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more he could see the dawning recognition in
the obese brownwhite body. The old dog got
off his haunches, and his tail, closecurled over
his back, began a feeble, excited fluttering; he
came waddling forward, gathered momentum,
and disappeared over the edge of the fernery.
Jolyon expected to meet him at the wicket gate,
but Balthasar was not there, and, rather alarmed,
he turned into the fernery. On his fat side, look
ing up with eyes already glazing, the old dog
lay.
“What is it, my poor old man?” cried Jolyon.
Balthasar’s curled and fluffy tail just moved; his
filming eyes seemed saying: “I can’t get up, mas
ter, but I’m glad to see you.”
Jolyon knelt down; his eyes, very dimmed, could
hardly see the slowly ceasing heave of the dog’s side.
He raised the head a little — very heavy.
“What is it, dear man? Where are you hurt?”
The tail fluttered once; the eyes lost the look of
life. Jolyon passed his hands all over the inert
warm bulk. There was nothing — the heart had
simply failed in that obese body from the emo
tion of his master’s return. Jolyon could feel the
muzzle, where a few whitish bristles grew, cool
ing already against his lips. He stayed for some
minutes kneeling; with his hand beneath the stiff
ening head. The body was very heavy when he
bore it to the top of the field; leaves had drifted
PART II
271
there, and he strewed it with a covering of them;
there was no wind, and they would keep him from
curious eyes until the afternoon. ‘I’ll bury him
myself,’ he thought. Eighteen years had gone since
he first went into the St. John’s Wood house with
IN CHANCERY
that tiny puppy in his pocket. Strange that the
old dog should die just now! Was it an omen?
He turned at the gate to look back at that russet
mound, then went slowly towards the house, very
choky in the throat.
June was at home; she had come down hotfoot
on hearing the news of Jolly’s enlistment. His pa
triotism had conquered her feeling for the Boers.
The atmosphere of his house was strange and pock
etty when Jolyon came in and told them of the
dog Balthasar’s death. The news had a unifying
effect. A link with the past had snapped — the dog
Balthasar! Two of them could remember nothing
before his day; to June he represented the last years
of her grandfather; to Jolyon that life of domestic
stress and aesthetic struggle before he came again
into the kingdom of his father’s love and wealth!
And he was gone!
In the afternoon he and Jolly took picks and
spades and went out to the field. They chose a spot
close to the russet mound, so that they need not
carry him far, and, carefully cutting off the surface
turf, began to dig. They dug in silence for ten min
utes, and then rested.
272
“Well, old man,” said Jolyon, “so you thought
you ought?”
“Yes,” answered Jolly; “I don’t want to a bit, of
course.”
How exactly those words represented Jolyon’s
own state of mind!
“I admire you for it, old boy. I don’t believe I
should have done it at your age — too much of a
Forsyte, I’m afraid. But I suppose the type gets
thinner with each generation. Your son, if you
have one, may be a pure altruist; who knows?”
“He won’t be like me, then, Dad; I’m beastly
selfish.”
“No, my dear, that you clearly are not.” Jolly
shook his head, and they dug again.
“Strange life a dog’s,” said Jolyon suddenly:
“The only fourfooter with rudiments of altruism
and a sense of God!”
Jolly looked at his father. “Do you believe in
God, Dad? I’ve never known.”
At so searching a question from one to whom it
was impossible to make a light reply, Jolyon stood
for a moment feeling his back tried by the digging.
“What do you mean by God?” he said; “there
are two irreconcilable ideas of God. There’s the
Unknowable Creative Principle — one believes in
That. And there’s the Sum of altruism in man —
naturally one believes in That.”
“I see. That leaves out Christ, doesn’t it?”
PART II
273
Jolyon stared. Christ, the link between those
1
two ideas! Out of the mouth of babes!
Here was
orthodoxy scientifically explained at last! The sub
lime poem of the Christ life was man’s attempt to
join those two irreconcilable conceptions of God.
