GEORGE SILVERMAN’S EXPLANATION(乔治斯尔曼的理由)

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GEORGE SILVERMAN'S EXPLANATION

GEORGE

SILVERMAN'S

EXPLANATION

GEORGE SILVERMAN'S EXPLANATION

FIRST CHAPTER

IT happened in this wise -

But, sitting with my pen in my hand looking at those words again,

without descrying any hint in them of the words that should follow, it

comes into my mind that they have an abrupt appearance. They may

serve, however, if I let them remain, to suggest how very difficult I find it

to begin to explain my explanation. An uncouth phrase: and yet I do not

see my way to a better.

GEORGE SILVERMAN'S EXPLANATION

SECOND CHAPTER

IT happened in THIS wise -

But, looking at those words, and comparing them with my former

opening, I find they are the self-same words repeated. This is the more

surprising to me, because I employ them in quite a new connection. For

indeed I declare that my intention was to discard the commencement I first

had in my thoughts, and to give the preference to another of an entirely

different nature, dating my explanation from an anterior period of my life.

I will make a third trial, without erasing this second failure, protesting that

it is not my design to conceal any of my infirmities, whether they be of

head or heart.

GEORGE SILVERMAN'S EXPLANATION

THIRD CHAPTER

NOT as yet directly aiming at how it came to pass, I will come upon it

by degrees. The natural manner, after all, for God knows that is how it

came upon me.

My parents were in a miserable condition of life, and my infant home

was a cellar in Preston. I recollect the sound of father's Lancashire clogs

on the street pavement above, as being different in my young hearing from

the sound of all other clogs; and I recollect, that, when mother came down

the cellar-steps, I used tremblingly to speculate on her feet having a good

or an ill- tempered look, - on her knees, - on her waist, - until finally her

face came into view, and settled the question. From this it will be seen

that I was timid, and that the cellar-steps were steep, and that the doorway

was very low.

Mother had the gripe and clutch of poverty upon her face, upon her

figure, and not least of all upon her voice. Her sharp and high- pitched

words were squeezed out of her, as by the compression of bony fingers on

a leathern bag; and she had a way of rolling her eyes about and about the

cellar, as she scolded, that was gaunt and hungry. Father, with his

shoulders rounded, would sit quiet on a three-legged stool, looking at the

empty grate, until she would pluck the stool from under him, and bid him

go bring some money home. Then he would dismally ascend the steps;

and I, holding my ragged shirt and trousers together with a hand (my only

braces), would feint and dodge from mother's pursuing grasp at my hair.

A worldly little devil was mother's usual name for me. Whether I

cried for that I was in the dark, or for that it was cold, or for that I was

hungry, or whether I squeezed myself into a warm corner when there was

a fire, or ate voraciously when there was food, she would still say, 'O, you

worldly little devil!' And the sting of it was, that I quite well knew

myself to be a worldly little devil. Worldly as to wanting to be housed and

warmed, worldly as to wanting to be fed, worldly as to the greed with

which I inwardly compared how much I got of those good things with how

much father and mother got, when, rarely, those good things were going.

GEORGE SILVERMAN'S EXPLANATION

Sometimes they both went away seeking work; and then I would be

locked up in the cellar for a day or two at a time. I was at my worldliest

then. Left alone, I yielded myself up to a worldly yearning for enough of

anything (except misery), and for the death of mother's father, who was a

machine-maker at Birmingham, and on whose decease, I had heard mother

say, she would come into a whole courtful of houses 'if she had her rights.'

Worldly little devil, I would stand about, musingly fitting my cold bare

feet into cracked bricks and crevices of the damp cellar-floor, - walking

over my grandfather's body, so to speak, into the courtful of houses, and

selling them for meat and drink, and clothes to wear.

At last a change came down into our cellar. The universal change

came down even as low as that, - so will it mount to any height on which a

human creature can perch, - and brought other changes with it.

We had a heap of I don't know what foul litter in the darkest corner,

which we called 'the bed.' For three days mother lay upon it without

getting up, and then began at times to laugh. If I had ever heard her

laugh before, it had been so seldom that the strange sound frightened me.

It frightened father too; and we took it by turns to give her water. Then

she began to move her head from side to side, and sing. After that, she

getting no better, father fell a-laughing and a-singing; and then there was

only I to give them both water, and they both died.

