×

We use cookies to help make LingQ better. By visiting the site, you agree to our cookie policy.


image

The Pupil by Henry James, Chapter VII

Chapter VII

They looked at the facts a good deal after this and one of the first consequences of their doing so was that Pemberton stuck it out, in his friend's parlance, for the purpose. Morgan made the facts so vivid and so droll, and at the same time so bald and so ugly, that there was fascination in talking them over with him, just as there would have been heartlessness in leaving him alone with them. Now that the pair had such perceptions in common it was useless for them to pretend they didn't judge such people; but the very judgement and the exchange of perceptions created another tie. Morgan had never been so interesting as now that he himself was made plainer by the sidelight of these confidences. What came out in it most was the small fine passion of his pride. He had plenty of that, Pemberton felt - so much that one might perhaps wisely wish for it some early bruises. He would have liked his people to have a spirit and had waked up to the sense of their perpetually eating humble-pie. His mother would consume any amount, and his father would consume even more than his mother. He had a theory that Ulick had wriggled out of an "affair" at Nice: there had once been a flurry at home, a regular panic, after which they all went to bed and took medicine, not to be accounted for on any other supposition. Morgan had a romantic imagination, led by poetry and history, and he would have liked those who "bore his name" - as he used to say to Pemberton with the humour that made his queer delicacies manly - to carry themselves with an air. But their one idea was to get in with people who didn't want them and to take snubs as it they were honourable scars. Why people didn't want them more he didn't know - that was people's own affair; after all they weren't superficially repulsive, they were a hundred times cleverer than most of the dreary grandees, the "poor swells" they rushed about Europe to catch up with. "After all they ARE amusing - they are!" he used to pronounce with the wisdom of the ages. To which Pemberton always replied: "Amusing - the great Moreen troupe? Why they're altogether delightful; and if it weren't for the hitch that you and I (feeble performers!) make in the ensemble they'd carry everything before them." What the boy couldn't get over was the fact that this particular blight seemed, in a tradition of self-respect, so undeserved and so arbitrary. No doubt people had a right to take the line they liked; but why should his people have liked the line of pushing and toadying and lying and cheating? What had their forefathers - all decent folk, so far as he knew - done to them, or what had he done to them? Who had poisoned their blood with the fifth-rate social ideal, the fixed idea of making smart acquaintances and getting into the monde chic, especially when it was foredoomed to failure and exposure? They showed so what they were after; that was what made the people they wanted not want THEM. And never a wince for dignity, never a throb of shame at looking each other in the face, never any independence or resentment or disgust. If his father or his brother would only knock some one down once or twice a year! Clever as they were they never guessed the impression they made. They were good-natured, yes - as good-natured as Jews at the doors of clothing-shops! But was that the model one wanted one's family to follow? Morgan had dim memories of an old grandfather, the maternal, in New York, whom he had been taken across the ocean at the age of five to see: a gentleman with a high neck-cloth and a good deal of pronunciation, who wore a dress-coat in the morning, which made one wonder what he wore in the evening, and had, or was supposed to have "property" and something to do with the Bible Society. It couldn't have been but that he was a good type. Pemberton himself remembered Mrs. Clancy, a widowed sister of Mr. Moreen's, who was as irritating as a moral tale and had paid a fortnight's visit to the family at Nice shortly after he came to live with them. She was "pure and refined," as Amy said over the banjo, and had the air of not knowing what they meant when they talked, and of keeping something rather important back. Pemberton judged that what she kept back was an approval of many of their ways; therefore it was to be supposed that she too was of a good type, and that Mr. and Mrs. Moreen and Ulick and Paula and Amy might easily have been of a better one if they would.

But that they wouldn't was more and more perceptible from day to day. They continued to "chivey," as Morgan called it, and in due time became aware of a variety of reasons for proceeding to Venice. They mentioned a great many of them - they were always strikingly frank and had the brightest friendly chatter, at the late foreign breakfast in especial, before the ladies had made up their faces, when they leaned their arms on the table, had something to follow the demitasse, and, in the heat of familiar discussion as to what they "really ought" to do, fell inevitably into the languages in which they could tutoyer. Even Pemberton liked them then; he could endure even Ulick when he heard him give his little flat voice for the "sweet sea-city." That was what made him have a sneaking kindness for them - that they were so out of the workaday world and kept him so out of it. The summer had waned when, with cries of ecstasy, they all passed out on the balcony that overhung the Grand Canal. The sunsets then were splendid and the Dorringtons had arrived. The Dorringtons were the only reason they hadn't talked of at breakfast; but the reasons they didn't talk of at breakfast always came out in the end. The Dorringtons on the other hand came out very little; or else when they did they stayed - as was natural - for hours, during which periods Mrs. Moreen and the girls sometimes called at their hotel (to see if they had returned) as many as three times running. The gondola was for the ladies, as in Venice too there were "days," which Mrs. Moreen knew in their order an hour after she arrived. She immediately took one herself, to which the Dorringtons never came, though on a certain occasion when Pemberton and his pupil were together at St. Mark's - where, taking the best walks they had ever had and haunting a hundred churches, they spent a great deal of time - they saw the old lord turn up with Mr. Moreen and Ulick, who showed him the dim basilica as if it belonged to them. Pemberton noted how much less, among its curiosities, Lord Dorrington carried himself as a man of the world; wondering too whether, for such services, his companions took a fee from him. The autumn at any rate waned, the Dorringtons departed, and Lord Verschoyle, the eldest son, had proposed neither for Amy nor for Paula.

