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Файл:Сага о Форсайтах. В петле. Книга для чтения на английском языке
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Irene raised one hand and covered the lower
part of her face, but her eyes never moved from his,
as though she trusted in them to keep him at bay.
And all those years, barren and bitter, since — ah!
when? — almost since he had first known her,
surged up in one great wave of recollection in
Soames; and a spasm that for his life he could not
control constricted his face.
“It’s not too late,” he said; “it’s not — if you’ll
only believe it.”
Irene uncovered her lips, and both her hands
made a writhing gesture in front of her breast.
Soames seized them.
“Don’t!” she said under her breath. But he stood
holding on to them, trying to stare into her eyes
which did not waver. Then she said quietly: “I am
alone here. You won’t behave again as you once
behaved.”
Dropping her hands as though they had been
hot irons, he turned away. Was it possible that
there could be such relentless unforgiveness! Could
that one act of violent possession be still alive
within her? Did it bar him thus utterly? And dog
gedly he said, without looking up: “I am not going
till you’ve answered me. I am offering what few
men would bring themselves to offer, I want a — a
reasonable answer.”
And almost with surprise he heard her say: “You
can’t have a reasonable answer. Reason has noth
PART II
191
ing to do with it. You can only have the brutal
truth: I would rather die.”
Soames stared at her.
“Oh!” he said. And there intervened in him a
sort of paralysis of speech and movement, the kind
IN CHANCERY
of quivering which comes when a man has received
a deadly insult, and does not yet know how he is
going to take it, or rather what it is going to do
with him.
“Oh!” he said again, “as bad as that? Indeed!
You would rather die. That’s pretty!”
“I am sorry. You wanted me to answer. I can’t
help the truth, can I?”
At that queer spiritual appeal Soames turned for
relief to actuality. He snapped the brooch back
into its case and put it in his pocket.
“The truth!” he said; “there’s no such thing with
women. It’s nerves — nerves.”
He heard the whisper: “Yes; nerves don’t lie.
Haven’t you discovered that?” He was silent,
obsessed by the thought: ‘I will hate this woman.
I will hate her.’ That was the trouble! If only he
could! He shot a glance at her who stood un
moving against the wall with her head up and
her hands clasped, for all the world as if she were
going to be shot. And he said quickly: “I don’t
believe a word of it. You have a lover. If you
hadn’t, you wouldn’t be such a — such a little
idiot.” He was conscious, before the expression in
192
her eyes, that he had uttered something of a non
1
sequitur
, and dropped back too abruptly into
the verbal freedom of his connubial days. He
turned away to the door. But he could not go
out. Something within him — that most deep and
secret Forsyte quality, the impossibility of letting
go, the impossibility of seeing the fantastic and
forlorn nature of his own tenacity — prevented
him. He turned about again, and there stood, with
his back against the door, as hers was against the
wall opposite, quite unconscious of anything ri
diculous in this separation by the whole width of
the room.
“Do you ever think of anybody but yourself?”
he said.
Irene’s lips quivered; then she answered slow
ly: “Do you ever think that I found out my mis
take — my hopeless, terrible mistake — the very
first week of our marriage; that I went on trying
three years — you know I went on trying? Was it
for myself?”
Soames gritted his teeth. “God knows what it
was. I’ve never understood you; I shall never un
derstand you. You had everything you wanted; and
you can have it again, and more. What’s the mat
ter with me? I ask you a plain question: What is
PART II
1
something of a nonsequitur — нечто, не относящееся
к делу
193
it?” Unconscious of the pathos in that enquiry, he
went on passionately: “I’m not lame, I’m not loath
some, I’m not a boor, I’m not a fool. What is it?
What’s the mystery about me?”
Her answer was a long sigh.
IN CHANCERY
He clasped his hands with a gesture that for
him was strangely full of expression. “When I came
here tonight I was — I hoped — I meant every
thing that I could to do away with the past, and
start fair again. And you meet me with ‘nerves,’
and silence, and sighs. There’s nothing tangible.