GEORGE SILVERMAN'S EXPLANATION

FOURTH CHAPTER

WHEN I was lifted out of the cellar by two men, of whom one came

peeping down alone first, and ran away and brought the other, I could

hardly bear the light of the street. I was sitting in the road-way, blinking

at it, and at a ring of people collected around me, but not close to me,

when, true to my character of worldly little devil, I broke silence by saying,

'I am hungry and thirsty!'

'Does he know they are dead?' asked one of another.

'Do you know your father and mother are both dead of fever?' asked a

third of me severely.

'I don't know what it is to be dead. I supposed it meant that, when the

cup rattled against their teeth, and the water spilt over them. I am hungry

and thirsty.' That was all I had to say about it.

The ring of people widened outward from the inner side as I looked

around me; and I smelt vinegar, and what I know to be camphor, thrown in

towards where I sat. Presently some one put a great vessel of smoking

vinegar on the ground near me; and then they all looked at me in silent

horror as I ate and drank of what was brought for me. I knew at the time

they had a horror of me, but I couldn't help it.

I was still eating and drinking, and a murmur of discussion had begun

to arise respecting what was to be done with me next, when I heard a

cracked voice somewhere in the ring say, 'My name is Hawkyard, Mr.

Verity Hawkyard, of West Bromwich.' Then the ring split in one place;

and a yellow-faced, peak-nosed gentleman, clad all in iron-gray to his

gaiters, pressed forward with a policeman and another official of some sort.

He came forward close to the vessel of smoking vinegar; from which he

sprinkled himself carefully, and me copiously.

'He had a grandfather at Birmingham, this young boy, who is just dead

too,' said Mr. Hawkyard.

I turned my eyes upon the speaker, and said in a ravening manner,

'Where's his houses?'

'Hah! Horrible worldliness on the edge of the grave,' said Mr.

GEORGE SILVERMAN'S EXPLANATION

Hawkyard, casting more of the vinegar over me, as if to get my devil out

of me. 'I have undertaken a slight - a very slight - trust in behalf of this

boy; quite a voluntary trust: a matter of mere honour, if not of mere

sentiment: still I have taken it upon myself, and it shall be (O, yes, it shall

be!) discharged.'

The bystanders seemed to form an opinion of this gentleman much

more favourable than their opinion of me.

'He shall be taught,' said Mr. Hawkyard, '(O, yes, he shall be taught!)

but what is to be done with him for the present? He may be infected.

He may disseminate infection.' The ring widened considerably. 'What

is to be done with him?'

He held some talk with the two officials. I could distinguish no word

save 'Farm-house.' There was another sound several times repeated,

which was wholly meaningless in my ears then, but which I knew

afterwards to be 'Hoghton Towers.'

'Yes,' said Mr. Hawkyard. 'I think that sounds promising; I think that

sounds hopeful. And he can be put by himself in a ward, for a night or

two, you say?'

It seemed to be the police-officer who had said so; for it was he who

replied, Yes! It was he, too, who finally took me by the arm, and walked

me before him through the streets, into a whitewashed room in a bare

building, where I had a chair to sit in, a table to sit at, an iron bedstead and

good mattress to lie upon, and a rug and blanket to cover me. Where I

had enough to eat too, and was shown how to clean the tin porringer in

which it was conveyed to me, until it was as good as a looking-glass.

Here, likewise, I was put in a bath, and had new clothes brought to me;

and my old rags were burnt, and I was camphored and vinegared and

disinfected in a variety of ways.

When all this was done, - I don't know in how many days or how few,

but it matters not, - Mr. Hawkyard stepped in at the door, remaining close

to it, and said, 'Go and stand against the opposite wall, George Silverman.

As far off as you can. That'll do. How do you feel?'

I told him that I didn't feel cold, and didn't feel hungry, and didn't feel

thirsty. That was the whole round of human feelings, as far as I knew,

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GEORGESILVERMAN'SEXPLANATION1GEORGESILVERMAN'SEXPLANATIONGEORGESILVERMAN'SEXPLANATION2FIRSTCHAPTERIThappenedinthiswise-But,sittingwithmypeninmyhandlookingatthosewordsagain,withoutdescryinganyhintinthemofthewordsthatshouldfollow,itcomesintomymindthattheyhaveanabruptappearance.Theymayserve,however,ifI...

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