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Файл:Сага о Форсайтах. В петле. Книга для чтения на английском языке
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We have had every sensation, or if we haven’t,
we pretend we have. We are so exhausted with
living that no hours are too small for us. We will
lose our shirts with equanimity. We have flown
fast and are past everything. All is cigarette smoke.
1
Bismillah!
’ Competitive spirit, bonedeep in the
English, was obliging those two young Forsytes
to have ideals; and at the close of a century ideals
are mixed. The aristocracy had already in the main
2
adopted the ‘jumpingJesus’ principle
; though here
and there one like Crum — who was an ‘honour
able’ — stood starkly languid for that gambler’s
3
Nirvana which had been the summum bonum
of
the old ‘dandies’ and of ‘the mashers’ in the
eighties. And round Crum were still gathered a
forlorn hope of bluebloods with a plutocratic fol
lowing.
But there was between the cousins another far
less obvious antipathy — coming from the unseiz
able family resemblance, which each perhaps re
sented; or from some halfconsciousness of that old
feud persisting still between their branches of the
clan, formed within them by odd words or half
hints dropped by their elders. And Jolly, tinkling
PART II
1
Bismillah! — (воскл. магометан) Аллах с нами!
2
the ‘jumpingJesus’ principle — догматы секты юрод
ствующих
3
summum bonum — (лат., зд.) верх счастья
171
his teaspoon, was musing: ‘His tiepin and his
waistcoat and his drawl and his betting — good
Lord!’
And Val, finishing his bun, was thinking: ‘He’s
rather a young beast!’ “I suppose you’ll be meet
IN CHANCERY
ing your people?” he said, getting up. “I wish you’d
tell them I should like to show them over B.N.C. —
not that there’s anything much there — if they’d
care to come.”
“Thanks, I’ll ask them.”
“Would they lunch? I’ve got rather a decent
scout.”
Jolly doubted if they would have time.
“You’ll ask them, though?”
“Very good of you,” said Jolly, fully meaning
that they should not go; but, instinctively polite,
he added: “You’d better come and have dinner with
us tomorrow.”
“Rather. What time?”
“Seventhirty.”
“Dress?”
“No.” And they parted, a subtle antagonism
alive within them.
Holly and her father arrived by a midday train. It
was her first visit to the city of spires and dreams,
and she was very silent, looking almost shyly at the
brother who was part of this wonderful place. After
lunch she wandered, examining his household gods
with intense curiosity. Jolly’s sittingroom was pan
172
elled, and Art represented by a set of Bartolozzi
prints which had belonged to old Jolyon, and by col
lege photographs — of young men, live young men, a
little heroic, and to be compared with her memories
of Val. Jolyon also scrutinised with care that evi
dence of his boy’s character and tastes.
Jolly was anxious that they should see him row
ing, so they set forth to the river. Holly, between
her brother and her father, felt elated when heads
were turned and eyes rested on her. That they
might see him to the best advantage they left him
2
at the Barge
and crossed the river to the tow
ingpath. Slight in build — for of all the Forsytes
only old Swithin and George were beefy — Jolly
was rowing ‘Two’ in a trial eight. He looked very
earnest and strenuous. With pride Jolyon thought
him the bestlooking boy of the lot; Holly, as be
came a sister, was more struck by one or two of
the others, but would not have said so for the
world. The river was bright that afternoon, the
meadows lush, the trees still beautiful with colour.
Distinguished peace clung around the old city;
Jolyon promised himself a day’s sketching if the
weather held. The Eight passed a second time,
spurting home along the Barges — Jolly’s face was
1
PART II
1
Bartolozzi — Франческо Бартолоцци (1728–1813),
прославленный итальянский гравер
2
the Barge — плавучая пристань
173
very set, so as not to show that he was blown. They
returned across the river and waited for him.
“Oh!” said Jolly in the Christ Church meadows,
“I had to ask that chap Val Dartie to dine with us to
night. He wanted to give you lunch and show you
IN CHANCERY
B.N.C., so I thought I’d better; then you needn’t go.
I don’t like him much.”
Holly’s rather sallow face had become suffused
with pink. “Why not?”
“Oh! I don’t know. He seems to me rather showy
and bad form. What are his people like, Dad? He’s
only a second cousin, isn’t he?”