IN CHANCERY
And since the Sum of human altruism was as much
a part of the Unknowable Creative Principle as
anything else in Nature and the Universe, a worse
link might have been chosen after all! Funny —
how one went through life without seeing it in that
sort of way! “What do you think, old man?” he
said.
Jolly frowned. “Of course, my first year we
talked a good bit about that sort of thing. But in
the second year one gives it up; I don’t know
why — it’s awfully interesting.”
Jolyon remembered that he also had talked a
good deal about it his first year at Cambridge, and
given it up in his second.
“I suppose,” said Jolly, “it’s the second God, you
mean, that old Balthasar had a sense of.”
“Yes, or he would never have burst his poor old
heart because of something outside himself.”
“But wasn’t that just selfish emotion, really?”
Jolyon shook his head. “No, dogs are not pure
Forsytes, they love something outside themselves.”
1
Out of the mouth of babes! — Устами младенца (гла
голет истина)!
274
Jolly smiled. “Well, I think I’m one,” he said.
“You know, I only enlisted because I dared Val
Dartie to.”
“But why?”
“We bar each other,” said Jolly shortly.
“Ah!” muttered Jolyon. So the feud went on, unto
the third generation — this modern feud which had
no overt expression?
‘Shall I tell the boy about it?’ he thought. But
to what end — if he had to stop short of his own
part?
And Jolly thought: ‘It’s for Holly to let him know
about that chap. If she doesn’t, it means she doesn’t
want him told, and I should be sneaking. Anyway,
I’ve stopped it. I’d better leave well alone!’
So they dug on in silence, till Jolyon said: “Now,
old man, I think it’s big enough.” And, resting on
their spades, they gazed down into the hole where
a few leaves had drifted already on a sunset wind.
“I can’t bear this part of it,” said Jolyon suddenly.
“Let me do it, Dad. He never cared much for me.”
Jolyon shook his head. “We’ll lift him very gent
ly, leaves and all. I’d rather not see him again. I’ll
take his head. Now!”
With extreme care they raised the old dog’s
body, whose faded tan and white showed here and
there under the leaves stirred by the wind. They
laid it, heavy, cold, and unresponsive, in the grave,
and Jolly spread more leaves over it, while Jolyon,
PART II
275
deeply afraid to show emotion before his son, be
gan quickly shovelling the earth on to that still
shape. There went the past! If only there were a
joyful future to look forward to! It was like stamp
ing down earth on one’s own life. They replaced
IN CHANCERY
the turf carefully on the smooth little mound, and,
grateful that they had spared each other’s feelings,
returned to the house arminarm.
Chapter XI
TIMOTHY STAYS THE ROT
On Forsyte ’Change news of the enlistment
spread fast, together with the report that June, not
to be outdone, was going to become a Red Cross
nurse. These events were so extreme, so subversive
of pure Forsyteism, as to have a binding effect
upon the family, and Timothy’s was thronged next
Sunday afternoon by members trying to find out
what they thought about it all, and exchange with
each other a sense of family credit. Giles and Jesse
Hayman would no longer defend the coast but go
to South Africa quite soon; Jolly and Val would
be following in April; as to June — well, you never
knew what she would really do.
The retirement from Spion Kop and the absence
of any good news from the seat of war imparted
an air of reality to all this, clinched in startling
276
fashion by Timothy. The youngest of the old For
sytes — scarcely eighty, in fact popularly supposed
to resemble their father, ‘superior Dosset,’ even in
his bestknown characteristic of drinking Madei
ra — had been invisible for so many years that
he was almost mythical. A long generation had
elapsed since the risks of a publisher’s business had
worked on his nerves at the age of forty, so that
he had got out with a mere thirtyfive thousand
pounds in the world, and started to make his liv
ing by careful investment. Putting by every year,
at compound interest, he had doubled his capital
in forty years without having once known what it
1
was like to shake in his shoes
over money mat
ters. He was now putting aside some two thousand
a year, and, with the care he was taking of him
self, expected, so Aunt Hester said, to double his
capital again before he died. What he would do
with it then, with his sisters dead and himself dead,
was often mockingly queried by free spirits such
as Francie, Euphemia, or young Nicholas’ second,
Christopher, whose spirit was so free that he had
actually said he was going on the stage. All admit
ted, however, that this was best known to Timo
thy himself, and possibly to Soames, who never di
vulged a secret.
