第二十二章
菲利普的大伯有一个老朋友叫威尔金森小姐，住在柏林，是位牧师的女儿。凯里先生当副牧师的最后任期，就是在这位小姐的父亲手下度过的，当时他是林肯郡某村的教区长。父亲死后，威尔金森小姐被迫自谋生计，先后在法国和德国许多地方当过家庭教师。她同凯里太太保持着通信往来，还曾来布莱克斯泰勃牧师公馆度过两三次假期，她也像偶尔来凯里先生家作客的亲友一样，照例要付点儿膳宿费。等到事态已很清楚，凯里太太觉得执意违拗菲利普的心愿，只能给自己横生麻烦，还不如依顺他的好，于是便写信给威尔金森小姐，向她请教。威尔金森小姐推荐说，海德堡是个学习德语的理想之地，菲利普可以寄宿在欧林教授夫人的家里，那儿环境舒适，每星期付三十马克膳宿费。欧林教授在当地一所中学执教，他将亲自教授菲利普德语。
五月里的一个早晨，菲利普来到了海德堡。他把行李往小车上一搁，跟着脚夫出了车站。湛蓝的天空中，阳光明媚；他们所经过的大街上，枝叶扶疏，树影婆娑；四周的气氛给了菲利普一种新鲜之感。菲利普乍然进入新的生活天地，置身于陌生人中间，腼腆胆怯的心情之中掺杂着一股神清心爽的强烈喜悦。脚夫把他带到一幢白色大房子的正门处，径自走了。菲利普看到没人出来接他，有点不大痛快，而且感到很难为情。一个衣衫不整的小伙于把他让进门，领进客厅。客厅里摆满了一大套蒙有绿大鹅绒的家具；客厅中央有一张圆桌，上面放着一束养在清水里的鲜花，一条羊排肋骨似的装饰纸边把鲜花紧紧地扎在一起；花束周围井井有条地散放着皮封面的书籍。屋子里有股霉味。
不一会儿，随着一股厨房饭菜的油腻味，教授夫人走了进来。她身材不高，长得非常结实，头发丝纹不乱，红扑扑的脸，一对小眼睛像珠子似的晶莹发亮，神态举止洋溢着一股热情。她一把握住菲利普的双手，问起威尔金森小姐的情况。威尔金森小姐曾两次来她家，住了几个星期。她口操德语，间或夹着几句蹩脚英语。菲利普没法让她明白他自己并不认识威尔金森小姐。这时，她的两个女儿露面了。菲利普觉得她俩年龄似乎已经不小了，不过也许还没有超过二十五岁。大女儿特克拉，个儿同她母亲一般矮，脸上神情也同样那么灵活多变，不过容貌姣好，一头浓密的乌发；妹妹安娜，身材修长，姿色平庸，但她笑起来很甜，菲利普一见之下，觉得还是妹妹更讨人喜欢。彼此寒喧一阵之后，教授太太将菲利普领到他的房间便走开了。房间在顶层角楼上，俯视着街心花园内的一片树梢密叶。床支在凹室里，所以坐在书桌旁看这个房间，会觉得一点儿也不像间卧室。菲利普解开行李，把所有书籍都拿出来摆好。他终于摆脱了羁绊，不再受人掣肘。
一点钟铃声响了，唤他去用午餐。他走进客厅，发现教授太太的房客已济济一堂。她把菲利普介绍给自己丈夫，一个高个子中年人，脑瓜挺大，金黄色的鬓发已有点斑白，蓝蓝的眼睛，目光柔和。他用准确无误却是早已过时的英语同菲利普交谈，显然他的英语是通过钻研英国古典作品，而不是通过实际会话这一途径学到手的；他所用的口语词汇，菲利普只在莎士比亚的剧作中见到过，听起来怪别扭的。欧林教授太太并不把她经营的这所公寓叫作膳宿公寓，而是称之为"房客之家"，其实这两者究竟有何不同，兴许得惜重玄学家明察秋毫的眼力才辨别得出来。当大家在狭长而幽暗的客厅外套间坐下来用饭时，菲利普颇感腼腆。他看到席上共有十六人，教授太太坐在餐桌的一端，用刀切着熟肉。那个给菲利普开门的愣小子，负责端汤上菜，分送食物，他笨手笨脚，把餐盆子碰得丁丁当当震天价响；尽管他不停地来回穿梭，还是照顾不过来，最早一批拿到饭菜的人已经盆空肚饱，而后面的人还没拿到他们的那一份。教授太太执意要大家用餐时只讲讲德语，这样一来，即使忸怩不安的菲利普有勇气想凑兴几句，也不敢贸然开口了。他打量着面前这些自己将与之一起生活的人。教授太太身旁坐着几个老太太，菲利普对她们并不多加注意。餐桌上有两个年轻的金发姑娘，其中一个长得很漂亮，菲利普听到别人称呼她们赫德威格小姐和凯西莉小姐。凯西莉小姐的颈脖子后面拖条长辫子。她们俩并排坐着，一面嘁嘁喳喳地聊个不停，一面在吃吃地笑，并不时朝菲利普瞟上一眼，其中一位不知悄声儿说了句什么，只听见她俩格格地笑开了。菲利普尴尬得脸红耳赤，觉得她们暗中在拿自己打哈哈。她们旁边坐着一个中国人，黄黄的脸上挂着开朗的微笑。他正在大学里研究西方社会的状况。他说起话来很快，口音也很怪，所以他讲的话，姑娘们并不句句都懂。这一来，她们就张扬大笑，而他自己也随和地跟着笑了，笑的时候，那双细梢杏眼差不多合成了一道缝。另外还有两三个美国人，身穿黑外套，皮肤又黄又燥，是攻神学的大学生。菲利普在他们那一门蹩脚德语里听出了新英格兰的口音，用怀疑的目光扫了他们一眼。他所受的教育给他灌输了这样的看法：美国人尽是些轻率、喜欢铤而走险的野蛮人。
饭后，他们回到客厅，在那几张蒙有绿天鹅绒的硬椅上坐了一会。安娜小姐问菲利普是否愿意跟他们一起去散散步。
菲利普接受了邀请。散步的人不少哩，有教授太太的两个女儿，另外两位姑娘，一个美国大学生，再加上菲利普。菲利普走在安娜和赫德威格小姐的旁边。他有点忐忑不安。他从来没和姑娘打过交道。在布莱克斯泰勃，只有一些农家姑娘和当地商人的小姐。他知道她们的芳名，同她们打过几个照面，但他怯生生的，总以为她们在笑话他的残疾。牧师和凯里太太自视高人一等，不同于地位低下的庄稼人，菲利普也欣然接受了这种看法。医生有两个女儿，但年纪都比菲利普大得多，在菲利普还是小孩的时候就相继嫁给了医生的两位助手。学校里有些学生认识两三个胆量有余而庄重不足的姑娘，同学间飞短流长，说他们和那些姑娘有私情，这很可能是出于男性的想入非非，故意危言耸听。这类传闻常使菲利普不胜震怖，但表面上，他总装出一副清高、不屑一听的神气。他的想象力，还有他看过的书籍，在他心中唤起一种要在女子面前保持拜伦式风度的愿望。