care of himself. When she had gone that personage addressed to his visitor the question for which his deep displeasure lent him strength. “Do you pretend there’s a nobler life than a high political career?”

“I think the noble life’s doing one’s work well. One can do it very ill and be very base and mean in what you call a high political career. I haven’t been in the House so many months without finding that out. It contains some very small souls.”

“You should stand against them—you should expose them!” stammered Mr. Carteret.

“Stand against them, against one’s own party!”

The old man contended a moment with this and then broke out: “God forgive you, are you a Tory, are you a Tory?”

“How little you understand me!” laughed Nick with a ring of bitterness.

“Little enough—little enough, my boy. Have you sent your electors your dreadful letter?”

“Not yet; but it’s all ready and I shan’t change my mind.”

“You will—you will. You’ll think better of it. You’ll see your duty,” said the invalid almost coaxingly.

“That seems very improbable, for my determination, crudely and abruptly as, to my great regret, it comes to you here, is the fruit of a long and painful struggle. The difficulty is that I see my duty just in this other effort.”

“An effort? Do you call it an effort to fall away, to sink far down, to give up every effort? What does your mother say, heaven help her?” Mr. Carteret went on before Nick could answer the other question.

“我还没告诉她。”

“You’re ashamed, you’re ashamed!” Nick only looked out of the west window now—he felt his ears turn hot. “Tell her it would have been sixty thousand. I had the money all ready.”

“I shan’t tell her that,” said Nick, redder still.

“Poor woman—poor dear woman!” Mr. Carteret woefully cried.

“Yes indeed—she won’t like it.”

“Think it all over again; don’t throw away a splendid future!” These words were uttered with a final flicker of passion—Nick had never heard such an accent on his old friend’s lips. But he next began to murmur, “I’m tired—I’m very tired,” and sank back with a groan and with closed lips. His guest gently assured him that he had but too much cause to be exhausted and that the worst was over now. He smoothed his pillows for him and said he must leave him, would send in the nurse. “Come back, come back,” Mr. Carteret pleaded against that; “come back and tell me it’s a horrible dream.”

Nick did go back very late that evening; his host had sent a message to his room. But one of the nurses was on the ground this time and made good her opposition watch in hand. The sick-room was shrouded and darkened; the shaded candle left the bed in gloom. Nick’s interview with his venerable friend was the affair of but a moment; the nurse interposed, impatient and not understanding. She heard Nick say that he had posted his letter now and their companion flash out with an acerbity still savouring of the sordid associations of a world he had not done with: “Then of course my settlement doesn’t take effect!”

“Oh that’s all right,” Nick answered kindly; and he went off next morning by the early train—his injured host was still sleeping. Mrs. Lendon’s habits made it easy for her to be present in matutinal bloom at the young man’s hasty breakfast, and she sent a particular remembrance to Lady Agnes and (when he should see them) to the Ladies Flora and Elizabeth. Nick had a prevision of the spirit in which his mother at least would now receive hollow compliments from Beauclere.

The night before, as soon as he had quitted Mr. Carteret, the old man said to the nurse that he wished Mr. Chayter instructed to go and fetch Mr. Mitton the first thing in the morning. Mr. Mitton was the leading solicitor at Beauclere.

The really formidable thing for Nick had been to tell his mother: a truth of which he was so conscious that he had the matter out with her the very morning he returned from Beauclere. She and Grace had come back the afternoon before from their own enjoyment of rural hospitality, and, knowing this—she had written him her intention from the country—he drove straight from the station to Calcutta Gardens. There was a little room on the right of the house-door known as his own room; but in which of a morning, when he was not at home, Lady Agnes sometimes wrote her letters. These were always numerous, and when she heard our young man’s cab she happened to be engaged with them at the big brass-mounted bureau that had belonged to his father, where, amid a margin of works of political reference, she seemed to herself to make public affairs feel the point of her elbow.

She came into the hall to meet her son and to hear about their benefactor, and Nick went straight back into the room with her and closed the door. It would be in the evening paper and she would see it, and he had no right to allow her to wait for that. It proved indeed a terrible hour; and when ten minutes later Grace, who had learned upstairs her brother’s return, went down for further news of him she heard from the hall a sound of voices that made her first pause and then retrace her steps on tiptoe. She mounted to the drawing-room and crept about there, palpitating, looking at moments into the dull street and wondering what on earth had taken place. She had no one to express her wonder to, for Florence Tressilian had departed and Biddy after breakfast betaken herself, in accordance with a custom now inveterate, to Rosedale Road. Her mother was unmistakably and passionately crying—a fact tremendous in its significance, for Lady Agnes had not often been brought so low. Nick had seen her cry, but this almost awful spectacle had seldom been offered to Grace, and it now convinced her that some dreadful thing had happened.

That was of course in order, after Nick’s mysterious quarrel with Julia, which had made his mother so ill and was at present followed up with new horrors. The row, as Grace mentally phrased it, had had something to do with the rupture of the lovers—some deeper depth of disappointment had begun to yawn. Grace asked herself if they were talking about Broadwood; if Nick had demanded that in the conditions so unpleasantly altered Lady Agnes should restore that awfully nice house to its owner. This was very possible, but why should he so suddenly have broken out about it? And, moreover, their mother, though sore to bleeding about the whole business—for Broadwood, in its fresh comfort, was too delightful—wouldn’t have met this pretension with tears: hadn’t she already so perversely declared that they couldn’t decently continue to make use of the place? Julia had said that of course they must go on, but Lady Agnes was prepared with an effective rejoinder to that. It didn’t consist of words—it was to be austerely practical, was to consist of letting Julia see, at the moment she should least expect it, that they quite wouldn’t go on. Lady Agnes was ostensibly waiting for this moment—the moment when her renunciation would be most impressive.

Grace was conscious of how she had for many days been moving with her mother in darkness, deeply stricken by Nick’s culpable—oh he was culpable!—loss of his prize, but feeling an obscure element in the matter they didn’t grasp, an undiscovered explanation that would perhaps make it still worse, though it might make 他们, poor things, a little better. He had explained nothing, he had simply said, “Dear mother, we don’t hit it off, after all; it’s an awful bore, but we don’t”—as if that were in the dire conditions an adequate balm for two aching hearts. From Julia naturally no flood of light was to be looked for—Julia 决不要 humoured curiosity—and, though she very often did the thing you wouldn’t suppose, she was not unexpectedly apologetic in this case. Grace recognised that in such a position it would savour of apology for her to disclose to Lady Agnes her grounds for having let Nick off; and she wouldn’t have liked to be the person to suggest to Julia that any one looked for anything from her. Neither of the disunited pair blamed the other or cast an aspersion, and it was all very magnanimous and superior and impenetrable and exasperating. With all this Grace had a suspicion that Biddy knew something more, that for Biddy the tormenting curtain had been lifted.

Biddy had come and gone in these days with a perceptible air of detachment from the tribulations of home. It had made her, fortunately, very pretty—still prettier than usual: it sometimes happened that at moments when Grace was most angry she had a faint sweet smile which might have been drawn from some source of occult consolation. It was perhaps in some degree connected with Peter Sherringham’s visit, as to which the girl had not been superstitiously silent. When Grace asked her if she had secret information and if it pointed to the idea that everything would be all right in the end, she pretended to know nothing—What should she know? she asked with the loveliest arch of eyebrows over an unblinking candour—and begged her sister not to let Lady Agnes believe her better off than themselves. She contributed nothing to their gropings save a much better patience, but she went with noticeable regularity, on the pretext of her foolish modelling, to Rosedale Road. She was frankly on Nick’s side; not going so far as to say he had been right, but saying distinctly how sure she was that, whatever had happened, he couldn’t have helped it, not a mite. This was striking, because, as Grace knew, the younger of the sisters had been much favoured by Julia and wouldn’t have sacrificed her easily. It associated itself in the irritated mind of the elder with Biddy’s frequent visits to the studio and made Miss Dormer ask herself if the crisis in Nick’s and Julia’s business had not somehow been linked to that unnatural spot.

She had gone there two or three times while Biddy was working, gone to pick up any clue to the mystery that might peep out. But she had put her hand on nothing more—it wouldn’t have occurred to her to say nothing less—than the so dreadfully pointed presence of Gabriel Nash. She once found that odd satellite, to her surprise, paying a visit to her sister—he had come for Nick, who was absent; she remembered how they had met in Paris and how little he had succeeded with them. When she had asked Biddy afterwards how she could receive him that way Biddy had replied that even she, Grace, would have some charity for him if she could hear how fond he was of poor Nick. He had talked to her only of Nick—of nothing else. Grace had observed how she spoke of Nick as injured, and had noted the implication that some one else, ceasing to be fond of him, was thereby condemned in Biddy’s eyes. It seemed to Grace that some one else had at least a right not to like some of his friends. The studio struck her as mean and horrid; and so far from suggesting to her that it could have played a part in making Nick and Julia fall out she only felt how little its dusty want of consequence, could count, one way or the other, for Julia. Grace, who had no opinions on art, saw no merit whatever in those “impressions” on canvas from Nick’s hand with which the place was bestrewn. She didn’t at all wish her brother to have talent in that direction, yet it was secretly humiliating to her that he hadn’t more.

Nick meanwhile felt a pang of almost horrified penitence, in the little room on the right of the hall, the moment after he had made his mother really understand he had thrown up his scat and that it would probably be in the evening papers. That she would take this very ill was an idea that had pressed upon him hard enough, but she took it even worse than he had feared. He measured, in the look she gave him when the full truth loomed upon her, the mortal cruelty of her distress; her face was like that of a passenger on a ship who sees the huge bows of another vessel towering close out of the fog. There are visions of dismay before which the best conscience recoils, and though Nick had made his choice on all the grounds there were a few minutes in which he would gladly have admitted that his wisdom was a dark mistake. His heart was in his throat, he had gone too far; he had been ready to disappoint his mother—he had not been ready to destroy her.

Lady Agnes, I hasten to add, was not destroyed; she made, after her first drowning gasp, a tremendous scene of opposition, in the face of which her son could only fall back on his intrenchments. She must know the worst, he had thought: so he told her everything, including the little story of the forfeiture of his “expectations” from Mr. Carteret. He showed her this time not only the face of the matter, but what lay below it; narrated briefly the incident in his studio which had led to Julia Dallow’s deciding she couldn’t after all put up with him. This was wholly new to Lady Agnes, she had had no clue to it, and he could instantly see how it made the event worse for her, adding a hideous positive to an abominable negative. He noted now that, distressed and distracted as she had been by his rupture with Julia, she had still held to the faith that their engagement would come on again; believing evidently that he had a personal empire over the mistress of Harsh which would bring her back. Lady Agnes was forced to recognise this empire as precarious, to forswear the hope of a blessed renewal from the moment the question was of base infatuations on his own part. Nick confessed to an infatuation, but did his best to show her it wasn’t base; that it wasn’t—since Julia had had faith in his loyalty—for the person of the young lady who had been discovered posturing to him and whom he had seen but half-a-dozen times in his life. He endeavoured to recall to his mother the identity of this young lady, he adverted to the occasion in Paris when they all had seen her together. But Lady Agnes’s mind and memory were a blank on the subject of Miss Miriam Rooth and she wanted to hear nothing whatever about her: it was enough that she was the cause of their ruin and a part of his pitiless folly. She needed to know nothing of her to allude to her as if it were superfluous to give a definite name to the class to which she belonged.

But she gave a name to the group in which Nick had now taken his place, and it made him feel after the lapse of years like a small, scolded, sorry boy again; for it was so far away he could scarcely remember it—besides there having been but a moment or two of that sort in his happy childhood—the time when this parent had slapped him and called him a little fool. He was a big fool now—hugely immeasurable; she repeated the term over and over with high-pitched passion. The most painful thing in this painful hour was perhaps his glimpse of the strange feminine cynicism that lurked in her fine sense of injury. Where there was such a complexity of revolt it would have been difficult to pick out particular wrongs; but Nick could see that, to his mother’s imagination, he was most a fool for not having kept his relations with the actress, whatever they were, better from Julia’s knowledge. He remained indeed freshly surprised at the ardour with which she had rested her hopes on Julia. Julia was certainly a combination—she was accomplished, she was a sort of leading woman and she was rich; but after all—putting aside what she might be to a man in love with her—she was not the keystone of the universe. Yet the form in which the consequences of his apostasy appeared most to come home to Lady Agnes was the loss for the Dormer family of the advantages attached to the possession of Mrs. Dallow. The larger mortification would round itself later; for the hour the damning thing was that Nick had made that lady the gift of an unforgivable grievance. He had clinched their separation by his letter to his electors—and that above all was the wickedness of the letter. Julia would have got over the other woman, but she would never get over his becoming a nobody.

Lady Agnes challenged him upon this low prospect exactly as if he had embraced it with the malignant purpose of making the return of his late intended impossible. She contradicted her premises and lost her way in her wrath. What had made him suddenly turn round if he had been in good faith before? He had never been in good faith—never, never; he had had from his earliest childhood the nastiest hankerings after a vulgar little daubing, trash-talking life; they were not in him, the grander, nobler aspirations—they never had been—and he had been anything but honest to lead her on, to lead them all on, to think he would do something: the fall and the shame would have been less for them if they had come earlier. Moreover, what need under heaven had he to tell Charles Carteret of the cruel folly on his very death-bed?—as if he mightn’t have let it all alone and accepted the benefit the old man was so delighted to confer. No wonder Mr. Carteret would keep his money for his heirs if that was the way Nick proposed to repay him; but where was the common sense, where was the common charity, where was the common decency of tormenting him with such vile news in his last hours? Was he trying what he could invent that would break her heart, that would send her in sorrow down to her grave? Weren’t they all miserable enough and hadn’t he a ray of pity for his wretched sisters?

The relation of effect and cause, in regard to his sisters’ wretchedness, was but dimly discernible to Nick, who, however, perceived his mother genuinely to consider that his action had disconnected them all, still more than she held they were already disconnected, from the good things of life. Julia was money, Mr. Carteret was money—everything else was the absence of it. If these precious people had been primarily money for Nick it after all flattered the distributive impulse in him to have taken for granted that for the rest of the family too the difference would have been so great. For days, for weeks and months to come, the little room on the right of the hall was to vibrate for our young man, as if the very walls and window-panes still suffered, with the odious trial of his true temper.

That evening—the evening of his return from Beauclere—he was conscious of a keen desire to get away, to go abroad, to leave behind him the little chatter his resignation would be sure to produce in an age of publicity which never discriminated as to the quality of events. Then he felt it decidedly better to stay, to see the business through on the spot. Besides, he would have to meet his constituents—would a parcel of cheese-eating burgesses ever have been “met” on so queer an occasion?—and when that was over the incident would practically be closed. Nick had an idea he knew in advance how it would affect him to be pointed at as a person who had given up a considerable chance of eventual “office” to take likenesses at so much a head. He wouldn’t attempt down at Harsh to touch on the question of motive; for, given the nature of the public mind of Harsh, that would be a strain on his faculty of exposition. But as regards the chaff of the political world and of society he had a hope he should find chaff enough for retorts. It was true that when his mother twitted him in her own effective way he had felt rather flattened out; but then one’s mother might have a heavier hand than any one else. He had not thrown up the House of Commons to amuse himself; he had thrown it up to work, to sit quietly down and bend over his task. If he should go abroad his parent might think he had some weak-minded view of joining Julia and trying, with however little hope, to win her back—an illusion it would be singularly pernicious to encourage. His desire for Julia’s society had succumbed for the present at any rate to a dire interruption—he had become more and more aware of their speaking a different language. Nick felt like a young man who has gone to the Rhineland to “get up” his German for an examination—committed to talk, to read, to dream only in the new idiom. Now that he had taken his jump everything was simplified, at the same time that everything was pitched in a higher and intenser key; and he wondered how in the absence of a common dialect he had conversed on the whole so happily with Mrs. Dallow. Then he had aftertastes of understandings tolerably independent of words. He was excited because every fresh responsibility is exciting, and there was no manner of doubt he had accepted one. No one knew what it was but himself—Gabriel Nash scarcely counted, his whole attitude on the question of responsibility being so fantastic—and he would have to ask his dearest friends to take him on trust. Rather indeed he would ask nothing of any one, but would cultivate independence, mulishness, and gaiety, and fix his thoughts on a bright if distant morrow. It was disagreeable to have to remember that his task would not be sweetened by a sense of heroism; for if it might be heroic to give up the muses for the strife of great affairs, no romantic glamour worth speaking of would ever gather round an Englishman who in the prime of his strength had given up great or even small affairs for the muses. Such an original might himself privately and perversely regard certain phases of this inferior commerce as a great affair; but who would give him the benefit of that sort of confidence—except indeed a faithful, clever, exalted little sister Biddy, if he should have the good luck to have one? Biddy was in fact all ready for heroic flights and eager to think she might fight the battle of the beautiful by her brother’s side; so that he had really to moderate her and remind her how little his actual job was a crusade with bugles and banners and how much a grey, sedentary grind, the charm of which was all at the core. You might have an emotion about it, and an emotion that would be a help, but this was not the sort of thing you could show—the end in view would seem so disproportionately small.

