Читать книгу Cressage - A. C. Benson - Страница 10

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One morning as they walked together in the silent tangled woods beneath the Manor, with the soft wind murmuring like a falling sea among the treetops, Norton turned suddenly to Walter and said, "Do you realize that I have been here for more than three weeks? I had no intention of inflicting myself on you for so long."

"I hope it means you have enjoyed yourself," said Walter. "I am ashamed to think how little we have done to amuse you, but I can't tell you what a difference it has made to me; and you have fallen so naturally into our routine that I have quite forgotten to ask; have you been bored?"

"Bored?" said Norton. "My dear Walter, what a notion! I can't remember a time I have enjoyed so much for years. A perfectly lovely house, delightful scenery, the best of fare, a kind host and hostess, nothing expected of me, and my pleasantest friend to walk with! No, what bores one is to be resolutely entertained, to be carried hither and thither, to be held at arm's length and regarded as a tiresome responsibility--that is what bores one."

"Well," said Walter, smiling and with a little sigh, "if you have liked it, I can only say it has been the time of my life. The only thing that weighs on me is that one reason for your coming was that you should dictate my future to my people--and we haven't got any nearer to that."

"I have several times begun to talk about it to your father," said Norton, "but we have always gone off at a tangent. The question is, what do you want to do?"

"I don't know," said Walter; "but the fact is that I got into rather a bad mood at Oxford. I didn't believe in what I was doing--in fact I really worked mostly to please you. And then--I don't think this is mere priggishness--it seemed to me that the old life of school was going on just the same--work, games, ragging, chattering--and that it wasn't leading anywhere. I felt that I should either like to amuse myself in my own way, not try to be amused in other people's ways, or else to be doing real things, which I had to do whether I liked them or not, and which meant something."

"Yes I know that feeling," said Norton. "I have had it myself. One feels like Mr. Winkle, always taking off one's coat and saying one is going to begin."

"Yes, but there's a lot more than that," said Walter. "I must try to say this, however priggish you may think it. There are so many interesting things which are constantly in my mind, mostly to do with beauty--beautiful things, fine ideas, splendid ways of doing things, emotions that make one more free and cleaner instead of more cramped and grubbier. I don't mean the sort of things that are an excuse for sentiment, and drugged reveries and general beastliness, but the sort of things that were in the background, let me say, of Plato's mind or Shakespeare's mind. Why can't one talk about such things to anyone, not even to you? And if one talks about them to other men, why is it at once taken for granted that one is the nastiest sort of æsthete, though I hate what is meant by an æsthete even more than I hate what is meant by a Philistine? Yet one feels it affected, almost shameful to talk about these things. I don't mean to say that the undergraduates--the men I lived among--aren't good fellows; they are very good things of their kind, and it is a good kind. They are lively, energetic, amusing, very faithful friends, very efficient--they are everything except exciting. They are all cast in the same mould, and have the same views and instincts, down to their vices, even. They tolerate the manly vices, they despise the sentimental vices. I get stifled by knowing exactly what they will say and do; and they never seem to be tired of the same old game or to want anything different. Does that seem to you very stuffy and discontented?"

"Not in the least," said Norton. "I agree with you. I think the type is a good one, but of course one may have too much of the best. But how is one to get anything different? One ought to try perhaps; but Pater tried, and made a considerable hash of it. The question is, where and how do you expect to find anything else? I don't think you would find it in any of the so-called Bohemian artistic sets. You would find a great deal more mutual admiration, very little more liberty. You see you demand controlled morals and uncontrolled emotions--that's a difficult combination to discover."

"I want to go and look for it myself. I want to see how other nations deal with the same sort of thing."

"I don't think you would find it, my boy. They haven't reached the point in America; and Europe--the civilized part of it--is rather tired and sophisticated. You might find something of the sort in Russia, even in Japan. But in Japan they wouldn't let you into the secret. If any nation were producing big original first-rate art in any form, it would be different; indeed on the whole, for all our Philistinism and cramped conventions, I think we are doing as well in England as in any nation--but in England it isn't done by sets, but by individuals. The truth is, Walter, that a good many more people than you think have ideas of this kind, only like you they are ashamed to talk about them."

"Well, what am I to do then?"

"I think you had better go off abroad and see if you can get hold of something. I don't know, to speak very frankly, whether you have quite the right kind of gumption. On the whole, I rather wish you had to earn your living at once."

