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移除书签Trilby · Part 5 (5/6)
“And underneath, that poor, sweet, soft, pathetic thing of flesh and blood, the eternal woman—great heart and slender brain—forever enslaved or enslaving, never self-sufficing, never free … that dear, weak, delicate shape, so cherishable, so perishable, that I’ve had to paint so often, and know so well by heart! and love … ah, how I love it! Only painter-fellows and sculptor-fellows can ever quite know the fullness of that pure love.
“There she kneels and pours forth her praise or plaint, meekly and duly. Perhaps it’s for me she’s praying!
“Leave thou thy sister when she prays.
“She believes her poor little prayer will be heard and answered somewhere up aloft. The impossible will be done. She wants what she wants so badly, and prays for it so hard.
“She believes—she believes—what doesn’t she believe, Tray?
“The world was made in six days. It is just six thousand years old. Once it all lay smothered under rainwater for many weeks, miles deep, because there were so many wicked people about somewhere down in Judee, where they didn’t know everything! A costly kind of clearance! And then there was Noah, who wasn’t wicked, and his most respectable family, and his ark—and Jonah and his whale—and Joshua and the sun, and whatnot. I remember it all, you see, and, oh! such wonderful things that have happened since! And there’s everlasting agony for those who don’t believe as she does; and yet she is happy, and good, and very kind; for the mere thought of any live creature in pain makes her wretched!
“After all, if she believes in me, she’ll believe in anything; let her!
“Indeed, I’m not sure that it’s not rather ungainly for a pretty woman not to believe in all these good old cosmic taradiddles, as it is for a pretty child not to believe in Little Red Riding-hood, and Jack and the Beanstalk, and Morgiana and the Forty Thieves; we learn them at our mother’s knee, and how nice they are! Let us go on believing them as long as we can, till the child grows up and the woman dies and it’s all found out.
“Yes, Tray, I will be dishonest for her dear sake. I will kneel by her side, if ever I have the happy chance, and ever after, night and morning, and all day long on Sundays if she wants me to! What will I not do for that one pretty woman who believes in me? I will respect even that belief, and do my little best to keep it alive forever. It is much too precious an earthly boon for me to play ducks and drakes with. …
“So much for Alice, Tray—your sweet mistress and mine.
“But, then, there’s Alice’s papa—and that’s another pair of sleeves, as we say in France.
“Ought one ever to play at make-believe with a full-grown man for any consideration whatever—even though he be a parson, and a possible father-in-law? There’s a case of conscience for you!
“When I ask him for his daughter, as I must, and he asks me for my profession of faith, as he will, what can I tell him? The truth?
“But, then, what will he say? What allowances will he make for a poor little weak-kneed, well-meaning waif of a painter-fellow like me, whose only choice lay between Mr. Darwin and the Pope of Rome, and who has chosen once and forever—and that long ago—before he’d ever even heard of Mr. Darwin’s name.
“Besides, why should he make allowances for me? I don’t for him. I think no more of a parson than he does of a painter-fellow—and that’s precious little, I’m afraid.
“What will he think of a man who says:
“ ‘Look here! the God of your belief isn’t mine and never will be—but I love your daughter, and she loves me, and I’m the only man to make her happy!’
“He’s no Jephthah; he’s made of flesh and blood, although he’s a parson—and loves his daughter as much as Shylock loved his.
“Tell me, Tray—thou that livest among parsons—what man, not being a parson himself, can guess how a parson would think, an average parson, confronted by such a poser as that?
“Does he, dare he, can he ever think straight or simply on any subject as any other man thinks, hedged in as he is by so many limitations?
“He is as shrewd, vain, worldly, self-seeking, ambitious, jealous, censorious, and all the rest, as you or I, Tray—for all his Christian profession—and just as fond of his kith and kin!
“He is considered a gentleman—which perhaps you and I are not—unless we happen to behave as such; it is a condition of his noble calling. Perhaps it’s in order to become a gentleman that he’s become a parson! It’s about as short a royal road as any to that enviable distinction—as short almost as her Majesty’s commission, and much safer, and much less expensive—within reach of the sons of most fairly successful butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers.
“While still a boy he has bound himself irrevocably to certain beliefs, which he will be paid to preserve and preach and enforce through life, and act up to through thick and thin—at all events, in the eyes of others—even his nearest and dearest—even the wife of his bosom.
“They are his bread and butter, these beliefs—and a man mustn’t quarrel with his bread and butter. But a parson must quarrel with those who don’t believe as he tells them!