He therefore didn’t “run,” as he would have said, to winged words any more than he was forced to, having, moreover, a sense that apologetic work (if apology it should be called to carry the war straight into the enemy’s country) might be freely left to Gabriel Nash. He laid the weight of explanation on his commentators, meeting them all on the firm ground of his own amusement. He saw he should live for months in a thick cloud of irony, not the finest air of the season, and he adopted the weapon to which a person whose use of tobacco is only occasional resorts when every one else produces a cigar—he puffed the spasmodic, defensive cigarette. He accepted as to what he had done the postulate of the obscurely tortuous, abounding so in that sense that his critics were themselves bewildered. Some of them felt that they got, as the phrase is, little out of him—he rose in his good humour so much higher than the “rise” they had looked for—on his very first encounter with the world after his scrimmage with his mother. He went to a dinner-party—he had accepted the invitation many days before—having seen his resignation, in the form of a telegram from Harsh, announced in the evening papers. The people he found there had seen it as well, and the wittiest wanted to know what he was now going to do. Even the most embarrassed asked if it were true he had changed his politics. He gave different answers to different persons, but left most of them under the impression that he had strange scruples of conscience. This, however, was not a formidable occasion, for there had happened to be no one present he would have desired, on the old basis, especially to gratify. There were real good friends it would be less easy to meet—Nick was almost sorry for an hour that he had so many real good friends. If he had had more enemies the case would have been simpler, and he was fully aware that the hardest thing of all would be to be let off too easily. Then he would appear to himself to have been put, all round, on his generosity, and his deviation would thus wear its ugliest face.

When he left the place at which he had been dining he betook himself to Rosedale Road: he saw no reason why he should go down to the House, though he knew he had not done with that yet. He had a dread of behaving as if he supposed he should be expected to make a farewell speech, and was thankful his eminence was not of a nature to create on such an occasion a demand for his oratory. He had in fact nothing whatever to say in public—not a vain word, not a sorry syllable. Though the hour was late he found Gabriel Nash established in his studio, drawn thither by the fine exhilaration of having seen an evening paper. Trying it late, on the chance, he had been told by Nick’s servant that Nick would sleep there that night, and he had come in to wait, he was so eager to congratulate him. Nick submitted with a good grace to his society—he was tired enough to go to bed, but was restless too—in spite of noting now, oddly enough, that Nash’s congratulations could add little to his fortitude. He had felt a good deal, before, as if he were in this philosopher’s hands; but since making his final choice he had begun to strike himself as all in his own. Gabriel might have been the angel of that name, but no angel could assist him much henceforth.

Nash indeed was as true as ever to his genius while he lolled on a divan and emitted a series of reflexions that were even more ingenious than opportune. Nick walked up and down the room, and it might have been supposed from his manner that he was impatient for his friend to withdraw. This idea would have been contradicted, however, by the fact that subsequently, after the latter had quitted him, he continued to perambulate. He had grown used to Gabriel and must now have been possessed of all he had to say. That was one’s penalty with persons whose main gift was for talk, however inspiring; talk engendered a sense of sameness much sooner than action. The things a man did were necessarily more different from each other than the things he said, even if he went in for surprising you. Nick felt Nash could never surprise him any more save by mere plain perpetration.

He talked of his host’s future, talked of Miriam Rooth and of Peter Sherringham, whom he had seen at that young woman’s and whom he described as in a predicament delightful to behold. Nick put a question about Peter’s predicament and learned, rather to his disappointment, that it consisted only of the fact that he was in love with Miriam. He appealed to his visitor to do better than this, and Nash then added the touch that Sherringham wouldn’t be able to have her. “Oh they’ve ideas!” he said when Nick asked him why.

“What ideas? So has he, I suppose.”

“Yes, but they’re not the same.”

“Well, they’ll nevertheless arrange something,” Nick opined.

“You’ll have to help them a bit. She’s in love with another man,” Nash went on.

“Do you mean with you?”

“Oh, I’m never another man—I’m always more the wrong one than the man himself. It’s you she’s after.” And on his friend’s asking him what he meant by this Nash added: “While you were engaged in transferring her image to the tablet of your genius you stamped your own on that of her heart.”

Nick stopped in his walk, staring. “Ah, what a bore!”

“A bore? Don’t you think her formed to please?”

Nick wondered, but didn’t conclude. “I wanted to go on with her—now I can’t.”

Nash himself, however, jumped straight to what really mattered. “My dear fellow, it only makes her handsomer. I wondered what happy turn she had taken.”

“Oh, that’s twaddle,” said Nick, turning away. “Besides, has she told you?”

“No, but her mother has.”

“Has she told her mother?”

“Mrs. Rooth says not. But I’ve known Mrs. Rooth to say that which isn’t.”

“Apply that rule then to the information you speak of.”

“Well, since you press me, I know more,” Gabriel said. “Miriam knows you’re engaged to a wonderful, rich lady; she told me as much, told me she had seen her here. That was enough to set her off—she likes forbidden fruit.”

“I’m not engaged to any lady whatever. I was,” Nick handsomely conceded, “but we’ve altered our minds.”

“Ah, what a pity!” his friend wailed.

“Mephistopheles!”—and he stopped again with the point of this.

“Pray then whom do you call Margaret? May I ask if your failure of interest in the political situation is the cause of this change in your personal one?” Nash went on. Nick signified that he mightn’t; whereupon he added: “I’m not in the least devilish—I only mean it’s a pity you’ve altered your minds, since Miriam may in consequence alter hers. She goes from one thing to another. However, I won’t tell her.”

“I will then!” Nick declared between jest and earnest.

“Would that really be prudent?” his companion asked more completely in the frolic key.

“At any rate,” he resumed, “nothing would induce me to interfere with Peter Sherringham. That sounds fatuous, but to you I don’t mind appearing an ass.”

“The thing would be to get Sherringham, out of spite,” Nash threw off, “to entangle himself with another woman.”

“那有什么好处？”

“Ah, Miriam would then begin to think of him.”

“Spite surely isn’t a conceivable motive—for a healthy man.”

The plea, however, found Gabriel ready. “Sherringham’s just precisely not a healthy man. He’s too much in love.”

“Then he won’t care for another woman.”

“He would try to, and that would produce its effect—its effect on Miriam.”

“You talk like an American novel. Let him try, and God keep us all straight.” Nick adverted in extreme silence to his poor little Biddy and greatly hoped—he would have to see to it a little—that Peter wouldn’t “try” on 这里. He changed the subject and before Nash withdrew took occasion to remark—the occasion was offered by some new allusion of the visitor’s to the sport he hoped to extract from seeing Nick carry out everything to which he stood committed—that the comedy of the matter would fall flat and the incident pass unnoticed.

But Nash lost no heart. “Oh, if you’ll simply do your part I’ll take care of the rest.”

“If you mean by doing my part minding my business and working like a beaver I shall easily satisfy you,” Nick replied.

“Ah, you reprobate, you’ll become another Sir Joshua, a mere P.R.A.!” his companion railed, getting up to go.

When he had gone Nick threw himself back on the cushions of the divan and, with his hands locked above his head, sat a long time lost in thought. He had sent his servant to bed; he was unmolested. He gazed before him into the gloom produced by the unheeded burning-out of the last candle. The vague outer light came in through the tall studio window and the painted images, ranged about, looked confused in the dusk. If his mother had seen him she might have thought he was staring at his father’s ghost.

The night Peter Sherringham walked away from Balaklava Place with Gabriel Nash the talk of the two men directed itself, as was natural at the time, to the question of Miriam’s future fame and the pace, as Nash called it, at which she would go. Critical spirits as they both were, and one of them as dissimulative in passion as the other was paradoxical in the absence of it, they yet took her career for granted as completely as the simple-minded, a pair of hot spectators in the pit, might have done, and exchanged observations on the assumption that the only uncertain element would be the pace. This was a proof of general subjugation. Peter wished not to show, yet wished to know, and in the restlessness of his anxiety was ready even to risk exposure, great as the sacrifice might be of the imperturbable, urbane scepticism most appropriate to a secretary of embassy. He couldn’t rid himself of the sense that Nash had got up earlier than he, had had opportunities of contact in days already distant, the days of Mrs. Rooth’s hungry foreign rambles. Something of authority and privilege stuck to him from this, and it made Sherringham still more uncomfortable when he was most conscious that, at the best, even the trained diplomatic mind would never get a grasp of Miriam as a whole. She was constructed to revolve like the terraqueous globe; some part or other of her was always out of sight or in shadow.

Peter talked to conceal his feelings, and, like many a man practising that indirectness, rather lost himself in the wood. They agreed that, putting strange accidents aside, the girl would go further than any one had gone in England within the memory of man; and that it was a pity, as regards marking the comparison, that for so long no one had gone any distance worth speaking of. They further agreed that it would naturally seem absurd to any one who didn’t know, their prophesying such big things on such small evidence; and they agreed lastly that the absurdity quite vanished as soon as the prophets knew as 他们 knew. Their knowledge—they quite recognised this—was simply confidence raised to a high point, the communication of their young friend’s own confidence. The conditions were enormously to make, but it was of the very essence of Miriam’s confidence that she would make them. The parts, the plays, the theatres, the “support,” the audiences, the critics, the money were all to be found, but she cast a spell that prevented this from seeming a serious hitch. One mightn’t see from one day to the other what she would do or how she would do it, but this wouldn’t stay her steps—she would none the less go on. She would have to construct her own road, as it were, but at the worst there would only be delays in making it. These delays would depend on the hardness of the stones she had to break.

As Peter had noted, you never knew where to “have” Gabriel Nash; a truth exemplified in his unexpected delight at the prospect of Miriam’s drawing forth the modernness of the age. You might have thought he would loathe that modernness; but he had a joyous, amused, amusing vision of it—saw it as something huge and fantastically vulgar. Its vulgarity would rise to the grand style, like that of a London railway station, and the publicity achieved by their charming charge be as big as the globe itself. All the machinery was ready, the platform laid; the facilities, the wires and bells and trumpets, the roaring, deafening newspaperism of the period—its most distinctive sign—were waiting for her, their predestined mistress, to press her foot on the spring and set them all in motion. Gabriel brushed in a large, bright picture of her progress through the time and round the world, round it and round it again, from continent to continent and clime to clime; with populations and deputations, reporters and photographers, placards and interviews and banquets, steamers, railways, dollars, diamonds, speeches and artistic ruin all jumbled into her train. Regardless of expense the spectacle would be and thrilling, though somewhat monotonous, the drama—a drama more bustling than any she would put on the stage and a spectacle that would beat everything for scenery. In the end her divine voice would crack, screaming to foreign ears and antipodal barbarians, and her clever manner would lose all quality, simplified to a few unmistakable knock-down dodges. Then she would be at the fine climax of life and glory, still young and insatiate, but already coarse, hard, and raddled, with nothing left to do and nothing left to do it with, the remaining years all before her and the 存在的理由 all behind. It would be splendid, dreadful, grotesque.

“Oh, she’ll have some good years—they’ll be worth having,” Peter insisted as they went. “Besides, you see her too much as a humbug and too little as a real producer. She has ideas—great ones; she loves the thing for itself. That may keep a woman serious.”

“Her greatest idea must always be to show herself, and fortunately she has a great quantity of that treasure to show. I think of her absolutely as a real producer, but as a producer whose production is her own person. No ‘person,’ even as fine a one as hers, will stand that for more than an hour, so that humbuggery has very soon to lend a hand. However,” Nash continued, “if she’s a fine humbug it will do as well, it will perfectly suit the time. We can all be saved by vulgarity; that’s the solvent of all difficulties and the blessing of this delightful age. One doesn’t die of it—save in soul and sense: one dies only of minding it. Therefore let no man despair—a new hope has dawned.”

“She’ll do her work like any other worker, with the advantage over many that her talent’s rare,” Peter obliquely answered. “Compared with the life of many women that’s security and sanity of the highest order. Then she can’t help her beauty. You can’t vulgarise that.”

“Oh, can’t you?” Gabriel cried.

“It will abide with her till the day of her death. It isn’t a mere superficial freshness. She’s very noble.”

“Yes, that’s the pity of it,” said Nash. “She’s a big more or less directed force, and I quite admit that she’ll do for a while a lot of good. She’ll have brightened up the world for a great many people—have brought the ideal nearer to them and held it fast for an hour with its feet on earth and its great wings trembling. That’s always something, for blest is he who has dropped even the smallest coin into the little iron box that contains the precious savings of mankind. Miriam will doubtless have dropped a big gold-piece. It will be found in the general scramble on the day the race goes bankrupt. And then for herself she’ll have had a great go at life.”

“Oh yes, she’ll have got out of her hole—she won’t have vegetated,” Peter concurred. “That makes her touching to me—it adds to the many good reasons for which one may want to help her. She’s tackling a big job, and tackling it by herself; throwing herself upon the world in good faith and dealing with it as she can; meeting alone, in her youth, her beauty, her generosity, all the embarrassments of notoriety and all the difficulties of a profession of which, if one half’s what’s called brilliant the other’s frankly odious.”

“She has great courage, but you speak of her as solitary with such a lot of us all round her?” Nash candidly inquired.

“She’s a great thing for you and me, but we’re a small thing for her.”

“Well, a good many small things, if they but stick together, may make up a mass,” Gabriel said. “There must always be the man, you see. He’s the indispensable element in such a life, and he’ll be the last thing she’ll ever lack.”

“What man are you talking about?” Peter asked with imperfect ease.

“The man of the hour, whoever he is. She’ll inspire innumerable devotions.”

“Of course she will, and they’ll be precisely a part of the insufferable side of her life.”

“Insufferable to whom?” Nash demanded. “Don’t forget that the insufferable side of her life will be just the side she’ll thrive on. You can’t eat your cake and have it, and you can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs. You can’t at once sit by the fire and parade about the world, and you can’t take all chances without having some adventures. You can’t be a great actress without the luxury of nerves. Without a plentiful supply—or without the right ones—you’ll only be second fiddle. If you’ve all the tense strings you may take life for your fiddlestick. Your nerves and your adventures, your eggs and your cake, are part of the cost of the most expensive of professions. You play with human passions, with exaltations and ecstasies and terrors, and if you trade on the fury of the elements you must know how to ride the storm.”

Well, Peter thought it over. “Those are the fine old commonplaces about the artistic temperament, but I usually find the artist a very meek, decent, little person.”

“您 决不要 find the artist—you only find his work, and that’s all you need find. When the artist’s a woman, and the woman’s an actress, meekness and decency will doubtless be there in the right proportions,” Nash went on. “Miriam will represent them for you, if you give her her cue, with the utmost charm.”

“Of course she’ll inspire devotions—这是 all right,” said Peter with a wild cheerfulness.

“And of course they’ll inspire responses, and with that consequence—don’t you see?—they’ll mitigate her solitude, they’ll even enliven it,” Nash set forth.

