【英文读物】From One Generation to Another.docx

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1、【英文读物】From One Generation to AnotherCHAPTER I. THE SEED Il faut se garder des premiers mouvements, parce quils sont presque toujours honntes.“Dearest Anna,I see from the newspaper before me of March 13, that I am reported dead. Before attempting to investigate the origin of this mistake, I hasten to

2、 write to you, knowing, dearest, what a shock this must have been to you. It is true that I was in the Makar Akool affair, and was slightly woundeda mere scratch in the armbut nothing more. I have not written to you for some months past because I have been turning something over in my mind. Anna, de

3、arest, there is no chance of my being in a position to marry for some years yet, and I feel it incumbent upon me .”This letter, half written, lay on a camp table before a keen-faced young officer. He ceased writing suddenly, and, leaping to his feet, walked to the door of his bungalow, which was ope

4、n to the four winds of heaven. In doing this he passed from the range of the lazy punkah flapping somnolently over table and bed. It may have been this sudden change to hotter air that caused him to raise his hand to his forehead, which was high and strangely rounded.“By George!” he said, “suppose I

5、 do it that way!”He walked rapidly backwards and forwards with the lithe actions of a man of steel, a light weight, of medium height, keen and quick as a monkey. His black eyes flitted from one object to another with such restlessness that it was impossible to say whether he comprehended what he saw

6、 or merely looked at things from force of habit.He was dark of hair with a sallow complexion and a long drooping nosethe nose of Semitic ancestors. A small mouth, and the chin running almost to a point. A face full of interest, devoid of distinct viceheartless. Here was a man with a future before hi

7、ma man whose vices were all negative, whose virtues depended entirely upon expediency. Here was a man who could be almost anything he liked; as some men can. If expediency prompted he could be a very dep?t of virtues; for his body, with all the warmer failings of that part of humanity, was in perfec

8、t control. On the other hand, there was no love of good for goodness sakeno conscience behind the subtle eyes. All this, and more, was written in the face of Seymour Michael, whose handwriting had dried some moments before on the half-filled sheet of letter-paper.He returned and stood at the table w

9、ith slightly bowed legsnot the result of much riding, although he wore top-boots and breeches as if of daily habitbut a racial defect handed down like the nasal brand from remote progenitors. He looked at letter and newspaper as they lay side by sidenot with the doubtfulness of warfare between consc

10、ience and temptation, but with a calculating thoughtfulness. He was not wondering what was best to do, but what the most expedient.Those were troublesome times in India, for the Mutiny was not quelled, and each mail took home a list of killed, slowly compiled from news that dribbled in from outlying

11、 stations, forts, and towns. Those were days when mens lives were made or lost in the Eastern Empire, for it seems to be in Fortunes balance that great danger weighs against great gain. No large wealth has ever been acquired without proportionate risk of life or happiness. To the tame and timorous c

12、ity clerk comes small remuneration and a nameless grave, while to more adventurous spirits larger stakes bring vaster rewards. The clerk, pure and simple, has, within these later years, found his way to India, sitting side by side with the Baboo, and consequently it is as easy to make a fortune in L

13、ondon as in Calcutta and Madras. The clerk has carried his sordid civilisation and his love of personal safety with him, sapping at the glorious uncertainty from which the earlier pioneers of a hardier commerce wrested quick-founded fortunes.Seymour Michael had come into all this with the red coat o

14、f a soldier and the keen, ambitious heart of a Jew, at the very nick of time. He saw at once the enormous possibilities hidden in the near future for a man who took this country at its proper value, handling what he secured with coolness and foresight. He know that he only possessed one thing to ris

15、k, namely, his life; and true to his racial instinct, he valued this very highly, looking for an extortionate usury on his stake.At this moment he was like Aladdin in the cave of jewels: he did not know which way to turn, which treasure to seize first.Annadearest Annato whom this half-completed lett

16、er was addressed, was a person for whom he had not the slightest affection. At the outset of his career he had paused, decided in haste, and had resolved to make use of the passing opportunity. Anna Hethbridge had therefore been annexed en passant. In person she was youthful and rather handsomeher f