他一方面怀有病态的羞涩心理，一方面又确信自己应该自己出风流倜傥的骑士风度，结果被折腾得不知如何是好。此刻，他觉得正该显得聪明潇洒、风趣大方才是，哪知脑子里却偏偏空空如也，挖空心思也想不出一句话来。教授太太的女儿安娜小姐出于责任感，不时同他攀谈几句，但她身旁的那位姑娘却难得启口，时而转动那对门如流星的眸子乜他一眼，间或还在一旁纵声大笑，搞得他越发心慌意乱。菲利普觉得自己在她眼里一定可笑极了。他们沿着山麓，在松林中缓缓而行，松树沁人肺腑的阵阵幽香，使菲利普心旷神怡。天气暖洋洋的，晴空里不见一丝云翳。最后他们来到一处高地，居高临下，只见莱茵河流域跃然展现在他们面前。广阔的田野、远处的城市沐浴在阳光之中，金光闪烁。其间更有莱茵河曲折蜿蜒，宛如银色的缎带。在菲利普所熟悉的肯特郡那一隅，很少见到这等开阔的一马平川，只有凭海远眺，才能见到天地相连的胜景。眼前这一片广阔无垠的田野，使他的心灵激起一阵奇特的、难以描述的震颤。他猛地陶醉在幸福之中。尽管他自己并不了解，但这是他有生以来第一次真正领悟到了美，而且没有被奇异的感情所冲淡。他们，就他们三个人，坐在一张长凳上，其余的则继续往前去了。两位姑娘用德语快速交谈着，而菲利普毫不理会她们近在咫尺，尽情饱览眼前的绮丽风光。
"天啊，我真幸福！"他不知不觉地喃喃自语了一句。
chapter 22
philip’s uncle had an old friend, called miss wilkinson, who lived in berlin. she was the daughter of a clergyman, and it was with her father, the rector of a village in lincolnshire, that mr. carey had spent his last curacy; on his death, forced to earn her living, she had taken various situations as a governess in france and germany. she had kept up a correspondence with mrs. carey, and two or three times had spent her holidays at blackstable vicarage, paying as was usual with the careys’ unfrequent guests a small sum for her keep. when it became clear that it was less trouble to yield to philip’s wishes than to resist them, mrs. carey wrote to ask her for advice. miss wilkinson recommended heidelberg as an excellent place to learn german in and the house of frau professor erlin as a comfortable home. philip might live there for thirty marks a week, and the professor himself, a teacher at the local high school, would instruct him.
philip arrived in heidelberg one morning in may. his things were put on a barrow and he followed the porter out of the station. the sky was bright blue, and the trees in the avenue through which they passed were thick with leaves; there was something in the air fresh to philip, and mingled with the timidity he felt at entering on a new life, among strangers, was a great exhilaration. he was a little disconsolate that no one had come to meet him, and felt very shy when the porter left him at the front door of a big white house. an untidy lad let him in and took him into a drawing-room. it was filled with a large suite covered in green velvet, and in the middle was a round table. on this in water stood a bouquet of flowers tightly packed together in a paper frill like the bone of a mutton chop, and carefully spaced round it were books in leather bindings. there was a musty smell.