"You don't think anything of my solitary raptures?"

"I should think more of them if there was anything in particular that you wanted to do, paint, write, make music. You seem to me to be rather on the loose, mentally and emotionally."

"Yes, I think that is quite fair--it's like little Tommy head-in-air, in Struwelpeter¹. I'm not sure it isn't your fault for making me work so hard."

"Then I shall say that if you had this magnificent programme, you were rather an ass to be so docile."

"Well, will you deal with my father?"

"Of course."

¹ Die Geschichte vom Hans Guck-in-die-Luft in Struwelpeter (1844)--Heinrich Hoffman (1809-1894)

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Norton had a long conversation with the Squire on the following day. He said nothing about Walter's visions. He merely said that he had been overworking and that he needed an entire change. He then expatiated on the advantage of having a cosmopolitan view of things.

The Squire had fortunately, in his younger days, spent six months in Paris. He came round sharply into the wind, and said that he had himself been immensely the gainer by the sojourn. "I don't know," he went on, "if you have ever come much in the way of what we may call County society, Mr. Norton? My neighbours, the men I meet on public occasions, are excellent fellows, no doubt; but they have no idea of grappling with a social situation. They are apt on public occasions to stand in rows with their hands crossed in front of them. It is pitiable. I myself have cultivated the habit, I am told with some success, of speaking instantly and courteously to anyone high or low, whether stranger or acquaintance, that I find myself in contact with. I am told, and I have reason to believe, that this is of real service in bringing about, in radiating, if I may borrow a word which I have heard used in connection with the particular phenomenon, a certain social animation, a human sympathy, without which it is difficult for the wheels of our complex social machine to work smoothly." The Squire paused for encouragement, and Norton said:

"I can only judge from my own experience, Squire, and from what I have seen at this house; but I must say that I think you possess in a marked degree the rare gift of reassuring your circle."

"You are very good," cried the Squire, "to reassure me thus! Even a humble landowner like myself becomes aware that his position does to a certain degree isolate him. He is surrounded by what I will call, without any moral or intellectual implication, his inferiors. It is of the highest importance that Walter should develop this confidence. Observant and attentive as he is, I venture to say that I have noticed in his unconsidered remarks a certain brusquerie, a lack of suavity, which Parisian society would do much to correct."

"Then I hope," said Norton very craftily, "that I have rightly interpreted and confirmed the decision that you had already practically formed; and if I may say so, I am grateful to you for making it so easy to give a perfectly unbiassed opinion."

"You are quite right," said the Squire. "My own impression was that a period of continental travel was the very thing for Walter, much as we shall miss him; and I am greatly gratified that one who knows our dear boy's character so well as yourself should have come without any hint from myself to the same conclusion. You have no anxiety, I hope, that he, inexperienced as he is, may deviate in any way from the strict morality his mother and I have always inculcated, by example more than by precept?"

"None whatever," said Norton. "There are few of my pupils about whom I could speak so confidently."

"There is one other thing," said the Squire. "What sum of money, do you think, will be necessary to give him the full advantages of a Continental tour?"

"If I were in your place," said Norton, "I should give him £800, and ask him not to be extravagant. I think he should feel entirely at ease about money on an occasion like this."

"I entirely approve," said the Squire; "there need be no difficulty about money. I wish him to mix in any society without any sense of being at a disadvantage. You are sure this will suffice?"

"Yes," said Norton; "it is a generous allowance, and it should give him a year of travel without any need for petty economy."

"That is precisely what I desire, Mr. Norton," said the Squire.

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Walter returned to Norton from an interview with his father in a state of bewilderment and delight. "You are a magician," he said. "I am to have a year, and £800 to do it on. I shall be able to travel like a prince."

"I hope you won't chuck it about," said Norton; "that would be idiotic. I shouldn't go to smart hotels--you don't get your money's worth. But you will be able to do a little entertaining, if you want, and perhaps to go to some places to which the ordinary tourist finds it difficult to penetrate."

"My mother is rather wretched at the idea of my being away for so long," said Walter. "But my father will make that all right. I shall be off as soon as I can. You must give me some hints."

"I should go to France first," said Norton, "and spend a month in a family learning to chatter in French. With that and English you can get pretty nearly anywhere."

"How did you manage it?" said Walter.

"A little harmless diplomacy," said Norton. "I assumed that it was your father's own idea."