第 17 节
作者:竹水冷      更新:2021-02-20 05:39      字数:9322
  ince in 〃The Sleeping Beauty;〃 though not  by the same process; to break the charm。  He gave up calling at a  house where he was warmly appreciated; because father; mother;  daughter; bombarded him with questions。  〃I never came away without  feeling sure that I had in some way perjured myself。〃
  On his shyness waited swiftly ensuing boredom; if his neighbour at  table were garrulous or BANALE; his face at once betrayed  conversational prostration; a lady who often watched him used to  say that his pulse ought to be felt after the first course; and  that if it showed languor he should be moved to the side of some  other partner。  〃He had great charm;〃 writes to me another old  friend; 〃in a quiet winning way; but was 'dark' with rough and  noisy people。〃  So it came to pass that his manner was threefold;  icy and repellent with those who set his nerves on edge; good… humoured; receptive; intermittently responsive in general and  congenial company; while; at ease with friends trusted and beloved;  the lines of the face became gracious; indulgent; affectionate; the  SOURIRE DES YEUX often inexpressibly winning and tender。   〃Kinglake;〃 says Eliot Warburton in his unpublished diary; 〃talked  to us to…day about his travels; pessimistic and cynical to the rest  of the world; he is always gentle and kind to us。〃  To this dear  friend he was ever faithful; wearing to the day of his death an  octagonal gold ring engraved 〃Eliot。 Jan: 1852。〃  He would never  play the RACONTEUR in general company; for he had a great horror of  repeating himself; and; latterly; of being looked upon as a bore by  younger men; but he loved to pour out reminiscences of the past to  an audience of one or two at most: 〃Let an old man gather his  recollections and glance at them under the right angle; and his  life is full of pantomime transformation scenes。〃  The chief  characteristic of his wit was its unexpectedness; sometimes acrid;  sometimes humorous; his sayings came forth; like Topham Beauclerk's  in Dr。 Johnson's day; like Talleyrand's in our own; poignant  without effort。  His calm; gentle voice; contrasted with his  startling caustic utterance; reminded people of Prosper Merimee:  terse epigram; felicitous APROPOS; whimsical presentment of the  topic under discussion; emitted in a low tone; and without the  slightest change of muscle:
  〃All the charm of all the Muses Often flowering in a lonely word。〃 (25)
  Questions he would suavely and often wittily parry or repel: to an  unhistorical lady asking if he remembered Madame Du Barry; he said;  〃my memory is very imperfect as to the particulars of my life  during the reign of Lous XV。 and the Regency; but I know a lady who  has a teapot which belonged; she says; to Madame Du Barry。〃  Madame  Novikoff; however; records his discomfiture at the query of a  certain Lady E…; who; when all London was ringing with his first  Crimean volumes; asked him if he were not an admirer of Louis  Napoleon。  〃LE PAUVRE KINGLAKE; DECONTENANCE; REPONDIT TOUT BAS  INTIMIDE COMME UN ENFANT QU'ON MET DATES LE COIN: OUI … NON … PAS  PRECISEMENT。〃
  He had no knowledge of or liking for music。  Present once by some  mischance at a MATINEE MUSICALE; he was asked by the hostess what  kind of music he preferred。  His preference; he owned; was for the  drum。  One thinks of the 〃Bourgeois Gentilhomme;〃 〃LA TROMPETTE  MARINE EST UN INSTRUMENT QUI ME PLAIT; EL QUI EST HARMONIEUX〃; we  are reminded; too; of Dean Stanley; who; absolutely tone…deaf; and  hurrying away whenever music was performed; once from an adjoining  room in his father's house heard Jenny Lind sing 〃I know that my  Redeemer liveth。〃  He went to her shyly; and told her that she had  given him an idea of what people mean by music。  Once before; he  said in all seriousness; the same feeling had come over him; when  before the palace at Vienna he had heard a tattoo rendered by four  hundred drummers。
