Читать книгу Afternoons in Utopia: Tales of the New Time - Стивен Ликок - Страница 6

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“Good news, children!”

It is the woman, the mother, who is speaking as she sits at the breakfast table. She speaks gaily, as if full of happiness.

“Good news, children. Father is coming out of jail!”

“Good,” said the little boy. “I always like it when father comes out of jail.”

“This father,” corrects the little girl solemnly, looking up from the porridge.

“I meant that, Clara, of course,” said the boy. “You know I didn’t mean Mr. Angleneck. When does father come out, mum?”

“This morning, I think—in fact quite early, almost now. Wait a minute.”

She moved with her fingers a little dial that lay on the table. (By the way, how Utopia-like that would have seemed only a little while ago. But we are doing it already.)

“It’s Mrs. Ex-Angleneck-Afterthought speaking,” she said, “is that the Elysian Fields Jail?”

A voice seemed to speak from the wall, from nowhere, just in the room (an inconceivable wonderful thing, but we’re doing it now). “Yes.”

“Is that the office?”

“No, it’s the ballroom. Last night’s dance isn’t over yet—it was graduates’ night, you see, but I can get you the office—or perhaps—I can tell you what you want.”

“I wanted to find out if my husband has left the jail yet; he was to come out this morning.”

There was silence, a long pause, and then the voice spoke again.

“I’m so sorry. The governor of the jail won’t let him go.”

“Won’t let him go?”

“He says he simply can’t spare him and that he must stay over for the polo match. He says not to expect him till tonight.”

Mrs. Afterthought put down the dial with a sigh, yet with a slight flush of pleasure on her face. “He’s such a favourite out there,” she said. “Every time he goes to jail it’s the same thing. They simply will keep him there.”

Little Clara looked up from her plate.

“But I thought that only wicked people were put into prison.”

“Clara!” said her mother severely, “what have you been reading now? If you and Edward will keep dragging old books off the library shelves—”

“I didn’t get it out of an old book, mother, and you know I didn’t, because I can’t read the funny old letters in them.”

“Well, wherever you got the idea it was very wrong of you to say it. Surely you know that some of the best and noblest people in the world go to jail. Your father tells me that every time he goes he meets the most distinguished people—really brilliant men—financiers, bankers, senators—”

“Crooks,” muttered little Edward.

“Edward!” exclaimed his mother. Mrs. Afterthought looked at her two children in silence. They often puzzled her. They seemed so old-fashioned.

“Then why did father have to go to jail?” asked little Clara.

“He didn’t have to, Clara,” said her mother.

“Well, they took him in a van,” said Edward, “with wire over it.”

“Certainly, Edward, because otherwise his subconscious self might have made him leap out.”

“Then what did he go for?” asked Edward.

“Atavism,” said Mrs. Afterthought.

“What?”

“An attack of atavism. The judge himself said so. Father’s had it again and again.”

“Atavism,” said little Edward. “What does that mean?”

“It means when you go back and copy things done by your great-grandfather, or your great-great-grandfather, or any number of greats.”

“But how could papa imitate his great-great-grandfather when he never saw him?”

“But he did. He brought home from the club, dear, a fur coat that didn’t belong to him.”

“Did great-great-grandfather do that?” asked little Clara.

“He must have, dear, because your father did it.”

“But wouldn’t father go to jail for doing that?”

“No, but on the same day he atavistically carried away some money (lying on the desk of a bank, I think) and a gold watch which he had, by pure atavism, taken from a gentleman’s coat pocket while the coat was hung up.”

“So what happened?” asked Edward.

“Well, Judge Gloop—you’ve seen him here, dears, very often at lunch with papa, suggested six months in jail. Your father said no, in fact he was against it from the start. He thought a sea voyage, or a trip to Monte Carlo might be better. However, they insisted—in the court I mean—and in the end your father had to give way. It happened, however, that two other gentlemen that your father knew very well were going too, so they agreed to go together and share expenses.”

“What did they steal, the other two?” asked Edward.

“My dear Edward!” exclaimed his mother in gentle protest. “How can you drag up those terrible words out of old books and belonging to the mediæval days? They didn’t steal anything. They had amnesia.”

“Amnesia?”

“Yes, amnesia. They forgot their own names and in attempting to write their own wrote down other people’s. The judge said that it seemed to him that jail was the only place for them. They said no, and suggested a long rest—they thought of South America. Indeed I believe that one of them had taken a ticket for South America to go and begin to rest when he received, just as he was getting on the ship, this other suggestion about going to jail instead.”

“And did he turn back?”

“Yes, on condition that they’d put in a new billiard table. I believe they did it. The judge said it seemed eminently fair.”

