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Файл:Сага о Форсайтах. В петле. Книга для чтения на английском языке
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keeping things from him. Emily was only seven
ty! James had a grudge against his wife’s youth.
He felt sometimes that he would never have mar
ried her if he had known that she would have so
many years before her, when he had so few. It
was not natural. She would live fifteen or twenty
years after he was gone, and might spend a lot of
money; she had always had extravagant tastes. For
all he knew she might want to buy one of these
motorcars. Cicely and Rachel and Imogen and
all the young people — they all rode those bicycles
now and went off Goodness knew where. And
now Roger was gone. He didn’t know — couldn’t
tell! The family was breaking up. Soames would
know how much his uncle had left. Curiously he
thought of Roger as Soames’ uncle not as his
own brother. Soames! It was more and more the
one solid spot in a vanishing world. Soames was
careful; he was a warm man; but he had no one
to leave his money to. There it was! He didn’t
know! And there was that fellow Chamberlain!
For James’ political principles had been fixed be
tween ’70 and ’85 when ‘that rascally Radical’ had
been the chief thorn in the side of property and
he distrusted him to this day in spite of his con
version; he would get the country into a mess
and make money go down before he had done
with it. A stormy petrel of a chap! Where was
Soames? He had gone to the funeral of course
PART I
61
which they had tried to keep from him. He knew
that perfectly well; he had seen his son’s trou
sers. Roger! Roger in his coffin! He remembered
how, when they came up from school together
from the West, on the box seat of the old Slow
IN CHANCERY
flyer in 1824, Roger had got into the ‘boot’
gone to sleep. James uttered a thin cackle. A funny
fellow — Roger — an original! He didn’t know!
Younger than himself, and in his coffin! The fam
ily was breaking up. There was Val going to the
university; he never came to see him now. He
2
would cost a pretty penny up there
. It was an
extravagant age. And all the pretty pennies that
his four grandchildren would cost him danced be
fore James’ eyes. He did not grudge them the
money, but he grudged terribly the risk which
the spending of that money might bring on them;
he grudged the diminution of security. And now
that Cicely had married, she might be having
children too. He didn’t know — couldn’t tell!
Nobody thought of anything but spending money
in these days, and racing about, and having what
they called ‘a good time.’ A motorcar went past
the window. Ugly great lumbering thing, making
all that racket! But there it was, the country rat
1
and
1
had got into the ‘boot’ — (зд.) забрался в экипаж
2
would cost a pretty penny up there — (разг.) обойдет
ся в кругленькую сумму
62
tling to the dogs!1 People in such a hurry that
they couldn’t even care for style — a neat turn
out like his barouche and bays was worth all those
newfangled things. And consols at 116! There
must be a lot of money in the country. And now
there was this old Kruger! They had tried to keep
old Kruger from him. But he knew better; there
2
would be a pretty kettle of fish out there!
He
had known how it would be when that fellow
Gladstone — dead now, thank God! made such a
mess of it after that dreadful business at Majuba.
He shouldn’t wonder if the Empire split up and
3
went to pot
. And this vision of the Empire go
ing to pot filled a full quarter of an hour with
qualms of the most serious character. He had
eaten a poor lunch because of them. But it was
after lunch that the real disaster to his nerves
occurred. He had been dozing when he became
aware of voices — low voices. Ah! they never told
him anything! Winifred’s and her mother’s. “Mon
ty!” That fellow Dartie — always that fellow
Dartie! The voices had receded; and James had been
left alone, with his ears standing up like a hare’s,
and fear creeping about his inwards. Why did
PART I
1
the country rattling to the dogs! — (разг.) страна ка
тится ко всем чертям!
2
there would be a pretty kettle of fish out there! —
(разг.) хорошенькое дело получится!
3
went to pot — (сленг) погибнет
63
they leave him alone? Why didn’t they come and
tell him? And an awful thought, which through
long years had haunted him, concreted again
swiftly in his brain. Dartie had gone bankrupt —
fraudulently bankrupt, and to save Winifred and
IN CHANCERY
the children, he — James — would have to pay!