“She’ll probably box a good many ears: that’ll be lively!” Peter returned with some grimness.

“Oh magnificent!—it will be a merry life. Yet with its tragic passages, its distracted or its pathetic hours,” Gabriel insisted. “In short, a little of everything.”

They walked on without further speech till at last Peter resumed: “The best thing for a woman in her situation is to marry some decent care-taking man.”

“Oh I daresay she’ll do that too!” Nash laughed; a remark as a result of which his companion lapsed afresh into silence. Gabriel left him a little to enjoy this; after which he added: “There’s somebody she’d marry to-morrow.”

Peter wondered. “Do you mean her friend Dashwood?”

“No, no, I mean Nick Dormer.”

“She’d marry 他?” Peter gasped.

“I mean her head’s full of him. But she’ll hardly get the chance.”

Peter watched himself. “Does she like him as much as that?”

“I don’t quite know how much you mean, but enough for all practical ends.”

“Marrying a fashionable actress is hardly a practical end.”

“Certainly not, but I’m not speaking from his point of view.” Nash was perfectly lucid. “Moreover, I thought you just now said it would be such a good thing for her.”

“To marry Nick Dormer?”

“You said a good decent man, and he’s one of the very decentest.”

“I wasn’t thinking of the individual, but of the protection. It would fence her about, settle certain questions, or appear to; it would make things safe and comfortable for her and keep a lot of cads and blackguards away.”

“She ought to marry the prompter or the box-keeper,” said Nash. “Then it would be all right. I think indeed they generally do, don’t they?”

Peter felt for a moment a strong disposition to drop his friend on the spot, to cross to the other side of the street and walk away without him. But there was a different impulse which struggled with this one and after a minute overcame it, the impulse that led to his saying presently: “Has she told you she’s—a—she’s in love with Nick?”

“No, no—that’s not the way I know it.”

“Has Nick told you then?”

“On the contrary, I’ve told 他设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“You’ve rendered him a questionable service if you’ve no proof,” Peter pronounced.

“My proof’s only that I’ve seen her with him. She’s charming, poor dear thing.”

“But surely she isn’t in love with every man she’s charming to.”

“I mean she’s charming to me,” Nash returned. “I see her that way. I see her interested—and what it does to her, with her, her. But judge for yourself—the first time you get a chance.”

“When shall I get a chance? Nick doesn’t come near her.”

“Oh he’ll come, he’ll come; his picture isn’t finished.”

“你的意思是 地狱 be the box-keeper, then?”

“My dear fellow, I shall never allow it,” said Gabriel Nash. “It would be idiotic and quite unnecessary. He’s beautifully arranged—in quite a different line. Fancy his taking that sort of job on his hands! Besides, she’d never expect it; she’s not such a goose. They’re very good friends—it will go on that way. She’s an excellent person for him to know; she’ll give him lots of ideas of the plastic kind. He would have been up there before this, but it has taken him time to play his delightful trick on his constituents. That of course is pure amusement; but when once his effect has been well produced he’ll get back to business, and his business will be a very different matter from Miriam’s. Imagine him writing her advertisements, living on her money, adding up her profits, having rows and recriminations with her agent, carrying her shawl, spending his days in her rouge-pot. The right man for that, if she must have one, will turn up. ‘Pour le mariage, non.’ She isn’t wholly an idiot; she really, for a woman, quite sees things as they are.”

As Peter had not crossed the street and left Gabriel planted he now suffered the extremity of irritation. But descrying in the dim vista of the Edgware Road a vague and vigilant hansom he waved his stick with eagerness and with the abrupt declaration that, feeling tired, he must drive the rest of his way. He offered Nash, as he entered the vehicle, no seat, but this coldness was not reflected in the lucidity with which that master of every subject went on to affirm that there was of course a danger—the danger that in given circumstances Miriam would leave the stage.

“Leave it, you mean, for some man?”

“For the man we’re talking about.”

“For Nick Dormer?” Peter asked from his place in the cab, his paleness lighted by its lamps.

“If he should make it a condition. But why should he? why should he make 任何 conditions? He’s not an ass either. You see it would be a bore”—Nash kept it up while the hansom waited—”because if she were to do anything of that sort she’d make him pay for the sacrifice.”

“Oh yes, she’d make him pay for the sacrifice,” Peter blindly concurred.

“And then when he had paid she’d go back to her footlights,” Gabriel developed from the curbstone as his companion closed the apron of the cab.

“I see—she’d go back—good-night,” Peter returned. “ go on!” he cried to the driver through the hole in the roof. And while the vehicle rolled away he growled to himself: “Of course she would—and quite right!”

“Judge for yourself when you get a chance,” Nash had said to him; and as it turned out he was able to judge two days later, for he found his cousin in Balaklava Place on the Tuesday following his walk with their insufferable friend. He had not only stayed away from the theatre on the Monday evening—he regarded this as an achievement of some importance—but had not been near Miriam during the day. He had meant to absent himself from her company on Tuesday as well; a determination confirmed by the fact that the afternoon turned to rain. But when at ten minutes to five o’clock he jumped into a hansom and directed his course to Saint John’s Wood it was precisely upon the weather that he shifted the responsibility of his behaviour.

Miriam had dined when he reached the villa, but she was lying down, unduly fatigued, before going to the theatre. Mrs. Rooth was, however, in the drawing-room with three gentlemen, in two of whom the fourth visitor was not startled to recognise Basil Dashwood and Gabriel Nash. Dashwood appeared to have become Miriam’s brother-in-arms and a second child—a fonder one—to Mrs. Rooth; it had reached Peter on some late visit that the young actor had finally moved his lodgings into the quarter, making himself a near neighbour for all sorts of convenience. “Hang his convenience!” Peter thought, perceiving that Mrs. Lovick’s “Arty” was now altogether one of the family. Oh the family!—it was a queer one to be connected with: that consciousness was acute in Sherringham’s breast to-day as he entered Mrs. Rooth’s little circle. The place was filled with cigarette-smoke and there was a messy coffee-service on the piano, whose keys Basil Dashwood lightly touched for his own diversion. Nash, addressing the room of course, was at one end of a little sofa with his nose in the air, and Nick Dormer was at the other end, seated much at his ease and with a certain privileged appearance of having been there often before, though Sherringham knew he had not. He looked uncritical and very young, as rosy as a school-boy on a half-holiday. It was past five o’clock in the day, but Mrs. Rooth was not dressed; there was, however, no want of finish in her elegant attitude—the same relaxed grandeur (she seemed to let you understand) for which she used to be distinguished at Castle Nugent when the house was full. She toyed incongruously, in her unbuttoned wrapper, with a large tinsel fan which resembled a theatrical property.

It was one of the discomforts of Peter’s position that many of those minor matters which are superficially at least most characteristic of the histrionic life had power to displease him, so that he was obliged constantly to overlook and condone and pretend. He disliked besmoked drawing-rooms and irregular meals and untidy arrangements; he could suffer from the vulgarity of Mrs. Rooth’s apartments, the importunate photographs which gave on his nerves, the barbarous absence of signs of an orderly domestic life, the odd volumes from the circulating library (you could see what they were—the very covers told you—at a glance) tumbled about under smeary cups and glasses. He hadn’t waited till now to feel it “rum” that fate should have let him in for such contacts; but as he stood before his hostess and her companions he wondered perhaps more than ever why he should. Her companions somehow, who were not responsible, didn’t keep down his wonder; which was particularly odd, since they were not superficially in the least of Bohemian type. Almost the first thing that struck him, as happened, in coming into the room, was the fresh fact of the high good looks of his cousin, a gentleman, to one’s taste and for one’s faith, in a different enough degree from the stiff-collared, conversible Dashwood. Peter didn’t hate Nick for being of so fine an English grain; he knew rather the brush of a new wave of annoyance at Julia’s stupid failure to get on with him under that good omen.

It was his first encounter with the late member for Harsh since his arrival in London: they had been on one side and the other so much taken up with their affairs. Since their last meeting Nick had, as we know, to his kinsman’s perception, really put on a new character: he had done the finest stroke of business in the quietest way. This had made him a presence to be counted with, and in just the sense in which poor Peter desired least to count. Poor Peter, after his somersault in the blue, had just lately been much troubled; he was ravaged by contending passions; he paid every hour in a torment of unrest for what was false in his position, the impossibility of keeping the presentable parts of his character together, the opposition of interest and desire. Nick, his junior and a lighter weight, had settled 他的 problem and showed no wounds; there was something impertinent and mystifying in it. Yet he looked, into the bargain, too innocently young and happy, and too careless and modest and amateurish, to figure as a rival or even as the genius he was apparently going to try to be—the genius that the other day, in the studio there with Biddy, Peter had got a startled glimpse of his power to become. Julia’s brother would have liked to be aware of grounds of resentment, to be able to hold she had been badly treated or that Nick was basely fatuous, for in that case he might have had the resource of taking offence. But where was the outrage of his merely being liked by a woman in respect to whom one had definitely denied one’s self the luxury of pretensions, especially if, as the wrong-doer, he had taken no action in the matter? It could scarcely be called wrong-doing to call, casually, on an afternoon when the lady didn’t seem to be there. Peter could at any rate rejoice that Miriam didn’t; and he proposed to himself suggesting to Nick after a little that they should adjourn together—they had such interesting things to talk about. Meanwhile Nick greeted him with a friendly freedom in which he could read neither confusion nor defiance. Peter was reassured against a danger he believed he didn’t recognise and puzzled by a mystery he flattered himself he hadn’t heeded. And he was still more ashamed of being reassured than of being puzzled.

It must be recorded that Miriam’s absence from the scene was not prolonged. Nick, as Sherringham gathered, had been about a quarter of an hour in the house, which would have given her, gratified by his presence, due time to array herself to come down to him. At all events she was in the room, prepared apparently to go to the theatre, very shortly after one of her guests had become sensible of how glad he was she was out of it. Familiarity had never yet cured him of a certain tremor of expectation, and even of suspense, in regard to her entrances; a flutter caused by the simple circumstance of her infinite variety. To say she was always acting would too much convey that she was often fatiguing; since her changing face affected this particular admirer at least not as a series of masks, but as a response to perceived differences, an intensity of that perception, or still more as something richly constructional, like the shifting of the scene in a play or like a room with many windows. The image she was to project was always incalculable, but if her present denied her past and declined responsibility for her future it made a good thing of the hour and kept the actual peculiarly fresh. This time the actual was a bright, gentle, graceful, smiling, young woman in a new dress, eager to go out, drawing on fresh gloves, who looked as if she were about to step into a carriage and—it was Gabriel Nash who thus formulated her physiognomy—do a lot of London things.

The young woman had time to spare, however, and she sat down and talked and laughed and presently gave, as seemed to Peter, a deeper glow to the tawdry little room, which could do for others if it had to do for her. She described herself as in a state of nervous muddle, exhausted, blinded, 阿布鲁蒂, with the rehearsals of the forthcoming piece—the first night was close at hand, and it was going to be of a vileness: they would all see!—but there was no correspondence between this account of the matter and her present bravery of mood. She sent her mother away—to “put on some clothes or something”—and, left alone with the visitors, went to a long glass between the windows, talking always to Nick Dormer, and revised and rearranged a little her own attire. She talked to Nick, over her shoulder, and to Nick only, as if he were the guest to recognise and the others didn’t count. She broke out at once on his having thrown up his seat, wished to know if the strange story told her by Mr. Nash were true—that he had knocked all the hopes of his party into pie.

Nick took it any way she liked and gave a pleasant picture of his party’s ruin, the critical condition of public affairs: he was as yet clearly closed to contrition or shame. The pilgrim from Paris, before Miriam’s entrance, had not, in shaking hands with him, made even a roundabout allusion to his odd “game”; he felt he must somehow show good taste—so English people often feel—at the cost of good manners. But he winced on seeing how his scruples had been wasted, and was struck with the fine, jocose, direct turn of his kinsman’s conversation with the young actress. It was a part of her unexpectedness that she took the heavy literal view of Nick’s behaviour; declared frankly, though without ill nature, that she had no patience with his mistake. She was horribly disappointed—she had set her heart on his being a great statesman, one of the rulers of the people and the glories of England. What was so useful, what was so noble?—how it belittled everything else! She had expected him to wear a cordon and a star some day—acquiring them with the greatest promptitude—and then to come and see her in her 洛格: it would look so particularly well. She talked after the manner of a lovely Philistine, except perhaps when she expressed surprise at hearing—hearing from Gabriel Nash—that in England gentlemen accoutred with those emblems of their sovereign’s esteem didn’t so far forget themselves as to stray into the dressing-rooms of actresses. She admitted after a moment that they were quite right and the dressing-rooms of actresses nasty places; but she was sorry, for that was the sort of thing she had always figured in a corner—a distinguished man, slightly bald, in evening dress, with orders, admiring the smallness of a satin shoe and saying witty things. Nash was convulsed with hilarity at this—such a vision of the British political hero. Coming back from the glass and making that critic give her his place on the sofa, she seated herself near Nick and continued to express her regret at his perversity.

“They all say that—all the charming women, but I shouldn’t have looked for it from you,” Nick replied. “I’ve given you such an example of what I can do in another line.”

“Do you mean my portrait? Oh I’ve got it, with your name and ‘M.P.’ in the corner, and that’s precisely why I’m content. ‘M.P.’ in the corner of a picture is delightful, but I want to break the mould: I don’t in the least insist on your giving specimens to others. And the artistic life, when you can lead another—if you’ve any alternative, however modest—is a very poor business. It comes last in dignity—after everything else. Ain’t I up to my eyes in it and don’t I truly know?”

“You talk like my broken-hearted mother,” said Nick.

“Does she hate it so intensely?”

“She has the darkest ideas about it—the wildest theories. I can’t imagine where she gets them; partly I think from a general conviction that the ‘esthetic’—a horrible insidious foreign disease—is eating the healthy core out of English life (dear old English life!) and partly from the charming pictures in 冲床 and the clever satirical articles, pointing at mysterious depths of contamination, in the other weekly papers. She believes there’s a dreadful coterie of uncannily artful and desperately refined people who wear a kind of loose faded uniform and worship only beauty—which is a fearful thing; that Gabriel has introduced me to it; that I now spend all my time in it, and that for its sweet sake I’ve broken the most sacred vows. Poor Gabriel, who, so far as I can make out, isn’t in any sort of society, however bad!”

“But I’m uncannily artful,” Nash objected, “and though I can’t afford the uniform—I believe you get it best somewhere in South Audley Street—I do worship beauty. I really think it’s me the weekly papers mean.”

“Oh I’ve read the articles—I know the sort!” said Basil Dashwood.

Miriam looked at him. “Go and see if the brougham’s there—I ordered it early.”

Dashwood, without moving, consulted his watch. “It isn’t time yet—I know more about the brougham than you. I’ve made a ripping good arrangement for her stable—it really costs her nothing,” the young actor continued confidentially to Peter, near whom he had placed himself.

“Your mother’s quite right to be broken-hearted,” Miriam declared, “and I can imagine exactly what she has been through. I should like to talk with her—I should like to see her.” Nick showed on this easy amusement, reminding her she had talked to him while she sat for her portrait in quite the opposite sense, most helpfully and inspiringly; and Nash explained that she was studying the part of a political duchess and wished to take observations for it, to work herself into the character. The girl might in fact have been a political duchess as she sat, her head erect and her gloved hands folded, smiling with aristocratic dimness at Nick. She shook her head with stately sadness; she might have been trying some effect for Mary Stuart in Schiller’s play. “I’ve changed since that. I want you to be the grandest thing there is—the counsellor of kings.”

Peter wondered if it possibly weren’t since she had met his sister in Nick’s studio that she had changed, if perhaps she hadn’t seen how it might give Julia the sense of being more effectually routed to know that the woman who had thrown the bomb was one who also tried to keep Nick in the straight path. This indeed would involve an assumption that Julia might know, whereas it was perfectly possible she mightn’t and more than possible that if she should she wouldn’t care. Miriam’s essential fondness for trying different ways was always there as an adequate reason for any particular way; a truth which, however, sometimes only half-prevented the particular way from being vexatious to a particular observer.

