登陆注册
15489700000020

第20章 CHAPTER THE FIRST HOW I BECAME A LONDON STUDENT AN

More and more of my time did I give to this passion that possessed me. I began to think chiefly of ways of pleasing Marion, of acts of devotion, of treats, of sumptuous presents for her, of appeals she would understand. If at times she was manifestly unintelligent, in her ignorance became indisputable, I told myself her simple instincts were worth all the education and intelligence in the world. And to this day I think I wasn't really wrong about her. There was something extraordinarily fine about her, something simple and high, that flickered in and out of her ignorance and commonness and limitations like the tongue from the mouth of a snake....

One night I was privileged to meet her and bring her home from an entertainment at the Birkbeck Institute. We came back on the underground railway and we travelled first-class--that being the highest class available. We were alone in the carriage, and for the first time I ventured to put my arm about her.

"You mustn't," she said feebly.

"I love you," I whispered suddenly with my heart beating wildly, drew her to me, drew all her beauty to me and kissed her cool and unresisting lips.

"Love me?" she said, struggling away from me, "Don't!" and then, as the train ran into a station, "You must tell no one.... I don't know.... You shouldn't have done that...."

Then two other people got in with us and terminated my wooing for a time.

When we found ourselves alone together, walking towards Battersea, she had decided to be offended. I parted from her unforgiven and terribly distressed.

When we met again, she told me I must never say "that" again.

I had dreamt that to kiss her lips was ultimate satisfaction.

But it was indeed only the beginning of desires. I told her my one ambition was to marry her.

"But," she said, "you're not in a position-- What's the good of talking like that?"

I stared at her. "I mean to," I said.

"You can't," she answered. "It will be years"

"But I love you," I insisted.

I stood not a yard from the sweet lips I had kissed; I stood within arm's length of the inanimate beauty I desired to quicken, and I saw opening between us a gulf of years, toil, waiting, disappointments and an immense uncertainty.

"I love you," I said. "Don't you love me?"

She looked me in the face with grave irresponsive eyes.

"I don't know," she said. "I LIKE you, of course.... One has to be sensibl..."

I can remember now my sense of frustration by her unresilient reply. I should have perceived then that for her my ardour had no quickening fire. But how was I to know? I had let myself come to want her, my imagination endowed her with infinite possibilities. I wanted her and wanted her, stupidly and instinctively....

"But," I said "Love--!"

"One has to be sensible," she replied. "I like going about with you. Can't we keep as we are?'"

VI

Well, you begin to understand my breakdown now, I have been copious enough with these apologia. My work got more and more spiritless, my behaviour degenerated, my punctuality declined; I was more and more outclassed in the steady grind by my fellow-students. Such supplies of moral energy as I still had at command shaped now in the direction of serving Marion rather than science.

I fell away dreadfully, more and more I shirked and skulked; the humped men from the north, the pale men with thin, clenched minds, the intent, hard-breathing students I found against me, fell at last from keen rivalry to moral contempt. Even a girl got above me upon one of the lists. Then indeed I made it a point of honour to show by my public disregard of every rule that I really did not even pretend to try.

So one day I found myself sitting in a mood of considerable astonishment in Kensington Gardens, reacting on a recent heated interview with the school Registrar in which I had displayed more spirit than sense. I was astonished chiefly at my stupendous falling away from all the militant ideals of unflinching study I had brought up from Wimblehurst. I had displayed myself, as the Registrar put it, "an unmitigated rotter." My failure to get marks in the written examination had only been equalled by the insufficiency of my practical work.

"I ask you," the Registrar had said, "what will become of you when your scholarship runs out?"

It certainly was an interesting question. What was going to become of me?

It was clear there would be nothing for me in the schools as I had once dared to hope; there seemed, indeed, scarcely anything in the world except an illpaid assistantship in some provincial organized Science School or grammar school. I knew that for that sort of work, without a degree or any qualification, one earned hardly a bare living and had little leisure to struggle up to anything better. If only I had even as little as fifty pounds I might hold out in London and take my B.Sc. degree, and quadruple my chances! My bitterness against my uncle returned at the thought. After all, he had some of my money still, or ought to have. Why shouldn't I act within my rights, threaten to 'take proceedings'? I meditated for a space on the idea, and then returned to the Science Library and wrote him a very considerable and occasionally pungent letter.

That letter to my uncle was the nadir of my failure. Its remarkable consequences, which ended my student days altogether, I will tell in the next chapter.

I say "my failure." Yet there are times when I can even doubt whether that period was a failure at all, when I become defensively critical of those exacting courses I did not follow, the encyclopaedic process of scientific exhaustion from which I was distracted. My mind was not inactive, even if it fed on forbidden food. I did not learn what my professors and demonstrators had resolved I should learn, but I learnt many things. My mind learnt to swing wide and to swing by itself.

