HAD not been in Tahiti long before I met Captain Nichols. He came in one morning when I was having breakfast on the terrace of the hotel and introduced himself. He had heard that I was interested in Charles Strickland, and announced that he was come to have a talk about him. They are as fond of gossip in Tahiti as in an English village, and one or two enquiries I had made for pictures by Strickland had been quickly spread. I asked the stranger if he had breakfasted.
“Yes; I have my coffee early,” he answered, “but I don’t mind having a drop of whisky.”
I called the Chinese boy.
“You don’t think it’s too early?” said the Captain.
“You and your liver must decide that between you,” I replied.
“I’m practically a teetotaller,” he said, as he poured himself out a good half-tumbler of Canadian Club.
When he smiled he showed broken and discoloured teeth. He was a very lean man, of no more than average height, with gray hair cut short and a stubbly gray moustache. He had not shaved for a couple of days. His face was deeply lined, burned brown by long exposure to the sun, and he had a pair of small blue eyes which were astonishingly shifty. They moved quickly, following my smallest gesture, and they gave him the look of a very thorough rogue1. But at the moment he was all heartiness2 and good-fellowship. He was dressed in a bedraggled suit of khaki, and his hands would have been all the better for a wash.
“I knew Strickland well,” he said, as he leaned back in his chair and lit the cigar I had offered him. “It’s through me he came out to the islands.”
“Where did you meet him?” I asked.
“In Marseilles.”
“What were you doing there?”
He gave me an ingratiating smile.
“Well, I guess I was on the beach.”
My friend’s appearance suggested that he was now in the same predicament, and I prepared myself to cultivate an agreeable acquaintance. The society of beach-combers always repays the small pains you need be at to enjoy it. They are easy of approach and affable in conversation. They seldom put on airs, and the offer of a drink is a sure way to their hearts. You need no laborious3 steps to enter upon familiarity with them, and you can earn not only their confidence, but their gratitude4, by turning an attentive5 ear to their discourse6. They look upon conversation as the great pleasure of life, thereby7 proving the excellence8 of their civilisation9, and for the most part they are entertaining talkers. The extent of their experience is pleasantly balanced by the fertility of their imagination. It cannot be said that they are without guile10, but they have a tolerant respect for the law, when the law is supported by strength. It is hazardous11 to play poker12 with them, but their ingenuity13 adds a peculiar14 excitement to the best game in the world. I came to know Captain Nichols very well before I left Tahiti, and I am the richer for his acquaintance. I do not consider that the cigars and whisky he consumed at my expense (he always refused cocktails15, since he was practically a teetotaller), and the few dollars, borrowed with a civil air of conferring a favour upon me, that passed from my pocket to his, were in any way equivalent to the entertainment he afforded me. I remained his debtor16. I should be sorry if my conscience, insisting on a rigid17 attention to the matter in hand, forced me to dismiss him in a couple of lines.
I do not know why Captain Nichols first left England. It was a matter upon which he was reticent18, and with persons of his kind a direct question is never very discreet19. He hinted at undeserved misfortune, and there is no doubt that he looked upon himself as the victim of injustice20. My fancy played with the various forms of fraud and violence, and I agreed with him sympathetically when he remarked that the authorities in the old country were so damned technical. But it was nice to see that any unpleasantness he had endured in his native land had not impaired21 his ardent22 patriotism23. He frequently declared that England was the finest country in the world, sir, and he felt a lively superiority over Americans, Colonials, Dagos, Dutchmen, and Kanakas.
But I do not think he was a happy man. He suffered from dyspepsia, and he might often be seen sucking a tablet of pepsin; in the morning his appetite was poor; but this affliction alone would hardly have impaired his spirits. He had a greater cause of discontent with life than this. Eight years before he had rashly married a wife. There are men whom a merciful Providence24 has undoubtedly25 ordained26 to a single life, but who from wilfulness27 or through circumstances they could not cope with have flown in the face of its decrees. There is no object more deserving of pity than the married bachelor. Of such was Captain Nichols. I met his wife. She was a woman of twenty-eight, I should think, though of a type whose age is always doubtful; for she cannot have looked different when she was twenty, and at forty would look no older. She gave me an impression of extraordinary tightness. Her plain face with its narrow lips was tight, her skin was stretched tightly over her bones, her smile was tight, her hair was tight, her clothes were tight, and the white drill she wore had all the effect of black bombazine. I could not imagine why Captain Nichols had married her, and having married her why he had not deserted28 her. Perhaps he had, often, and his melancholy29 arose from the fact that he could never succeed. However far he went and in howsoever secret a place he hid himself, I felt sure that Mrs. Nichols, inexorable as fate and remorseless as conscience, would presently rejoin him. He could as little escape her as the cause can escape the effect.
