登陆注册
15686100000043

第43章

Add to all this that Pupkin and Zena had been to the Church of England Church nearly every Sunday evening for two months, and one evening they had even gone to the Presbyterian Church "for fun,"which, if you know Mariposa, you will realize to be a wild sort of escapade that ought to speak volumes.

Yet in spite of this, Pupkin felt that the thing was hopeless: which only illustrates the dreadful ups and downs, the wild alternations of hope and despair that characterise an exceptional affair of this sort.

Yes, it was hopeless.

Every time that Pupkin watched Zena praying in church, he knew that she was too good for him.Every time that he came to call for her and found her reading Browning and Omar Khayyam he knew that she was too clever for him.And every time that he saw her at all he realized that she was too beautiful for him.

You see, Pupkin knew that he wasn't a hero.When Zena would clasp her hands and talk rapturously about crusaders and soldiers and firemen and heroes generally, Pupkin knew just where he came in.Not in it, that was all.If a war could have broken out in Mariposa, or the judge's house been invaded by the Germans, he might have had a chance, but as it was--hopeless.

Then there was Zena's father.Heaven knows Pupkin tried hard to please the judge.He agreed with every theory that Judge Pepperleigh advanced, and that took a pretty pliable intellect in itself.They denounced female suffrage one day and they favoured it the next.One day the judge would claim that the labour movement was eating out the heart of the country, and the next day he would hold that the hope of the world lay in the organization of the toiling masses.Pupkin shifted his opinions like the glass in a kaleidoscope.Indeed, the only things on which he was allowed to maintain a steadfast conviction were the purity of the Conservative party of Canada and the awful wickedness of the recall of judges.

But with all that the judge was hardly civil to Pupkin.He hadn't asked him to the house till Zena brought him there, though, as a rule, all the bank clerks in Mariposa treated Judge Pepperleigh's premises as their own.He used to sit and sneer at Pupkin after he had gone till Zena would throw down the Pioneers of Tecumseh Township in a temper and flounce off the piazza to her room.After which the judge's manner would change instantly and he would relight his corn cob pipe and sit and positively beam with contentment.In all of which there was something so mysterious as to prove that Mr.Pupkin's chances were hopeless.

Nor was that all of it.Pupkin's salary was eight hundred dollars a year and the Exchange Bank limit for marriage was a thousand.

I suppose you are aware of the grinding capitalistic tyranny of the banks in Mariposa whereby marriage is put beyond the reach of ever so many mature and experienced men of nineteen and twenty and twenty-one, who are compelled to go on eating on a meal ticket at the Mariposa House and living over the bank to suit the whim of a group of capitalists.

Whenever Pupkin thought of this two hundred dollars he understood all that it meant by social unrest.In fact, he interpreted all forms of social discontent in terms of it.Russian Anarchism, German Socialism, the Labour Movement, Henry George, Lloyd George,--he understood the whole lot of them by thinking of his two hundred dollars.

When I tell you that at this period Mr.Pupkin read Memoirs of the Great Revolutionists and even thought of blowing up Henry Mullins with dynamite, you can appreciate his state of mind.

But not even by all these hindrances and obstacles to his love for Zena Pepperleigh would Peter Pupkin have been driven to commit suicide (oh, yes; he committed it three times, as I'm going to tell you), had it not been for another thing that he knew stood once and for all and in cold reality between him and Zena.

He felt it in a sort of way, as soon as he knew her.Each time that he tried to talk to her about his home and his father and mother and found that something held him back, he realized more and more the kind of thing that stood between them.Most of all did he realize it, with a sudden sickness of heart, when he got word that his father and mother wanted to come to Mariposa to see him and he had all he could do to head them off from it.

Why? Why stop them? The reason was, simple enough, that Pupkin was ashamed of them, bitterly ashamed.The picture of his mother and father turning up in Mariposa and being seen by his friends there and going up to the Pepperleigh's house made him feel faint with shame.

No, I don't say it wasn't wrong.It only shows what difference of fortune, the difference of being rich and being poor, means in this world.You perhaps have been so lucky that you cannot appreciate what it means to feel shame at the station of your own father and mother.

You think it doesn't matter, that honesty and kindliness of heart are all that counts.That only shows that you have never known some of the bitterest feelings of people less fortunate than yourself.

So it was with Mr.Pupkin.When he thought of his father and mother turning up in Mariposa, his face reddened with unworthy shame.

He could just picture the scene! He could see them getting out of their Limousine touring car, with the chauffeur holding open the door for them, and his father asking for a suite of rooms,--just think of it, a suite of rooms!--at the Mariposa House.

The very thought of it turned him ill.

What! You have mistaken my meaning? Ashamed of them because they were poor? Good heavens, no, but because they were rich! And not rich in the sense in which they use the term in Mariposa, where a rich person merely means a man who has money enough to build a house with a piazza and to have everything he wants; but rich in the other sense,--motor cars, Ritz hotels, steam yachts, summer islands and all that sort of thing.