“Yet after all who’s more esthetic than you and who goes in more for the beautiful?” Nick asked. “You’re never so beautiful as when you pitch into it.”

“Oh, I’m an inferior creature, of an inferior sex, and I’ve to earn my bread as I can. I’d give it all up in a moment, my odious trade—for an inducement.”

“And pray what do you mean by an inducement?” Nick demanded.

“My dear fellow, she means you—if you’ll give her a permanent engagement to sit for you!” Gabriel volunteered. “What singularly crude questions you ask!”

“I like the way she talks,” Mr. Dashwood derisively said, “when I gave up the most brilliant prospects, of very much the same kind as Mr. Dormer’s, expressly to go on the stage.”

“You’re an inferior creature too,” Miriam promptly pronounced.

“Miss Rooth’s very hard to satisfy,” Peter observed at this. “A man of distinction, slightly bald, in evening dress, with orders, in the corner of her 洛格—she has such a personage ready made to her hand and she doesn’t so much as look at him. Am I not an inducement? Haven’t I offered you a permanent engagement?”

“Your orders—where are your orders?” she returned with a sweet smile, getting up.

“I shall be a minister next year and an ambassador before you know it. Then I shall stick on everything that can be had.”

“And they call us mountebanks!” cried the girl. “I’ve been so glad to see you again—do you want another sitting?” she went on to Nick as if to take leave of him.

“As many as you’ll give me—I shall be grateful for all,” he made answer. “I should like to do you as you are at present. You’re totally different from the woman I painted—you’re wonderful.”

“The Comic Muse!” she laughed. “Well, you must wait till our first nights are over—I’m 表面上的凹痕 till then. There’s everything to do and I’ve to do it all. That fellow’s good for nothing, for nothing but domestic life”—and she glanced at Basil Dashwood. “He hasn’t an idea—not one you’d willingly tell of him, though he’s rather useful for the stables. We’ve got stables now—or we try to look as if we had: Dashwood’s ideas are 力量. In ten days I shall have more time.”

“The Comic Muse? Never, never,” Peter protested. “You’re not to go smirking through the age and down to posterity—I’d rather see you as Medusa crowned with serpents. That’s what you look like when you look best.”

“That’s consoling—when I’ve just bought a lovely new bonnet, all red roses and bows. I forgot to tell you just now that when you’re an ambassador you may propose anything you like,” Miriam went on. “But forgive me if I make that condition. Seriously speaking, come to me glittering with orders and I shall probably succumb. I can’t resist stars and garters. Only you must, as you say, have them all. I 别 like to hear Mr. Dormer talk the slang of the studio—like that phrase just now: it is a fall to a lower state. However, when one’s low one must crawl, and I’m crawling down to the Strand. Dashwood, see if mamma’s ready. If she isn’t I decline to wait; you must bring her in a hansom. I’ll take Mr. Dormer in the brougham; I want to talk with Mr. Dormer; he must drive with me to the theatre. His situation’s full of interest.” Miriam led the way out of the room as she continued to chatter, and when she reached the house-door with the four men in her train the carriage had just drawn up at the garden-gate. It appeared that Mrs. Rooth was not ready, and the girl, in spite of a remonstrance from Nick, who had a sense of usurping the old lady’s place, repeated her injunction that she should be brought on in a cab. Miriam’s gentlemen hung about her at the gate, and she insisted on Nick’s taking his seat in the brougham and taking it first. Before she entered she put her hand out to Peter and, looking up at him, held his own kindly. “Dear old master, aren’t you coming to-night? I miss you when you’re not there.”

“Don’t go—don’t go—it’s too much,” Nash freely declared.

“She is wonderful,” said Mr. Dashwood, all expert admiration; “she 具有 gone into the rehearsals tooth and nail. But nothing takes it out of her.”

“Nothing puts it into you, my dear!” Miriam returned. Then she pursued to Peter: “You’re the faithful one—you’re the one I count on.” He was not looking at her; his eyes travelled into the carriage, where they rested on Nick Dormer, established on the farther seat with his face turned toward the farther window. He was the one, faithful or no, counted on or no, whom a charming woman had preferred to carry off, and there was clear triumph for him in that fact. Yet it pleased, it somewhat relieved, his kinsman to see his passivity as not a little foolish. Miriam noted something of this in Peter’s eyes, for she exclaimed abruptly, “Don’t kill him—he doesn’t care for me!” With which she passed into the carriage and let it roll away.

Peter stood watching it till he heard Dashwood again beside him. “You wouldn’t believe what I make him do the whole thing for—a little rascal I know.”

“Good-bye; take good care of Mrs. Rooth,” said Gabriel Nash, waving a bland farewell to the young actor. He gave a smiling survey of the heavens and remarked to Sherringham that the rain had stopped. Was he walking, was he driving, should they be going in the same direction? Peter cared little about his direction and had little account of it to give; he simply moved away in silence and with Gabriel at his side. This converser was partly an affliction to him; indeed the fact that he couldn’t only make light of him added to the oppression. It was just to him nevertheless to note that he could hold his peace occasionally: he had for instance this afternoon taken little part in the talk at Balaklava Place. Peter greatly disliked to speak to him of Miriam, but he liked Nash himself to make free with her, and even liked him to say such things as might be a little viciously and unguardedly contradicted. He was not, however, moved to gainsay something dropped by his companion, disconnectedly, at the end of a few minutes; a word to the effect that she was after all the best-natured soul alive. All the same, Nash added, it wouldn’t do for her to take possession of a nice life like Nick’s; and he repeated that for his part he would never allow it. It would be on his conscience to interfere. To which Peter returned disingenuously that they might all do as they liked—it didn’t matter a button to 他. And with an effort to carry off that comedy he changed the subject.

He wouldn’t for a moment have admitted that he was jealous of his old comrade, but would almost have liked to be accused of it: for this would have given him a chance he rather lacked and missed, the right occasion to declare with plausibility that motives he couldn’t avow had no application to his case. How could a man be jealous when he was not a suitor? how could he pretend to guard a property which was neither his own nor destined to become his own? There could be no question of loss when one had nothing at stake, and no question of envy when the responsibility of possession was exactly what one prayed to be delivered from. The measure of one’s susceptibility was one’s pretensions, and Peter was not only ready to declare over and over again that, thank God, he had none: his spiritual detachment was still more complete—he literally suffered from the fact that nobody appeared to care to hear him say it. He connected an idea of virtue and honour with his attitude, since surely it was a high case of conduct to have quenched a personal passion for the good of the public service. He had gone over the whole question at odd, irrepressible hours; he had returned, spiritually speaking, the buffet administered to him all at once, that day in Rosedale Road, by the spectacle of the 起重机 with which Nick could let worldly glories slide. Resolution for resolution he preferred after all another sort, and his own 起重机 would be shown in the way he should stick to his profession and stand up for British interests. If Nick had leaped over a wall he would leap over a river. The course of his river was already traced and his loins were already girded. Thus he was justified in holding that the measure of a man’s susceptibility was a man’s attitude: that was the only thing he was bound to give an account of.

He was perpetually giving an account of it to his own soul in default of other listeners. He was quite angry at having tasted a sweetness in Miriam’s assurance at the carriage—door, bestowed indeed with very little solemnity, that Nick didn’t care for her. Wherein did it concern him that Nick cared for her or that Nick didn’t? Wherein did it signify to him that Gabriel Nash should have taken upon himself to disapprove of a union between the young actress and the young painter and to frustrate an accident that might perhaps prove fortunate? For those had also been cooling words at the hour, though Peter blushed on the morrow to think that he felt in them anything but Nash’s personal sublimity. He was ashamed of having been refreshed, and refreshed by so sickly a draught—it being all his theory that he was not in a fever. As for keeping an eye on Nick, it would soon become clear to that young man and that young man’s charming friend that he had quite other uses for his eyes. The pair, with Nash to help, might straighten out their complications according to their light. He would never speak to Nick of Miriam; he felt indeed just now as if he should never speak to Nick of anything. He had traced the course of his river, as I say, and the real proof would be in the way he should, clearing the air, land on the opposite bank. It was a case for action—for vigorous, unmistakable action. He had done very little since his arrival in London but moon round a 剧院圆角 who was taken up partly, though she bluffed it off, with another man, and partly with arranging new petticoats for a beastly old “poetic drama”; but this little waste of time should instantly be made up. He had given himself a definite rope, and he had danced to the end of his rope, and now he would dance back. That was all right—so right that Peter could only express to himself how right it was by whistling with extravagance.

He whistled as he went to dine with a great personage the day after his meeting with Nick in Balaklava Place; a great personage to whom he had originally paid his respects—it was high time—the day before that meeting, the previous Monday. The sense of omissions to repair, of a superior line to take, perhaps made him study with more zeal to please the personage, who gave him ten minutes and asked him five questions. A great many doors were successively opened before any palpitating pilgrim who was about to enter the presence of this distinguished man; but they were discreetly closed again behind Sherringham, and I must ask the reader to pause with me at the nearer end of the momentary vista. This particular pilgrim fortunately felt he could count on recognition not only as a faithful if obscure official in the great hierarchy, but as a clever young man who happened to be connected by blood with people his lordship had intimately known. No doubt it was simply as the clever young man that Peter received the next morning, from the dispenser of his lordship’s hospitality, a note asking him to dine on the morrow. Such cards had come to him before, and he had always obeyed their call; he did so at present, however, with a sense of unusual intention. In due course his intention was translated into words; before the gentlemen left the dining-room he respectfully asked his noble host for some further brief and benevolent hearing.

“What is it you want? Tell me now,” the master of his fate replied, motioning to the rest of the company to pass out and detaining him where they stood.

Peter’s excellent training covered every contingency: he could always be as concise or as diffuse as the occasion required. Even he himself, however, was surprised at the quick felicity of the terms in which he was conscious of conveying that, were it compatible with higher conveniences, he should extremely like to be transferred to duties in a more distant quarter of the globe. Indeed, fond as he was of thinking himself a man of emotions controlled by civility, it is not impossible that a greater candour than he knew glimmered through Peter’s expression and trembled through his tone as he presented this petition. He had aimed at a good manner in presenting it, but perhaps the best of the effect produced for his interlocutor was just where it failed, where it confessed a secret that the highest diplomacy would have guarded. Sherringham remarked to the minister that he didn’t care in the least where the place might be, nor how little coveted a post; the further away the better, and the climate didn’t matter. He would only prefer of course that there should be really something to do, though he would make the best of it even if there were not. He stopped in time, or at least thought he did, not to betray his covertly seeking relief from minding his having been jilted in a flight to latitudes unfavourable to human life. His august patron gave him a sharp look which for a moment seemed the precursor of a sharper question; but the moment elapsed and the question failed to come. This considerate omission, characteristic of a true man of the world and representing quick guesses and still quicker indifferences, made our gentleman from that moment his lordship’s ardent partisan. What did come was a good-natured laugh and the exclamation: “You know there are plenty of swamps and jungles, if you want that sort of thing,” Peter replied that it was very much that sort of thing he did want; whereupon his chief continued: “I’ll see—I’ll see. If anything turns up you shall hear.”

Something turned up the very next day: our young man, taken at his word, found himself indebted to the postman for a note of concise intimation that the high position of minister to the smallest of Central American republics would be apportioned him. The republic, though small, was big enough to be “shaky,” and the position, though high, not so exalted that there were not much greater altitudes above it to which it was a stepping-stone. Peter, quite ready to take one thing with another, rejoiced at his easy triumph, reflected that he must have been even more noticed at headquarters than he had hoped, and, on the spot, consulting nobody and waiting for nothing, signified his unqualified acceptance of the place. Nobody with a grain of sense would have advised him to do anything else. It made him happier than he had supposed he should ever be again; it made him feel professionally in the train, as they said in Paris; it was serious, it was interesting, it was exciting, and his imagination, letting itself loose into the future, began once more to scale the crowning eminence. It was very simple to hold one’s course if one really tried, and he blessed the variety of peoples. Further communications passed, the last enjoining on him to return to Paris for a short interval a week later, after which he would be advised of the date for his proceeding to his remoter duties.

The next thing he meanwhile did was to call with his news on Lady Agnes Dormer; it is not unworthy of note that he took on the other hand no step to make his promotion known to Miriam Rooth. To render it probable he should find his aunt he went at the luncheon-hour; and she was indeed on the point of sitting down to that repast with Grace. Biddy was not at home—Biddy was never at home now, her mother said: she was always at Nick’s place, she spent her life there, she ate and drank there, she almost slept there. What she contrived to do there for so many hours and what was the irresistible spell Lady Agnes couldn’t pretend she had succeeded in discovering. She spoke of this baleful resort only as “Nick’s place,” and spoke of it at first as little as possible. She judged highly probable, however, that Biddy would come in early that afternoon: there was something or other, some common social duty, she had condescended to promise she would perform with Grace. Poor Lady Agnes, whom Peter found somehow at once grim and very prostrate—she assured her nephew her nerves were all gone—almost abused her younger daughter for two minutes, having evidently a deep-seated need of abusing some one. I must yet add that she didn’t wait to meet Grace’s eye before recovering, by a rapid gyration, her view of the possibilities of things—those possibilities from which she still might squeeze, as a parent almost in despair, the drop that would sweeten her cup. “Dear child,” she had the presence of mind to subjoin, “her only fault is after all that she adores her brother. She has a capacity for adoration and must always take her gospel from some one.”

Grace declared to Peter that her sister would have stayed at home if she had dreamed he was coming, and Lady Agnes let him know that she had heard all about the hour he had spent with the poor child at Nick’s place and about his extraordinary good nature in taking the two girls to the play. Peter lunched in Calcutta Gardens, spending an hour there which proved at first unexpectedly and, as seemed to him, unfairly dismal. He knew from his own general perceptions, from what Biddy had told him and from what he had heard Nick say in Balaklava Place, that his aunt would have been wounded by her son’s apostasy; but it was not till he saw her that he appreciated the dark difference this young man’s behaviour had made in the outlook of his family. Evidently that behaviour had sprung a dreadful leak in the great vessel of their hopes. These were things no outsider could measure, and they were none of an outsider’s business; it was enough that Lady Agnes struck him really as a woman who had received her death-blow. She looked ten years older; she was white and haggard and tragic. Her eyes burned with a strange fitful fire that prompted one to conclude her children had better look out for her. When not filled with this unnatural flame they were suffused with comfortless tears; and altogether the afflicted lady was, as he viewed her, very bad, a case for anxiety. It was because he had known she would be very bad that he had, in his kindness, called on her exactly in this manner; but he recognised that to undertake to be kind to her in proportion to her need might carry one very far. He was glad he had not himself a wronged mad mother, and he wondered how Nick could bear the burden of the home he had ruined. Apparently he didn’t bear it very far, but had taken final, convenient refuge in Rosedale Road.