Could he — could Soames turn him into a limited
company? No, he couldn’t! There it was! With
every minute before Emily came back the spectre
fiercened. Why, it might be forgery! With eyes
1
fixed on the doubted Turner
in the centre of the
wall, James suffered tortures. He saw Dartie in the
dock, his grandchildren in the gutter, and himself
in bed. He saw the doubted Turner being sold at
Jobson’s, and all the majestic edifice of property
in rags. He saw in fancy Winifred unfashionably
dressed, and heard in fancy Emily’s voice saying:
“Now, don’t fuss, James!” She was always saying:
“Don’t fuss!” She had no nerves; he ought never
to have married a woman eighteen years younger
than himself. Then Emily’s real voice said: “Have
you had a nice nap, James?”
Nap! He was in torment, and she asked him
that!
“What’s this about Dartie?” he said, and his
eyes glared at her.
1
Turner — Джозеф Тернер (1775–1851), английский
художникпейзажист
64
Emily’s selfpossession never deserted her.
“What have you been hearing?” she asked bland
ly.
“What’s this about Dartie?” repeated James.
“He’s gone bankrupt.”
1
“Fiddle!
”
James made a great effort, and rose to the full
height of his storklike figure.
“You never tell me anything,” he said; “he’s
gone bankrupt.”
The destruction of that fixed idea seemed to
Emily all that mattered at the moment.
“He has not,” she answered firmly. “He’s gone
to Buenos Aires.”
If she had said “He’s gone to Mars” she could
not have dealt James a more stunning blow; his
imagination, invested entirely in British securities,
could as little grasp one place as the other.
“What’s he gone there for?” he said. “He’s got
no money. What did he take?”
Agitated within by Winifred’s news, and goaded
by the constant reiteration of this jeremiad, Emily
said calmly: “He took Winifred’s pearls and a
dancer.”
“What!” said James, and sat down.
His sudden collapse alarmed her, and smooth
ing his forehead, she said: “Now, don’t fuss, James!”
PART I
1
Fiddle! — (сленг) Вздор!
65
A dusky red had spread over James’ cheeks and
forehead.
“I paid for them,” he said tremblingly; “he’s a
thief! I — I knew how it would be. He’ll be the death
of me; he...” Words failed him and he sat quite still.
IN CHANCERY
Emily, who thought she knew him so well, was
alarmed, and went towards the sideboard where she
kept some sal volatile. She could not see the tena
cious Forsyte spirit working in that thin, tremulous
shape against the extravagance of the emotion called
up by this outrage on Forsyte principles — the For
syte spirit deep in there, saying: ‘You mustn’t get
1
into a fantod, it’ll never do.
You won’t digest your
lunch. You’ll have a fit!’ All unseen by her, it was
doing better work in James than sal volatile.
“Drink this,” she said.
James waved it aside.
“What was Winifred about,” he said, “to let him
take her pearls?” Emily perceived the crisis past.
“She can have mine,” she said comfortably.
“I never wear them. She’d better get a divorce.”
“There you go!” said James. “Divorce! We’ve
never had a divorce in the family. Where’s Soames?”
“He’ll be in directly.”
“No, he won’t,” said James, almost fiercely; “he’s
at the funeral. You think I know nothing.”
1
You mustn’t get into a fantod, it’ll never do. — (разг.)
Не надо волноваться, это все равно не поможет делу.
66
“Well,” said Emily with calm, “you shouldn’t get
into such fusses when we tell you things.” And
plumping up his cushions, and putting the sal vol
atile beside him, she left the room.
But James sat there seeing visions — of Wini
fred in the Divorce Court, and the family name in
the papers; of the earth falling on Roger’s coffin;
of Val taking after his father; of the pearls he had
paid for and would never see again; of money back
at four per cent., and the country going to the
dogs; and, as the afternoon wore into evening, and
teatime passed, and dinnertime, those visions be
came more and more mixed and menacing — of
being told nothing, till he had nothing left of all
his wealth, and they told him nothing of it. Where
was Soames? Why didn’t he come in?.. His hand
grasped the glass of negus, he raised it to drink,
and saw his son standing there looking at him. A
little sigh of relief escaped his lips, and putting the
glass down, he said: “There you are! Dartie’s gone
to Buenos Aires.”