PART II
1
to shake in his shoes — (разг.) дрожать от страха; пе
реживать; нервничать
277
Those few Forsytes who had seen him reported
a man of thick and robust appearance, not very tall,
with a brownred complexion, grey hair, and little
of the refinement of feature with which most of the
Forsytes had been endowed by ‘superior Dosset’s’
IN CHANCERY
wife, a woman of some beauty and a gentle tem
perament. It was known that he had taken surpris
ing interest in the war, sticking flags into a map
ever since it began, and there was uneasiness as to
what would happen if the English were driven into
the sea, when it would be almost impossible for
him to put the flags in the right places. As to his
knowledge of family movements or his views about
them, little was known, save that Aunt Hester was
always declaring that he was very upset. It was,
then, in the nature of a portent when Forsytes,
arriving on the Sunday after the evacuation of
Spion Kop, became conscious, one after the other,
of a presence seated in the only really comfortable
armchair, back to the light, concealing the lower
part of his face with a large hand, and were greeted
by the awed voice of Aunt Hester: “Your Uncle
Timothy, my dear.”
Timothy’s greeting to them all was somewhat
identical; and rather, as it were, passed over by him
than expressed: “How de do? How de do? ’Xcuse
me gettin’ up!”
Francie was present, and Eustace had come in
his car; Winifred had brought Imogen, breaking
278
the ice of the restitution proceedings with the
warmth of family appreciation at Val’s enlistment;
and Marian Tweetyman with the last news of Giles
and Jesse. These with Aunt Juley and Hester,
young Nicholas, Euphemia, and — of all people! —
George, who had come with Eustace in the car,
constituted an assembly worthy of the family’s
palmiest days. There was not one chair vacant in
the whole of the little drawingroom, and anxiety
was felt lest someone else should arrive.
The constraint caused by Timothy’s presence
having worn off a little, conversation took a mil
itary turn. George asked Aunt Juley when she
was going out with the Red Cross, almost re
ducing her to a state of gaiety; whereon he
turned to Nicholas and said: “Young Nick’s a
warrior bold, isn’t he? When’s he going to don
1
the wild khaki
?”
Young Nicholas, smiling with a sort of sweet
deprecation, intimated that of course his mother
was very anxious.
“The Dromios are off, I hear,” said George,
turning to Marian Tweetyman; “we shall all be
2
there soon. En avant
, the Forsytes! Roll, bowl, or
pitch! Who’s for a cooler?”
PART II
1
to don the wild khaki — (разг.) надевать военную
форму
2
en avant — (фр.) вперед
279
Aunt Juley gurgled, George was so droll! Should
Hester get Timothy’s map? Then he could show them
all where they were.
At a sound from Timothy, interpreted as assent,
Aunt Hester left the room.
IN CHANCERY
George pursued his image of the Forsyte ad
vance, addressing Timothy as Field Marshal;
and Imogen, whom he had noted at once for ‘a
1
pretty filly,’ — as Vivandière
; and holding his
top hat between his knees, he began to beat it
with imaginary drumsticks. The reception ac
corded to his fantasy was mixed. All laughed —
George was licensed; but all felt that the fam
ily was being ‘rotted’; and this seemed to them
unnatural, now that it was going to give five of
its members to the service of the Queen. George
might go too far; and there was relief when he
got up, offered his arm to Aunt Juley, marched
up to Timothy, saluted him, kissed his aunt
with mock passion, said, “Oh! what a treat, dear
papa! Come on, Eustace!” and walked out, fol
lowed by the grave and fastidious Eustace, who
had never smiled.
Aunt Juley’s bewildered, “Fancy not waiting for
the map! You mustn’t mind him, Timothy. He’s so
droll!” broke the hush, and Timothy removed the
hand from his mouth.
280
1
Vivandière — (фр.) маркитантка
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