Chapter Chapter 3 · 第1章（3）

ANN. [unconvinced] Then why did you break off our confidences and become

quite strange to me?

TANNER. [enigmatically] It happened just then that I got something that

I wanted to keep all to myself instead of sharing it with you.

ANN. I am sure I shouldn't have asked for any of it if you had grudged

it.

TANNER. It wasn't a box of sweets, Ann. It was something you'd never

have let me call my own.

ANN. [incredulously] What?

TANNER. My soul.

ANN. Oh, do be sensible, Jack. You know you're talking nonsense.

TANNER. The most solemn earnest, Ann. You didn't notice at that time

that you were getting a soul too. But you were. It was not for nothing

that you suddenly found you had a moral duty to chastise and reform

Rachel. Up to that time you had traded pretty extensively in being a

good child; but you had never set up a sense of duty to others. Well, I

set one up too. Up to that time I had played the boy buccaneer with no

more conscience than a fox in a poultry farm. But now I began to have

scruples, to feel obligations, to find that veracity and honor were no

longer goody-goody expressions in the mouths of grown up people, but

compelling principles in myself.

ANN. [quietly] Yes, I suppose you're right. You were beginning to be a

man, and I to be a woman.

TANNER. Are you sure it was not that we were beginning to be something

more? What does the beginning of manhood and womanhood mean in most

people's mouths? You know: it means the beginning of love. But love

began long before that for me. Love played its part in the earliest

dreams and follies and romances I can remember--may I say the earliest

follies and romances we can remember?--though we did not understand it

at the time. No: the change that came to me was the birth in me of moral

passion; and I declare that according to my experience moral passion is

the only real passion.

ANN. All passions ought to be moral, Jack.

TANNER. Ought! Do you think that anything is strong enough to impose

oughts on a passion except a stronger passion still?

ANN. Our moral sense controls passion, Jack. Don't be stupid.

TANNER. Our moral sense! And is that not a passion? Is the devil to

have all the passions as well as all the good times? If it were not a

passion--if it were not the mightiest of the passions, all the other

passions would sweep it away like a leaf before a hurricane. It is the

birth of that passion that turns a child into a man.

ANN. There are other passions, Jack. Very strong ones.

TANNER. All the other passions were in me before; but they were idle

and aimless--mere childish greedinesses and cruelties, curiosities

and fancies, habits and superstitions, grotesque and ridiculous to the

mature intelligence. When they suddenly began to shine like newly lit

flames it was by no light of their own, but by the radiance of the

dawning moral passion. That passion dignified them, gave them conscience

and meaning, found them a mob of appetites and organized them into an

army of purposes and principles. My soul was born of that passion.

ANN. I noticed that you got more sense. You were a dreadfully

destructive boy before that.

TANNER. Destructive! Stuff! I was only mischievous.

ANN. Oh Jack, you were very destructive. You ruined all the young fir

trees by chopping off their leaders with a wooden sword. You broke all

the cucumber frames with your catapult. You set fire to the common: the

police arrested Tavy for it because he ran away when he couldn't stop

you. You--

TANNER. Pooh! pooh! pooh! these were battles, bombardments, stratagems

to save our scalps from the red Indians. You have no imagination, Ann. I

am ten times more destructive now than I was then. The moral passion has

taken my destructiveness in hand and directed it to moral ends. I have

become a reformer, and, like all reformers, an iconoclast. I no longer

break cucumber frames and burn gorse bushes: I shatter creeds and

demolish idols.

ANN. [bored] I am afraid I am too feminine to see any sense in

destruction. Destruction can only destroy.

TANNER. Yes. That is why it is so useful. Construction cumbers the

ground with institutions made by busybodies. Destruction clears it and

gives us breathing space and liberty.

ANN. It's no use, Jack. No woman will agree with you there.

TANNER. That's because you confuse construction and destruction with

creation and murder. They're quite different: I adore creation and abhor

murder. Yes: I adore it in tree and flower, in bird and beast, even

in you. [A flush of interest and delight suddenly clears the growing

perplexity and boredom from her face]. It was the creative instinct that

led you to attach me to you by bonds that have left their mark on me

to this day. Yes, Ann: the old childish compact between us was an

unconscious love compact.

