第 3 节
作者:抵制日货      更新:2021-02-20 16:54      字数:9322
  talked; but there came times when he would not even listen。  One of these
  was the time after he had wound his watch。  A minute later he had
  undressed; with an agility incredible of his years; and was in bed; as
  effectively blind and deaf to his wife's appeals as if he were already
  asleep。
  II。
  When Albert Gallatin Lander (he was named for an early Secretary of the
  Treasury as a tribute to the statesman's financial policy) went out of
  business; his wife began to go out of health; and it became the most
  serious affair of his declining years to provide for her invalid fancies。
  He would have liked to buy a place in the Boston suburbs (he preferred
  one of the Newtons) where they could both have had something to do; she
  inside of the house; and he outside; but she declared that what they both
  needed was a good long rest; with freedom from care and trouble of every
  kind。  She broke up their establishment in Boston; and stored their
  furniture; and she would have made him sell the simple old house in which
  they had always lived; on an unfashionable up…and…down…hill street of the
  West End; if he had not taken one of his stubborn stands; and let it for
  a term of years without consulting her。  But she had her way about their
  own movements; and they began that life of hotels; which they had now
  lived so long that she believed any other impossible。  Its luxury and
  idleness had told upon each of them with diverse effect。
  They had both entered upon it in much the same corporal figure; but she
  had constantly grown in flesh; while he had dwindled away until he was
  not much more than half the weight of his prime。  Their digestion was
  alike impaired by their joint life; but as they took the same medicines
  Mrs。 Lander was baffled to account for the varying result。  She was sure
  that all the anxiety came upon her; and that logically she was the one
  who ought to have wasted away。  But she had before her the spectacle of a
  husband who; while he gave his entire attention to her health; did not
  audibly or visibly worry about it; and yet had lost weight in such
  measure that upon trying on a pair of his old trousers taken out of
  storage with some clothes of her own; he found it impossible to use the
  side pockets which the change in his figure carried so far to the rear
  when the garment was reduced at the waist。  At the same time her own
  dresses of ten years earlier would not half meet round her; and one of
  the most corroding cares of a woman who had done everything a woman could
  to get rid of care; was what to do with those things which they could
  neither of them ever wear again。  She talked the matter over with herself
  before her husband; till he took the desperate measure of sending them
  back to storage; and they had been left there in the spring when the
  Landers came away for the summer。
  They always spent the later spring months at a hotel in the suburbs of
  Boston; where they arrived in May from a fortnight in a hotel at New
  York; on their way up from hotels in Washington; Ashville; Aiken and
  St。 Augustine。  They passed the summer months in the mountains; and early
  in the autumn they went back to the hotel in the Boston suburbs; where
  Mrs。 Lander considered it essential to make some sojourn before going to
  a Boston hotel for November and December; and getting ready to go down to
  Florida in January。  She would not on any account have gone directly to
  the city from the mountains; for people who did that were sure to lose
  the good of their summer; and to feel the loss all the winter; if they
  did not actually come down with a fever。
  She was by no means aware that she was a selfish or foolish person。  She
  made Mr。 Lander subscribe statedly to worthy objects in Boston; which she
  still regarded as home; because they had not dwelt any where else since
  they ceased to live there; and she took lavishly of tickets for all the
  charitable entertainments in the hotels where they stayed。  Few if any
  guests at hotels enjoyed so much honor from porters; bell…boys; waiters;
  chambermaids and bootblacks as the Landers; for they gave richly in fees
  for every conceivable service which could be rendered them; they went out
  of their way to invent debts of gratitude to menials who had done nothing
  for them。  He would make the boy who sold papers at the dining…room door
  keep the change; when he had been charged a profit of a hundred per cent。
  already; and she would let no driver who had plundered them according to
  the carriage tariff escape without something for himself。
  A sense of their munificence penetrated the clerks and proprietors with a
  just esteem for guests who always wanted the best of everything; and
  questioned no bill for extras。  Mrs。 Lander; in fact; who ruled these
  expenditures; had no knowledge of the value of things; and made her
  husband pay whatever was asked。  Yet when they lived under their own roof
  they had lived simply; and Lander had got his money in an old…fashioned
  business way; and not in some delirious speculation such as leaves a man
  reckless of money afterwards。  He had been first of all a tailor; and
  then he had gone into boys' and youths' clothing in a small way; and
  finally he had mastered this business and come out at the top; with his
  hands full。  He invested his money so prosperously that the income for
  two elderly people; who had no children; and only a few outlying
  relations on his side; was far beyond their wants; or even their whims。
  She as a woman; who in spite of her bulk and the jellylike majesty with
  which she shook in her smoothly casing brown silks; as she entered hotel
  dining…rooms; and the severity with which she frowned over her fan down
  the length of the hotel drawing…rooms; betrayed more than her husband the
  commonness of their origin。  She could not help talking; and her accent
  and her diction gave her away for a middle…class New England person of
  village birth and unfashionable sojourn in Boston。  He; on the contrary;
  lurked about the hotels where they passed their days in a silence so
  dignified that when his verbs and nominatives seemed not to agree; you
  accused your own hearing。  He was correctly dressed; as an elderly man
  should be; in the yesterday of the fashions; and he wore with
  impressiveness a silk hat whenever such a hat could be worn。  A pair of
  drab cloth gaiters did much to identify him with an old school of
  gentlemen; not very definite in time or place。  He had a full gray beard
  cut close; and he was in the habit of pursing his mouth a great deal。
  But he meant nothing by it; and his wife meant nothing by her frowning。
  They had no wish to subdue or overawe any one; or to pass for persons of
  social distinction。  They really did not know what society was; and they
  were rather afraid of it than otherwise as they caught sight of it in
  their journeys and sojourns。  They led a life of public seclusion; and
  dwelling forever amidst crowds; they were all in all to each other; and
  nothing to the rest of the world; just as they had been when they resided
  (as they would have said) on Pinckney street。  In their own house they
  had never entertained; though they sometimes had company; in the style of
  the country town where Mrs。 Lander grew up。  As soon as she was released
  to the grandeur of hotel life; she expanded to the full measure of its
  responsibilities and privileges; but still without seeking to make it the
  basis of approach to society。  Among the people who surrounded her; she
  had not so much acquaintance as her husband even; who talked so little
  that he needed none。  She sometimes envied his ease in getting on with
  people when he chose; and his boldness in speaking to fellow guests and
  fellow travellers; if he really wanted anything。  She wanted something of
  them all the time; she wanted their conversation and their companionship;
  but in her ignorance of the social arts she was thrown mainly upon the
  compassion of the chambermaids。  She kept these talking as long as she
  could detain them in her rooms; and often fed them candy (which she ate
  herself with childish greed) to bribe them to further delays。  If she was
  staying some days in a hotel; she sent for the house…keeper; and made all
  she could of her as a listener; and as soon as she settled herself for a
  week; she asked who was the best doctor in the place。  With doctors she
  had no reserves; and she poured out upon them the history of her diseases
  and symptoms in an inexhaustible flow of statement; conjecture and
  misgiving; which was by no means affected by her profound and
  inexpugnable ignorance of the principles of health。  From time to time
  she forgot which side her liver was on; but she had been doctored (as she
  called it) for all her organs; and she was willing to be doctored for any
  one of them that happened to be in the place where she fancied a present
  discomfort。  She was not insensible to the claims which her husband's
  disorders had upon science; and she liked to end the tale of her own
  sufferings with some such appeal as: 〃I wish you could do something for
  Mr。 Landa; too; docta。〃  She made him take a little of each medicine that
  was left for her; but in her presence he always denied that there was
  anything the matter wit