Peter’s judgement of his perverse cousin was considerably confused, and not the less so for the consciousness that he was perhaps just now not in the best state of mind for judging him at all. At the same time, though he held in general that a man of sense has always warrant enough in his sense for doing the particular thing he prefers, he could scarcely help asking himself whether, in the exercise of a virile freedom, it had been absolutely indispensable Nick should work such domestic woe. He admitted indeed that that was an anomalous figure for Nick, the worker of domestic woe. Then he saw that his aunt’s grievance—there came a moment, later, when she asserted as much—was not quite what her recreant child, in Balaklava Place, had represented it—with questionable taste perhaps—to a mocking actress; was not a mere shocked quarrel with his adoption of a “low” career, or a horror, the old-fashioned horror, of the 钢包 licences taken by artists under pretext of being conscientious: the day for this was past, and English society thought the brush and the fiddle as good as anything else—with two or three exceptions. It was not what he had taken up but what he had put down that made the sorry difference, and the tragedy would have been equally great if he had become a wine-merchant or a horse-dealer. Peter had gathered at first that Lady Agnes wouldn’t trust herself to speak directly of her trouble, and he had obeyed what he supposed the best discretion in making no allusion to it. But a few minutes before they rose from table she broke out, and when he attempted to utter a word of mitigation there was something that went to his heart in the way she returned: “Oh you don’t know—you don’t know!” He felt Grace’s eyes fixed on him at this instant in a mystery of supplication, and was uncertain as to what she wanted—that he should say something more to console her mother or should hurry away from the subject. Grace looked old and plain and—he had thought on coming in—rather cross, but she evidently wanted something. “You don’t know,” Lady Agnes repeated with a trembling voice, “you don’t know.” She had pushed her chair a little away from her place; she held her pocket-handkerchief pressed hard to her mouth, almost stuffed into it, and her eyes were fixed on the floor. She made him aware he did virtually know—know what towering piles of confidence and hope had been dashed to the earth. Then she finished her sentence unexpectedly—”You don’t know what my life with my great husband was.” Here on the other hand Peter was slightly at fault—he didn’t exactly see what her life with her great husband had to do with it. What was clear to him, however, was that they literally had looked for things all in the very key of that greatness from Nick. It was not quite easy to see why this had been the case—it had not been precisely Peter’s own prefigurement. Nick appeared to have had the faculty of planting that sort of flattering faith in women; he had originally given Julia a tremendous dose of it, though she had since shaken off the effects.

“Do you really think he would have done such great things, politically speaking?” Peter risked. “Do you consider that the root of the matter was so essentially in him?”

His hostess had a pause, looking at him rather hard. “I only think what all his friends—all his father’s friends—have thought. He was his father’s son after all. No young man ever had a finer training, and he gave from the first repeated proof of the highest ability, the highest ambition. See how he got in everywhere. Look at his first seat—look at his second,” Lady Agnes continued. “Look at what every one says at this moment.”

“Look at all the papers!” said Grace. “Did you ever hear him speak?” she asked. And when Peter reminded her how he had spent his life in foreign lands, shut out from such pleasures, she went on: “Well, you lost something.”

“It was very charming,” said Lady Agnes quietly and poignantly.

“Of course he’s charming, whatever he does,” Peter returned. “He’ll be a charming artist.”

“Oh God help us!” the poor lady groaned, rising quickly.

“He won’t—that’s the worst,” Grace amended. “It isn’t as if he’d do things people would like, I’ve been to his place, and I never saw such a horrid lot of things—not at all clever or pretty.”

Yet her mother, at this, turned upon her with sudden asperity. “You know nothing whatever about the matter!” Then she added for Peter that, as it happened, her children did have a good deal of artistic taste: Grace was the only one who was totally deficient in it. Biddy was very clever—Biddy really might learn to do pretty things. And anything the poor child could learn was now no more than her duty—there was so little knowing what the future had in store for them all.

“You think too much of the future—you take terribly gloomy views,” said Peter, looking for his hat.

“What other views can one take when one’s son has deliberately thrown away a fortune?”

“Thrown one away? Do you mean through not marrying——?”

“I mean through killing by his perversity the best friend he ever had.”

Peter stared a moment; then with laughter: “Ah but Julia isn’t dead of it!”

“I’m not talking of Julia,” said his aunt with a good deal of majesty. “Nick isn’t mercenary, and I’m not complaining of that.”

“She means Mr. Carteret,” Grace explained with all her competence. “He’d have done anything if Nick had stayed in the House.”

“But he’s not dead?”

“Charles Carteret’s dying,” said Lady Agnes—”his end’s dreadfully near. He has been a sort of providence to us—he was Sir Nicholas’s second self. But he won’t put up with such insanity, such wickedness, and that chapter’s closed.”

“You mean he has dropped Nick out of his will?”

“Cut him off utterly. He has given him notice.”

“The old scoundrel!”—Peter couldn’t keep this back. “But Nick will work the better for that—he’ll depend on himself.”

“Yes, and whom shall we depend on?” Grace spoke up.

“Don’t be vulgar, for God’s sake!” her mother ejaculated with a certain inconsequence.

“Oh leave Nick alone—he’ll make a lot of money,” Peter declared cheerfully, following his two companions into the hall.

“I don’t in the least care if he does or not,” said Lady Agnes. “You must come upstairs again—I’ve lots to say to you yet,” she went on, seeing him make for his hat. “You must arrange to come and dine with us immediately; it’s only because I’ve been so steeped in misery that I didn’t write to you the other day—directly after you had called. We don’t give parties, as you may imagine, but if you’ll come just as we are, for old acquaintance’ sake—”

“Just with Nick—if Nick will come—and dear Biddy,” Grace interposed.

“Nick must certainly come, as well as dear Biddy, whom I hoped so much to find,” Peter pronounced. “Because I’m going away—I don’t know when I, shall see them again.”

“Wait with mamma. Biddy will come in now at any moment,” Grace urged.

“You’re going away?” said Lady Agnes, pausing at the foot of the stairs and turning her white face upon him. Something in her voice showed she had been struck by his own tone.

“I’ve had promotion and you must congratulate me. They’re sending me out as minister to a little hot hole in Central America—six thousand miles away. I shall have to go rather soon.”

“Oh I’m so glad!” Lady Agnes breathed. Still she paused at the foot of the stair and still she gazed.

“How very delightful—it will lead straight off to all sorts of other good things!” Grace a little coarsely commented.

“Oh I’m crawling up—I’m an excellency,” Peter laughed.

“Then if you dine with us your excellency must have great people to meet you.”

“Nick and Biddy—they’re great enough.”

“Come upstairs—come upstairs,” said Lady Agnes, turning quickly and beginning to ascend.

“Wait for Biddy—I’m going out,” Grace continued, extending her hand to her kinsman. “I shall see you again—not that you care; but good-bye now. Wait for Biddy,” the girl repeated in a lower tone, fastening her eyes on his with the same urgent mystifying gleam he thought he had noted at luncheon.

“Oh I’ll go and see her in Rosedale Road,” he threw off.

“Do you mean to-day—now?”

“I don’t know about to-day, but before I leave England.”

“Well, she’ll be in immediately,” said Grace. “Good-bye to your excellency.”

“Come up, Peter—请 come up,” called Lady Agnes from the top of the stairs.

He mounted and when he found himself in the drawing-room with her and the door closed she expressed her great interest in his fine prospects and position, which she wished to hear all about. She rang for coffee and indicated the seat he would find most comfortable: it shone before him for a moment that she would tell him he might if he wished light a cigar. For Peter had suddenly become restless—too restless to occupy a comfortable chair; he seated himself in it only to jump up again, and he went to the window, while he imparted to his hostess the very little he knew about his post, on hearing a vehicle drive up to the door. A strong light had just been thrown into his mind, and it grew stronger when, looking out, he saw Grace Dormer issue from the house in a hat and a jacket which had all the air of having been assumed with extraordinary speed. Her jacket was unbuttoned and her gloves still dangling from the hands with which she was settling her hat. The vehicle into which she hastily sprang was a hansom-cab which had been summoned by the butler from the doorstep and which rolled away with her after she had given an address.

“Where’s Grace going in such a hurry?” he asked of Lady Agnes; to which she replied that she hadn’t the least idea—her children, at the pass they had all come to, knocked about as they liked.

Well, he sat down again; he stayed a quarter of an hour and then he stayed longer, and during this time his appreciation of what she had in her mind gathered force. She showed him that precious quantity clearly enough, though she showed it by no clumsy, no voluntary arts. It looked out of her sombre, conscious eyes and quavered in her preoccupied, perfunctory tones. She took an extravagant interest in his future proceedings, the probable succession of events in his career, the different honours he would be likely to come in for, the salary attached to his actual appointment, the salary attached to the appointments that would follow—they would be sure to, wouldn’t they?—and what he might reasonably expect to save. Oh he must save—Lady Agnes was an advocate of saving; and he must take tremendous pains and get on and be clever and fiercely ambitious: he must make himself indispensable and rise to the top. She was urgent and suggestive and sympathetic; she threw herself into the vision of his achievements and emoluments as if to appease a little the sore hunger with which Nick’s treachery had left her. This was touching to her nephew, who didn’t remain unmoved even at those more importunate moments when, as she fell into silence, fidgeting feverishly with a morsel of fancy-work she had plucked from a table, her whole presence became an intense, repressed appeal to him. What that appeal would have been had it been uttered was: “Oh Peter, take little Biddy; oh my dear young friend, understand your interests at the same time that you understand mine; be kind and reasonable and clever; save me all further anxiety and tribulation and accept my lovely, faultless child from my hands.”

That was what Lady Agnes had always meant, more or less, that was what Grace had meant, and they meant it with singular lucidity on the present occasion, Lady Agnes meant it so much that from one moment to another he scarce knew what she might do; and Grace meant it so much that she had rushed away in a hansom to fetch her sister from the studio. Grace, however, was a fool, for Biddy certainly wouldn’t come. The news of his promotion had started them off, adding point to their idea of his being an excellent match; bringing home to them sharply the sense that if he were going away to strange countries he must take Biddy with him—that something at all events must be settled about Biddy before he went. They had suddenly begun to throb, poor things, with alarm at the ebbing hours.

Strangely enough the perception of all this hadn’t the effect of throwing him on the defensive and still less that of making him wish to bolt. When once he had made sure what was in the air he recognised a propriety, a real felicity in it; couldn’t deny that he was in certain ways a good match, since it was quite probable he would go far; and was even generous enough—as he had no fear of being materially dragged to the altar—to enter into the conception that he might offer some balm to a mother who had had a horrid disappointment. The feasibility of marrying Biddy was not exactly augmented by the idea that his doing so would be a great offset to what Nick had made Lady Agnes suffer; but at least Peter didn’t dislike his strenuous aunt so much as to wish to punish her for her nature. He was not afraid of her, whatever she might do; and though unable to grasp the practical relevancy of Biddy’s being produced on the instant was willing to linger half an hour on the chance of successful production.

There was meanwhile, moreover, a certain contagion in Lady Agnes’s appeal—it made him appeal sensibly to himself, since indeed, as it is time to say, the glass of our young man’s spirit had been polished for that reflexion. It was only at this moment really that he became inwardly candid. While making up his mind that his only safety was in flight and taking the strong measure of a request for help toward it, he was yet very conscious that another and probably still more effectual safeguard—especially if the two should be conjoined—lay in the hollow of his hand. His sister’s words in Paris had come back to him and had seemed still wiser than when uttered: “She’ll save you disappointments; you’d know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn’t be bad.” Julia had put it into a nutshell—Biddy would probably save him disappointments. And then she was—well, she was Biddy. Peter knew better what that was since the hour he had spent with her in Rosedale Road. But he had brushed away the sense of it, though aware that in doing so he took only half-measures and was even guilty of a sort of fraud upon himself. If he was sincere in wishing to put a gulf between his future and that sad expanse of his past and present over which Miriam had cast her shadow there was a very simple way to do so. He had dodged this way, dishonestly fixing on another which, taken alone, was far from being so good; but Lady Agnes brought him back to it. She held him in well-nigh confused contemplation of it, during which the safety, as Julia had called it, of the remedy wrought upon him as he wouldn’t have believed beforehand, and not least to the effect of sweetening, of prettily colouring, the pill. It would be simple and it would deal with all his problems; it would put an end to all alternatives, which, as alternatives were otherwise putting an end to him, would be an excellent thing. It would settle the whole question of his future, and it was high time this should be settled.

Peter took two cups of coffee while he made out his future with Lady Agnes, but though he drank them slowly he had finished them before Biddy turned up. He stayed three-quarters of an hour, saying to himself she wouldn’t come—why should she come? Lady Agnes stooped to no avowal; she really stooped, so far as bald words went, to no part of the business; but she made him fix the next day save one for coming to dinner, and her repeated declaration that there would be no one else, not another creature but themselves, had almost the force of the supplied form for a promise to pay. In giving his word that he would come without fail, and not write the next day to throw them over for some function he should choose to dub obligatory, he felt quite as if he were putting his name to such a document. He went away at half-past three; Biddy of course hadn’t come, and he had been sure she wouldn’t. He couldn’t imagine what Grace’s idea had been, nor what pretext she had put forward to her sister. Whatever these things Biddy had seen through them and hated them. Peter could but like her the more for that.

Lady Agnes would doubtless have done better, in her own interest or in that of her child, to have secured his company for the very next evening. This she had indeed attempted, but her application of her thought had miscarried, Peter bethinking himself that he was importantly engaged. Her ladyship, moreover, couldn’t presume to answer for Nick, since after all they must of course 已可以选用 Nick, though, to tell the truth, the hideous truth, she and her son were scarcely on terms. Peter insisted on Nick, wished particularly to see him, and gave his hostess notice that he would make each of them forgive everything to the other. She returned that all her son had to forgive was her loving him more than her life, and she would have challenged Peter, had he allowed it, on the general ground of the comparative dignity of the two arts of painting portraits and governing nations. Our friend declined the challenge: the most he did was to intimate that he perhaps saw Nick more vividly as a painter than as a governor. Later he remembered vaguely something his aunt had said about their being a governing family.

He was going, by what he could ascertain, to a very queer climate and had many preparations to make. He gave his best attention to these, and for a couple of hours after leaving Lady Agnes rummaged London for books from which he might extract information about his new habitat. It made apparently no great figure in literature, and Peter could reflect that he was perhaps destined to find a salutary distraction in himself filling the void with a volume of impressions. After he had resigned himself to necessary ignorance he went into the Park. He treated himself to an afternoon or two there when he happened to drop upon London in summer—it refreshed his sense of the British interests he would have to stand up for. Moreover, he had been hiding more or less, and now all that was changed and this was the simplest way not to hide. He met a host of friends, made his situation as public as possible and accepted on the spot a great many invitations; all subject, however, to the mental reservation that he should allow none of them to interfere with his being present the first night of Miriam’s new venture. He was going to the equator to get away from her, but to repudiate the past with some decency of form he must show an affected interest, if he could muster none other, in an occasion that meant so much for her. The least intimate of her associates would do that, and Peter remembered how, at the expense of good manners, he had stayed away from her first appearance on any stage at all. He would have been shocked had he found himself obliged to go back to Paris without giving her at the imminent crisis the personal countenance she had so good a right to expect.

It was nearly eight o’clock when he went to Great Stanhope Street to dress for dinner and learn that a note awaiting him on the hall-table and which bore the marks of hasty despatch had come three or four hours before. It exhibited the signature of Miriam Rooth and let him know that she positively expected him at the theatre by eleven o’clock the next morning, for which hour a dress-rehearsal of the revived play had been hurriedly projected, the first night being now definitely fixed for the impending Saturday. She counted on his attendance at both ceremonies, but with particular reasons for wishing to see him in the morning. “I want you to see and judge and tell me,” she said, “for my mind’s like a flogged horse—it won’t give another kick.” It was for the Saturday he had made Lady Agnes his promise; he had thought of the possibility of the play in doing so, but had rested in the faith that, from valid symptoms, this complication would not occur till the following week. He decided nothing on the spot as to the conflict of occupations—it was enough to send Miriam three words to the effect that he would sooner perish than fail her on the morrow.

He went to the theatre in the morning, and the episode proved curious and instructive. Though there were twenty people in the stalls it bore little resemblance to those répétitions générales to which, in Paris, his love of the drama had often attracted him and which, taking place at night, in the theatre closed to the public, are virtually first performances with invited spectators. They were to his sense always settled and stately, rehearsals of the 首映 even more than rehearsals of the play. The present occasion was less august; it was not so much a concert as a confusion of sounds, and it took audible and at times disputatious counsel with itself. It was rough and frank and spasmodic, but was lively and vivid and, in spite of the serious character of the piece, often exceedingly droll: while it gave Sherringham, oddly enough, a more present sense than ever of bending over the hissing, smoking, sputtering caldron in which a palatable performance is stewed. He looked into the gross darkness that may result from excess of light; that is, he understood how knocked up, on the eve of production, every one concerned in the preparation of a piece might be, with nerves overstretched and glasses blurred, awaiting the test and the response, the echo to be given back by the big, receptive, artless, stupid, delightful public. Peter’s interest had been great in advance, and as Miriam since his arrival had taken him much into her confidence he knew what she intended to do and had discussed a hundred points with her. They had differed about some of them and she had always said: “Ah but wait till you see how I shall do it at the time!” That was usually her principal reason and her most convincing argument. She had made some changes at the last hour—she was going to do several things in another way. But she wanted a touchstone, wanted a fresh ear, and, as she told Sherringham when he went behind after the first act, that was why she had insisted on this private trial, to which a few fresh ears were to be admitted. They didn’t want to allow it her, the theatre people, they were such a parcel of donkeys; but as to what she meant in general to insist on she had given them a hint she flattered herself they wouldn’t soon forget.