It’s like — it’s like a spider’s web.”
“Yes.”
That whisper from across the room maddened
Soames afresh. “Well, I don’t choose to be in a
spider’s web. I’ll cut it.” He walked straight up
to her. “Now!” What he had gone up to her to do
he really did not know. But when he was close,
the old familiar scent of her clothes suddenly af
fected him. He put his hands on her shoulders
and bent forward to kiss her. He kissed not her
lips, but a little hard line where the lips had
been drawn in; then his face was pressed away
by her hands; he heard her say: “Oh! No!” Shame,
compunction, sense of futility flooded his whole
being, he turned on his heel and went straight
out.
194
Chapter III
VISIT TO IRENE
Jolyon found June waiting on the platform at
Paddington. She had received his telegram while at
breakfast. Her abode — a studio and two bedrooms
in a St. John’s Wood garden — had been selected by
her for the complete independence which it guaran
1
teed. Unwatched by Mrs. Grundy
, unhindered by
permanent domestics, she could receive lame ducks
at any hour of day or night, and not seldom had a
duck without studio of its own made use of June’s.
She enjoyed her freedom, and possessed herself
with a sort of virginal passion; the warmth which she
would have lavished on Bosinney, and of which —
given her Forsyte tenacity — he must surely have
tired, she now expended in championship of the un
derdogs and budding ‘geniuses’ of the artistic world.
She lived, in fact, to turn ducks into the swans she
believed they were. The very fervour of her protec
tion warped her judgments. But she was loyal and
liberal; her small eager hand was ever against the
oppressions of academic and commercial opinion,
and though her income was considerable, her bank
balance was often a minus quantity.
PART II
1
Mrs. Grundy — Миссис Гранди, имя персонажа в ко
медии Мортона (1764–1838), употребляется нарицательно,
обозначает мнение света
195
She had come to Paddington Station heated in
her soul by a visit to Eric Cobbley. A miserable
Gallery had refused to let that straighthaired ge
nius have his oneman show after all. Its impudent
manager, after visiting his studio, had expressed
IN CHANCERY
the opinion that it would only be a ‘onehorse
1
from the selling point of view.’ This crown
show
ing example of commercial cowardice towards her
favourite lame duck — and he so hard up, with a
wife and two children, that he had caused her ac
count to be overdrawn — was still making the
blood glow in her small, resolute face, and her red
gold hair to shine more than ever. She gave her
father a hug, and got into a cab with him, having
as many fish to fry with him as he with her
became at once a question which would fry them
first.
Jolyon had reached the words: “My dear, I want
you to come with me,” when, glancing at her face,
he perceived by her blue eyes moving from side to
side — like the tail of a preoccupied cat — that she
was not attending. “Dad, is it true that I absolutely
can’t get at any of my money?”
“Only the income, fortunately, my love.”
2
. It
1
it would only be a ‘onehorse show’ — (зд.) это будет
выглядеть убого
2
as many fish to fry with him as he with her — (разг.) у
них была масса дел
196
“How perfectly beastly! Can’t it be done some
how? There must be a way. I know I could buy a
small Gallery for ten thousand pounds.”
“A small Gallery,” murmured Jolyon, “seems a
modest desire. But your grandfather foresaw it.”
“I think,” cried June vigorously, “that all this care
about money is awful, when there’s so much genius
in the world simply crushed out for want of a little.
I shall never marry and have children; why shouldn’t
I be able to do some good instead of having it all tied
up in case of things which will never come off?”
“Our name is Forsyte, my dear,” replied Joly
on in the ironical voice to which his impetuous
daughter had never quite grown accustomed; “and
Forsytes, you know, are people who so settle their
property that their grandchildren, in case they
should die before their parents, have to make wills
leaving the property that will only come to them
selves when their parents die. Do you follow that?
Nor do I, but it’s a fact, anyway; we live by the
principle that so long as there is a possibility of
keeping wealth in the family it must not go out;
if you die unmarried, your money goes to Jolly
and Holly and their children if they marry. Isn’t
it pleasant to know that whatever you do you
can none of you be destitute?”