Jolyon took refuge in a smile. “Ask Holly,” he
said; “she saw his uncle.”
“I liked Val,” Holly answered, staring at the
ground before her; “his uncle looked — awfully dif
ferent.” She stole a glance at Jolly from under her
lashes.
“Did you ever,” said Jolyon with whimsical in
tention, “hear our family history, my dears? It’s
quite a fairy tale. The first Jolyon Forsyte — at all
events the first we know anything of, and that
would be your greatgreatgrandfather — dwelt in
the land of Dorset on the edge of the sea, being
by profession an ‘agriculturalist,’ as your great
aunt put it, and the son of an agriculturist — farm
ers, in fact; your grandfather used to call them,
‘Very small beer.’” He looked at Jolly to see how
his lordliness was standing it, and with the other
174
eye noted Holly’s malicious pleasure in the slight
drop of her brother’s face.
“We may suppose him thick and sturdy, standing
for England as it was before the Industrial Era be
gan. The second Jolyon Forsyte — your greatgrand
father, Jolly; better known as Superior Dosset For
syte — built houses, so the chronicle runs, begat ten
children, and migrated to London town. It is known
that he drank sherry. We may suppose him repre
senting the England of Napoleon’s wars, and gen
eral unrest. The eldest of his six sons was the third
Jolyon, your grandfather, my dears — tea merchant
and chairman of companies, one of the soundest En
glishmen who ever lived — and to me the dearest.”
Jolyon’s voice had lost its irony, and his son and
daughter gazed at him solemnly, “He was just and
tenacious, tender and young at heart. You remember
him, and I remember him. Pass to the others! Your
greatuncle James, that’s young Val’s grandfather,
had a son called Soames — whereby hangs a tale of
1
no love lost
, and I don’t think I’ll tell it you. James
and the other eight children of ‘superior Dosset,’ of
whom there are still five alive, may be said to have
represented Victorian England, with its principles of
trade and individualism at five per cent. and your
money back — if you know what that means. At all
PART II
1
whereby hangs a tale of no love lost — (разг.) о кото
ром ходят неприятные разговоры
175
events they’ve turned thirty thousand pounds into a
cool million between them in the course of their long
lives. They never did a wild thing — unless it was
your greatuncle Swithin, who I believe was once
swindled at thimblerig, and was called ‘Fourin
IN CHANCERY
1
Forsyte’ because he drove a pair. Their day is
hand
passing, and their type, not altogether for the advan
tage of the country. They were pedestrian, but they
too were sound. I am the fourth Jolyon Forsyte — a
poor holder of the name — ”
“No, Dad,” said Jolly, and Holly squeezed his
hand.
“Yes,” repeated Jolyon, “a poor specimen, rep
resenting, I’m afraid, nothing but the end of the
century, unearned income, amateurism, and indi
vidual liberty — a different thing from individual
ism, Jolly. You are the fifth Jolyon Forsyte, old
man, and you open the ball of the new century.”
As he spoke they turned in through the college
gates, and Holly said: “It’s fascinating, Dad.”
None of them quite knew what she meant. Jol
ly was grave.
The Rainbow, distinguished, as only an Oxford
hostel can be, for lack of modernity, provided one
small oakpanelled private sittingroom, in which
Holly sat to receive, whitefrocked, shy, and alone,
when the only guest arrived. Rather as one would
176
1
fourinhand — (разг.) экипаж четверкой
touch a moth, Val took her hand. And wouldn’t she
wear this ‘measly flower’? It would look ripping in
her hair. He removed a gardenia from his coat.
“Oh! No, thank you — I couldn’t!” But she
took it and pinned it at her neck, having sudden
ly remembered that word ‘showy’! Val’s button
hole would give offence; and she so much wanted
Jolly to like him. Did she realise that Val was at
his best and quietest in her presence, and was
that, perhaps, half the secret of his attraction for
her?
“I never said anything about our ride, Val.”
“Rather not! It’s just between us.”
By the uneasiness of his hands and the fidget
ing of his feet he was giving her a sense of power
very delicious; a soft feeling too — the wish to
make him happy.
“Do tell me about Oxford. It must be ever so
lovely.”