ANN. Jack!

TANNER. Oh, don't be alarmed--

ANN. I am not alarmed.

TANNER. [whimsically] Then you ought to be: where are your principles?

ANN. Jack: are you serious or are you not?

TANNER. Do you mean about the moral passion?

ANN. No, no; the other one. [Confused] Oh! you are so silly; one never

knows how to take you.

TANNER. You must take me quite seriously. I am your guardian; and it is

my duty to improve your mind.

ANN. The love compact is over, then, is it? I suppose you grew tired of

me?

TANNER. No; but the moral passion made our childish relations

impossible. A jealous sense of my new individuality arose in me.

ANN. You hated to be treated as a boy any longer. Poor Jack!

TANNER. Yes, because to be treated as a boy was to be taken on the old

footing. I had become a new person; and those who knew the old person

laughed at me. The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor: he took

my measure anew every time he saw me, whilst all the rest went on with

their old measurements and expected them to fit me.

ANN. You became frightfully self-conscious.

TANNER. When you go to heaven, Ann, you will be frightfully conscious of

your wings for the first year or so. When you meet your relatives there,

and they persist in treating you as if you were still a mortal, you will

not be able to bear them. You will try to get into a circle which has

never known you except as an angel.

ANN. So it was only your vanity that made you run away from us after

all?

TANNER. Yes, only my vanity, as you call it.

ANN. You need not have kept away from ME on that account.

TANNER. From you above all others. You fought harder than anybody

against my emancipation.

ANN. [earnestly] Oh, how wrong you are! I would have done anything for

you.

TANNER. Anything except let me get loose from you. Even then you had

acquired by instinct that damnable woman's trick of heaping obligations

on a man, of placing yourself so entirely and helplessly at his mercy

that at last he dare not take a step without running to you for leave.

I know a poor wretch whose one desire in life is to run away from his

wife. She prevents him by threatening to throw herself in front of the

engine of the train he leaves her in. That is what all women do. If we

try to go where you do not want us to go there is no law to prevent us,

but when we take the first step your breasts are under our foot as it

descends: your bodies are under our wheels as we start. No woman shall

ever enslave me in that way.

ANN. But, Jack, you cannot get through life without considering other

people a little.

TANNER. Ay; but what other people? It is this consideration of other

people or rather this cowardly fear of them which we call consideration

that makes us the sentimental slaves we are. To consider you, as you

call it, is to substitute your will for my own. How if it be a baser

will than mine? Are women taught better than men or worse? Are mobs of

voters taught better than statesmen or worse? Worse, of course, in both

cases. And then what sort of world are you going to get, with its public

men considering its voting mobs, and its private men considering their

wives? What does Church and State mean nowadays? The Woman and the

Ratepayer.

ANN. [placidly] I am so glad you understand politics, Jack: it will

be most useful to you if you go into parliament [he collapses like a

pricked bladder]. But I am sorry you thought my influence a bad one.

TANNER. I don't say it was a bad one. But bad or good, I didn't choose

to be cut to your measure. And I won't be cut to it.

ANN. Nobody wants you to, Jack. I assure you--really on my word--I

don't mind your queer opinions one little bit. You know we have all been

brought up to have advanced opinions. Why do you persist in thinking me

so narrow minded?

TANNER. That's the danger of it. I know you don't mind, because you've

found out that it doesn't matter. The boa constrictor doesn't mind the

opinions of a stag one little bit when once she has got her coils round

it.

ANN. [rising in sudden enlightenment] O-o-o-o-oh! NOW I understand why

you warned Tavy that I am a boa constrictor. Granny told me. [She laughs

and throws her boa around her neck]. Doesn't it feel nice and soft,

Jack?

TANNER. [in the toils] You scandalous woman, will you throw away even

your hypocrisy?

ANN. I am never hypocritical with you, Jack. Are you angry? [She

withdraws the boa and throws it on a chair]. Perhaps I shouldn't have

done that.

TANNER. [contemptuously] Pooh, prudery! Why should you not, if it amuses

you?