“But can’t I borrow the money?”
Jolyon shook his head. “You could rent a Gallery,
no doubt, if you could manage it out of your income.”
PART II
197
June uttered a contemptuous sound. “Yes; and
have no income left to help anybody with.”
“My dear child,” murmured Jolyon, “wouldn’t
it come to the same thing?”
“No,” said June shrewdly, “I could buy for ten
IN CHANCERY
thousand; that would only be four hundred a year.
But I should have to pay a thousand a year rent, and
that would only leave me five hundred. If I had the
Gallery, Dad, think what I could do. I could make Eric
Cobbley’s name in no time, and ever so many others.”
“Names worth making make themselves in time.”
“When they’re dead.”
“Did you ever know anybody living, my dear,
improved by having his name made?”
“Yes, you,” said June, pressing his arm.
Jolyon started. ‘I?’ he thought. ‘Oh! Ah! Now
she’s going to ask me to do something. We take it
out, we Forsytes, each in our different ways.’
June came closer to him in the cab.
“Darling,” she said, “you buy the Gallery, and
I’ll pay you four hundred a year for it. Then nei
ther of us will be any the worse off. Besides, it’s a
splendid investment.”
Jolyon wriggled. “Don’t you think,” he said,
“that for an artist to buy a Gallery is a bit dubi
ous? Besides, ten thousand pounds is a lump, and
I’m not a commercial character.”
June looked at him with admiring appraisement.
“Of course you’re not, but you’re awfully business
198
like. And I’m sure we could make it pay. It’ll be a per
fect way of scoring off those wretched dealers and
people.” And again she squeezed her father’s arm.
Jolyon’s face expressed quizzical despair. “Where
is this desirable Gallery? Splendidly situated, I sup
pose?”
“Just off Cork Street.”
‘Ah!’ thought Jolyon, ‘I knew it was just off
somewhere. Now for what I want out of her!’
“Well, I’ll think of it, but not just now. You re
member Irene? I want you to come with me and see
her. Soames is after her again. She might be safer if
we could give her asylum somewhere.”
The word asylum, which he had used by chance,
was of all most calculated to rouse June’s interest.
“Irene! I haven’t seen her since! Of course! I’d love
to help her.”
It was Jolyon’s turn to squeeze her arm, in warm
admiration for this spirited, generoushearted little
creature of his begetting. “Irene is proud,” he said,
with a sidelong glance, in sudden doubt of June’s
discretion; “she’s difficult to help. We must tread
1
gently.
This is the place. I wired her to expect us.
Let’s send up our cards.”
“I can’t bear Soames,” said June as she got out;
“he sneers at everything that isn’t successful.”
PART II
1
We must tread gently. — (зд.) Нам надо вести себя
очень тактично.
199
Irene was in what was called the ‘Ladies’ draw
ingroom’ of the Piedmont Hotel.
Nothing if not morally courageous, June walked
straight up to her former friend, kissed her cheek,
and the two settled down on a sofa never sat on
IN CHANCERY
since the hotel’s foundation. Jolyon could see that
Irene was deeply affected by this simple forgive
ness.
“So Soames has been worrying you?” he said.
“I had a visit from him last night; he wants me
to go back to him.”
“You’re not going, of course?” cried June.
Irene smiled faintly and shook her head. “But
his position is horrible,” she murmured.
“It’s his own fault; he ought to have divorced
you when he could.”
Jolyon remembered how fervently in the old
days June had hoped that no divorce would smirch
her dead and faithless lover’s name. “Let us hear
what Irene is going to do,” he said.
Irene’s lips quivered, but she spoke calmly.
“I’d better give him fresh excuse to get rid of
me.”
“How horrible!” cried June.
“What else can I do?”
“Out of the question,” said Jolyon very quietly,
1
“sans amour
.”
200
1
sans amour — (фр.) без любви
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