One sad November day, while the wind roared round the old palace and the rain lashed the lagoon, Pemberton, for exercise and even somewhat for warmth - the Moreens were horribly frugal about fires; it was a cause of suffering to their inmate - walked up and down the big bare sala with his pupil. The scagliola floor was cold, the high battered casements shook in the storm, and the stately decay of the place was unrelieved by a particle of furniture. Pemberton's spirits were low, and it came over him that the fortune of the Moreens was now even lower. A blast of desolation, a portent of disgrace and disaster, seemed to draw through the comfortless hall. Mr. Moreen and Ulick were in the Piazza, looking out for something, strolling drearily, in mackintoshes, under the arcades; but still, in spite of mackintoshes, unmistakeable men of the world. Paula and Amy were in bed - it might have been thought they were staying there to keep warm. Pemberton looked askance at the boy at his side, to see to what extent he was conscious of these dark omens. But Morgan, luckily for him, was now mainly conscious of growing taller and stronger and indeed of being in his fifteenth year. This fact was intensely interesting to him and the basis of a private theory - which, however, he had imparted to his tutor - that in a little while he should stand on his own feet. He considered that the situation would change - that in short he should be "finished," grown up, producible in the world of affairs and ready to prove himself of sterling ability. Sharply as he was capable at times of analysing, as he called it, his life, there were happy hours when he remained, as he also called it - and as the name, really, of their right ideal - "jolly" superficial; the proof of which was his fundamental assumption that he should presently go to Oxford, to Pemberton's college, and, aided and abetted by Pemberton, do the most wonderful things. It depressed the young man to see how little in such a project he took account of ways and means: in other connexions he mostly kept to the measure. Pemberton tried to imagine the Moreens at Oxford and fortunately failed; yet unless they were to adopt it as a residence there would be no modus vivendi for Morgan. How could he live without an allowance, and where was the allowance to come from? He, Pemberton, might live on Morgan; but how could Morgan live on HIM? What was to become of him anyhow? Somehow the fact that he was a big boy now, with better prospects of health, made the question of his future more difficult. So long as he was markedly frail the great consideration he inspired seemed enough of an answer to it. But at the bottom of Pemberton's heart was the recognition of his probably being strong enough to live and not yet strong enough to struggle or to thrive. Morgan himself at any rate was in the first flush of the rosiest consciousness of adolescence, so that the beating of the tempest seemed to him after all but the voice of life and the challenge of fate. He had on his shabby little overcoat, with the collar up, but was enjoying his walk.

It was interrupted at last by the appearance of his mother at the end of the sala. She beckoned him to come to her, and while Pemberton saw him, complaisant, pass down the long vista and over the damp false marble, he wondered what was in the air. Mrs. Moreen said a word to the boy and made him go into the room she had quitted. Then, having closed the door after him, she directed her steps swiftly to Pemberton. There was something in the air, but his wildest flight of fancy wouldn't have suggested what it proved to be. She signified that she had made a pretext to get Morgan out of the way, and then she enquired - without hesitation - if the young man could favour her with the loan of three louis. While, before bursting into a laugh, he stared at her with surprise, she declared that she was awfully pressed for the money; she was desperate for it - it would save her life.

"Dear lady, c'est trop fort!" Pemberton laughed in the manner and with the borrowed grace of idiom that marked the best colloquial, the best anecdotic, moments of his friends themselves. "Where in the world do you suppose I should get three louis, du train dont vous allez?" "I thought you worked - wrote things. Don't they pay you?" "Not a penny." "Are you such a fool as to work for nothing?" "You ought surely to know that." Mrs. Moreen stared, then she coloured a little. Pemberton saw she had quite forgotten the terms - if "terms" they could be called - that he had ended by accepting from herself; they had burdened her memory as little as her conscience. "Oh yes, I see what you mean - you've been very nice about that; but why drag it in so often? " She had been perfectly urbane with him ever since the rough scene of explanation in his room the morning he made her accept HIS "terms" - the necessity of his making his case known to Morgan. She had felt no resentment after seeing there was no danger Morgan would take the matter up with her. Indeed, attributing this immunity to the good taste of his influence with the boy, she had once said to Pemberton "My dear fellow, it's an immense comfort you're a gentleman." She repeated this in substance now. "Of course you're a gentleman - that's a bother the less!" Pemberton reminded her that he had not "dragged in" anything that wasn't already in as much as his foot was in his shoe; and she also repeated her prayer that, somewhere and somehow, he would find her sixty francs. He took the liberty of hinting that if he could find them it wouldn't be to lend them to HER - as to which he consciously did himself injustice, knowing that if he had them he would certainly put them at her disposal. He accused himself, at bottom and not unveraciously, of a fantastic, a demoralised sympathy with her. If misery made strange bedfellows it also made strange sympathies. It was moreover a part of the abasement of living with such people that one had to make vulgar retorts, quite out of one's own tradition of good manners. "Morgan, Morgan, to what pass have I come for you?" he groaned while Mrs. Moreen floated voluminously down the sala again to liberate the boy, wailing as she went that everything was too odious.

Before their young friend was liberated there came a thump at the door communicating with the staircase, followed by the apparition of a dripping youth who poked in his head. Pemberton recognised him as the bearer of a telegram and recognised the telegram as addressed to himself. Morgan came back as, after glancing at the signature - that of a relative in London - he was reading the words: "Found a jolly job for you, engagement to coach opulent youth on own terms. Come at once." The answer happily was paid and the messenger waited. Morgan, who had drawn near, waited too and looked hard at Pemberton; and Pemberton, after a moment, having met his look, handed him the telegram. It was really by wise looks - they knew each other so well now - that, while the telegraph-boy, in his waterproof cape, made a great puddle on the floor, the thing was settled between them. Pemberton wrote the answer with a pencil against the frescoed wall, and the messenger departed. When he had gone the young man explained himself.

"I'll make a tremendous charge; I'll earn a lot of money in a short time, and we'll live on it." "Well, I hope the opulent youth will be a dismal dunce - he probably will - " Morgan parenthesised - "and keep you a long time a-hammering of it in." "Of course the longer he keeps me the more we shall have for our old age." "But suppose THEY don't pay you!" Morgan awfully suggested.