Val admitted that it was frightfully decent to
do what you liked; the lectures were nothing; and
there were some very good chaps. “Only,” he added,
“of course I wish I was in town, and could come
down and see you.”
Holly moved one hand shyly on her knee, and
her glance dropped.
“You haven’t forgotten,” he said, suddenly gath
ering courage, “that we’re going madrabbiting to
gether?”
PART II
177
Holly smiled. “Oh! That was only makebelieve.
One can’t do that sort of thing after one’s grown
up, you know.”
“Dash it! cousins can,” said Val. “Next Long
1
— it begins in June, you know, and goes on
Vac.
IN CHANCERY
for ever — we’ll watch our chance.”
But, though the thrill of conspiracy ran through
her veins, Holly shook her head. “It won’t come
off,” she murmured.
“Won’t it!” said Val fervently; “who’s going to
stop it? Not your father or your brother.”
At this moment Jolyon and Jolly came in; and
romance fled into Val’s patent leather and Holly’s
white satin toes, where it itched and tingled dur
ing an evening not conspicuous for openhearted
ness.
Sensitive to atmosphere, Jolyon soon felt the la
tent antagonism between the boys, and was puzzled
by Holly; so he became unconsciously ironical, which
is fatal to the expansiveness of youth. A letter,
handed to him after dinner, reduced him to a silence
hardly broken till Jolly and Val rose to go. He
went out with them, smoking his cigar, and walked
with his son to the gates of Christ Church. Turning
back, he took out the letter and read it again be
neath a lamp.
178
1
Long Vac. — (разг.) летние каникулы (Vac. сокр. от
vacation)
“DEAR JOLYON,
“Soames came again tonight — my thirtyseventh birth
day. You were right, I mustn’t stay here. I’m going tomor
row to the Piedmont Hotel, but I won’t go abroad without
seeing you. I feel lonely and downhearted.
“Yours affectionately,
“IRENE.”
He folded the letter back into his pocket and
walked on, astonished at the violence of his feel
ings. What had the fellow said or done?
He turned into High Street, down the Turf, and
on among a maze of spires and domes and long col
lege fronts and walls, bright or darkshadowed in
the strong moonlight. In this very heart of En
gland’s gentility it was difficult to realise that a
lonely woman could be importuned or hunted, but
what else could her letter mean? Soames must have
been pressing her to go back to him again, with
public opinion and the Law on his side, too! ‘Eigh
teenninetynine!,’ he thought, gazing at the bro
ken glass shining on the top of a villa garden wall;
‘but when it comes to property we’re still a hea
then people! I’ll go up tomorrow morning. I dare
say it’ll be best for her to go abroad.’ Yet the
thought displeased him. Why should Soames hunt
her out of England! Besides, he might follow, and
out there she would be still more helpless against
the attentions of her own husband! ‘I must tread
warily,’ he thought; ‘that fellow could make him
PART II
179
self very nasty. I didn’t like his manner in the cab
the other night.’ His thoughts turned to his daugh
ter June. Could she help? Once on a time Irene had
been her greatest friend, and now she was a ‘lame
duck,’ such as must appeal to June’s nature! He
IN CHANCERY
determined to wire to his daughter to meet him at
Paddington Station. Retracing his steps towards
the Rainbow he questioned his own sensations.
Would he be upsetting himself over every woman
in like case? No! he would not. The candour of this
conclusion discomfited him; and, finding that Hol
ly had gone up to bed, he sought his own room.
But he could not sleep, and sat for a long time at
his window, huddled in an overcoat, watching the
moonlight on the roofs.
Next door Holly too was awake, thinking of the
lashes above and below Val’s eyes, especially be
low; and of what she could do to make Jolly like
him better. The scent of the gardenia was strong
in her little bedroom, and pleasant to her.
And Val, leaning out of his firstfloor window in
B.N.C., was gazing at a moonlit quadrangle without
seeing it at all, seeing instead Holly, slim and white
frocked, as she sat beside the fire when he first went in.
But Jolly, in his bedroom narrow as a ghost, lay
with a hand beneath his cheek and dreamed he was
with Val in one boat, rowing a race against him,
while his father was calling from the towpath:
‘Two! Get your hands away there, bless you!’
180
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