She spoke as if she had had a great battle with her fellow-workers and had routed them utterly. It was not the first time he had heard her talk as if such a life as hers could only be a fighting life and of her frank measure of the fine uses of a faculty for making a row. She rejoiced she possessed this faculty, for she knew what to do with it; and though there might be a certain swagger in taking such a stand in advance when one had done the infinitely little she had yet done, she nevertheless trusted to the future to show how right she should have been in believing a pack of idiots would never hold out against her and would know they couldn’t afford to. Her assumption of course was that she fought for the light and the right, for the good way and the thorough, for doing a thing properly if one did it at all. What she had really wanted was the theatre closed for a night and the dress-rehearsal, put on for a few people, given instead of 约朗德. That she had not got, but she would have it the next time. She spoke as if her triumphs behind the scenes as well as before would go by leaps and bounds, and he could perfectly see, for the time, that she would drive her coadjutors in front of her like sheep. Her tone was the sort of thing that would have struck one as preposterous if one hadn’t believed in her; but if one did so believe it only seemed thrown in with the other gifts. How was she going to act that night and what could be said for such a hateful way of doing things? She thrust on poor Peter questions he was all unable to answer; she abounded in superlatives and tremendously strong objections. He had a sharper vision than usual of the queer fate, for a peaceable man, of being involved in a life of so violent a rhythm: one might as well be hooked to a Catharine-wheel and whiz round in flame and smoke.

It had only been for five minutes, in the wing, amid jostling and shuffling and shoving, that they held this conference. Miriam, splendid in a brocaded anachronism, a false dress of the beginning of the century, and excited and appealing, imperious, reckless and good-humoured, full of exaggerated propositions, supreme determinations and comic irrelevancies, showed as radiant a young head as the stage had ever seen. Other people quickly surrounded her, and Peter saw that though, she wanted, as she said, a fresh ear and a fresh eye she was liable to rap out to those who possessed these advantages that they didn’t know what they were talking about. It was rather hard for her victims—Basil Dashwood let him into this, wonderfully painted and in a dress even more beautiful than Miriam’s, that of a young dandy under Charles the Second: if you were not in the business you were one kind of donkey and if you 为 in the business you were another kind. Peter noted with a certain chagrin that Gabriel Nash had failed; he preferred to base his annoyance on that ground when the girl, after the remark just quoted from Dashwood, laughing and saying that at any rate the thing would do because it would just have to do, thrust vindictively but familiarly into the young actor’s face a magnificent feather fan. “Isn’t he too lovely,” she asked, “and doesn’t he know how to do it?” Dashwood had the sense of costume even more than Peter had inferred or supposed he minded, inasmuch as it now appeared he had gone profoundly into the question of what the leading lady was to wear. He had drawn patterns and hunted up stuffs, had helped her to try on her clothes, had bristled with ideas and pins. It would not have been quite clear, Peter’s ground for resenting Nash’s cynical absence; it may even be thought singular he should have missed him. At any rate he flushed a little when their young woman, of whom he inquired whether she hadn’t invited her oldest and dearest friend, made answer: “Oh he says he doesn’t like the kitchen-fire—he only wants the pudding!” It would have taken the kitchen-fire to account at that point for the red of Sherringham’s cheek; and he was indeed uncomfortably heated by helping to handle, as he phrased it, the saucepans.

This he felt so much after he had returned to his seat, which he forbore to quit again till the curtain had fallen on the last act, that in spite of the high beauty of that part of the performance of which Miriam carried the weight there were moments when his relief overflowed into gasps, as if he had been scrambling up the bank of a torrent after an immersion. The girl herself, out in the open of her field to win, was of the incorruptible faith: she had been saturated to good purpose with the great spirit of Madame Carré. That was conspicuous while the play went on and she guarded the whole march with fagged piety and passion. Sherringham had never liked the piece itself; he held that as barbarous in form and false in feeling it did little honour to the British theatre; he despised many of the speeches, pitied Miriam for having to utter them, and considered that, lighted by that sort of candle, the path of fame might very well lead nowhere.

When the ordeal was over he went behind again, where in the rose-coloured satin of the silly issue the heroine of the occasion said to him: “Fancy my having to drag through that other stuff to-night—the brutes!” He was vague about the persons designated in this allusion, but he let it pass: he had at the moment a kind of detached foreboding of the way any gentleman familiarly connected with her in the future would probably form the habit of letting objurgations and some other things pass. This had become indeed now a frequent state of mind with him; the instant he was before her, near her, next her, he found himself a helpless subject of the spell which, so far at least as he was concerned, she put forth by contact and of which the potency was punctual and absolute: the fit came on, as he said, exactly as some esteemed express-train on a great line bangs at a given moment into the station. At a distance he partly recovered himself—that was the encouragement for going to the shaky republic; but as soon as he entered her presence his life struck him as a thing disconnected from his will. It was as if he himself had been one thing and his behaviour another; he had shining views of this difference, drawn as they might be from the coming years—little illustrative scenes in which he saw himself in strange attitudes of resignation, always rather sad and still and with a slightly bent head. Such images should not have been inspiring, but it is a fact that they were something to go upon. The gentleman with the bent head had evidently given up something that was dear to him, but it was exactly because he had got his price that he was there. “Come and see me three or four hours hence,” Miriam said—”come, that is, about six. I shall rest till then, but I want particularly to talk with you. There will be no one else—not the tip of any tiresome nose. You’ll do me good.” So of course he drove up at six.

“I don’t know; I haven’t the least idea; I don’t care; don’t ask me!”—it was so he met some immediate appeal of her artistic egotism, some challenge of his impression of her at this and that moment. Hadn’t she frankly better give up such and such a point and return to their first idea, the one they had talked over so much? Peter replied to this that he disowned all ideas; that at any rate he should never have another as long as he lived, and that, so help him heaven, they had worried that hard bone more than enough.

“You’re tired of me—yes, already,” she said sadly and kindly. They were alone, her mother had not peeped out and she had prepared herself to return to the Strand. “However, it doesn’t matter and of course your head’s full of other things. You must think me ravenously selfish—perpetually chattering about my vulgar shop. What will you have when one’s a vulgar shop-girl? You used to like it, but then you weren’t an ambassador.”

“What do you know about my being a minister?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and showing sombre eyes. Sometimes he held her handsomer on the stage than off, and sometimes he reversed that judgement. The former of these convictions had held his mind in the morning, and it was now punctually followed by the other. As soon as she stepped on the boards a great and special alteration usually took place in her—she was in focus and in her frame; yet there were hours too in which she wore her world’s face before the audience, just as there were hours when she wore her stage face in the world. She took up either mask as it suited her humour. To-day he was seeing each in its order and feeling each the best. “I should know very little if I waited for you to tell me—that’s very certain,” Miriam returned. “It’s in the papers that you’ve got a high appointment, but I don’t read the papers unless there’s something in them about myself. Next week I shall devour them and think them, no doubt, inane. It was Basil told me this afternoon of your promotion—he had seen it announced somewhere, I’m delighted if it gives you more money and more advantages, but don’t expect me to be glad that you’re going away to some distant, disgusting country.”

“The matter has only just been settled and we’ve each been busy with our own affairs. But even if you hadn’t given me these opportunities,” Peter went on, “I should have tried to see you to-day, to tell you my news and take leave of you.”

“Take leave? Aren’t you coming to-morrow?”

“Oh yes, I shall see you through that. But I shall rush away the very moment it’s over.”

“I shall be much better then—really I shall,” the girl said.

“The better you are the worse you are.”

She returned his frown with a beautiful charity. “If it would do you any good I’d be bad.”

“The worse you are the better you are!” Peter laughed. “You’re a devouring demon.”

“Not a bit! It’s you.”

“It’s I? I like that.”

“It’s you who make trouble, who are sore and suspicious and supersubtle, not taking things as they come and for what they are, but twisting them into misery and falsity. Oh I’ve watched you enough, my dear friend, and I’ve been sorry for you—and sorry as well for myself; for I’m not so taken up with myself, in the low greedy sense, as you think. I’m not such a base creature. I’m capable of gratitude, I’m capable of affection. One may live in paint and tinsel, but one isn’t absolutely without a soul. Yes, I’ve got one,” the girl went on, “though I do smear my face and grin at myself in the glass and practise my intonations. If what you’re going to do is good for you I’m very glad. If it leads to good things, to honour and fortune and greatness, I’m enchanted. If it means your being away always, for ever and ever, of course that’s serious. You know it—I needn’t tell you—I regard you as I really don’t regard any one else. I’ve a confidence in you—ah it’s a luxury! You’re a gentleman, mon bon—ah you’re a gentleman! It’s just that. And then you see, you understand, and that’s a luxury too. You’re a luxury altogether, dear clever Mr. Sherringham. Your being where I shall never see you isn’t a thing I shall enjoy; I know that from the separation of these last months—after our beautiful life in Paris, the best thing that ever happened to me or that ever will. But if it’s your career, if it’s your happiness—well, I can miss you and hold my tongue. I 能够 be disinterested—I can!”

“What did you want me to come for?” he asked, all attentive and motionless. The same impression, the old impression, was with him again; the sense that if she was sincere it was sincerity of execution, if she was genuine it was the genuineness of doing it well. She did it so well now that this very fact was charming and touching. In claiming from him at the theatre this hour of the afternoon she had wanted honestly (the more as she had not seen him at home for several days) to go over with him once again, on the eve of the great night—it would be for her second creation the critics would lie so in wait; the first success might have been a fluke—some of her recurrent doubts: knowing from experience of what good counsel he often was, how he could give a worrying question its “settler” at the last. Then she had heard from Dashwood of the change in his situation, and that had really from one moment to the other made her think sympathetically of his preoccupations—led her open-handedly to drop her own. She was sorry to lose him and eager to let him know how good a friend she was conscious he had been to her. But the expression of this was already, at the end of a minute, a strange bedevilment: she began to listen to herself, to speak dramatically, to represent. She uttered the things she felt as if they were snatches of old play-books, and really felt them the more because they sounded so well. This, however, didn’t prevent their really being as good feelings as those of anybody else, and at the moment her friend, to still a rising emotion—which he knew he shouldn’t still—articulated the challenge I have just recorded, she had for his sensibility, at any rate, the truth of gentleness and generosity.

“There’s something the matter with you, my dear—you’re jealous,” Miriam said. “You’re jealous of poor Mr. Dormer. That’s an example of the way you tangle everything up. Lord, he won’t hurt you, nor me either!”

“He can’t hurt me, certainly,” Peter returned, “and neither can you; for I’ve a nice little heart of stone and a smart new breastplate of iron. The interest I take in you is something quite extraordinary; but the most extraordinary thing in it is that it’s perfectly prepared to tolerate the interest of others.”

“The interest of others needn’t trouble it much!” Miriam declared. “If Mr. Dormer has broken off his marriage to such an awfully fine woman—for she’s that, your swell of a sister—it isn’t for a ranting wretch like me. He’s kind to me because that’s his nature and he notices me because that’s his business; but he’s away up in the clouds—a thousand miles over my head. He has got something ‘on,’ as they say; he’s in love with an idea. I think it’s a shocking bad one, but that’s his own affair. He’s quite 崇高; living on nectar and ambrosia—what he has to spare for us poor crawling things on earth is only a few dry crumbs. I didn’t even ask him to come to rehearsal. Besides, he thinks you’re in love with me and that it wouldn’t be honourable to cut in. He’s capable of that—isn’t it charming?”

“If he were to relent and give up his scruples would you marry him?” Peter asked.

“Mercy, how you chatter about ‘marrying’!” the girl laughed. “C’est la maladie anglaise—you’ve all got it on the brain.”

“Why I put it that way to please you,” he explained. “You complained to me last year precisely that this was not what seemed generally wanted.”

“Oh last year!”—she made nothing of that. Then differently, “Yes, it’s very tiresome!” she conceded.

“You told me, moreover, in Paris more than once that you wouldn’t listen to anything but that.”

“Well,” she declared, “I won’t, but I shall wait till I find a husband who’s charming enough and bad enough. One who’ll beat me and swindle me and spend my money on other women—that’s the sort of man for me. Mr. Dormer, delightful as he is, doesn’t come up to that.”

“You’ll marry Basil Dashwood.” He spoke it with conviction.

“Oh ‘marry’?—call it marry if you like. That’s what poor mother threatens me with—she lives in dread of it.”

“To this hour,” he mentioned, “I haven’t managed to make out what your mother wants. She has so many ideas, as Madame Carré said.”

“She wants me to be some sort of tremendous creature—all her ideas are reducible to that. What makes the muddle is that she isn’t clear about the creature she wants most. A great actress or a great lady—sometimes she inclines for one and sometimes for the other, but on the whole persuading herself that a great actress, if she’ll cultivate the right people, may be a great lady. When I tell her that won’t do and that a great actress can never be anything but a great vagabond, then the dear old thing has tantrums, and we have scenes—the most grotesque: they’d make the fortune, for a subject, of some play-writing rascal, if he had the wit to guess them; which, luckily for us perhaps, he never will. She usually winds up by protesting—devinez un peu quoi!” Miriam added. And as her companion professed his complete inability to divine: “By declaring that rather than take it that way I must marry 您设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“She’s shrewder than I thought,” Peter returned. “It’s the last of vanities to talk about, but I may state in passing that if you’d marry me you should be the greatest of all possible ladies.”

She had a beautiful, comical gape. “Lord o’ mercy, my dear fellow, what natural capacity have I for that?”

“You’re artist enough for anything. I shall be a great diplomatist: my resolution’s firmly taken, I’m infinitely cleverer than you have the least idea of, and you shall be,” he went on, “a great diplomatist’s wife.”

“And the demon, the devil, the devourer and destroyer, that you are so fond of talking about: what, in such a position, do you do with that element of my nature? Où le fourrez-vous?” she cried as with a real anxiety.

“I’ll look after it, I’ll keep it under. Rather perhaps I should say I’ll bribe it and amuse it; I’ll gorge it with earthly grandeurs.”

“That’s better,” said Miriam; “for a demon that’s kept under is a shabby little demon. Don’t let’s be shabby.” Then she added: “Do you really go away the beginning of next week?”

“Monday night if possible.”

“Ah that’s but to Paris. Before you go to your new post they must give you an interval here.”

“I shan’t take it—I’m so tremendously keen for my duties. I shall insist on going sooner. Oh,” he went on, “I shall be concentrated now.”

“I’ll come and act there.” She met it all—she was amused and amusing. “I’ve already forgotten what it was I wanted to discuss with you,” she said—”it was some trumpery stuff. What I want to say now is only one thing: that it’s not in the least true that because my life pitches me in every direction and mixes me up with all sorts of people—or rather with one sort mainly, poor dears!—I haven’t a decent character, I haven’t common honesty. Your sympathy, your generosity, your patience, your precious suggestions, our dear sweet days last summer in Paris, I shall never forget. You’re the best—you’re different from all the others. Think of me as you please and make profane jokes about my mating with a disguised ‘Arty’—I shall think of 您 only in one way. I’ve a great respect for you. With all my heart I hope you’ll be a great diplomatist. God bless you, dear clever man.”