"Oh there are not two such - !" But Pemberton pulled up; he had been on the point of using too invidious a term. Instead of this he said "Two such fatalities." Morgan flushed - the tears came to his eyes. "Dites toujours two such rascally crews!" Then in a different tone he added: "Happy opulent youth!" "Not if he's a dismal dunce." "Oh they're happier then. But you can't have everything, can you? " the boy smiled. Pemberton held him fast, hands on his shoulders - he had never loved him so. "What will become of you, what will you do?" He thought of Mrs. Moreen, desperate for sixty francs.

"I shall become an homme fait." And then as if he recognised all the bearings of Pemberton's allusion: "I shall get on with them better when you're not here." "Ah don't say that - it sounds as if I set you against them!" "You do - the sight of you. It's all right; you know what I mean. I shall be beautiful. I'll take their affairs in hand; I'll marry my sisters." "You'll marry yourself!" joked Pemberton; as high, rather tense pleasantry would evidently be the right, or the safest, tone for their separation.

It was, however, not purely in this strain that Morgan suddenly asked: "But I say - how will you get to your jolly job? You'll have to telegraph to the opulent youth for money to come on." Pemberton bethought himself. "They won't like that, will they?" "Oh look out for them!" Then Pemberton brought out his remedy. "I'll go to the American Consul; I'll borrow some money of him - just for the few days, on the strength of the telegram." Morgan was hilarious. "Show him the telegram - then collar the money and stay!" Pemberton entered into the joke sufficiently to reply that for Morgan he was really capable of that; but the boy, growing more serious, and to prove he hadn't meant what he said, not only hurried him off to the Consulate - since he was to start that evening, as he had wired to his friend - but made sure of their affair by going with him. They splashed through the tortuous perforations and over the humpbacked bridges, and they passed through the Piazza, where they saw Mr. Moreen and Ulick go into a jeweller's shop. The Consul proved accommodating - Pemberton said it wasn't the letter, but Morgan's grand air - and on their way back they went into Saint Mark's for a hushed ten minutes. Later they took up and kept up the fun of it to the very end; and it seemed to Pemberton a part of that fun that Mrs. Moreen, who was very angry when he had announced her his intention, should charge him, grotesquely and vulgarly and in reference to the loan she had vainly endeavoured to effect, with bolting lest they should "get something out" of him. On the other hand he had to do Mr. Moreen and Ulick the justice to recognise that when on coming in they heard the cruel news they took it like perfect men of the world.

Chapter VII Kapitel VII Capítulo VII 第七章 VII skyrius Capítulo VII Глава VII Розділ VII 第七章