“Yet a few years’ thinking and reading and experience of life, one would suppose, might possibly just shake his faith a little (just as though, instead of being parson, he had been tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, gentleman, apothecary, ploughboy, thief), and teach him that many of these beliefs are simply childish—and some of them very wicked indeed—and most immoral.
“It is very wicked and most immoral to believe, or affect to believe, and tell others to believe, that the unseen, unspeakable, unthinkable Immensity we’re all part and parcel of, source of eternal, infinite, indestructible life and light and might, is a kind of wrathful, glorified, and self-glorifying ogre in human shape, with human passions, and most inhuman hates—who suddenly made us out of nothing, one fine day—just for a freak—and made us so badly that we fell the next—and turned us adrift the day after—damned us from the very beginning—ab ovo—ab ovo usque ad malum—ha, ha!—and ever since! never gave us a chance!
“All-merciful Father, indeed! Why, the Prince of Darkness was an angel in comparison (and a gentleman into the bargain).
“Just think of it, Tray—a finger in every little paltry pie—an eye and an ear at every keyhole, even that of the larder, to catch us tripping, and find out if we’re praising loud enough, or grovelling low enough, or fasting hard enough—poor godforsaken worms!
“And if we’re naughty and disobedient, everlasting torment for us; torture of so hideous a kind that we wouldn’t inflict it on the basest criminal, not for one single moment!
“Or else, if we’re good and do as we are bid, an eternity of bliss so futile, so idle, and so tame that we couldn’t stand it for a week, but for thinking of its one horrible alternative, and of our poor brother forever and ever roasting away, and howling for the drop of water he never gets.
“Everlasting flame, or everlasting dishonor—nothing between!
“Isn’t it ludicrous as well as pitiful—a thing to make one snigger through one’s tears? Isn’t it a grievous sin to believe in such things as these, and go about teaching and preaching them, and being paid for it—a sin to be heavily chastised, and a shame? What a legacy!
“They were shocking bad artists, those conceited, narrow-minded Jews, those poor old doting monks and priests and bigots of the gruesome, dark age of faith! They couldn’t draw a bit—no perspective, no chiaro-oscuro; and it’s a woeful image they managed to evolve for us out of the depths of their fathomless ignorance, in their zeal to keep us off all the forbidden fruit we’re all so fond of, because we were built like that! And by whom? By our Maker, I suppose (who also made the forbidden fruit, and made it very nice—and put it so conveniently for you and me to see and smell and reach, Tray—and sometimes even pick, alas!).
“And even at that it’s a failure. Only the very foolish little birds are frightened into good behavior. The naughty ones laugh and wink at each other, and pull out its hair and beard when nobody’s looking, and build their nests out of the straw it’s stuffed with (the naughty little birds in black, especially), and pick up what they want under its very nose, and thrive uncommonly well; and the good ones fly away out of sight; and some day, perhaps, find a home in some happy, useful fatherland far away, where the Father isn’t a bit like this. Who knows?
“And I’m one of the good little birds, Tray—at least, I hope so. And that unknown Father lives in me whether I will or no, and I love Him whether He be or not, just because I can’t help it, and with the best and bravest love that can be—the perfect love that believeth no evil, and seeketh no reward, and casteth out fear. For I’m His father as much as He’s mine, since I’ve conceived the thought of Him after my own fashion!
“And He lives in you too, Tray—you and all your kind. Yes, good dog, you king of beasts, I see it in your eyes. …
“Ah, bon Dieu Père, le Dieu des bonnes gens! Oh! if we only knew for certain, Tray! what martyrdom would we not endure, you and I, with a happy smile and a grateful heart—for sheer love of such a father! How little should we care for the things of this earth!
“But the poor parson?
“He must willy-nilly go on believing, or affecting to believe, just as he is told, word for word, or else goodbye to his wife and children’s bread and butter, his own preferment, perhaps even his very gentility—that gentility of which his Master thought so little, and he and his are apt to think so much—with possibly the Archbishopric of Canterbury at the end of it, the bâton de maréchal that lies in every clerical knapsack.
“What a temptation! one is but human!
“So how can he be honest without believing certain things, to believe which (without shame) one must be as simple as a little child; as, by-the-way, he is so cleverly told to be in these matters, and so cleverly tells us—and so seldom is himself in any other matter whatever—his own interests, other people’s affairs, the world, the flesh, and the devil! And that’s clever of him too. …
“And if he chooses to be as simple as a little child, why shouldn’t I treat him as a little child, for his own good, and fool him to the top of his little bent for his dear daughter’s sake, that I may make her happy, and thereby him too?
