登陆注册
15398400000014

第14章

"What has that infant to do with ideas?" I asked."Surely he can't tell one from another.Has he read his father's novels?""He's very precocious and very sensitive, and his mother thinks she can't begin to guard him too early." Miss Ambient's head drooped a little to one side and her eyes fixed themselves on futurity.Then of a sudden came a strange alteration; her face lighted to an effect more joyless than any gloom, to that indeed of a conscious insincere grimace, and she added "When one has children what one writes becomes a great responsibility.""Children are terrible critics," I prosaically answered."I'm really glad I haven't any.""Do you also write, then? And in the same style as my brother? And do you like that style? And do people appreciate it in America? Idon't write, but I think I feel." To these and various other inquiries and observations my young lady treated me till we heard her brother's step in the hall again and Mark Ambient reappeared.He was so flushed and grave that I supposed he had seen something symptomatic in the condition of his child.His sister apparently had another idea; she gazed at him from afar--as if he had been a burning ship on the horizon--and simply murmured "Poor old Mark!""I hope you're not anxious," I as promptly pronounced.

"No, but I'm disappointed.She won't let me in.She has locked the door, and I'm afraid to make a noise." I daresay there might have been a touch of the ridiculous in such a confession, but I liked my new friend so much that it took nothing for me from his dignity.

"She tells me--from behind the door--that she'll let me know if he's worse.""It's very good of her," said Miss Ambient with a hollow sound.

I had exchanged a glance with Mark in which it's possible he read that my pity for him was untinged with contempt, though I scarce know why he should have cared; and as his sister soon afterward got up and took her bedroom candlestick he proposed we should go back to his study.We sat there till after midnight; he put himself into his slippers and an old velvet jacket, he lighted an ancient pipe, but he talked considerably less than before.There were longish pauses in our communion, but they only made me feel we had advanced in intimacy.They helped me further to understand my friend's personal situation and to imagine it by no means the happiest possible.When his face was quiet it was vaguely troubled, showing, to my increase of interest--if that was all that was wanted!--that for him too life was the same struggle it had been for so many another man of genius.

At last I prepared to leave him, and then, to my ineffable joy, he gave me some of the sheets of his forthcoming book--which, though unfinished, he had indulged in the luxury, so dear to writers of deliberation, of having "set up," from chapter to chapter, as he advanced.These early pages, the premices, in the language of letters, of that new fruit of his imagination, I should take to my room and look over at my leisure.I was in the act of leaving him when the door of the study noiselessly opened and Mrs.Ambient stood before us.She observed us a moment, her candle in her hand, and then said to her husband that as she supposed he hadn't gone to bed she had come down to let him know Dolcino was more quiet and would probably be better in the morning.Mark Ambient made no reply; he simply slipped past her in the doorway, as if for fear she might seize him in his passage, and bounded upstairs to judge for himself of his child's condition.She looked so frankly discomfited that Ifor a moment believed her about to give him chase.But she resigned herself with a sigh and her eyes turned, ruefully and without a ray, to the lamplit room where various books at which I had been looking were pulled out of their places on the shelves and the fumes of tobacco hung in mid-air.I bade her good-night and then, without intention, by a kind of fatality, a perversity that had already made me address her overmuch on that question of her husband's powers, Ialluded to the precious proof-sheets with which Ambient had entrusted me and which I nursed there under my arm."They're the opening chapters of his new book," I said."Fancy my satisfaction at being allowed to carry them to my room!"She turned away, leaving me to take my candlestick from the table in the hall; but before we separated, thinking it apparently a good occasion to let me know once for all since I was beginning, it would seem, to be quite "thick" with my host--that there was no fitness in my appealing to her for sympathy in such a case; before we separated, I say, she remarked to me with her quick fine well-bred inveterate curtness: "I daresay you attribute to me ideas I haven't got.Idon't take that sort of interest in my husband's proof-sheets.Iconsider his writings most objectionable!"