They looked at the facts a good deal after this and one of the  first consequences of their doing so was that Pemberton stuck it  out, in his friend's parlance, for the purpose. Poté se hodně zabývali fakty a jedním z prvních důsledků jejich počínání bylo, že Pemberton to, řečeno slovy jeho přítele, zapíchl za tímto účelem. После этого они долго рассматривали факты, и одним из первых последствий этого стало то, что Пембертон, по выражению его друга, застолбил это место. Morgan made the  facts so vivid and so droll, and at the same time so bald and so  ugly, that there was fascination in talking them over with him,  just as there would have been heartlessness in leaving him alone  with them. Morganovi se fakta jevila tak živá a tak úsměvná a zároveň tak holá a ošklivá, že bylo fascinující o nich s ním mluvit, stejně jako by bylo bezcitné nechat ho s nimi o samotě. Морган делал факты настолько яркими и смешными, и в то же время такими лысыми и уродливыми, что обсуждать их с ним было увлекательно, так же как было бы бессердечно оставить его наедине с ними. Now that the pair had such perceptions in common it was  useless for them to pretend they didn't judge such people; but the  very judgement and the exchange of perceptions created another tie. Teď, když měla dvojice takové vnímání společné, bylo zbytečné předstírat, že takové lidi neodsuzuje; ale právě toto posuzování a výměna vjemů vytvořily další pouto. Теперь, когда у пары были общие представления, бесполезно было делать вид, что они не осуждают таких людей; но само осуждение и обмен представлениями создавали еще одну связь. Morgan had never been so interesting as now that he himself was  made plainer by the sidelight of these confidences. Морган никогда не был так интересен, как сейчас, когда он сам стал более понятен под боком у этих доверительных бесед. What came out  in it most was the small fine passion of his pride. Больше всего в нем проявилась маленькая тонкая страсть его гордости. He had plenty  of that, Pemberton felt - so much that one might perhaps wisely  wish for it some early bruises. По мнению Пембертона, этого у него было предостаточно - настолько, что, возможно, было бы разумно пожелать ему несколько ранних синяков. He would have liked his people to  have a spirit and had waked up to the sense of their perpetually  eating humble-pie. Он хотел бы, чтобы у его народа был дух, чтобы он проснулся и осознал, что он вечно ест скромный пирог. His mother would consume any amount, and his  father would consume even more than his mother. Его мать потребляла любые объемы, а отец - даже больше, чем мать. He had a theory  that Ulick had wriggled out of an "affair" at Nice: there had once  been a flurry at home, a regular panic, after which they all went  to bed and took medicine, not to be accounted for on any other  supposition. У него была версия, что Улик выкрутился из "интрижки" в Ницце: когда-то дома был шквал, обычная паника, после которой все ложились спать и принимали лекарства, и никакие другие предположения не могли быть объяснены. Morgan had a romantic imagination, led by poetry and  history, and he would have liked those who "bore his name" - as he  used to say to Pemberton with the humour that made his queer  delicacies manly - to carry themselves with an air. Морган обладал романтическим воображением, которым руководили поэзия и история, и ему хотелось, чтобы те, кто "носил его имя", - как он говорил Пембертону с юмором, который делал его странные деликатесы мужественными, - носили себя с достоинством. But their one  idea was to get in with people who didn't want them and to take  snubs as it they were honourable scars. Но у них была одна идея - влезть к тем, кто их не хотел, и принять оскорбления как почетные шрамы. Why people didn't want  them more he didn't know - that was people's own affair; after all  they weren't superficially repulsive, they were a hundred times  cleverer than most of the dreary grandees, the "poor swells" they  rushed about Europe to catch up with. Почему люди не хотели их больше, он не знал - это было дело самих людей; в конце концов, они не были внешне отталкивающими, они были во сто крат умнее большинства унылых грандов, "бедняков", которых они бросались догонять по Европе. "After all they ARE amusing  - they are!" "В конце концов, они же забавные - это так!" he used to pronounce with the wisdom of the ages. произносил он с мудростью веков. To  which Pemberton always replied: "Amusing - the great Moreen  troupe? На что Пембертон всегда отвечал: "Забавно - великая труппа Морена? Why they're altogether delightful; and if it weren't for  the hitch that you and I (feeble performers!) Они просто восхитительны; и если бы не та загвоздка, которая нас с вами (слабых исполнителей!) make in the ensemble  they'd carry everything before them." сделать в ансамбле, чтобы они несли все перед собой". What the boy couldn't get over was the fact that this particular  blight seemed, in a tradition of self-respect, so undeserved and so  arbitrary. Мальчик никак не мог взять в толк, почему именно это пятно казалось ему, в традициях самоуважения, таким незаслуженным и таким произвольным. No doubt people had a right to take the line they  liked; but why should his people have liked the line of pushing and  toadying and lying and cheating? Несомненно, люди имеют право занимать ту позицию, которая им нравится; но почему его людям должна была нравиться позиция подталкивания, подхалимства, лжи и обмана? What had their forefathers - all  decent folk, so far as he knew - done to them, or what had he done  to them? Что сделали с ними их предки - все достойные люди, насколько он знал, - или что сделал с ними он? Who had poisoned their blood with the fifth-rate social  ideal, the fixed idea of making smart acquaintances and getting  into the monde chic, especially when it was foredoomed to failure  and exposure? Кто отравил их кровь пятисортным общественным идеалом, навязчивой идеей завести умные знакомства и попасть в шикарный мир, тем более, что это обречено на провал и разоблачение? They showed so what they were after; that was what  made the people they wanted not want THEM. Они так показали, чего они добивались; именно это заставило людей, которых они хотели, не хотеть их. And never a wince for  dignity, never a throb of shame at looking each other in the face,  never any independence or resentment or disgust. И ни разу не дрогнуло достоинство, ни разу не запульсировало чувство стыда при взгляде друг другу в лицо, ни разу не проявилась независимость, обида или отвращение. If his father or  his brother would only knock some one down once or twice a year! Если бы его отец или брат только раз или два в год сбивали кого-нибудь с ног! Clever as they were they never guessed the impression they made. Умные, они и не догадывались, какое впечатление произвели. They were good-natured, yes - as good-natured as Jews at the doors  of clothing-shops! Они были добродушны, да - так же добродушны, как евреи у дверей магазинов одежды! But was that the model one wanted one's family  to follow? Но хотел ли человек, чтобы его семья следовала именно такой модели? Morgan had dim memories of an old grandfather, the  maternal, in New York, whom he had been taken across the ocean at  the age of five to see: a gentleman with a high neck-cloth and a  good deal of pronunciation, who wore a dress-coat in the morning,  which made one wonder what he wore in the evening, and had, or was  supposed to have "property" and something to do with the Bible  Society. Морган смутно помнил старого дедушку по материнской линии в Нью-Йорке, к которому его в пятилетнем возрасте возили через океан: джентльмен с высокой горловиной и хорошим произношением, который утром надевал фрак, что заставляло задуматься о том, что он надевает вечером, и имел или должен был иметь "собственность" и какое-то отношение к Библейскому обществу. It couldn't have been but that he was a good type. Этого не могло не быть, но он был хорошим типом. Pemberton himself remembered Mrs. Clancy, a widowed sister of Mr.  Moreen's, who was as irritating as a moral tale and had paid a  fortnight's visit to the family at Nice shortly after he came to  live with them. Сам Пембертон помнил миссис Клэнси, овдовевшую сестру мистера Морена, которая была раздражительна, как нравоучительная сказка, и навестила семью в Ницце на две недели вскоре после того, как он переехал к ним жить. She was "pure and refined," as Amy said over the  banjo, and had the air of not knowing what they meant when they  talked, and of keeping something rather important back. Она была "чистой и утонченной", как говорила Эми на банджо, и в ней чувствовалось, что они не понимают, что имеют в виду, когда говорят, и держат что-то очень важное в тайне. Pemberton  judged that what she kept back was an approval of many of their  ways; therefore it was to be supposed that she too was of a good  type, and that Mr. and Mrs. Moreen and Ulick and Paula and Amy  might easily have been of a better one if they would. По мнению Пембертона, то, что она скрывала, было одобрением многих их поступков; следовательно, можно было предположить, что она тоже принадлежит к хорошему типу, и что мистер и миссис Морен, Улик, Паула и Эми вполне могли бы принадлежать к лучшему типу, если бы захотели.