ANN. [Shyly] Well, because--because I suppose what you really meant by

the boa constrictor was THIS [she puts her arms round his neck].

TANNER. [Staring at her] Magnificent audacity! [She laughs and pats his

cheeks]. Now just to think that if I mentioned this episode not a soul

would believe me except the people who would cut me for telling, whilst

if you accused me of it nobody would believe my denial.

ANN. [taking her arms away with perfect dignity] You are incorrigible,

Jack. But you should not jest about our affection for one another.

Nobody could possibly misunderstand it. YOU do not misunderstand it, I

hope.

TANNER. My blood interprets for me, Ann. Poor Ricky Tiky Tavy!

ANN. [looking quickly at him as if this were a new light] Surely you are

not so absurd as to be jealous of Tavy.

TANNER. Jealous! Why should I be? But I don't wonder at your grip of

him. I feel the coils tightening round my very self, though you are only

playing with me.

ANN. Do you think I have designs on Tavy?

TANNER. I know you have.

ANN. [earnestly] Take care, Jack. You may make Tavy very happy if you

mislead him about me.

TANNER. Never fear: he will not escape you.

ANN. I wonder are you really a clever man!

TANNER. Why this sudden misgiving on the subject?

ANN. You seem to understand all the things I don't understand; but you

are a perfect baby in the things I do understand.

TANNER. I understand how Tavy feels for you, Ann; you may depend on

that, at all events.

ANN. And you think you understand how I feel for Tavy, don't you?

TANNER. I know only too well what is going to happen to poor Tavy.

ANN. I should laugh at you, Jack, if it were not for poor papa's death.

Mind! Tavy will be very unhappy.

TANNER. Yes; but he won't know it, poor devil. He is a thousand times

too good for you. That's why he is going to make the mistake of his life

about you.

ANN. I think men make more mistakes by being too clever than by being

too good [she sits down, with a trace of contempt for the whole male sex

in the elegant carriage of her shoulders].

TANNER. Oh, I know you don't care very much about Tavy. But there is

always one who kisses and one who only allows the kiss. Tavy will kiss;

and you will only turn the cheek. And you will throw him over if anybody

better turns up.

ANN. [offended] You have no right to say such things, Jack. They are not

true, and not delicate. If you and Tavy choose to be stupid about me,

that is not my fault.

TANNER. [remorsefully] Forgive my brutalities, Ann. They are levelled

at this wicked world, not at you. [She looks up at him, pleased and

forgiving. He becomes cautious at once]. All the same, I wish Ramsden

would come back. I never feel safe with you: there is a devilish

charm--or no: not a charm, a subtle interest [she laughs]. Just so: you

know it; and you triumph in it. Openly and shamelessly triumph in it!

ANN. What a shocking flirt you are, Jack!

TANNER. A flirt!! I!!

ANN. Yes, a flirt. You are always abusing and offending people, but you

never really mean to let go your hold of them.

TANNER. I will ring the bell. This conversation has already gone further

than I intended.

Ramsden and Octavius come back with Miss Ramsden, a hardheaded old

maiden lady in a plain brown silk gown, with enough rings, chains and

brooches to show that her plainness of dress is a matter of principle,

not of poverty. She comes into the room very determinedly: the two men,

perplexed and downcast, following her. Ann rises and goes eagerly to

meet her. Tanner retreats to the wall between the busts and pretends

to study the pictures. Ramsden goes to his table as usual; and Octavius

clings to the neighborhood of Tanner.

MISS RAMSDEN. [almost pushing Ann aside as she comes to Mr. Whitefield's

chair and plants herself there resolutely] I wash my hands of the whole

affair.

OCTAVIUS. [very wretched] I know you wish me to take Violet away, Miss

Ramsden. I will. [He turns irresolutely to the door].

RAMSDEN. No no--

MISS RAMSDEN. What is the use of saying no, Roebuck? Octavius knows that

I would not turn any truly contrite and repentant woman from your doors.

But when a woman is not only wicked, but intends to go on being wicked,

she and I part company.

ANN. Oh, Miss Ramsden, what do you mean? What has Violet said?