同类推荐
  • 西村诗集

    西村诗集

    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。
  • Strife

    Strife

    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。
  • 归砚录

    归砚录

    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。
  • Money Answers All Things

    Money Answers All Things

    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。
  • On the Parts of Animals

    On the Parts of Animals

    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
  • 断剑流伤

    断剑流伤

    天石传人黄天虎,因邂逅一柄绝世神剑而得报大仇,可是这神剑玩世不恭、饮血止渴,霎时间江湖惊变,致使少林圣僧携另一柄神剑上金顶,两神剑双双震断。多年后,黄天虎仅凭一柄断剑重出江湖,踏上了一段我法我派、唯我与天的江湖路......
  • 毒女归来,腹黑二小姐

    毒女归来,腹黑二小姐

    花府庶女,苦熬十年,终于嫁给心爱的男人,即将坐上后位,母仪天下!世事难料,夫君竟对嫡姐藏有私情。大婚当日,逼她喝下毒酒,娶嫡姐为后!临死前,一杯毒酒穿肠过,断气之后,眼睛瞪得溜圆,死不瞑目!传言,死不瞑目者,因死时怨气太重,来生必会吞炭漆身、枕戈剚刃!庶女重生,毒女归来!嫡母狠辣,巧计送她上黄泉!嫡姐阴毒,腹黑送她下地狱!上辈子看错了情郎,这辈子她可要擦亮双眼,寻得一生所爱。众多男人倾慕,她不屑一顾!众多女子怀恨,她毫不畏惧!此生,她要将前生所受的所有屈辱统统还回去!即便手染鲜血,也在所不惜!
  • 我在马路边捡到一只兔子

    我在马路边捡到一只兔子

    这是一个长长的故事,暑假就要来了,我能否坚持呢?不管怎样,都希望自己继续码字,这可是我工作外的最大娱乐之一啊!
  • 尸界我做主

    尸界我做主

    在这个世界里,温柔已经是过错了!我们只有用拳头洗清犯下的罪孽。强大的就是主人,弱小的就是奴隶。
  • 莫急,你要的岁月都会给你

    莫急,你要的岁月都会给你

    豆瓣超人气、嘴最贱、毒毒教大当家“毒舌奶奶CC”最辛辣观点。豆瓣上从未发表过的8万字内容首度面世。生活中的女汉子,写书时却是玻璃心,对于爱、背叛、受伤、柴米油盐霸气解读。言犀利却用轻轻的笔触修复你在社会丛林生活中遇到的伤。拒绝神秘主义,拒绝哄你开心,掏心窝地直言隐秘的生活真相,如果不能训练你内心更强大,至少给你安慰。天下万物来和去都有它时间,你若不伤,岁月无恙。如果世界上真有奇迹,那也是努力的另一个名字,只是需要自己慢慢等待。读这本书能静下自己的心,充满正能量,以自己喜欢的方式去生活。
  • 莫待深秋叶归路

    莫待深秋叶归路

    时笑黎漾,在漫长的如歌岁月里,经过暗恋、表白、牵手在一起,然后为了小事感动、为了小事吵架、为了小事分手…我很喜欢这种普通的故事,它们没有华丽的外包装,只有淡淡温馨的喜欢;没有那么多敢爱又不能爱的顾忌,校园里的感情最是纯粹。前两天在网上看到一个“从校服到到婚纱”的话题,我一直很羡慕。所以我在谱写一个简单平静,从校服到婚纱的故事,他们敢爱敢恨,敢说敢做。或许你一转头,他们就在你身后。
  • 龙傲之绝代英豪

    龙傲之绝代英豪

    一位绝世天才,却遭自己人的暗算,最终悲愤而死。重生异世,他侠肝义胆:灭豪门、除邪派......他为朋友:两肋插刀,为爱人:出生入死。切看龙傲,如何成就绝代英豪!本书书友群【qq群】:422725709
  • 绝地囚星

    绝地囚星

    冷星,是一颗没有温度的星!每隔一年,就会爆发一场波及全球的恐怖天灾,毁灭万物,灭绝生灵。冷星,是一颗没有希望的星!无论是武修、法修或者是武法双修,几十万年来,无一人成神。是什么吸收了冷星的温度,是谁剥夺了修炼者成神的希望。人囚星,星囚人。谁来解开这无望的循环,谁来拯救这注定毁灭的星。
  • 最强帝尊之古岚

    最强帝尊之古岚

    四方大陆,实力为尊。定天剑出,鬼域重现。灵兽相助,老祖重生。请看古家独苗古岚,如何手持先祖定天剑,驱鬼域,平四方,重现上古古帝威严。
  • 御世逍遥仙

    御世逍遥仙

    混沌初开,天生一顽石,立于轮回之外,命数不改,命运难测,且看身怀“先天顽石命”的小风如何在这一个,道,佛,儒,魔,妖,……百族林立的与众不同的世界,闯出属于自己的天地,开辟出属于自己的世界,御世逍遥。请看正文…