But that they wouldn't was more and more perceptible from day to  day. Но то, что они этого не сделают, с каждым днем становилось все более ощутимым. They continued to "chivey," as Morgan called it, and in due  time became aware of a variety of reasons for proceeding to Venice. Они продолжали "чифирить", как называл это Морган, и в свое время узнали о множестве причин, побудивших их отправиться в Венецию. They mentioned a great many of them - they were always strikingly  frank and had the brightest friendly chatter, at the late foreign  breakfast in especial, before the ladies had made up their faces,  when they leaned their arms on the table, had something to follow  the demitasse, and, in the heat of familiar discussion as to what  they "really ought" to do, fell inevitably into the languages in  which they could tutoyer. Их было много - они всегда были поразительно откровенны и вели самую яркую дружескую болтовню, особенно за поздним иностранным завтраком, когда дамы еще не успели накраситься, облокотиться руками на стол, выпить что-нибудь вслед за демитассе и в пылу привычного обсуждения того, что им "действительно надо" делать, неизбежно сбивались на те языки, на которых они могли изъясняться. Even Pemberton liked them then; he could  endure even Ulick when he heard him give his little flat voice for  the "sweet sea-city." Тогда они нравились даже Пембертону; он мог вытерпеть даже Улика, когда слышал, как тот своим маленьким ровным голосом произносит "sweet sea-city". That was what made him have a sneaking  kindness for them - that they were so out of the workaday world and  kept him so out of it. Именно поэтому он испытывал к ним тайную симпатию - они были так далеки от обыденного мира и не позволяли ему оставаться в нем. The summer had waned when, with cries of  ecstasy, they all passed out on the balcony that overhung the Grand  Canal. Лето пошло на убыль, когда все они с криками экстаза потеряли сознание на балконе, выходящем на Большой канал. The sunsets then were splendid and the Dorringtons had  arrived. Закаты тогда были великолепны, и Доррингтоны приехали. The Dorringtons were the only reason they hadn't talked  of at breakfast; but the reasons they didn't talk of at breakfast  always came out in the end. Доррингтоны были единственной причиной, о которой они не говорили за завтраком; но причины, о которых они не говорили за завтраком, всегда в конце концов выяснялись. The Dorringtons on the other hand came  out very little; or else when they did they stayed - as was natural  - for hours, during which periods Mrs. Moreen and the girls  sometimes called at their hotel (to see if they had returned) as  many as three times running. Доррингтоны же выходили очень редко, а если и выходили, то задерживались - что вполне естественно - на несколько часов, и за это время миссис Морин и девочки иногда звонили в их отель (чтобы узнать, не вернулись ли они) по три раза подряд. The gondola was for the ladies, as in  Venice too there were "days," which Mrs. Moreen knew in their order  an hour after she arrived. Гондола предназначалась для дам, так как в Венеции тоже есть "дни", порядок которых миссис Морин узнала через час после приезда. She immediately took one herself, to  which the Dorringtons never came, though on a certain occasion when  Pemberton and his pupil were together at St. Она тут же взяла себе одну, на которую Доррингтоны так и не пришли, хотя в один из случаев, когда Пембертон и его ученица были вместе в St. Mark's - where, taking  the best walks they had ever had and haunting a hundred churches,  they spent a great deal of time - they saw the old lord turn up  with Mr. Moreen and Ulick, who showed him the dim basilica as if it  belonged to them. Марка - где, совершая лучшие в своей жизни прогулки и обойдя сотню церквей, они провели немало времени, - они увидели, как старый лорд появился с мистером Мореном и Уликом, которые показали ему тусклую базилику, как будто она принадлежала им. Pemberton noted how much less, among its  curiosities, Lord Dorrington carried himself as a man of the world;  wondering too whether, for such services, his companions took a fee  from him. Пембертон отметил, как мало среди диковинок лорд Доррингтон проявил себя как человек из мира; его также интересовало, берут ли его компаньоны плату за такие услуги. The autumn at any rate waned, the Dorringtons departed,  and Lord Verschoyle, the eldest son, had proposed neither for Amy  nor for Paula.

