Читать книгу The Silence of Colonel Bramble - Andre Maurois - Страница 7

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It had been raining for four days. The heavy raindrops played a monotonous tattoo on the curved roof of the tent. Outside in the field the grass had disappeared under yellow mud, in which the men's footsteps sounded like the smacking of a giant's lips.

"'And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt,'" recited the padre; "'and God said to Noah, Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened,'" continued the doctor.

"The Flood," he added, "was a real event, for its description is common to all oriental mythology. No doubt the Euphrates had burst its banks; that's why the Ark was driven into the interior and came to rest on a hill. Similar catastrophes often occur in Mesopotamia and in India, but are rare in Belgium."

"The cyclone of 1876 killed 215,000 people in Bengal," said the colonel. "Messiou, send round the port, please."

The colonel loved statistics, to the great misfortune of Aurelle, who, quite incapable of remembering figures, was interrogated every day on the number of inhabitants in a village, the strength of the Serbian army, or the initial velocity of the French bullet. He foresaw with terror that the colonel was going to ask him the average depth of rain in feet and inches in Flanders, and he hastened to create a diversion.

"I found in Poperinghe," he said, showing the book he was reading, "this very curious old volume. It is a description of England and Scotland by the Frenchman, Etienne Perlin, Paris, 1558."

"Humph! What does this Mr. Perlin say?" asked the colonel, who had the same respect for ancient things as he had for old soldiers.

Aurelle opened the book at hazard and translated:

"'After dinner, the cloth is withdrawn and the ladies retire. The table is of beautiful glossy Indian wood, and stands of the same wood hold the bottles. The name of each wine is engraved on a silver plate which hangs by a little chain round the neck of the bottle. The guests each choose the wine they like and drink it as seriously as if they were doing penance, while proposing the health of eminent personages or the fashionable beauties; this is what is known as a toast.'"

"I like 'fashionable beauties,'" said the doctor. "Perhaps Aurelle will take to drinking port, now he can pour libations to Gaby Deslys or Gladys Cooper."

"There are toasts for each day in the week," said the colonel, "Monday, our men; Tuesday, ourselves; Wednesday, our swords; Thursday, sport; Friday, our religion; Saturday, sweethearts and wives; Sunday, absent friends and ships at sea."

Aurelle went on reading aloud:

"'These toasts are of barbaric origin, and I have been told that the Highlanders of Scotland, a semi-savage folk who live in a state of perpetual feud——'"

"Listen to that, padre," said the colonel. "Read it again, messiou, for the padre, have been told that the Highlanders of Scotland——'"

"A semi-savage folk who live in a state of perpetual feud, have kept to the original character of this custom. To drink the health of anyone is to ask him to guard you while you drink and cannot defend yourself; and the person to whom you drink replies, "I pledge you," which means in their language, "I guarantee your safety." Then he draws his dagger, places the point on the table and protects you until your glass is empty.'"

"That's why," said Major Parker, "the pewter pots that they give for golf prizes have always got glass bottoms through which one can see the dagger of the assassin."

"Send round the port, messiou, I want to drink the padre's health in a second glass to hear him reply, 'I pledge you,' and to see him put the point of his dagger on the table."

"I've only got a Swiss knife," said the padre.

"That's good enough," said the colonel.

"This theory of the origin of toasts is very probable," said the doctor. "We are always repeating ancestral signs which are quite useless now. When a great actress wants to express hate she draws back her charming lips and shows her canine teeth, an unconscious sign of cannibalism. We shake hands with a friend to prevent him using it to strike us, and we take off our hats because our ancestors used to humbly offer their heads, to the bigwigs of those days, to be cut off."

At that moment there was a loud crack, and Colonel Bramble fell backwards with a crash. One of the legs of his chair had broken. The doctor and Parker helped him up, while Aurelle and the padre looked on in fits of laughter.

"There's a good example of an ancestral survival," said the major, kindly intervening to save Aurelle, who was trying in vain to stop laughing. "I imagine that one laughs at a fall because the death of a man was one of the most amusing sights for our ancestors. It delivered them from an adversary and diminished the number of those who shared the food and the females."

"Now we know you, messiou," said the colonel.

"A French philosopher," said Aurelle, who had by this time recovered, "has constructed quite a different theory of laughter: he is called Bergson and——"

"I have heard of him," said the padre; "he's a clergyman, isn't he?"

"I have a theory about laughter," said the doctor, "which is much more edifying than yours, major. I think it is simply produced by a feeling of horror, immediately succeeded by a feeling of relief. A young monkey who is devoted to the old father of the tribe sees him slip on a banana skin, he fears an accident and his chest swells with fright, then he discovers that it's nothing and all his muscles pleasantly relax. That was the first joke, and it explains the convulsive motions in laughing. Aurelle is shaken physically because he is shaken morally by two strong motives: his anxious affection and respect for the colonel——"

"Ugh," grunted the colonel.

"And the consoling certainty that he is not hurt."

"I wish you would talk about something else," said the colonel. "Read a little more of the book, messiou."

Aurelle turned over some pages.

"'Other nations,'" he read, "'accuse the English of incivility because they arrive and depart without touching their hats, and without that flow of compliments which are common to the French and Italians. But those who judge thus see things in a false light. The English idea is that politeness does not consist in gestures or words which are often hypocritical and deceptive, but in being courteously disposed to other people. They have their faults like every nation, but, considering everything, I am sure that the more one knows them the more one esteems and likes them.'"

"I like old Mr. Perlin," said the colonel. "Do you agree with him, messiou?"

"The whole of France now agrees with him, sir," said Aurelle warmly.

"You are biased, Aurelle," said Major Parker, "because you are getting quite English yourself. You whistle in your bath, you drink whisky and are beginning to like arguments; if you could only manage to eat tomatoes and underdone cutlets for breakfast you would be perfect."

"If you don't mind, major, I would rather remain French," said Aurelle. "Besides, I never knew that whistling in one's bath was an English rite."

"So much so," said the doctor, "that I have arranged to have carved on my tombstone: 'Here lies a British subject who never whistled in his bath or tried to be an amateur detective.'"