同类推荐
  • 坐禅三昧法门经

    坐禅三昧法门经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 升庵诗话

    升庵诗话

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • Beauty and The Beast

    Beauty and The Beast

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 六壬拃河棹

    六壬拃河棹

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • THE WAR IN THE AIR

    THE WAR IN THE AIR

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • The Tale of Balen

    The Tale of Balen

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 穿快之女配也复仇

    穿快之女配也复仇

    【朕第一次写,不给朕面子,来人啊!拉出去砍了】开头被辣鸡器统给骗了,辣鸡器统每天给茹月微按排任务帮助女配复仇,给女配找好归宿,然后打败渣男、渣女。【记得不看朕的小说会被拉出去砍的。】
  • 超神之光

    超神之光

    凌荒半立空中,大声喝道:“我要让人类的足迹遍布五座神秘之山!”“我要让人类的战舰遍布七大深邃之洋!”“我要将人类的旗帜插在九颗暗黑之树上!”
  • 秦末逐鹿

    秦末逐鹿

    主角发生意外,魂飞大秦,偶然间获得了尉缭子兵法。始皇即将驾崩,大秦帝国经历三世就将分崩离析,后战国时代就要来临,主角将如何让自处,历史将如何走向,全在主角一念之间。最终受破于历史大势与情感纠结,主角愤然拿起铁戟,毅然走上了反秦大道。收猛将,招良谋,灭群雄,建立了强大的政权。
  • BOSS老公,你好坏

    BOSS老公,你好坏

    某天深夜,墨二少成功捕捉一只“小白兔”,他将她牢牢禁锢在怀中:“白筱悠,做我的女人。”“小白兔”摇摇头:“爷爷说过,白家人永远不要和墨家的男人来往。”可四年后的某天清晨……“喂!墨少霆,你怎么睡到我床上的?”“你让的!”“那你干嘛不穿衣服?”“你脱的!”这男人身材也太好了点儿吧,白筱悠羞红了脸蛋儿,直往床下爬。“还想下床?”墨少霆眯起桃花眼嘴角邪魅一扬,翻身就将她按住:“喂饱老公再说!”
  • 酷少的纯情小女佣

    酷少的纯情小女佣

    众里寻他,某然回首。误识冰山酷少,却意外结下此生孽缘。被迫给有钱人打工赚取生活费的我,意外发现这家有钱到不行的少爷居然是之前和自己结下梁子的面瘫男。完了,我的打工女佣生涯就这样才开始就已经看到晦暗的未来了。诶,少爷,我警告你,我只是女佣,没有别的额外服务!
  • 天真少年异界轮回之旅

    天真少年异界轮回之旅

    一个天真少年的奇幻轮回之路,长路漫漫,唯有他一人还记得,但也只有他一个人,还没变。看这个永远都十分天真的少年如何在这漫漫轮回路中笑看世间人生百态。直到......
  • 花都神相

    花都神相

    一个从小在孤儿院长大的孤儿,迫于生计开始了摆地摊算命的生涯!在所有人的眼中,他就是个不折不扣的江湖骗子。骗子不可怕,就怕骗子有文化。美女可以有,钱钱也可以有。富二代那就是垫脚石,官二代!灭之。我最强我最大,看看流氓有文化。所以他偏偏就对此乐此不疲,故事从收养一只猫开始。从此,MONEY,GIRL。哇发达了,招财猫耶。
  • 苗蛊密码:复仇的通灵蛊(赛)

    苗蛊密码:复仇的通灵蛊(赛)

    东海大学的女大学生罗吉珠因男友庞天云另有新欢而自杀,这让暗恋她的雷子军十分伤心,他收养了罗吉珠所养的黑猫,但他在找罗母要遗物之时,却意外地得知,罗吉珠生前曾对庞天云下过情蛊,给黑猫也下了复仇的通灵蛊,罗母还说吉珠可以转世复生,果然,一连串的怪事发生了,庞天云几次杀死了黑猫,黑猫不但都活过来,还连续杀死了他的几个朋友,杀死了第三者,庞天云在警察的眼皮底下也猝然身亡,而雷子军的家人也在此刻中了蛊,雷子军被迫展开了对蛊的探究之旅,蛊究竟有多么神秘,黑猫真的是杀不死的吗?吉珠真的能转世复生吗?一切秘密,尽在《苗蛊密码》之中。
  • 如何掌控你的生活

    如何掌控你的生活

    在复杂而忙碌环境下,你有没有发现自己的生活不由自主地进入了困境,没有时间去想生活中自己最想要的究竟是什么。本书告诉我们:生活将会怎样,完全取决于我们自己。请不要只做生命之船的过客,而要做操纵船行方向的船长,学会掌控自己的生活!