17、ortune was extremely handsome. So Seymour Michael went out to India engaged to be married to this girl who was unfortunate enough to love him.In India two things happened. Firstly, Seymour Michael met a second young lady with a fortune twice as large as that of Miss Anna Hethbridge. Secondly, the Mu

18、tiny broke out, and India lay before the ambitious young officer a very land of Ophir. He promptly decided to cut the first string of his bow. Anna Hethbridge was now uselessnay, more, she was a burthen. Hence the letter which lay half-written on the table of his bungalow.He paused before this wrong

19、 to a blameless woman, and contemplated the perpetration of a greater. He weighed pro and concarefully withholding from the balance the casting weight of Right against Wrong. Then he took up the letter and slowly tore it to small pieces. He had decided to leave the report of his death uncontradicted

20、. It was morally certain that five weeks before that day Anna Hethbridge had read the news in the printed column lying before him. He resolved to leave her in ignorance of its falseness. Seymour Michael was not, however, a selfish man. All that he did at this time, and later in lifeall the lives tha

21、t he ruinedthe hearts he brokethe men he sacrificed were not offered upon the altar of Self (though the distinction may appear subtle), but sold to his career. Career was this mans god. He wanted to be great, and rich, and powerful; and yet he was conscious of having no definite use for greatness, o

22、r riches, or power when acquired.Here again was the taint of the blood that ran in his veins. The curse had reached himin addition to the long, sad nose and the bandy legs. The sense of enjoyment was never to be his. The greed of gaingain of any sortfilled his heart, and ennui secretly nestling in h

23、is soul said: “Thou shalt possess, but not enjoy.”He was conscious of this voice, but did not understand it then. He only burned to possess; looking to possession to provide enjoyment. In this he was not quite alonewith him in his error are all men and women. And so we talk of Love coming after marr

24、iageand so women marry without Love, believing that it will follow. God help them! That which comes afterwards is not even the ghost of Love, it is only Custom. This was the spirit of Seymour Michael. He had already acquired one or two objects of a vague ambition; and, possessing them, had only lear

25、nt to be accustomed to themnot to value them.There was no elation in the thought that he was freed from the encumbrance of Anna Hethbridge by a chance misprint. Neither was there hesitation in turning accident ruthlessly to his own advantage. There was only a steady pressing forwardan unceasing, unw

26、earying attention to his own gain.In those days news travelled slowly, and the personal had not yet taken precedence in journalism. In the anxiety for the State, the Individual was apt to be overlooked. Seymour Michael counted on six months of oblivion at the leasthe hoped for more, but with charact

27、eristic caution acted always in anticipation of the worst.He had scarcely thrown the newspaper aside when a comrade entered the bungalow carrying another copy of the same journal.“I say, Michael,” exclaimed this man, “do you see that youre put in among the killed?”“Yes,” replied Seymour Michael, wit

28、hout haste, without hesitation. “I have already written to contradict it. Not that there is any one to care whether I am dead or alive. But it might do me harm in Leadenhall Street. I cant afford to be dead even for a week when so much promotion is going forward.”This was artistic. Most of us forget

29、 to preserve our own characteristics in diverging from the truth. The tangled web is only woven when first we practise to deceive. Later on the facility is greater, the handling superior, and the web runs smooth and straight. Seymour Michael was apparently no novice at this sort of thing. He was eve

30、n at that moment making mental note of the fact that up-country mails were in a state of disorganisation, and a letter which was never written may easily be made to have miscarried later on.But even he could not foresee everythingno one can. Not even the righteous man, much less the liar.“Do you mea

31、n to say,” pursued the newcomer, “that you are not writing to your family about itonly to the Company?”“That is all.”“Rum chap you are, Michael,” said the other, lighting a cheroot. “Heartless beggar I take it.”“Not at all. The simple fact is that I have no one to write to. I only possess one or two

32、 distant relatives, and they would probably be rather sorry than otherwise to have the report contradicted.”The younger officera mere boywith a beardless, happy face, walked to the door of the bungalow.“Of course there is always this in it,” he said carelessly. “By the time the contradiction reaches

33、 home the news may be true.”Seymour Michael laughed lamely. A joke of this description made him feel rather sick, for a Jew never makes a soldier or a sailor, and they are rarely found in those positions unless great gain is holden up.With this pleasantry the youth departed, leaving Michael to write