One sad November day, while the wind roared round the old palace  and the rain lashed the lagoon, Pemberton, for exercise and even  somewhat for warmth - the Moreens were horribly frugal about fires;  it was a cause of suffering to their inmate - walked up and down  the big bare sala with his pupil. В один печальный ноябрьский день, когда ветер гулял по старому дворцу, а дождь хлестал по лагуне, Пембертон, чтобы потренироваться и даже немного согреться - Морены были ужасно экономны в отношении огня; это причиняло страдания их подопечному, - ходил со своим учеником взад и вперед по большой голой сале. The scagliola floor was cold,  the high battered casements shook in the storm, and the stately  decay of the place was unrelieved by a particle of furniture. Пол в скалиоле был холодным, высокие побитые створки тряслись от ветра, а величественный упадок помещения не разбавлялся ни единым предметом мебели. Pemberton's spirits were low, and it came over him that the fortune  of the Moreens was now even lower. Пембертон был не в духе, и до него дошло, что состояние Моренов стало еще хуже. A blast of desolation, a  portent of disgrace and disaster, seemed to draw through the  comfortless hall. По безлюдному залу, казалось, пронесся взрыв запустения, предвестие позора и беды. Mr. Moreen and Ulick were in the Piazza, looking  out for something, strolling drearily, in mackintoshes, under the  arcades; but still, in spite of mackintoshes, unmistakeable men of  the world. Мистер Морен и Улик были на площади, что-то высматривая, уныло прогуливаясь в макинтошах под аркадами, но все равно, несмотря на макинтоши, несомненные люди мира. Paula and Amy were in bed - it might have been thought  they were staying there to keep warm. Пола и Эми лежали в постели - можно было подумать, что они остались там, чтобы согреться. Pemberton looked askance at  the boy at his side, to see to what extent he was conscious of  these dark omens. Пембертон бросил косой взгляд на мальчика, сидящего рядом с ним, чтобы понять, насколько тот осознает эти мрачные предзнаменования. But Morgan, luckily for him, was now mainly  conscious of growing taller and stronger and indeed of being in his  fifteenth year. Но Морган, к счастью для него, сейчас в основном осознавал, что он стал выше и сильнее, и ему действительно исполнилось пятнадцать лет. This fact was intensely interesting to him and the  basis of a private theory - which, however, he had imparted to his  tutor - that in a little while he should stand on his own feet. Этот факт был ему очень интересен, и на нем основывалась его личная теория, которую он, впрочем, передал своему наставнику, - что через некоторое время он должен встать на ноги. He  considered that the situation would change - that in short he  should be "finished," grown up, producible in the world of affairs  and ready to prove himself of sterling ability. Он считал, что ситуация изменится, что в скором времени он должен быть "законченным", взрослым, состоявшимся в мире дел и готовым проявить себя с лучшей стороны. Sharply as he was  capable at times of analysing, as he called it, his life, there  were happy hours when he remained, as he also called it - and as  the name, really, of their right ideal - "jolly" superficial; the  proof of which was his fundamental assumption that he should  presently go to Oxford, to Pemberton's college, and, aided and  abetted by Pemberton, do the most wonderful things. Как ни остро он умел временами анализировать, как он это называл, свою жизнь, бывали счастливые часы, когда он оставался, как он это называл - и как называл, действительно, их правильный идеал, - "веселым" поверхностным; доказательством этого было его фундаментальное предположение, что он должен поехать в Оксфорд, в колледж Пембертона, и, с помощью и при содействии Пембертона, совершить самые замечательные вещи. It depressed  the young man to see how little in such a project he took account  of ways and means: in other connexions he mostly kept to the  measure. Молодого человека удручало то, как мало в таком проекте он учитывал пути и средства: в других связях он в основном соблюдал меру. Pemberton tried to imagine the Moreens at Oxford and  fortunately failed; yet unless they were to adopt it as a residence  there would be no modus vivendi for Morgan. Пембертон попытался представить Моренов в Оксфорде, но, к счастью, потерпел неудачу; однако, если они не примут его в качестве резиденции, для Моргана не будет никакого modus vivendi. How could he live  without an allowance, and where was the allowance to come from? Как он мог жить без пособия, и откуда оно должно было взяться? He, Pemberton, might live on Morgan; but how could Morgan live on  HIM? Он, Пембертон, мог жить за счет Моргана; но как мог Морган жить за счет него? What was to become of him anyhow? Что же с ним стало дальше? Somehow the fact that he  was a big boy now, with better prospects of health, made the  question of his future more difficult. Почему-то тот факт, что он был уже большим мальчиком, с лучшими перспективами здоровья, усложнял вопрос о его будущем. So long as he was markedly  frail the great consideration he inspired seemed enough of an  answer to it. Пока он был заметно немощен, огромное внимание, которое он внушал, казалось достаточным ответом на это. But at the bottom of Pemberton's heart was the  recognition of his probably being strong enough to live and not yet  strong enough to struggle or to thrive. Но в глубине души Пембертон осознавал, что он, возможно, достаточно силен, чтобы жить, но еще не достаточно силен, чтобы бороться или процветать. Morgan himself at any rate  was in the first flush of the rosiest consciousness of adolescence,  so that the beating of the tempest seemed to him after all but the  voice of life and the challenge of fate. Сам Морган, во всяком случае, находился в первой поре самого радужного сознания юности, так что удары бури казались ему в конце концов лишь голосом жизни и вызовом судьбы. He had on his shabby  little overcoat, with the collar up, but was enjoying his walk. На нем была потертая шинель с поднятым воротником, но он наслаждался прогулкой.

It was interrupted at last by the appearance of his mother at the  end of the sala. Наконец его прервало появление матери в конце салона. She beckoned him to come to her, and while  Pemberton saw him, complaisant, pass down the long vista and over  the damp false marble, he wondered what was in the air. Она пригласила его подойти к ней, и пока Пембертон смотрел, как он, покладистый, проходит по длинному проходу и по влажному фальш-мрамору, он гадал, что витает в воздухе. Mrs.  Moreen said a word to the boy and made him go into the room she had  quitted. Миссис Морин сказала мальчику пару слов и заставила его войти в комнату, из которой она вышла. Then, having closed the door after him, she directed her  steps swiftly to Pemberton. Затем, закрыв за ним дверь, она быстрыми шагами направилась к Пембертону. There was something in the air, but  his wildest flight of fancy wouldn't have suggested what it proved  to be. В воздухе что-то витало, но самый смелый полет его фантазии не позволил бы предположить, что это было. She signified that she had made a pretext to get Morgan out  of the way, and then she enquired - without hesitation - if the  young man could favour her with the loan of three louis. Она дала понять, что придумала предлог, чтобы убрать Моргана с дороги, а затем, не задумываясь, спросила, не может ли молодой человек одолжить ей три луидора. While,  before bursting into a laugh, he stared at her with surprise, she  declared that she was awfully pressed for the money; she was  desperate for it - it would save her life. Пока он, не переставая смеяться, с удивлением смотрел на нее, она заявила, что ей очень нужны деньги, что она в отчаянии - они спасут ей жизнь.