“But I don’t see—” began little Edward. He was about to continue but at that moment a soft light appeared on the wall and a voice said: “I beg your pardon, I think I was to call you up this morning, was I not? It is the secretary of the High School speaking—about your little boy’s geometry, you remember. Have you decided to have it done?”

“I really don’t know. It’s so hard to decide. Would he be in bed long?”

“Oh, dear, no,” said the voice with a pleasant suggestion of a laugh, “only one afternoon, perhaps not that. At his age, you know, it’s really a mere nothing. I think it could be done at home if you like, only it’s not so easy to give the anæsthetic.”

“I see. And it’s really quite simple, is it?”

“Oh, a mere nothing as far as that goes.”

“And I suppose it’s not very expensive, is it?”

“Oh, not at all; not for plane geometry. It’s only ten dollars (a thousand pounds). Of course if you wanted spherical geometry, it’s much more and still more for Einstein; it’s hard to get the plasm for those. And in any case those can be acquired, you know, afterwards by vocal teaching.”

“What do you think yourself, Eddie?” asked his mother, turning to the little boy.

“I don’t care, mum,” said Eddie, “I didn’t mind algebra a bit. They don’t hurt you and once it’s in it feels just like arithmetic or anything else, you know. Do you know, mother, I heard our headmaster say that long ago in his great-great-grandfather’s time or something they used to beat it into them with sticks. How do they do that? It sounds so cruel and unnatural?”

“It was, dear, but I can’t talk about it now.”

Mrs. Afterthought spoke to the wall again. “I think if you don’t mind I’ll talk it over with my husband again before I decide. He’s rather old-fashioned about that sort of thing. He has a feeling, he says, as if it weren’t quite honest. He’s so strict, you know. He’s in jail just now, and I hate to disturb him.”

“Oh, well, by all means let it wait. There’s no hurry. Good-bye.”

“Mother,” said Edward, “while you’re talking you might as well have asked about the war.”

“I didn’t need to,” said Mrs. Afterthought, “there isn’t any today. It was announced last night that the war would stop for today.”

“Oh!” said both the children, “why?”

“It was put off for the Dog Race in the Sahara. The Harvard Dog is racing the Oxford Dog, and so there wouldn’t be enough power for the war as well. And by the way, children, please remember if grandfather comes in this afternoon, don’t say anything about the war.”

“Oh, mother, why not—isn’t grandfather commanding a ship? I thought he was commanding one of the big battleships.”

“Yes, dear, and that’s why. Grandfather lost his ship—lost with all hands, it seems—nothing left afloat except a little wreckage.”

“Mother! How dreadful!”

“And grandfather’s terribly put out about it. I don’t think they can say it’s exactly his fault, but he feels it terribly. He says the loss is very serious, especially some of the officers; not the captain—he was worn out, but the chief navigating officer (I think he said) was absolutely new and equipped with every latest device that grandfather could put in him. In fact grandfather had spent months working on him. But wait, children, it’s time to ring for Jane and get the things cleared away. I’ll tell you all about it presently.”

Mrs. Afterthought pressed a button as she spoke and sat watching with her children as the servant came in through the door from the kitchen. Jane moved around the table in her characteristically rigid and mechanical way that would have seemed laughable to the children but that they were so familiar with it. She seemed to move in straight lines and exact circles, picking up the plates with a round sweep of her arm. Here and there, if a plate or dish was out of Jane’s reach the mother or the children passed it into her hand, but no one spoke to her. “Jane’s slow,” said little Clara as the servant finished and went out.

“I don’t think you wound her up properly on Monday, mum,” said Edward.

“I don’t think it’s that, dear. I’m afraid that she’s getting all out of repair. The electrician looked at her yesterday and said that she needed a new sheet of tin on her back side. But it costs such a lot.”

“Well, mother,” said Clara, “I saw the loveliest butler in a shop yesterday, an imported English butler, marked at only thirty thousand pounds—three hundred dollars, isn’t it?”

“I know, darling, but we couldn’t afford it. Papa says it takes more power to make an English butler move than for four ordinary servants. But, good gracious—”

Mrs. Afterthought broke off suddenly at the sound of a noise, a queer bumping noise that seemed to come from under their feet.

“What is it, mum?”

“Why, don’t you hear it? I’m afraid that it means there’s a ghost in the cellar again.”

“Hooray!” shouted Edward. “A ghost! Come on, Clara, get your Badminton racquet. Come and chase it out.”

The two children sprang—

BUT THERE—Any reflective reader can see that a place like the Real Utopia couldn’t possibly be understood in that fashion. It is far too different from the World-as-it-is. Not the place—but the people. The apparatus, the machinery, the setting, is all there already. But the effect is still to come.

So we must begin all over again and learn Utopia, bit by bit.