登陆注册
15388100000037

第37章

Strether told Waymarsh all about it that very evening, on their dining together at the hotel; which needn't have happened, he was all the while aware, hadn't he chosen to sacrifice to this occasion a rarer opportunity.The mention to his companion of the sacrifice was moreover exactly what introduced his recital--or, as he would have called it with more confidence in his interlocutor, his confession.His confession was that he had been captured and that one of the features of the affair had just failed to be his engaging himself on the spot to dinner.As by such a freedom Waymarsh would have lost him he had obeyed his scruple; and he had likewise obeyed another scruple--which bore on the question of his himself bringing a guest.

Waymarsh looked gravely ardent, over the finished soup, at this array of scruples; Strether hadn't yet got quite used to being so unprepared for the consequences of the impression he produced.It was comparatively easy to explain, however, that he hadn't felt sure his guest would please.The person was a young man whose acquaintance he had made but that afternoon in the course of rather a hindered enquiry for another person--an enquiry his new friend had just prevented in fact from being vain."Oh," said Strether, "I've all sorts of things to tell you!"--and he put it in a way that was a virtual hint to Waymarsh to help him to enjoy the telling.He waited for his fish, he drank of his wine, he wiped his long moustache, he leaned back in his chair, he took in the two English ladies who had just creaked past them and whom he would even have articulately greeted if they hadn't rather chilled the impulse; so that all he could do was--by way of doing something--to say "Merci, Francois!" out quite loud when his fish was brought.

Everything was there that he wanted, everything that could make the moment an occasion, that would do beautifully--everything but what Waymarsh might give.The little waxed salle-a-manger was sallow and sociable; Francois, dancing over it, all smiles, was a man and a brother; the high-shouldered patronne, with her high-held, much-rubbed hands, seemed always assenting exuberantly to something unsaid; the Paris evening in short was, for Strether, in the very taste of the soup, in the goodness, as he was innocently pleased to think it, of the wine, in the pleasant coarse texture of the napkin and the crunch of the thick-crusted bread.These all were things congruous with his confession, and his confession was that he HAD--it would come out properly just there if Waymarsh would only take it properly--agreed to breakfast out, at twelve literally, the next day.He didn't quite know where; the delicacy of the case came straight up in the remembrance of his new friend's "We'll see; I'll take you somewhere!"--for it had required little more than that, after all, to let him right in.He was affected after a minute, face to face with his actual comrade, by the impulse to overcolour.

There had already been things in respect to which he knew himself tempted by this perversity.If Waymarsh thought them bad he should at least have his reason for his discomfort; so Strether showed them as worse.Still, he was now, in his way, sincerely perplexed.

Chad had been absent from the Boulevard Malesherbes--was absent from Paris altogether; he had learned that from the concierge, but had nevertheless gone up, and gone up--there were no two ways about it--from an uncontrollable, a really, if one would, depraved curiosity.The concierge had mentioned to him that a friend of the tenant of the troisieme was for the time in possession; and this had been Strether's pretext for a further enquiry, an experiment carried on, under Chad's roof, without his knowledge."I found his friend in fact there keeping the place warm, as he called it, for him; Chad himself being, as appears, in the south.He went a month ago to Cannes and though his return begins to be looked for it can't be for some days.I might, you see, perfectly have waited a week; might have beaten a retreat as soon as I got this essential knowledge.But I beat no retreat; I did the opposite; I stayed, Idawdled, I trifled; above all I looked round.I saw, in fine; and--I don't know what to call it--I sniffed.It's a detail, but it's as if there were something--something very good--TO sniff."Waymarsh's face had shown his friend an attention apparently so remote that the latter was slightly surprised to find it at this point abreast with him."Do you mean a smell? What of?""A charming scent.But I don't know."

Waymarsh gave an inferential grunt."Does he live there with a woman?""I don't know."

Waymarsh waited an instant for more, then resumed."Has he taken her off with him?""And will he bring her back?"--Strether fell into the enquiry.But he wound it up as before."I don't know."The way he wound it up, accompanied as this was with another drop back, another degustation of the Leoville, another wipe of his moustache and another good word for Francois, seemed to produce in his companion a slight irritation."Then what the devil DO you know?""Well," said Strether almost gaily, "I guess I don't know anything!"His gaiety might have been a tribute to the fact that the state he had been reduced to did for him again what had been done by his talk of the matter with Miss Gostrey at the London theatre.It was somehow enlarging; and the air of that amplitude was now doubtless more or less--and all for Waymarsh to feel--in his further response."That's what I found out from the young man.""But I thought you said you found out nothing.""Nothing but that--that I don't know anything.""And what good does that do you?"

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 英雄联盟之神的世界

    英雄联盟之神的世界

    本文借鉴了英雄联盟中某些背景故事,但并不完全照搬,也有许多是骚灿YY的啦,故事还不错,希望你们会喜欢。一个幼小的孩子,村庄被诺克萨斯的军队所毁灭,一个又一个挫折随之而来,所幸他也碰到了许多有恩于他的人,可是最终的结果会是怎样,谁都不知道。
  • 颜小娅

    颜小娅

    一不小心掉了只左手?!怕啥,小娅还有一只左手。一不小心成了剩斗士?!怕啥,小娅还可以继续剩下去~这么不小心,下次会不会掉脑袋额。不用担心,小娅迟早失身!什么!什么!不爱看以女生为猪脚的小说,那您一定得看《颜小娅》了。
  • 张彭:沉思曲

    张彭:沉思曲

    内地首部心理咨询治愈系散文集,结合时尚与哲学的思考,
  • 绿茵之刺客信条

    绿茵之刺客信条

    他的职业生涯直到结束,都一直存在着争议。在职业生涯初期,他的踢球风格就一直为人所诟病。从因扎吉,到罗马里奥,再到范巴斯滕,到最后他才成为了他自己,这是他整个职业生涯的最佳写照。他是刺客,绿茵场上的刺客。他的足球生涯并不是一帆风顺,但激情和热血从没离开他的身边。这是一个让人热血沸腾的刺客。他有个老套的名字,叫英雄。然而,他最初走上职业足球这条道路的原因,只是因为一个已故好友的梦想而已。“我要做世界上最好的球员。”
  • 穆游

    穆游

    未来的某一天验证了霍金预言:太阳将停止活动,地球进入小型冰河世界。主角为了拯救人们做出了卓越的贡献,但这时,怪兽出现了.....
  • 我喜欢的人,是你

    我喜欢的人,是你

    以第一人称描述两个人,讲述两个人的故事。
  • 穿越之女尊国

    穿越之女尊国

    穿越为臣相府的小姐,这是一个顶着母亲名头的纨绔子弟,自从死而复生后却大变样更新时间:周三到周日这五天各更一章。
  • 万道天逆

    万道天逆

    车祸穿越,重生的李炎风,父亲被扣下乱臣之名,母亲为护年幼的李炎风而陨落,“乱臣之名莫须有!亡亲之仇吾必报!”掌杀剑练道法,脱乱臣之名报血海深仇!修通灵布阵域,阴阳之力转乾坤,踏上天界至高点,渡轮回万劫吾成神!……这一切的恩怨,由我手中的剑来解决吧。
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 谁说机器不能卖萌

    谁说机器不能卖萌

    洛染沫是一个三十世纪被研究出来的新型机器人,在当时社会都是独一无二的终极武器。这样的她却一不小心穿越到了二十一世纪,开始了她假装人类的故事。本文笑点颇多,女强男更强,强强联手。