RAMSDEN. Violet is certainly very obstinate. She won't leave London. I

don't understand her.

MISS RAMSDEN. I do. It's as plain as the nose on your face, Roebuck,

that she won't go because she doesn't want to be separated from this

man, whoever he is.

ANN. Oh, surely, surely! Octavius: did you speak to her?

OCTAVIUS. She won't tell us anything. She won't make any arrangement

until she has consulted somebody. It can't be anybody else than the

scoundrel who has betrayed her.

TANNER. [to Octavius] Well, let her consult him. He will be glad enough

to have her sent abroad. Where is the difficulty?

MISS RAMSDEN. [Taking the answer out of Octavius's mouth]. The

difficulty, Mr Jack, is that when he offered to help her I didn't offer

to become her accomplice in her wickedness. She either pledges her word

never to see that man again, or else she finds some new friends; and the

sooner the better.

[The parlormaid appears at the door. Ann hastily resumes her seat, and

looks as unconcerned as possible. Octavius instinctively imitates her].

THE MAID. The cab is at the door, ma'am.

MISS RAMSDEN. What cab?

THE MAID. For Miss Robinson.

MISS RAMSDEN. Oh! [Recovering herself] All right. [The maid withdraws].

She has sent for a cab.

TANNER. I wanted to send for that cab half an hour ago.

MISS RAMSDEN. I am glad she understands the position she has placed

herself in.

RAMSDEN. I don't like her going away in this fashion, Susan. We had

better not do anything harsh.

OCTAVIUS. No: thank you again and again; but Miss Ramsden is quite

right. Violet cannot expect to stay.

ANN. Hadn't you better go with her, Tavy?

OCTAVIUS. She won't have me.

MISS RAMSDEN. Of course she won't. She's going straight to that man.

TANNER. As a natural result of her virtuous reception here.

RAMSDEN. [much troubled] There, Susan! You hear! and there's some truth

in it. I wish you could reconcile it with your principles to be a little

patient with this poor girl. She's very young; and there's a time for

everything.

MISS RAMSDEN. Oh, she will get all the sympathy she wants from the men.

I'm surprised at you, Roebuck.

TANNER. So am I, Ramsden, most favorably.

Violet appears at the door. She is as impenitent and self-assured a

young lady as one would desire to see among the best behaved of her sex.

Her small head and tiny resolute mouth and chin; her haughty crispness

of speech and trimness of carriage; the ruthless elegance of her

equipment, which includes a very smart hat with a dead bird in it, mark

a personality which is as formidable as it is exquisitely pretty. She is

not a siren, like Ann: admiration comes to her without any compulsion

or even interest on her part; besides, there is some fun in Ann, but in

this woman none, perhaps no mercy either: if anything restrains her, it

is intelligence and pride, not compassion. Her voice might be the

voice of a schoolmistress addressing a class of girls who had disgraced

themselves, as she proceeds with complete composure and some disgust to

say what she has come to say.

VIOLET. I have only looked in to tell Miss Ramsden that she will find

her birthday present to me, the filagree bracelet, in the housekeeper's

room.

TANNER. Do come in, Violet, and talk to us sensibly.

VIOLET. Thank you: I have had quite enough of the family conversation

this morning. So has your mother, Ann: she has gone home crying. But

at all events, I have found out what some of my pretended friends are

worth. Good bye.

TANNER. No, no: one moment. I have something to say which I beg you

to hear. [She looks at him without the slightest curiosity, but waits,

apparently as much to finish getting her glove on as to hear what he

has to say]. I am altogether on your side in this matter. I congratulate

you, with the sincerest respect, on having the courage to do what you

have done. You are entirely in the right; and the family is entirely in

the wrong.

Sensation. Ann and Miss Ramsden rise and turn toward the two. Violet,

more surprised than any of the others, forgets her glove, and comes

forward into the middle of the room, both puzzled and displeased.

Octavius alone does not move or raise his head; he is overwhelmed with

shame.

ANN. [pleading to Tanner to be sensible] Jack!

MISS RAMSDEN. [outraged] Well, I must say!