She got up as she spoke and in so doing glanced at the clock—a movement that somehow only added to the noble gravity of her discourse: she was considering his time so much more than her own. Sherringham, at this, rising too, took out his watch and stood a moment with his eyes bent upon it, though without in the least seeing what the needles marked. “You’ll have to go, to reach the theatre at your usual hour, won’t you? Let me not keep you. That is, let me keep you only long enough just to say this, once for all, as I shall never speak of it again. I’m going away to save myself,” he frankly said, planted before her and seeking her eyes with his own. “I ought to go, no doubt, in silence, in decorum, in virtuous submission to hard necessity—without asking for credit or sympathy, without provoking any sort of scene or calling attention to my fortitude. But I can’t—upon my soul I can’t. I can go, I can see it through, but I can’t hold my tongue. I want you to know all about it, so that over there, when I’m bored to death, I shall at least have the exasperatingly vain consolation of feeling that you do know—and that it does neither you nor me any good!”

He paused a moment; on which, as quite vague, she appealed. “That I ‘do know’ what?”

“That I’ve a consuming passion for you and that it’s impossible.”

“Oh impossible, my friend!” she sighed, but with a quickness in her assent.

“Very good; it interferes, the gratification of it would interfere fatally, with the ambition of each of us. Our ambitions are inferior and odious, but we’re tied fast to them.”

“Ah why ain’t we simple?” she quavered as if all touched by it. “Why ain’t we of the people—来吹捧世界报—just a man and a girl liking each other?”

He waited a little—she was so tenderly mocking, so sweetly ambiguous. “Because we’re precious asses! However, I’m simple enough, after all, to care for you as I’ve never cared for any human creature. You have, as it happens, a personal charm for me that no one has ever approached, and from the top of your splendid head to the sole of your theatrical shoe (I could go down on my face—there, abjectly—and kiss it!) every inch of you is dear and delightful to me. Therefore good-bye.”

She took this in with wider eyes: he had put the matter in a way that struck her. For a moment, all the same, he was afraid she would reply as on the confessed experience of so many such tributes, handsome as this one was. But she was too much moved—the pure colour that had risen to her face showed it—to have recourse to this particular facility. She was moved even to the glimmer of tears, though she gave him her hand with a smile. “I’m so glad you’ve said all that, for from you I know what it means. Certainly it’s better for you to go away. Of course it’s all wrong, isn’t it?—but that’s the only thing it can be: therefore it’s all right, isn’t it? Some day when we’re both great people we’ll talk these things over; then we shall be quiet, we shall be rich, we shall be at peace—let us hope so at least—and better friends than others about us will know.” She paused, smiling still, and then said while he held her hand: “Don’t, 别 come to-morrow night.”

With this she attempted to draw her hand away, as if everything were settled and over; but the effect of her movement was that, as he held her tight, he was simply drawn toward her and close to her. The effect of this, in turn, was that, releasing her only to possess her the more completely, he seized her in his arms and, breathing deeply “I love you, you know,” clasped her in a long embrace. His demonstration and her conscious sufferance, almost equally liberal, so sustained themselves that the door of the room had time to open slowly before either had taken notice. Mrs. Rooth, who had not peeped in before, peeped in now, becoming in this manner witness of an incident she could scarce have counted on. The unexpected indeed had for Mrs. Rooth never been an insuperable element in things; it was her position in general to be too acquainted with all the passions for any crude surprise. As the others turned round they saw her stand there and smile, and heard her ejaculate with wise indulgence: “Oh you extravagant children!”

Miriam brushed off her tears, quickly but unconfusedly. “He’s going away, the wretch; he’s bidding us farewell.”

Peter—it was perhaps a result of his acute agitation—laughed out at the “us” (he had already laughed at the charge of puerility), and Mrs. Rooth went on: “Going away? Ah then I must have one too!” She held out both her hands, and Sherringham, stepping forward to take them, kissed her respectfully on each cheek, in the foreign manner, while she continued: “Our dear old friend—our kind, gallant gentleman!”

“The gallant gentleman has been promoted to a great post—the proper reward of his gallantry,” Miriam said. “He’s going out as minister to some impossible place—where is it?”

“As minister—how very charming! We ，那恭喜你， getting on.” And their companion languished up at him with a world of approval.

“Oh well enough. One must take what one can get,” he answered.

“You’ll get everything now, I’m sure, shan’t you?” Mrs. Rooth asked with an inflexion that called back to him comically—the source of the sound was so different—the very vibrations he had heard the day before from Lady Agnes.

“He’s going to glory and he’ll forget all about us—forget he has ever known such low people. So we shall never see him again, and it’s better so. Good-bye, good-bye,” Miriam repeated; “the brougham must be there, but I won’t take you. I want to talk to mother about you, and we shall say things not fit for you to hear. Oh I’ll let you know what we lose—don’t be afraid,” she added to Mrs. Rooth. “He’s the rising star of diplomacy.”

“I knew it from the first—I know how things turn out for such people as you!” cried the old woman, gazing fondly at Sherringham. “But you don’t mean to say you’re not coming to-morrow night?”

“Don’t—don’t; it’s great folly,” Miriam interposed; “and it’s quite needless, since you saw me to-day.”

Peter turned from the mother to the daughter, the former of whom broke out to the latter: “Oh you dear rogue, to say one has 看到 you yet! You know how you’ll come up to it—you’ll be beyond everything.”

“Yes, I shall be there—certainly,” Peter said, at the door, to Mrs. Rooth.

“Oh you dreadful goose!” Miriam called after him. But he went out without looking round at her.

Nick Dormer had for the hour quite taken up his abode at his studio, where Biddy usually arrived after breakfast to give him news of the state of affairs in Calcutta Gardens and where many letters and telegrams were now addressed him. Among such missives, on the morning of the Saturday on which Peter Sherringham had promised to dine at the other house, was a note from Miriam Rooth, informing Nick that if he shouldn’t telegraph to put her off she would turn up about half-past eleven, probably with her mother, for just one more sitting. She added that it was a nervous day for her and that she couldn’t keep still, so that it would really be very kind to let her come to him as a refuge. She wished to stay away from the theatre, where everything was now settled—or so much the worse for the others if it wasn’t—till the evening; in spite of which she should if left to herself be sure to go there. It would keep her quiet and soothe her to sit—he could keep her quiet (he was such a blessing that way!) at any time. Therefore she would give him two or three hours—or rather she would herself ask for them—if he didn’t positively turn her from the door.

It had not been definite to Nick that he wanted another sitting at all for the slight work, as he held it to be, that Miriam had already helped him to achieve. He regarded this work as a mere light wind-fall of the shaken tree: he had made what he could of it and would have been embarrassed to make more. If it was not finished this was because it was not finishable; at any rate he had said all he had to say in that particular phrase. The young man, in truth, was not just now in the highest spirits; his imagination had within two or three days become conscious of a check that he tried to explain by the idea of a natural reaction. Any decision or violent turn, any need of a new sharp choice in one’s career, was upsetting, and, exaggerate that importance and one’s own as little as one would, a deal of flurry couldn’t help attending, especially in the face of so much scandal, the horrid act, odious to one’s modesty at the best, of changing one’s clothes in the marketplace. That made life not at all positively pleasant, yet decidedly thrilling, for the hour; and it was well enough till the thrill abated. When this occurred, as it inevitably would, the romance and the glow of the adventure were exchanged for the chill and the prose. It was to these latter elements he had waked up pretty wide on this particular morning; and the prospect was not appreciably fresher from the fact that he had warned himself in advance it would be dull. He had in fact known how dull it would be, but now he would have time to learn even better. A reaction was a reaction, but it was not after all a catastrophe. It would be a feature of his very freedom that he should ask himself if he hadn’t made a great mistake; this privilege would doubtless even remain within the limits of its nature in exposing him to hours of intimate conviction of his madness. But he would live to retract his retractations—this was the first thing to bear in mind.

He was absorbed, even while he dressed, in the effort to achieve intelligibly to himself some such revolution when, by the first post, Miriam’s note arrived. At first it did little to help his agility—it made him, seeing her esthetic faith as so much stronger and simpler than his own, wonder how he should keep with her at her high level. Ambition, in her, was always on the rush, and she was not a person to conceive that others might in bad moments listen for the trumpet in vain. It would never have occurred to her that only the day before he had spent a part of the afternoon quite at the bottom of the hill. He had in fact turned into the National Gallery and had wandered about there for more than an hour, and it was just while he did so that the immitigable recoil had begun perversely to make itself felt. The perversity was all the greater from the fact that if the experience was depressing this was not because he had been discouraged beyond measure by the sight of the grand things that had been done—things so much grander than any that would ever bear his signature. That variation he was duly acquainted with and should know in abundance again. What had happened to him, as he passed on this occasion from Titian to Rubens and from Gainsborough to Rembrandt, was that he found himself calling the whole exhibited art into question. What was it after all at the best and why had people given it so high a place? Its weakness, its limits broke upon him; tacitly blaspheming he looked with a lustreless eye at the palpable, polished, “toned” objects designed for suspension on hooks. That is, he blasphemed if it were blasphemy to feel that as bearing on the energies of man they were a poor and secondary show. The human force producing them was so far from one of the greatest; their place was a small place and their connexion with the heroic life casual and slight. They represented so little great ideas, and it was great ideas that kept the world from chaos. He had incontestably been in much closer relation with them a few months before than he was to-day: it made up a great deal for what was false and hollow, what was merely personal, in “politics” that, were the idea greater or smaller, they could at their best so directly deal with it. The love of it had really been much of the time at the bottom of his impulse to follow them up; though this was not what he had most talked of with his political friends or even with Julia. No, political as Julia was, he had not conferred with her much about the idea. However, this might have been his own fault quite as much as hers, and she in fact took such things, such enthusiasms, for granted—there was an immense deal in every way that she took for granted. On the other hand, he had often put forward this brighter side of the care for the public weal in his discussions with Gabriel Nash, to the end, it is true, of making that worthy scoff aloud at what he was pleased to term his hypocrisy. Gabriel maintained precisely that there were more ideas, more of those that man lived by, in a single room of the National Gallery than in all the statutes of Parliament. Nick had replied to this more than once that the determination of what man did live by was required; to which Nash had retorted (and it was very rarely that he quoted Scripture) that it was at any rate not by bread and beans alone. tout au plus.

Nick had at present no pretension of trying this question over again: he reminded himself that his ambiguity was subjective, as the philosophers said; the result of a mood which in due course would be at the mercy of another mood. It made him curse, and cursing, as a finality, lacked firmness—one had to drive in posts somewhere under. The greatest time to do one’s work was when it didn’t seem worth doing, for then one gave it a brilliant chance, that of resisting the stiffest test of all—the test of striking one as too bad. To do the most when there would be the least to be got by it was to be most in the spirit of high production. One thing at any rate was certain, Nick reflected: nothing on earth would induce him to change back again—not even if this twilight of the soul should last for the rest of his days. He hardened himself in his posture with a good conscience which, had they had a glimpse of it, would have made him still more diverting to those who already thought him so; and now, by a happy chance, Miriam suddenly supplied the bridge correcting the gap in his continuity. If he had made his sketch it was a proof he had done her, and that he had done her flashed upon him as a sign that she would be still more feasible. Art was 做—it came back to that—which politics in most cases weren’t. He thus, to pursue our image, planted his supports in the dimness beneath all cursing, and on the platform so improvised was able, in his relief, to dance. He sent out a telegram to Balaklava Place requesting his beautiful sitter by no manner of means to fail him. When his servant came back it was to usher into the studio Peter Sherringham, whom the man had apparently found at the door.

The hour was so early for general commerce that Nick immediately guessed his visitor had come on some rare errand; but this inference yielded to the reflexion that Peter might after all only wish to make up by present zeal for not having been near him before. He forgot that, as he had subsequently learned from Biddy, their foreign, or all but foreign, cousin had spent an hour in Rosedale Road, missing him there but pulling out Miriam’s portrait, the day of his own last visit to Beauclere. These young men were not on a ceremonious footing and it was not in Nick’s nature to keep a record of civilities rendered or omitted; nevertheless he had been vaguely conscious that during a stay in London elastic enough on Peter’s part he and his kinsman had foregathered less than of yore. It was indeed an absorbing moment in the career of each, but even while recognising such a truth Nick judged it not impossible that Julia’s brother might have taken upon himself to resent some suppositions failure of consideration for that lady; though this indeed would have been stupid and the newly appointed minister (to he had forgotten where) didn’t often make mistakes. Nick held that as he had treated Julia with studious generosity she had nothing whatever to visit on him—wherefore Peter had still less. It was at any rate none of that gentleman’s business. There were only two abatements to disposing in a few frank words of all this: one of them Nick’s general hatred of talking of his private affairs (a reluctance in which he and Peter were well matched); and the other a truth involving more of a confession—the subtle truth that the most definite and even most soothing result of the collapse of his engagement was, as happened, an unprecedented consciousness of freedom. Nick’s observation was of a different sort from his cousin’s; he noted much less the signs of the hour and kept throughout a looser register of life; nevertheless, just as one of our young men had during these days in London found the air peopled with personal influences, the concussion of human atoms, so the other, though only asking to live without too many questions and work without too many rubs, to be glad and sorry in short on easy terms, had become aware of a certain social tightness, of the fact that life is crowded and passion restless, accident and community inevitable. Everybody with whom one had relations had other relations too, and even indifference was a mixture and detachment a compromise. The only wisdom was to consent to the loss, if necessary, of everything but one’s temper and to the ruin, if necessary, of everything but one’s work. It must be added that Peter’s relative took precautions against irritation perhaps in excess of the danger, as departing travellers about to whiz through foreign countries mouth in phrase-books combinations of words they will never use. He was at home in clear air and disliked to struggle either for breath or for light. He had a dim sense that Peter felt some discomfort from him and might have come now to tell him so; in which case he should be sorry for the sufferer in various ways. But as soon as that aspirant began to speak suspicion reverted to mere ancient kindness, and this in spite of the fact that his speech had a slightly exaggerated promptitude, like the promptitude of business, which might have denoted self-consciousness.

“My dear fellow, it’s an unpardonable hour, isn’t it? I wasn’t even sure you’d be up, yet had to risk it, because my hours are numbered. I’m going away to-morrow,” Peter went on; “I’ve a thousand things to do. I’ve had no talk with you this time such as we used to have of old (it’s an irreparable loss, but it’s your fault, you know), and as I’ve got to rush about all day I thought I’d just catch you before any one else does.”

“Some one has already caught me, but there’s plenty of time,” Nick returned.

Peter all but asked a question—it fell short. “I see, I see. I’m sorry to say I’ve only a few minutes at best.”

“Man of crushing responsibilities, you’ve come to humiliate me!” his companion cried. “I know all about it.”

“It’s more than I do then. That’s not what I’ve come for, but I shall be delighted if I humiliate you a little by the way. I’ve two things in mind, and I’ll mention the most difficult first. I came here the other day—the day after my arrival in town.”

“Ah yes, so you did; it was very good of you”—Nick remembered. “I ought to have returned your visit or left a card or written my name—to have done something in Great Stanhope Street, oughtn’t I? You hadn’t got this new thing then, or I’d have ‘called.'”

Peter eyed him a moment. “I say, what’s the matter with you? Am I really unforgivable for having taken that liberty?”

“What liberty?” Nick looked now quite innocent of care, and indeed his visitor’s allusion was not promptly clear. He was thinking for the instant all of Biddy, of whom and whose secret inclinations Grace had insisted on talking to him. They were none of his business, and if he wouldn’t for the world have let the girl herself suspect he had violent lights on what was most screened and curtained in her, much less would he have made Peter a clumsy present of this knowledge. Grace had a queer theory that Peter treated Biddy badly—treated them all somehow badly; but Grace’s zeal (she had plenty of it, though she affected all sorts of fine indifference) almost always took the form of her being unusually wrong. Nick wanted to do only what Biddy would thank him for, and he knew very well what she wouldn’t. She wished him and Peter to be great friends, and the only obstacle to this was that Peter was too much of a diplomatist. Peter made him for an instant think of her and of the hour they had lately spent together in the studio in his absence—an hour of which Biddy had given him a history full of items and omissions; and this in turn brought Nick’s imagination back to his visitor’s own side of the matter. That general human complexity of which the sense had lately increased with him, and to which it was owing that any thread one might take hold of would probably be the extremely wrong end of something, was illustrated by the fact that while poor Biddy was thinking of Peter it was ten to one poor Peter was thinking of Miriam Rooth. All of which danced before Nick’s intellectual vision for a space briefer than my too numerous words.