同类推荐
  • 活法机要

    活法机要

    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。
  • 圣无能胜金刚火陀罗尼经

    圣无能胜金刚火陀罗尼经

    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。
  • 毗沙门天王经

    毗沙门天王经

    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。
  • 华清宫

    华清宫

    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。
  • 吊李群玉

    吊李群玉

    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
  • 暗恋:是一种忧伤

    暗恋:是一种忧伤

    因为偷偷喜欢你,我才会像所有暗恋你的女生那样躲在角落里偷偷歌唱,唱你喜欢的歌,做你喜欢做的事,即使做过了很多遍,也会不厌其烦。?因为偷偷喜欢你,才会每次都主动打电话给你,即使你接,听到你的手机铃声都会傻笑好久。
  • 欢田喜地小农女

    欢田喜地小农女

    一杯毒咖啡,呼风唤雨的美女总裁穿越变成干瘦可怜的小农女,家徒四壁,爹不知所踪,娘跟着野汉子跑了,剩下一堆可怜的奶娃娃,不到七岁的秋麦被迫撑起整个家,带着大哥小弟小妹一起致富奔小康,可这上有刻薄后奶,贪财二姑,懦弱三叔,刁蛮三婶,各种麻烦,接连不断;又有重生的堂姐,事事知晓,还处处装可怜心善。战乱年代,烽烟不断,想安生守着一亩三分地,当个富农过小日子,可这父母兄弟个个不省心,愣是拉着她牵扯进了改朝换代的战争中……
  • 活火雾语

    活火雾语

    2013底,超级恐怖组织十芒星启动了位于南极洲的远古机器,造成了全球范围内的剧烈气候变化。大灾难直接或间接造成了数十亿人口的死亡,经济的倒退以及大片土地被上涨的海水淹没。同时,十芒星的举动使得自然科学长期未发现的另一个领域被公之于众,“魔法”成为了另一项重要的生存工具。17年后,人类残破社会秩序被勉强重组,在“魔法”大发展之后,与科学相结合,显露出了勃勃生机,人类开始重建家园甚至超过了灾难前的水平。但在南极融冰导致的气候变化之下,汹涌的暗流正涌动。十芒星残党,狂信者,野心家......阴谋正在酝酿。政权,科学,魔法......冲突即将爆发
  • 优秀员工最爱读的职场美文

    优秀员工最爱读的职场美文

    影响无数人一生的名人轶事,指引无数人成功的职场智慧。一篇篇美文如同职场里吹过的一阵清风,为你带来清新、振奋的空气,为你消解工作中的困惑,让你明了工作的真正内涵,彰显真正的价值。一个梦想、一种热爱、一种坚持、一种淡然……优秀之花、优秀之叶在夜以继日的滋润中开出绚烂的果实,金灿辉煌。
  • 阴阳师修仙记

    阴阳师修仙记

    天赋异禀的医学天才王俞夏,偶然接触到阴阳道法,踏上一条未知的神秘之路。
  • TFBOYS陪伴是最长情的告白

    TFBOYS陪伴是最长情的告白

    过去已是过去,故事很美,还在继续;我们的相识不意外,愿永远陪伴你们;沉默的一时,换来的是我们的故事;舞台上的荣耀,等待的是最长情的告白.
  • 邪魅总裁惊鸿妻

    邪魅总裁惊鸿妻

    五年前医院巧遇时,彼此只是陌生人:“软弱的人被生活折磨,强大的人将生活折磨。生活不会让你有处可逃。”男人转身离开时丢下一句话。“生,容易。活,容易。生活,不容易”女人转过身来,看着他一字一句道。五年后再次相遇两人密不可分:“男人,别老扮猪吃老虎,否则真的很容易变成猪。”女人食指挑起面前的男人。“女人,猪和人的区别在于:猪一直是猪,而人有时候却不是人。”男人将女人按在她的腿上,嘴巴在她耳朵旁,慢慢地说道。
  • 我的极品女王老婆大人

    我的极品女王老婆大人

    我的老婆是三胞胎,冷艳霸道的是大老婆,温柔如水的是二老婆,傲娇刁蛮的是三老婆……呃,口误,是小姨子。我原本想安安静静的做个美男子,但,为毛会被小姨子们逆推?——WHY?为了不负佳人不负卿,我得要先说服大老婆让我开后宫才行……
  • 明星公主复仇

    明星公主复仇

    她拥有一个双胞胎妹妹,拥有一个慈母,有一个赌博父亲,一赌就输的父亲,她的父亲欠下几十万贷款,她的父亲没有钱还债,她的父亲却想拿她的妹妹抵债,她觉得妹妹还小,不可以被抵押,最后决定,自己去抵押。她的命运会如何,她和她的双胞胎妹妹、慈母会相在次相见吗???
  • 英雄联盟之三只手

    英雄联盟之三只手

    英雄联盟女大神,现实生活中却是一名默默无闻的小偷,看英雄联盟之三只手,知一个女小偷怎么成为小偷怎么重振小偷帮派雄风,怎么在英雄联盟中成神。