34、 the letter which he had advised as written. As he drew the writing materials towards him he cursed his brother officer quietly and politely for a meddling young fool. He wrote a formal letter to the Companythe old East India Company which administered an empire with ledger and daybookcalling their

35、attention to the mistake in the newspaper, and begging them not to trouble to give the matter publicity, as he had already advised his friends.This done, he proceeded with the ordinary routine of his daily life. Such men as this are case-hardened. They carry with them a conscience like the floor of

36、an Augean stable, but they know how to walk thereon. Moreover, he was one of those who assign to their dealings with men quite a different code of morals to that reserved for women. His was the code of “not being found out.” Men are more suspiciousthey find out sooner: ergo the morals to be observed

37、 vis vis to them are of a stricter order. Railway companies and women are by many looked upon as fair game for deception. Consciences tender in many other respects have a subtle contempt for these two exceptions. Many a so-called honest man travels gaily in a first-class carriage with a second-class

38、 ticket, and lies to a woman at each end of his journey without so much as casting a shadow upon his conscience.Seymour Michael carried this code to the farthest limit of safety. All through the months that followed he went about his business with a clear conscience and a heart slightly relieved by

39、the removal of Anna Hethbridge from his path to prosperity. He served his country and the Company with a keenness of foresight and a soldierly exposure of the lives of others which did not fail, in the course of time, to bring him in a harvest of honours and rewards. Neither did he put his candle un

40、der a bushel, but set it in the very highest candlestick available.But, as has been previously stated, he could not foresee everything. He did not know, for instance, that his cheroot-smoking subalterna youth as guileless as he was indiscreet, for the two usually go togetherpossessed a memory like a

41、 dry-plate. He did not foresee that a passing conversation in an Indian bungalow might perchance photograph itself on the somewhat sparsely covered tablets of a mans mind, to be reproduced at the wrong moment with a result lying twenty-six years ahead in the womb of time.CHAPTER II. SUBURBAN Lamour

42、fait tout excuser, mais il faut tre bien s?r quil y a de i amour.Miss Anna Hethbridge loved Seymour Michael with as great a love as her nature could compass.When the news of his death reached her, at the profusely laden breakfast-table at Jaggery House, Clapham Common, her first feeling was one of s

43、cornful anger towards a Providence which could be so careless. Life had always been prosperous for her, in a bourgeois, solidly wealthy way, entirely suited to her turn of mind. She had always had servants at her beck and call, whom she could abuse illogically and treat with an utter inconsequence i

44、nherent in her nature. She had been the spoilt child of a ponderous, thick-skinned father and a very suburban mother, who, out of her unexpected prosperity, could deny her daughter nothing.Three months after the receipt of the news Anna Hethbridge went down into Hertfordshire, where, in the course o

45、f a visit at Stagholme Rectory, she met and became engaged to the Squire of Stagholme, James Edward Agar.A month later she became the second wife of the simple-minded old country gentleman. It would be hard to say what motives prompted her to this apparently heartless action. Some women are heartles

46、swe know that. But Anna Hethbridge was too impulsive, too excitable, and too much given to pleasure to be devoid of heart. Behind her action there must have been some strange, illogical, feminine motive, for there was a deliberation in every moveone of those motives which are quite beyond the mascul

47、ine comprehension. One notices that when a woman takes action in this incomprehensible way her lady friends are never surprised; they seem to have some subtle sympathy with her. It is only the men who look puzzled, as if the ground beneath their feet were unstable. Therefore there must be some influ

48、ence at work, probably the same influence, under different forms, which urges women to those strange, inconsequent actions by which their lives are rendered miserable. Men have not found it out yet.Anna Hethbridge was at this time twenty-four years of age, rather pretty, with a vivacity of manner wh

49、ich only seemed frivolous to the more thoughtful of her acquaintances. The idea of her marrying old Squire Agar within six months of the untimely death of her clever lover, Seymour Michael, seemed so preposterous that her hostess, good, sentimental Mrs. Glynde, never dreamt of such a possibility until, in the form of a fact, it was confided to her by Miss Hethbridge, one afternoon soon after her arrival at the rectory.“Confound it, Maria,” exclaimed t