"Dear lady, c'est trop fort!" "Дорогая леди, это так сложно!" Pemberton laughed in the manner and  with the borrowed grace of idiom that marked the best colloquial,  the best anecdotic, moments of his friends themselves. Пембертон смеялся в той манере и с тем заимствованным изяществом идиом, которыми отмечены лучшие разговорные, лучшие анекдотические моменты жизни его друзей. "Where in  the world do you suppose I should get three louis, du train dont  vous allez?" "Где, по-вашему, я должен взять три луидора, в поезде?" "I thought you worked - wrote things. "Я думал, вы работаете - пишете что-то. Don't they pay you?" Разве они вам не платят?" "Not a penny." "Ни копейки". "Are you such a fool as to work for nothing?" "Неужели ты такой дурак, что будешь работать за гроши?" "You ought surely to know that." "Вы, конечно, должны это знать". Mrs. Moreen stared, then she coloured a little. Миссис Морин уставилась на него, затем слегка покраснела. Pemberton saw she  had quite forgotten the terms - if "terms" they could be called -  that he had ended by accepting from herself; they had burdened her  memory as little as her conscience. Пембертон увидел, что она совершенно забыла об условиях - если их можно назвать условиями, - которые он в конце концов принял от нее; они отягощали ее память так же мало, как и совесть. "Oh yes, I see what you mean -  you've been very nice about that; but why drag it in so often? "О да, я понимаю, что вы имеете в виду - вы были очень милы в этом отношении; но зачем так часто вспоминать об этом? "  She had been perfectly urbane with him ever since the rough scene  of explanation in his room the morning he made her accept HIS  "terms" - the necessity of his making his case known to Morgan. " Она была с ним совершенно невозмутима с тех пор, как в его комнате произошла грубая сцена объяснения, когда он заставил ее принять ЕГО "условия" - необходимость того, чтобы он ознакомил Моргана со своим делом. She had felt no resentment after seeing there was no danger Morgan  would take the matter up with her. Она не чувствовала обиды, видя, что нет никакой опасности того, что Морган обратится к ней с этим вопросом. Indeed, attributing this  immunity to the good taste of his influence with the boy, she had  once said to Pemberton "My dear fellow, it's an immense comfort  you're a gentleman." И действительно, приписывая этот иммунитет хорошему вкусу, который повлиял на мальчика, она однажды сказала Пембертону: "Мой дорогой друг, это огромное счастье, что вы джентльмен". She repeated this in substance now. Теперь она повторяла это по существу. "Of  course you're a gentleman - that's a bother the less!" "Конечно, вы джентльмен - это беспокоит меньше всего!" Pemberton  reminded her that he had not "dragged in" anything that wasn't  already in as much as his foot was in his shoe; and she also  repeated her prayer that, somewhere and somehow, he would find her  sixty francs. Пембертон напомнил ей, что он не "притащил" ничего такого, чего бы еще не было, так же как и его нога в ботинке; и она также повторила свою молитву о том, чтобы он где-нибудь и как-нибудь нашел ее шестьдесят франков. He took the liberty of hinting that if he could find  them it wouldn't be to lend them to HER - as to which he  consciously did himself injustice, knowing that if he had them he  would certainly put them at her disposal. Он позволил себе намекнуть, что если и найдет их, то не для того, чтобы одолжить ЕЙ - в этом он сознавал свою несправедливость, зная, что если бы они у него были, то он непременно предоставил бы их в ее распоряжение. He accused himself, at  bottom and not unveraciously, of a fantastic, a demoralised  sympathy with her. Он обвинял себя, в глубине души и небезосновательно, в фантастическом, деморализованном сочувствии к ней. If misery made strange bedfellows it also made  strange sympathies. Если несчастье создавало странных соседей, то оно создавало и странные симпатии. It was moreover a part of the abasement of  living with such people that one had to make vulgar retorts, quite  out of one's own tradition of good manners. Кроме того, унизительность жизни с такими людьми заключалась в том, что приходилось пускать в ход вульгарные реплики, совершенно выходящие за рамки собственных традиций хороших манер. "Morgan, Morgan, to  what pass have I come for you?" "Морган, Морган, на какой перевал я пришел за тобой?" he groaned while Mrs. Moreen  floated voluminously down the sala again to liberate the boy,  wailing as she went that everything was too odious.

Before their young friend was liberated there came a thump at the  door communicating with the staircase, followed by the apparition  of a dripping youth who poked in his head. Не успел их юный друг освободиться, как раздался стук в дверь, сообщающуюся с лестницей, а затем явление капающего юноши, который ткнулся ему в голову. Pemberton recognised  him as the bearer of a telegram and recognised the telegram as  addressed to himself. Пембертон узнал его как носителя телеграммы и узнал, что телеграмма адресована ему самому. Morgan came back as, after glancing at the  signature - that of a relative in London - he was reading the  words: "Found a jolly job for you, engagement to coach opulent  youth on own terms. Морган вернулся, когда, взглянув на подпись - подпись родственника из Лондона, - прочитал слова: "Нашел для тебя веселую работенку: помолвка для обучения богатой молодежи на собственных условиях. Come at once." Приходите немедленно". The answer happily was paid  and the messenger waited. Ответ с радостью был оплачен, и гонец стал ждать. Morgan, who had drawn near, waited too  and looked hard at Pemberton; and Pemberton, after a moment, having  met his look, handed him the telegram. Подошедший Морган тоже ждал и пристально смотрел на Пембертона, и Пембертон, встретив его взгляд, через мгновение передал ему телеграмму. It was really by wise looks  - they knew each other so well now - that, while the telegraph-boy,  in his waterproof cape, made a great puddle on the floor, the thing  was settled between them. И действительно, по мудрым взглядам - они теперь так хорошо знали друг друга - пока телеграфист в своем непромокаемом плаще делал большую лужу на полу, все было решено между ними. Pemberton wrote the answer with a pencil  against the frescoed wall, and the messenger departed. Пембертон написал ответ карандашом на стене, украшенной фресками, и посыльный удалился. When he had  gone the young man explained himself. Когда он ушел, молодой человек объяснился.

"I'll make a tremendous charge; I'll earn a lot of money in a short  time, and we'll live on it." "Я сделаю огромный заряд, за короткое время заработаю много денег, и мы будем на них жить". "Well, I hope the opulent youth will be a dismal dunce - he  probably will - " Morgan parenthesised - "and keep you a long time  a-hammering of it in." "Ну, я надеюсь, что пышный юноша окажется унылым тупицей - скорее всего, так оно и будет, - заключил Морган в скобки, - и долго не даст вам забить на это дело". "Of course the longer he keeps me the more we shall have for our  old age." "Конечно, чем дольше он меня содержит, тем больше у нас будет на старость". "But suppose THEY don't pay you!" "Но предположим, что ОНИ вам не заплатят!" Morgan awfully suggested. ужасно предложил Морган.