“I pitched into your treasures—I rummaged among your canvases,” Peter said. “Biddy had nothing whatever to do with it—she maintained an attitude of irreproachable reserve. It has been on my conscience all these days and I ought to have done penance before. I’ve been putting it off partly because I’m so ashamed of my indiscretion. Que voulez-vous, my dear chap? My provocation was great. I heard you had been painting Miss Rooth, so that I couldn’t restrain my curiosity. I simply went into that corner and struck out there—a trifle wildly no doubt. I dragged the young lady to the light—your sister turned pale as she saw me. It was a good deal like breaking open one of your letters, wasn’t it? However, I assure you it’s all right, for I congratulate you both on your style and on your correspondent.”

“You’re as clever, as witty, as humorous as ever, old boy,” Nick pronounced, going himself into the corner designated by his companion and laying his hands on the same canvas. “Your curiosity’s the highest possible tribute to my little attempt and your sympathy sets me right with myself. There she is again,” Nick went on, thrusting the picture into an empty frame; “you shall see her whether you wish to or not.”

“Right with yourself? You don’t mean to say you’ve been wrong!” Peter returned, standing opposite the portrait.

“Oh I don’t know. I’ve been kicking up such a row. Anything’s better than a row.”

“She’s awfully good—she’s awfully true,” said Peter. “You’ve done more to her since the other day. You’ve put in several things.”

“Yes, but I’ve worked distractedly. I’ve not altogether conformed to the good rule about being off with the old love.”

“With the old love?”—and the visitor looked hard at the picture.

“Before you’re on with the new!” Nick had no sooner uttered these words than he coloured: it occurred to him his friend would probably infer an allusion to Julia. He therefore added quickly: “It isn’t so easy to cease to represent an affectionate constituency. Really most of my time for a fortnight has been given to letter-writing. They’ve all been unexpectedly charming. I should have thought they’d have loathed and despised me. But not a bit of it; they cling to me fondly—they struggle with me tenderly. I’ve been down to talk with them about it, and we’ve passed the most sociable, delightful hours. I’ve designated my successor; I’ve felt a good deal like the Emperor Charles the Fifth when about to retire to the monastery of Yuste. The more I’ve seen of them in this way the more I’ve liked them, and they declare it has been the same with themselves about me. We spend our time assuring each other we hadn’t begun to know each other till now. In short it’s all wonderfully jolly, but it isn’t business. C'est magnifique，迈斯·塞纳斯特·帕斯拉奎尔设立的区域办事处外，我们在美国也开设了办事处，以便我们为当地客户提供更多的支持。“

“They’re not so charming as they might be if they don’t offer to keep you and let you paint.”

“They do, almost—it’s fantastic,” said Nick. “Remember they haven’t yet seen a daub of my brush.”

“Well, I’m sorry for you; we live in too enlightened an age,” Peter returned. “You can’t suffer for art—that grand romance is over. Your experience is interesting; it seems to show that at the tremendous pitch of civilisation we’ve reached you can’t suffer from anything but hunger.”

“I shall doubtless,” Nick allowed, “do that enough to make up for the rest.”

“Never, never, when you paint so well as this.”

“Oh come, you’re too good to be true,” Nick said. “But where did you learn that one’s larder’s full in proportion as one’s work’s fine?”

Peter waived this curious point—he only continued to look at the picture; after which he roundly brought out: “I’ll give you your price for it on the spot.”

“Ah you’re so magnanimous that you shall have it for nothing!” And Nick, touched to gratitude, passed his arm into his visitor’s.

Peter had a pause. “Why do you call me magnanimous?”

“Oh bless my soul, it’s hers—I forgot!” laughed Nick, failing in his turn to answer the other’s inquiry. “But you shall have another.”

“Another? Are you going to do another?”

“This very morning. That is, I shall begin it. I’ve heard from her; she’s coming to sit—a short time hence.”

Peter turned away a little at this, releasing himself, and, as if the movement had been an effect of his host’s words, looked at his watch earnestly to dissipate that appearance. He fell back to consider the work from further off. “The more you do her the better—she has all the qualities of a great model. From that point of view it’s a pity she has another trade: she might make so good a thing of this one. But how shall you do her again?” he asked ingenuously.

“Oh I can scarcely say; we’ll arrange something; we’ll talk it over. It’s extraordinary how well she enters into what one wants: she knows more than one does one’s self. She isn’t, as you Frenchmen say, the first comer. However, you know all about that, since you invented her, didn’t you? That’s what she says; she’s awfully sweet on you,” Nick kindly pursued. “What I ought to do is to try something as different as possible from that thing; not the sibyl, the muse, the tremendous creature, but the charming woman, the person one knows, differently arranged as she appears 恩维尔, she calls it. I’ll do something really serious and send it to you out there with my respects. It will remind you of home and perhaps a little even of me. If she knows it’s for you she’ll throw herself into it in the right spirit. Leave it to us, my dear fellow; we’ll turn out something splendid.”

“It’s jolly to hear you, but I shall send you a cheque,” said Peter very stoutly.

“I suppose it’s all right in your position, but you’re too proud,” his kinsman answered.

“What do you mean by my position?”

“Your exaltation, your high connexion with the country, your treating with sovereign powers as the representative of a sovereign power. Isn’t that what they call ’em?”

Peter, who had turned round again, listened to this with his eyes fixed on Nick’s face while he once more drew forth his watch. “Brute!” he exclaimed familiarly, at the same time dropping his eyes on the watch. “When did you say you expect your sitter?”

“Oh we’ve plenty of time; don’t be afraid of letting me see you agitated by her presence.”

“Brute!” Peter again ejaculated.

This friendly personal note cleared the air, made their communication closer. “Stay with me and talk to me,” said Nick; “I daresay it’s good for me. It may be the last time I shall see you without having before anything else to koo-too.”

“Beast!” his kinsman once more, and a little helplessly, threw off; though next going on: “Haven’t you something more to show me then—some other fruit of your genius?”

“Must I bribe you by setting my sign-boards in a row? You know what I’ve done; by which I mean of course you know what I haven’t. My genius, as you’re so good as to call it, has hitherto been dreadfully sterile. I’ve had no time, no opportunity, no continuity. I must go and sit down in a corner and learn my alphabet. That thing isn’t good; what I shall do for you won’t be good. Don’t protest, my dear fellow; nothing will be fit to look at for a long time.” After which poor Nick wound up: “And think of my ridiculous age! As the good people say (or don’t they say it?), it’s a rum go. It won’t be amusing.”

“Ah you’re so clever you’ll get on fast,” Peter returned, trying to think how he could most richly defy the injunction not to protest.

“I mean it won’t be amusing for others,” said Nick, unperturbed by this levity. “They want results, and small blame to them.”

“Well, whatever you do, don’t talk like Mr. Gabriel Nash,” Peter went on. “Sometimes I think you’re just going to.”

Nick stared a moment. “Ah he never would have said 这 ‘They want results, the damned asses’—that would have been more in his key.”

“It’s the difference of a 细微差别! And are you extraordinarily happy?” Peter added as his host now obliged him by arranging half-a-dozen canvases so that he could look at them.

“Not so much so, doubtless, as the artistic life ought to make one: because all one’s people are not so infatuated as one’s electors. But little by little I’m learning the charm of pig-headedness.”

“Your mother’s very bad,” Peter allowed—”I lunched with her day before yesterday.”

“Yes, I know, I know”—Nick had such reason to know; “but it’s too late, too late. I must just peg away here and not mind. I’ve after all a great advantage in my life.”

His companion waited impartially to hear. “And that would be—?”

“Well, knowing what I want to do. That’s everything, you know.”

“It’s an advantage, however, that you’ve only just come in for, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but the delay and the probation only make me prize it the more. I’ve got it now; and it makes up for the absence of some other things.”

Again Peter had a pause. “That sounds a little flat,” he remarked at last.

“It depends on what you compare it with. It has more point than I sometimes found in the House of Commons.”

“Oh I never thought I should like that!”

There was another drop during which Nick moved about the room turning up old sketches to see if he had anything more to show, while his visitor continued to look at the unfinished and in some cases, as seemed, unpromising productions already exposed. They were far less interesting than the portrait of Miriam Rooth and, it would have appeared, less significant of ability. For that particular effort Nick’s talent had taken an inspired flight. So much Peter thought, as he had thought it intensely before; but the words he presently uttered had no visible connexion with it. They only consisted of the abrupt inquiry; “Have you heard anything from Julia?”

“Not a syllable. Have you?”

“Dear no; she never writes to me.”

“But won’t she on the occasion of your promotion?”

“I daresay not,” said Peter; and this was the only reference to Mrs. Dallow that passed between her brother and her late intended. It left a slight stir of the air which Peter proceeded to allay by an allusion comparatively speaking more relevant. He expressed disappointment that Biddy shouldn’t have come in, having had an idea she was always in Rosedale Road of a morning. That was the other branch of his present errand—the wish to see her and give her a message for Lady Agnes, upon whom, at so early an hour, he had not presumed to intrude in Calcutta Gardens. Nick replied that Biddy did in point of fact almost always turn up, and for the most part early: she came to wish him good-morning and start him for the day. She was a devoted Electra, laying a cool, healing hand on a distracted, perspiring Orestes. He reminded Peter, however, that he would have a chance of seeing her that evening, and of seeing Lady Agnes; for wasn’t he to do them the honour of dining in Calcutta Gardens? Biddy, the day before, had arrived full of that excitement. Peter explained that this was exactly the sad subject of his actual 步态: the project of the dinner in Calcutta Gardens had, to his exceeding regret, fallen to pieces. The fact was (didn’t Nick know it?) the night had been suddenly and perversely fixed for Miriam’s première, and he was under a definite engagement with her not to stay away from it. To add to the bore of the thing he was obliged to return to Paris the very next morning. He was quite awfully sorry, for he had promised Lady Agnes: he didn’t understand then about Miriam’s affair, in regard to which he had given a previous pledge. He was more grieved than he could say, but he could never fail Miss Rooth: he had professed from the first an interest in her which he must live up to a little more. This was his last chance—he hadn’t been near her at the trying time of her first braving of the public. And the second night of the play wouldn’t do—it must be the first or nothing. Besides, he couldn’t wait over till Monday.

While Peter recited all his hindrance Nick was occupied in rubbing with a cloth a palette he had just scraped. “I see what you mean—I’m very sorry too. I’m sorry you can’t give my mother this joy—I give her so little.”

“My dear fellow, you might give her a little more!” it came to Peter to say. “It’s rather too much to expect me to make up for your omissions!”

Nick looked at him with a moment’s fixedness while he polished the palette; and for that moment he felt the temptation to reply: “There’s a way you could do that, to a considerable extent—I think you guess it—which wouldn’t be intrinsically disagreeable.” But the impulse passed without expressing itself in speech, and he simply brought out; “You can make this all clear to Biddy when she comes, and she’ll make it clear to my mother.”

“Poor little Biddy!” Peter mentally sighed, thinking of the girl with that job before her; but what he articulated was that this was exactly why he had come to the studio. He had inflicted his company on Lady Agnes the previous Thursday and had partaken of a meal with her, but had not seen Biddy though he had waited for her, had hoped immensely she’d come in. Now he’d wait again—dear Bid was thoroughly worth it.

“Patience, patience then—you’ve always me!” said Nick; to which he subjoined: “If it’s a question of going to the play I scarcely see why you shouldn’t dine at my mother’s all the same. People go to the play after dinner.”

“Yes, but it wouldn’t be fair, it wouldn’t be decent: it’s a case when I must be in my seat from the rise of the curtain.” Peter, about this, was thoroughly lucid. “I should force your mother to dine an hour earlier than usual and then in return for her courtesy should go off to my entertainment at eight o’clock, leaving her and Grace and Biddy languishing there. I wish I had proposed in time that they should go with me,” he continued not very ingenuously.

“You might do that still,” Nick suggested.

“Oh at this time of day it would be impossible to get a box.”

“I’ll speak to Miss Rooth about it if you like when she comes,” smiled Nick.

“No, it wouldn’t do,” said Peter, turning away and looking once more at his watch. He made tacitly the addition that still less than asking Lady Agnes for his convenience to dine early would Free Introduction be decent, would it be thinkable. His taking Biddy the night he dined with her and with Miss Tressilian had been something very like a violation of those proprieties. He couldn’t say that, however, to the girl’s brother, who remarked in a moment that it was all right, since Peter’s action left him his own freedom.

“Your own freedom?”—and Peter’s question made him turn.

“Why you see now I can go to the theatre myself.”

“Certainly; I hadn’t thought of that. You’d naturally have been going.”

“I gave it up for the prospect of your company at home.”

“Upon my word you’re too good—I don’t deserve such sacrifices,” said Peter, who read in his kinsman’s face that this was not a figure of speech but the absolute truth. “Didn’t it, however, occur to you that, as it would turn out, I might—I even naturally 将—myself be going?” he put forth.

Nick broke into a laugh. “It would have occurred to me if I understood a little better—!” But he paused, as still too amused.

“If you understood a little better what?”

“Your situation, simply.”

Peter looked at him a moment. “Dine with me to-night by ourselves and at a club. We’ll go to the theatre together and then you’ll understand it.”

“With pleasure, with pleasure: we’ll have a jolly evening,” said Nick.

“Call it jolly if you like. When did you say she was coming?” Peter asked.

“Biddy? Oh probably, as I tell you, at any moment.”

“I mean the great Miriam,” Peter amended.

“The great Miriam, if she’s punctual, will be here in about forty minutes.”

“And will she be likely to find your sister?”

“That will depend, my dear fellow, on whether my sister remains to see her.”

“Exactly; but the point’s whether you’ll allow her to remain, isn’t it?”

Nick looked slightly mystified. “Why shouldn’t she do as she likes?”

“In that case she’ll probably go.”

“Yes, unless she stays.”

“Don’t let her,” Peter dropped; “send her away.” And to explain this he added: “It doesn’t seem exactly the right sort of thing, fresh young creatures like Bid meeting des femmes de théâtre.” His explanation, in turn, struck him as requiring another clause; so he went on: “At least it isn’t thought the right sort of thing abroad, and even in England my foreign ideas stick to me.”

Even with this amplification, however, his plea evidently still had for his companion a flaw; which, after he had considered it a moment, Nick exposed in the simple words: “Why, you originally introduced them in Paris, Biddy and Miss Rooth. Didn’t they meet at your rooms and fraternise, and wasn’t that much more ‘abroad’ than this?”

“So they did, but my hand had been forced and she didn’t like it,” Peter answered, suspecting that for a diplomatist he looked foolish.

“Miss Rooth didn’t like it?” Nick persisted.

“That I confess I’ve forgotten. Besides, she wasn’t an actress then. What I mean is that Biddy wasn’t particularly pleased with her.”

“Why she thought her wonderful—praised her to the sides. I remember that.”

“She didn’t like her as a woman; she praised her as an actress.”

“I thought you said she wasn’t an actress then,” Nick returned.

Peter had a pause. “Oh Biddy thought so. She has seen her since, moreover. I took her the other night, and her curiosity’s satisfied.”

“It’s not of any consequence, and if there’s a reason for it I’ll bundle her off directly,” Nick made haste to say. “But the great Miriam seems such a kind, good person.”

“So she is, charming, charming,”—and his visitor looked hard at him.

“Here comes Biddy now,” Nick went on. “I hear her at the door: you can warn her yourself.”

“It isn’t a question of ‘warning’—that’s not in the least my idea. But I’ll take Biddy away,” said Peter.

“That will be still more energetic.”

“No, it will be simply more selfish—I like her company.” Peter had turned as if to go to the door and meet the girl; but he quickly checked himself, lingering in the middle of the room, and the next instant Biddy had come in. When she saw him there she also stopped.