VIOLET. [sharply to Tanner] Who told you?

TANNER. Why, Ramsden and Tavy of course. Why should they not?

VIOLET. But they don't know.

TANNER. Don't know what?

VIOLET. They don't know that I am in the right, I mean.

TANNER. Oh, they know it in their hearts, though they think themselves

bound to blame you by their silly superstitions about morality and

propriety and so forth. But I know, and the whole world really knows,

though it dare not say so, that you were right to follow your instinct;

that vitality and bravery are the greatest qualities a woman can have,

and motherhood her solemn initiation into womanhood; and that the fact

of your not being legally married matters not one scrap either to your

own worth or to our real regard for you.

VIOLET. [flushing with indignation] Oh! You think me a wicked woman,

like the rest. You think I have not only been vile, but that I share

your abominable opinions. Miss Ramsden: I have borne your hard words

because I knew you would be sorry for them when you found out the truth.

But I won't bear such a horrible insult as to be complimented by Jack on

being one of the wretches of whom he approves. I have kept my marriage

a secret for my husband's sake. But now I claim my right as a married

woman not to be insulted.

OCTAVIUS. [raising his head with inexpressible relief] You are married!

VIOLET. Yes; and I think you might have guessed it. What business had

you all to take it for granted that I had no right to wear my wedding

ring? Not one of you even asked me: I cannot forget that.

TANNER. [in ruins] I am utterly crushed. I meant well--I

apologize--abjectly apologize.

VIOLET. I hope you will be more careful in future about the things

you say. Of course one does not take them seriously. But they are very

disagreeable, and rather in bad taste.

TANNER. [bowing to the storm] I have no defence: I shall know better in

future than to take any woman's part. We have all disgraced ourselves in

your eyes, I am afraid, except Ann, SHE befriended you. For Ann's sake,

forgive us.

VIOLET. Yes: Ann has been very kind; but then Ann knew.

TANNER. Oh!

MISS RAMSDEN. [stiffly] And who, pray, is the gentleman who does not

acknowledge his wife?

VIOLET. [promptly] That is my business, Miss Ramsden, and not yours. I

have my reasons for keeping my marriage a secret for the present.

RAMSDEN. All I can say is that we are extremely sorry, Violet. I am

shocked to think of how we have treated you.

OCTAVIUS. [awkwardly] I beg your pardon, Violet. I can say no more.

MISS RAMSDEN. [still loth to surrender] Of course what you say puts

a very different complexion on the matter. All the same, I owe it to

myself--

VIOLET. [cutting her short] You owe me an apology, Miss Ramsden: that's

what you owe both to yourself and to me. If you were a married woman you

would not like sitting in the housekeeper's room and being treated like

a naughty child by young girls and old ladies without any serious duties

and responsibilities.

TANNER. Don't hit us when we're down, Violet. We seem to have made fools

of ourselves; but really it was you who made fools of us.

VIOLET. It was no business of yours, Jack, in any case.

TANNER. No business of mine! Why, Ramsden as good as accused me of being

the unknown gentleman.

Ramsden makes a frantic demonstration; but Violet's cool keen anger

extinguishes it.

VIOLET. You! Oh, how infamous! how abominable! How disgracefully you

have all been talking about me! If my husband knew it he would never let

me speak to any of you again. [To Ramsden] I think you might have spared

me, at least.

RAMSDEN. But I assure you I never--at least it is a monstrous perversion

of something I said that--

MISS RAMSDEN. You needn't apologize, Roebuck. She brought it all on

herself. It is for her to apologize for having deceived us.

VIOLET. I can make allowances for you, Miss Ramsden: you cannot

understand how I feel on this subject though I should have expected

rather better taste from people of greater experience. However, I quite

feel that you have all placed yourselves in a very painful position;

and the most truly considerate thing for me to do is to go at once. Good

morning.

She goes, leaving them staring.

Miss RAMSDEN. Well, I must say--!

RAMSDEN. [plaintively] I don't think she is quite fair to us.

TANNER. You must cower before the wedding ring like the rest of us,

Ramsden. The cup of our ignominy is full.