Soames nodded. “That’s all right,” he said; “good
riddance.”
A wave of assuagement passed over James’ brain.
Soames knew. Soames was the only one of them all
who had sense. Why couldn’t he come and live at
home? He had no son of his own. And he said plain
tively: “At my age I get nervous. I wish you were
more at home, my boy.”
PART I
67
Again Soames nodded; the mask of his counten
ance betrayed no understanding, but he went
closer, and as if by accident touched his father’s
shoulder.
“They sent their love to you at Timothy’s,” he
IN CHANCERY
said. “It went off all right. I’ve been to see Wini
1
fred. I’m going to take steps.
” And he thought:
‘Yes, and you mustn’t hear of them.’
James looked up; his long white whiskers quiv
ered, his thin throat between the points of his col
lar looked very gristly and naked.
“I’ve been very poorly all day,” he said; “they
never tell me anything.”
Soames’ heart twitched. “Well, it’s all right.
There’s nothing to worry about. Will you come
up now?” and he put his hand under his father’s
arm.
James obediently and tremulously raised him
self, and together they went slowly across the
room, which had a rich look in the firelight, and
out to the stairs. Very slowly they ascended.
“Goodnight, my boy,” said James at his bed
room door.
“Goodnight, father,” answered Soames. His
hand stroked down the sleeve beneath the shawl;
it seemed to have almost nothing in it, so thin was
1
I’m going to take steps. — (зд.) Я не собираюсь си
деть сложа руки; я собираюсь коечто предпринять.
68
the arm. And, turning away from the light in the
opening doorway, he went up the extra flight to
his own bedroom.
‘I want a son,’ he thought, sitting on the edge
of his bed; ‘I want a son.’
Chapter VI
NOLONGERYOUNG JOLYON AT HOME
Trees take little account of time, and the old
oak on the upper lawn at Robin Hill looked no day
older than when Bosinney sprawled under it and
said to Soames: “Forsyte, I’ve found the very place
for your house.” Since then Swithin had dreamed,
and old Jolyon died, beneath its branches. And
now, close to the swing, nolongeryoung Jolyon
often painted there. Of all spots in the world it was
perhaps the most sacred to him, for he had loved
his father.
Contemplating its great girth — crinkled and
a little mossed, but not yet hollow — he would
speculate on the passage of time. That tree had
seen, perhaps, all real English history; it dated,
he shouldn’t wonder, from the days of Elizabeth
at least. His own fifty years were as nothing to
its wood. When the house behind it, which he
now owned, was three hundred years of age in
stead of twelve, that tree might still be standing
PART I
69
there, vast and hollow — for who would commit
such sacrilege as to cut it down? A Forsyte might
perhaps still be living in that house, to guard it
jealously. And Jolyon would wonder what the
house would look like coated with such age.
IN CHANCERY
Wistaria was already about its walls — the new
look had gone. Would it hold its own and keep
the dignity Bosinney had bestowed on it, or
would the giant London have lapped it round and
made it into an asylum in the midst of a jerry
built wilderness? Often, within and without of it,
he was persuaded that Bosinney had been moved
by the spirit when he built. He had put his heart
into that house, indeed! It might even become
one of the ‘homes of England’ — a rare achieve
ment for a house in these degenerate days of
building. And the aesthetic spirit, moving hand
in hand with his Forsyte sense of possessive con
tinuity, dwelt with pride and pleasure on his
ownership thereof. There was the smack of rever
ence and ancestorworship (if only for one ances
tor) in his desire to hand this house down to his
son and his son’s son. His father had loved the
house, had loved the view, the grounds, that tree;
his last years had been happy there, and no one
had lived there before him. These last eleven years
at Robin Hill had formed in Jolyon’s life as a
painter, the important period of success. He was
now in the very van of watercolour art, hanging
70
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