The rogue, like the artist and perhaps the gentleman, belongs to no class. He is not embarrassed by the sans gene of the hobo, nor put out of countenance30 by the etiquette31 of the prince. But Mrs. Nichols belonged to the well-defined class, of late become vocal32, which is known as the lower-middle. Her father, in fact, was a policeman. I am certain that he was an efficient one. I do not know what her hold was on the Captain, but I do not think it was love. I never heard her speak, but it may be that in private she had a copious33 conversation. At any rate, Captain Nichols was frightened to death of her. Sometimes, sitting with me on the terrace of the hotel, he would become conscious that she was walking in the road outside. She did not call him; she gave no sign that she was aware of his existence; she merely walked up and down composedly. Then a strange uneasiness would seize the Captain; he would look at his watch and sigh.
“Well, I must be off,” he said.
Neither wit nor whisky could detain him then. Yet he was a man who had faced undaunted hurricane and typhoon, and would not have hesitated to fight a dozen unarmed niggers with nothing but a revolver to help him. Sometimes Mrs. Nichols would send her daughter, a pale-faced, sullen34 child of seven, to the hotel.
“Mother wants you,” she said, in a whining35 tone.
“Very well, my dear,” said Captain Nichols.
He rose to his feet at once, and accompanied his daughter along the road. I suppose it was a very pretty example of the triumph of spirit over matter, and so my digression has at least the advantage of a moral.
1 rogue [rəʊg] 第12级 | |
n.流氓;v.游手好闲 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 heartiness ['hɑ:tɪnəs] 第7级 | |
诚实,热心 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 laborious [ləˈbɔ:riəs] 第9级 | |
adj.吃力的,努力的,不流畅,勤劳的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 gratitude [ˈgrætɪtju:d] 第7级 | |
adj.感激,感谢 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 attentive [əˈtentɪv] 第7级 | |
adj.注意的,专心的;关心(别人)的,殷勤的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 discourse [ˈdɪskɔ:s] 第7级 | |
n.论文,演说;谈话;话语;vi.讲述,著述 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 thereby [ˌðeəˈbaɪ] 第8级 | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 excellence [ˈeksələns] 第8级 | |
n.优秀,杰出,(pl.)优点,美德 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 civilisation [sɪvɪlaɪ'zeɪʃən] 第8级 | |
n.文明,文化,开化,教化 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 guile [gaɪl] 第11级 | |
n.诈术 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 hazardous [ˈhæzədəs] 第9级 | |
adj.(有)危险的,冒险的;碰运气的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 poker [ˈpəʊkə(r)] 第10级 | |
n.扑克;vt.烙制 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 ingenuity [ˌɪndʒəˈnju:əti] 第7级 | |
n.别出心裁;善于发明创造 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 peculiar [pɪˈkju:liə(r)] 第7级 | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 cocktails ['kɒkteɪlz] 第7级 | |
n.鸡尾酒( cocktail的名词复数 );餐前开胃菜;混合物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 debtor [ˈdetə(r)] 第8级 | |
n.借方,债务人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 rigid [ˈrɪdʒɪd] 第7级 | |
adj.严格的,死板的;刚硬的,僵硬的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 reticent [ˈretɪsnt] 第10级 | |
adj.沉默寡言的;言不如意的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 discreet [dɪˈskri:t] 第8级 | |
adj.(言行)谨慎的;慎重的;有判断力的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 injustice [ɪnˈdʒʌstɪs] 第8级 | |
n.非正义,不公正,不公平,侵犯(别人的)权利 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 impaired [ɪm'peəd] 第7级 | |
adj.受损的;出毛病的;有(身体或智力)缺陷的v.损害,削弱( impair的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 ardent [ˈɑ:dnt] 第8级 | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,强烈的,烈性的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 patriotism [ˈpeɪtriətɪzəm] 第9级 | |
n.爱国精神,爱国心,爱国主义 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 providence [ˈprɒvɪdəns] 第12级 | |
n.深谋远虑,天道,天意;远见;节约;上帝 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 undoubtedly [ʌn'daʊtɪdlɪ] 第7级 | |
adv.确实地,无疑地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 ordained [ɔ:ˈdeɪnd] 第10级 | |
v.任命(某人)为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 );授予(某人)圣职;(上帝、法律等)命令;判定 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 wilfulness ['wɪlfəlnɪs] 第12级 | |
任性;倔强 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 deserted [dɪˈzɜ:tɪd] 第8级 | |
adj.荒芜的,荒废的,无人的,被遗弃的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 melancholy [ˈmelənkəli] 第8级 | |
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 countenance [ˈkaʊntənəns] 第9级 | |
n.脸色,面容;面部表情;vt.支持,赞同 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31 etiquette [ˈetɪket] 第7级 | |
n.礼仪,礼节;规矩 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
32 vocal [ˈvəʊkl] 第7级 | |
adj.直言不讳的;嗓音的;n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
33 copious [ˈkəʊpiəs] 第9级 | |
adj.丰富的,大量的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|