presently, with an odour of cooking, the frau professor came in, a short, very stout woman with tightly dressed hair and a red face; she had little eyes, sparkling like beads, and an effusive manner. she took both philip’s hands and asked him about miss wilkinson, who had twice spent a few weeks with her. she spoke in german and in broken english. philip could not make her understand that he did not know miss wilkinson. then her two daughters appeared. they seemed hardly young to philip, but perhaps they were not more than twenty-five: the elder, thekla, was as short as her mother, with the same, rather shifty air, but with a pretty face and abundant dark hair; anna, her younger sister, was tall and plain, but since she had a pleasant smile philip immediately preferred her. after a few minutes of polite conversation the frau professor took philip to his room and left him. it was in a turret, looking over the tops of the trees in the anlage; and the bed was in an alcove, so that when you sat at the desk it had not the look of a bed-room at all. philip unpacked his things and set out all his books. he was his own master at last.
a bell summoned him to dinner at one o’clock, and he found the frau professor’s guests assembled in the drawing-room. he was introduced to her husband, a tall man of middle age with a large fair head, turning now to gray, and mild blue eyes. he spoke to philip in correct, rather archaic english, having learned it from a study of the english classics, not from conversation; and it was odd to hear him use words colloquially which philip had only met in the plays of shakespeare. frau professor erlin called her establishment a family and not a pension; but it would have required the subtlety of a metaphysician to find out exactly where the difference lay. when they sat down to dinner in a long dark apartment that led out of the drawing-room, philip, feeling very shy, saw that there were sixteen people. the frau professor sat at one end and carved. the service was conducted, with a great clattering of plates, by the same clumsy lout who had opened the door for him; and though he was quick it happened that the first persons to be served had finished before the last had received their appointed portions. the frau professor insisted that nothing but german should be spoken, so that philip, even if his bashfulness had permitted him to be talkative, was forced to hold his tongue. he looked at the people among whom he was to live. by the frau professor sat several old ladies, but philip did not give them much of his attention. there were two young girls, both fair and one of them very pretty, whom philip heard addressed as fraulein hedwig and fraulein cacilie. fraulein cacilie had a long pig-tail hanging down her back. they sat side by side and chattered to one another, with smothered laughter: now and then they glanced at philip and one of them said something in an undertone; they both giggled, and philip blushed awkwardly, feeling that they were making fun of him. near them sat a chinaman, with a yellow face and an expansive smile, who was studying western conditions at the university. he spoke so quickly, with a queer accent, that the girls could not always understand him, and then they burst out laughing. he laughed too, good-humouredly, and his almond eyes almost closed as he did so. there were two or three american men, in black coats, rather yellow and dry of skin: they were theological students; philip heard the twang of their new england accent through their bad german, and he glanced at them with suspicion; for he had been taught to look upon americans as wild and desperate barbarians.
afterwards, when they had sat for a little on the stiff green velvet chairs of the drawing-room, fraulein anna asked philip if he would like to go for a walk with them.
philip accepted the invitation. they were quite a party. there were the two daughters of the frau professor, the two other girls, one of the american students, and philip. philip walked by the side of anna and fraulein hedwig. he was a little fluttered. he had never known any girls. at blackstable there were only the farmers’ daughters and the girls of the local tradesmen. he knew them by name and by sight, but he was timid, and he thought they laughed at his deformity. he accepted willingly the difference which the vicar and mrs. carey put between their own exalted rank and that of the farmers. the doctor had two daughters, but they were both much older than philip and had been married to successive assistants while philip was still a small boy. at school there had been two or three girls of more boldness than modesty whom some of the boys knew; and desperate stories, due in all probability to the masculine imagination, were told of intrigues with them; but philip had always concealed under a lofty contempt the terror with which they filled him. his imagination and the books he had read had inspired in him a desire for the byronic attitude; and he was torn between a morbid self-consciousness and a conviction that he owed it to himself to be gallant. he felt now that he should be bright and amusing, but his brain seemed empty and he could not for the life of him think of anything to say. fraulein anna, the frau professor’s daughter, addressed herself to him frequently from a sense of duty, but the other said little: she looked at him now and then with sparkling eyes, and sometimes to his confusion laughed outright. philip felt that she thought him perfectly ridiculous. they walked along the side of a hill among pine-trees, and their pleasant odour caused philip a keen delight. the day was warm and cloudless. at last they came to an eminence from which they saw the valley of the rhine spread out before them under the sun. it was a vast stretch of country, sparkling with golden light, with cities in the distance; and through it meandered the silver ribband of the river. wide spaces are rare in the corner of kent which philip knew, the sea offers the only broad horizon, and the immense distance he saw now gave him a peculiar, an indescribable thrill. he felt suddenly elated. though he did not know it, it was the first time that he had experienced, quite undiluted with foreign emotions, the sense of beauty. they sat on a bench, the three of them, for the others had gone on, and while the girls talked in rapid german, philip, indifferent to their proximity, feasted his eyes.
‘by jove, i am happy,’ he said to himself unconsciously.