“And if he’s not quite so simple as all that, and makes artful little compromises with his conscience—for a good purpose, of course—why shouldn’t I make artful little compromises with mine, and for a better purpose still, and try to get what I want in the way he does? I want to marry his daughter far worse than he can ever want to live in a palace, and ride in a carriage and pair with a mitre on the panels.
“If he cheats, why shouldn’t I cheat too?
“If he cheats, he cheats everybody all round—the wide, wide world, and something wider and higher still that can’t be measured, something in himself. I only cheat him!
“If he cheats, he cheats for the sake of very worldly things indeed—tithes, honors, influence, power, authority, social consideration and respect—not to speak of bread and butter! I only cheat for the love of a lady fair—and cheating for cheating, I like my cheating best.
“So, whether he cheats or not, I’ll—
“Confound it! what would old Taffy do in such a case, I wonder? …
“Oh, bother! it’s no good wondering what old Taffy would do.
“Taffy never wants to marry anybody’s daughter; he doesn’t even want to paint her! He only wants to paint his beastly ragamuffins and thieves and drunkards, and be left alone.
“Besides, Taffy’s as simple as a little child himself, and couldn’t fool anyone, and wouldn’t if he could—not even a parson. But if anyone tries to fool him, my eyes! don’t he cut up rough, and call names, and kick up a shindy, and even knock people down! That’s the worst of fellows like Taffy. They’re too good for this world and too solemn. They’re impossible, and lack all sense of humor. In point of fact, Taffy’s a gentleman—poor fellow! et puis voilà!
“I’m not simple—worse luck; and I can’t knock people down—I only wish I could! I can only paint them! and not even that ‘as they really are!’ … Good old Taffy! …
“Faint heart never won fair lady!
“Oh, happy, happy thought—I’ll be brave and win!
“I can’t knock people down, or do doughty deeds, but I’ll be brave in my own little way—the only way I can. …
“I’ll simply lie through thick and thin—I must—I will—nobody need ever be a bit the wiser! I can do more good by lying than by telling the truth, and make more deserving people happy, including myself and the sweetest girl alive—the end shall justify the means: that’s my excuse, my only excuse! and this lie of mine is on so stupendous a scale that it will have to last me for life. It’s my only one, but its name is Lion! and I’ll never tell another as long as I live.
“And now that I know what temptation really is, I’ll never think any harm of any parson any more … never, never, never!”
So the little man went on, as if he knew all about it, had found it all out for himself, and nobody else had ever found it out before! and I am not responsible for his ways of thinking (which are not necessarily my own).
It must be remembered, in extenuation, that he was very young, and not very wise: no philosopher, no scholar—just a painter of lovely pictures; only that and nothing more. Also, that he was reading Mr. Darwin’s immortal book for the third time, and it was a little too strong for him; also, that all this happened in the early sixties, long ere Religion had made up her mind to meet Science halfway, and hobnob and kiss and be friends. Alas! before such a lying down of the lion and the lamb can ever come to pass, Religion will have to perform a larger share of the journey than half, I fear!
Then, still carried away by the flood of his own eloquence (for he had never had such an innings as this, no such a listener), he again apostrophized the dog Tray, who had been growing somewhat inattentive (like the reader, perhaps), in language more beautiful than ever:
“Oh, to be like you, Tray—and secrete love and goodwill from morn till night, from night till morning—like saliva, without effort! with never a moment’s cessation of flow, even in disgrace and humiliation! How much better to love than to be loved—to love as you do, my Tray—so warmly, so easily, so unremittingly—to forgive all wrongs and neglect and injustice so quickly and so well—and forget a kindness never! Lucky dog that you are!
“Oh! could I feel as I have felt, or be as I have been,
Or weep as I could once have wept, o’er many a vanished scene,
As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish tho’ they be,
So ’midst this withered waste of life those tears would flow to me!
“What do you think of those lines, Tray? I love them, because my mother taught them to me when I was about your age—six years old, or seven! and before the bard who wrote them had fallen; like Lucifer, son of the morning! Have you ever heard of Lord Byron, Tray? He too, like Ulysses, loved a dog, and many people think that’s about the best there is to be said of him nowadays! Poor Humpty Dumpty! Such a swell as he once was! ‘Not all the king’s horses, nor all the—’ ”
Here Tray jumped up suddenly and bolted—he saw someone else he was fond of, and ran to meet him. It was the vicar, coming out of his vicarage.
