It
was, of course, poor dear Florence who wanted to go to Las Tours. You are to
imagine that, however much her bright personality came from Stamford,
Connecticut, she was yet a graduate of Poughkeepsie.
I never could imagine how she did it—the curious, talkative person that she
was. With the far-away look in her eyes holding up one hand as if she wished to
silence any objection—or any comment for the matter of that—she would talk. She
would talk about William the Silent, about Gustave the Loquacious, about Paris
frocks, about how the poor dressed in 1337, about Fantin-Latour, about the
Paris-Lyons-Mediterranée train-deluxe, about whether it would be worth while to
get off at Tarascon and go across the suspension-bridge, over the Rhone to take
another look at Beaucaire.
We
never did take another look at Beaucaire, of course—beautiful Beaucaire, with
the high, triangular white tower, that looked as thin as a needle and as tall
as the Flatiron, between Fifth and Broadway...
First edition, 1915 |
No,
we never did go back anywhere. Not to Heidelberg, not to Hamelin, not to
Verona, not to Mont Majour—not so much as to Carcassonne itself. We talked of
it, of course, but I guess Florence got all she wanted out of one look at a
place.
I
haven't, unfortunately, so that the world is full of places to which I want to
return—towns with the blinding white sun upon them; stone pines against the
blue of the sky. Not one of them did we see more than once, so that the whole
world for me is like spots of colour in an immense canvas. Perhaps if it
weren't so I should have something to catch hold of now.
You,
the listener, sit opposite me. But you are so silent. You don't tell me
anything. I am, at any rate, trying to get you to see what sort of life it was
I led with Florence and what Florence was like. Well, she was bright; and she
danced. She seemed to dance over the floors of castles and over seas and over
and over and over the salons of modistes and over the plages of the Riviera.
And my function in life was to keep that bright thing in existence.
Florence's
aunts used to say that I must be the laziest man in Philadelphia. They had
never been to Philadelphia and they had the New England conscience. You see,
the first thing they said to me when I called in on Florence in the little
house—the first question they asked me was not how I did but what did I do. And
I did nothing. I suppose I ought to have done something, but I didn't see any
call to do it. Why does one do things? I just drifted in and wanted Florence.
First I had drifted in on Florence at a Browning tea, or something of the sort
in Fourteenth Street, which was then still residential. I don't know why I had
gone to New York; I don't know why I had gone to the tea. I don't see why
Florence should have gone there. She always wanted to leave the world a little
more elevated than she found it. Poor dear thing, I have heard her lecture
Teddy Ashburnham by the hour on the difference between a Franz Hals and a
Wouvermans and why the Pre-Mycenaean statues were cubical with knobs on the
top. I wonder what he made of it? Perhaps he was thankful.
I
know I was. For do you understand my whole attentions, my whole endeavours were
to keep poor dear Florence on to topics like the finds at Cnossos and the
mental spirituality of Walter Pater. I had to keep her at it, you understand,
or she might die. For I was solemnly informed that if she became excited over
anything or if her emotions were really stirred her little heart might cease to
beat. For twelve years I had to watch every word that any person uttered in any
conversation and I had to head it off what the English call
"things"—off love, poverty, crime, religion and the rest of it. Yes,
the first doctor that we had when she was carried off the ship at Havre assured
me that this must be done.
You
haven't an idea of the strange old-fashionedness of Florence's aunts—the Misses
Hurlbird, nor yet of her uncle. An extraordinarily lovable man, that Uncle
John. Thin, gentle, and with a "heart" that made his life very much
what Florence's afterwards became. He didn't reside at Stamford; his home was
in Waterbury where the watches come from. He had a factory there which, in our strange
American way, would change its functions almost from year to year. For nine
months or so it would manufacture buttons out of bone. Then it would suddenly
produce brass buttons for coachmen's liveries. Then it would take a turn at
embossed tin lids for candy boxes. The fact is that the poor old gentleman,
with his weak and fluttering heart, didn't want his factory to manufacture
anything at all. He wanted to retire. And he did retire when he was seventy.
But he was so worried at having all the street boys in the town point after him
and exclaim: "There goes the laziest man in Waterbury!" that he tried
taking a tour round the world. And Florence and a young man called Jimmy went
with him. It appears from what Florence told me that Jimmy's function with Mr
Hurlbird was to avoid exciting topics for him. He had to keep him, for
instance, out of political discussions. For the poor old man was a violent
Democrat in days when you might travel the world over without finding anything
but a Republican. Anyhow, they went round the world… (in easier English)
Vocabulario
Poughkeepsie: A city of southeast
New York on the Hudson River north of New York City. Settled by the Dutch in
1687, Poughkeepsie is the seat of Vassar College (chartered 1861). Population:
30,000.
Recursos
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