  Kinglake used to regret the disuse of duelling; as having impaired  the higher tone of good breeding current in his younger days; and  even blamed the Duke of Wellington for proscribing it in the army。   He had himself on one occasion sent a cartel; and stood waiting for  his adversary; like Sir Richard Strachan at Walcheren; eight days  on the French coast; but the adversary never came。  Hayward once  referred to him; as a counsellor; and if necessary a second; a  quarrel with Lord R…。  Lord R…'s friend called on him; a Norfolk  squire; 〃broad…faced and breathing port wine;〃 after the fashion of  uncle Phillips in 〃Pride and Prejudice;〃 who began in a boisterous  voice; 〃I am one of those; Mr。 Kinglake; who believe R… to be a  gentleman。〃  In his iciest tones and stoniest manner Kinglake  answered: 〃That; Sir; I am quite willing to assume。〃  The effect;  he used to say; as he told and acted the scene; was magical; 〃I had  frozen him sober; and we settled everything without a fight。〃  Of  all his friends Hayward was probably the closest; an association of  discrepancies in character; manner; temperament; not complementary;  but opposed and hostile; irreconcilable; one would say; but for the  knowledge that in love and friendship paradox reigns supreme。   Hayward was arrogant; overbearing; loud; insistent; full of strange  oaths and often unpardonably coarse; 〃our dominant friend;〃  Kinglake called him; 〃odious〃 is the epithet I have heard commonly  bestowed upon him by less affectionate acquaintances。  Kinglake was  reserved; shy; reticent; with the high breeding; grand manner;  quiet urbanity; GRATA PROTERVITAS; of a waning epoch; restraint;  concentration; tact of omission; dictating alike his silence and  his speech; his well…weighed words 〃crystallizing into epigrams as  they touched the air。〃 (26)  When Hayward's last illness came upon  him in 1884; Kinglake nursed him tenderly; spending the morning in  his friend's lodgings at 8; St。 James's Street; the house which  Byron occupied in his early London days; and bringing on the latest  bulletin to the club。  The patient rambled towards the end; 〃we  ought to be getting ready to catch the train that we may go to my  sister's at Lyme。〃 Kinglake quieted his sick friend by an assurance  that the servants; whom he would not wish to hurry; were packing。   〃On no account hurry the servants; but still let us be off。〃  The  last thought which he articulated while dying was; 〃I don't exactly  know what it is; but I feel it is something grand。〃  〃Hayward is  dead;〃 Kinglake wrote to a common friend; 〃the devotion shown to  him by all sorts and conditions of men; and; what is better; of  women; was unbounded。  Gladstone found time to be with him; and to  engage him in a conversation of singular interest; of which he has  made a memorandum。〃
  Another of Kinglake's life…long familiars was Charles Skirrow;  Taxing Master in Chancery; with his accomplished wife; from whose  memorable fish dinners at Greenwich he was seldom absent; adapting  himself no less readily to their theatrical friends … the  Bancrofts; Burnand; Toole; Irving … than to the literary set with  which he was more habitually at home。  He was religiously loyal to  his friends; speaking of them with generous admiration; eagerly  defending them when attacked。  He lauded Butler Johnstone as the  most gifted of the young men in the House of Commons; would not  allow Bernal Osborne to be called untrue; 〃he offends people if you  like; but he is never false or hollow。〃  A clever SOBRIQUET  fathered on him; burlesquing the monosyllabic names of a well…known  diarist and official; he repelled indignantly。  〃He is my friend;  and had I been guilty of the JEU; I should have broken two of my  commandments; that which forbids my joking at a friend's expense;  and that which forbids my fashioning a play upon words。〃  He  entreated Madame Novikoff to visit and cheer Charles Lever; dying  at Trieste; deeply lamented Sir H。 Bulwer's death: 〃I used to think  his a beautiful intellect; and he was wonderfully SIMPATICO to me。〃   But he was shy of condoling with bereaved mourners; believing words  used on such occasions to be utterly untrue。  He loved to include  husband and wife in the same meed of admiration; as in the case of
  Dean Stanley and Lady Augusta; or of Sir Robert and Lady Emily  Peel。  Peel; he said; has the RADIANT quality not easy to describe;  Lady Emily is always beauteous; bright; attractive。  Lord Stanhope  he praised as a historian; paying him the equivocal compliment that  his books were much better than his conversation。  So; too; he  qualified his admiration of Lady Ashburton; dwelling on her beauty;  silver voice; ready enthusiasm apt to disperse itself by flying at  too many objects。
  He was wont to speak admiringly of Lord Acton; relating how; a  Roman Catholic; yet respecting enlightenment and devoted to books;  he once set up and edited a 〃Quarterly Review;〃 with a notion of  reconciling the Light and the Dark as well as he could; but the  〃Prince of Darkness; the Pope;〃 interposed; and ordered him to stop  the 〃Review。〃  He was compelled to obey; not; he told people; on  any religious ground; but because relations and others would have  made his life a bore to him if he had been contumacious against the  Holy Father。
  Kinglake was strongly attract