"Oh there are not two such - !" "Да не бывает двух таких - !" But Pemberton pulled up; he had  been on the point of using too invidious a term. Но Пембертон остановился; он был на грани того, чтобы употребить слишком обидное выражение. Instead of this  he said "Two such fatalities." Вместо этого он сказал: "Два таких случая со смертельным исходом". Morgan flushed - the tears came to his eyes. Морган покраснел - слезы навернулись ему на глаза. "Dites toujours two  such rascally crews!" "Да уж, два таких плутовских экипажа!" Then in a different tone he added: "Happy  opulent youth!" Затем уже другим тоном он добавил: "Счастливая пышная молодость!". "Not if he's a dismal dunce." "Нет, если он унылый тупица". "Oh they're happier then. "Тогда они счастливее. But you can't have everything, can you? Но ведь нельзя иметь все, не так ли? "  the boy smiled. " - улыбнулся мальчик. Pemberton held him fast, hands on his shoulders - he had never  loved him so. Пембертон крепко обнял его, положив руки ему на плечи, - никогда еще он так не любил его. "What will become of you, what will you do?" "Что с тобой будет, что ты будешь делать?" He  thought of Mrs. Moreen, desperate for sixty francs. Он подумал о мадам Морен, отчаянно нуждающейся в шестидесяти франках.

"I shall become an homme fait." "Я стану верным человеком". And then as if he recognised all  the bearings of Pemberton's allusion: "I shall get on with them  better when you're not here." И затем, словно осознав всю суть намека Пембертона, сказал: "Я буду лучше с ними ладить, когда вас здесь не будет". "Ah don't say that - it sounds as if I set you against them!" "Ах, не говорите так - это звучит так, как будто я настраиваю вас против них!" "You do - the sight of you. "Да, это так - взгляд на тебя. It's all right; you know what I mean. Все в порядке; вы понимаете, о чем я. I shall be beautiful. Я буду красивой. I'll take their affairs in hand; I'll marry  my sisters." Я возьму их дела в свои руки; я женю своих сестер". "You'll marry yourself!" "Ты женишься на себе!" joked Pemberton; as high, rather tense  pleasantry would evidently be the right, or the safest, tone for  their separation. пошутил Пембертон, поскольку высокая, скорее напряженная любезность, очевидно, была бы правильным или самым безопасным тоном для их расставания.

It was, however, not purely in this strain that Morgan suddenly  asked: "But I say - how will you get to your jolly job? Однако не только в этом напряжении Морган вдруг спросил: "Но я спрашиваю - как вы доберетесь до своей веселой работы? You'll  have to telegraph to the opulent youth for money to come on." Придется телеграфировать пышному юноше, чтобы он дал денег на дорогу". Pemberton bethought himself. "They won't like that, will they?" "Им это не понравится, правда?" "Oh look out for them!" "О, берегись их!" Then Pemberton brought out his remedy. Затем Пембертон принес свое средство. "I'll go to the American  Consul; I'll borrow some money of him - just for the few days, on  the strength of the telegram." "Пойду к американскому консулу, займу у него денег - на несколько дней, на основании телеграммы". Morgan was hilarious. Морган был просто уморителен. "Show him the telegram - then collar the  money and stay!" "Покажите ему телеграмму - тогда зажмите деньги и оставайтесь!" Pemberton entered into the joke sufficiently to reply that for  Morgan he was really capable of that; but the boy, growing more  serious, and to prove he hadn't meant what he said, not only  hurried him off to the Consulate - since he was to start that  evening, as he had wired to his friend - but made sure of their  affair by going with him. Пембертон достаточно проникся шуткой, чтобы ответить, что для Моргана он действительно способен на такое; но мальчик, став серьезнее, и чтобы доказать, что он не имел в виду то, что сказал, не только поторопил его с поездкой в консульство - ведь он должен был отправиться туда вечером, как он сообщил своему другу, - но и позаботился об их романе, отправившись вместе с ним. They splashed through the tortuous  perforations and over the humpbacked bridges, and they passed  through the Piazza, where they saw Mr. Moreen and Ulick go into a  jeweller's shop. Пробираясь по извилистым протокам и горбатым мостикам, они прошли через площадь, где увидели, как господин Морен и Улик зашли в ювелирную лавку. The Consul proved accommodating - Pemberton said  it wasn't the letter, but Morgan's grand air - and on their way  back they went into Saint Mark's for a hushed ten minutes. Консул оказался сговорчивым - Пембертон сказал, что дело не в письме, а в величественном воздухе Моргана, - и на обратном пути они зашли на десять минут в собор Святого Марка. Later  they took up and kept up the fun of it to the very end; and it  seemed to Pemberton a part of that fun that Mrs. Moreen, who was  very angry when he had announced her his intention, should charge  him, grotesquely and vulgarly and in reference to the loan she had  vainly endeavoured to effect, with bolting lest they should "get  something out" of him. Впоследствии они приняли и продолжали забавляться этим до самого конца; и Пембертону показалось, что частью этой забавы было то, что миссис Морен, которая была очень рассержена, когда он объявил ей о своем намерении, должна была обвинить его, гротескно и вульгарно, в связи с займом, который она тщетно пыталась получить, в том, что он уходит, чтобы не "получить что-нибудь" от него. On the other hand he had to do Mr. Moreen  and Ulick the justice to recognise that when on coming in they  heard the cruel news they took it like perfect men of the world. С другой стороны, он должен был отдать должное господам Морину и Улику, признав, что, когда они пришли в дом, то, услышав жестокую новость, восприняли ее как безупречные люди.