登陆注册
5393100000024

第24章

One girl, a dear, wholesome creature named Janet, stayed with us for months and might have stayed years, but for her addiction to strong language. The only and well-beloved child of the captain of the barge "Nancy Jane," trading between Purfleet and Ponder's End, her conversation was at once my terror and delight.

"Janet," my mother would exclaim in agony, her hands going up instinctively to guard her ears, "how can you use such words?"

"What words, mum?"

"The things you have just called the gas man."

"Him! Well, did you see what he did, mum? Walked straight into my clean kitchen, without even wiping his boots, the--" And before my mother could stop her, Janet had relieved her feelings by calling him it--or rather them--again, without any idea that she had done aught else than express in fitting phraseology a natural human emotion.

We were good friends, Janet and I, and therefore it was that I personally undertook her reformation. It was not an occasion for mincing one's words. The stake at issue was, I felt, too important.

I told her bluntly that if she persisted in using such language she would inevitably go to hell.

"Then where's my father going?" demanded Janet.

"Does he use language?"

I gathered from Janet that no one who had enjoyed the privilege of hearing her father could ever again take interest in the feeble efforts of herself.

"I am afraid, Janet," I explained, "that if he doesn't give it up--"

"But it's the only way he can talk," interrupted Janet. "He don't mean anything by it."

I sighed, yet set my face against weakness. "You see, Janet, people who swear do go there."

But Janet would not believe.

"God send my dear, kind father to hell just because he can't talk like the gentlefolks! Don't you believe it of Him, Master Paul. He's got more sense."

I hope I pain no one by quoting Janet's common sense. For that I should be sorry. I remember her words because so often, when sinking in sloughs of childish despond, they afforded me firm foothold. More often than I can tell, when compelled to listen to the sententious voice of immeasurable Folly glibly explaining the eternal mysteries, has it comforted me to whisper to myself: "I don't believe it of Him.

He's got more sense."

And about that period I had need of all the comfort I could get. As we descend the road of life, the journey, demanding so much of our attention, becomes of more importance than the journey's end; but to the child, standing at the valley's gate, the terminating hills are clearly visible. What lies beyond them is his constant wonder. I never questioned my parents directly on the subject, shrinking as so strangely we all do, both young and old, from discussion of the very matters of most moment to us; and they, on their part, not guessing my need, contented themselves with the vague generalities with which we seek to hide even from ourselves the poverty of our beliefs. But there were foolish voices about me less reticent; while the literature, illustrated and otherwise, provided in those days for serious-minded youth, answered all questionings with blunt brutality.

If you did wrong you burnt in a fiery furnace for ever and ever. Were your imagination weak you could turn to the accompanying illustration, and see at a glance how you yourself would writhe and shrink and scream, while cheerful devils, well organised, were busy stoking. I had been burnt once, rather badly, in consequence of live coals, in course of transit on a shovel, being let fall upon me. I imagined these burning coals, not confined to a mere part of my body, but pressing upon me everywhere, not snatched swiftly off by loving hands, the pain assuaged by applications of soft soap and the blue bag, but left there, eating into my flesh and veins. And this continued for eternity. You suffered for an hour, a day, a thousand years, and were no nearer to the end; ten thousand, a million years, and yet, as at the very first, it was for ever, and for ever still it would always be for ever! I suffered also from insomnia about this period.

"Then be good," replied the foolish voices round me; "never do wrong, and so avoid this endless agony."

But it was so easy to do wrong. There were so many wrong things to do, and the doing of them was so natural.

"Then repent," said the voices, always ready.

But how did one repent? What was repentance? Did I "hate my sin," as I was instructed I must, or merely hate the idea of going to hell for it? Because the latter, even my child's sense told me, was no true repentance. Yet how could one know the difference?

Above all else there haunted me the fear of the "Unforgivable Sin."

What this was I was never able to discover. I dreaded to enquire too closely, lest I should find I had committed it. Day and night the terror of it clung to me.

"Believe," said the voices; "so only shall you be saved." How believe? How know you did believe? Hours would I kneel in the dark, repeating in a whispered scream:

"I believe, I believe. Oh, I do believe!" and then rise with white knuckles, wondering if I really did believe.

Another question rose to trouble me. In the course of my meanderings I had made the acquaintance of an old sailor, one of the most disreputable specimens possible to find; and had learned to love him.

Our first meeting had been outside a confectioner's window, in the Commercial Road, where he had discovered me standing, my nose against the glass, a mere palpitating Appetite on legs. He had seized me by the collar, and hauled me into the shop. There, dropping me upon a stool, he bade me eat. Pride of race prompted me politely to decline, but his language became so awful that in fear and trembling I obeyed.

同类推荐
  • 禅宗杂毒海

    禅宗杂毒海

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 宗宝道独禅师语录

    宗宝道独禅师语录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 断桥妙伦禅师语录

    断桥妙伦禅师语录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • Double Barrelled Detective

    Double Barrelled Detective

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 大方广佛花严经普贤菩萨行愿王品

    大方广佛花严经普贤菩萨行愿王品

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 决定一生健康的九型人格

    决定一生健康的九型人格

    有医学研究发现:从消化道溃疡、糖尿病到老年痴呆症,各种疾病都与性格特征存在着千丝万缕的联系。九型人格就是很好的一个性格分析工具,它通过分析人们行为背后的出发点,即基本欲望和基本恐惧,将所有的人划分为九种类型,其基本原理为:人与人是有差异的,有不同的原动力和价值观,也就有不同的行为表现,也就有不同的健康隐患。本书就将引导人们从九型人格的角度来分析自身性格容易引发的疾病,帮助人们通过性格来更好地祛除病痛,维护健康。
  • 非婚勿爱

    非婚勿爱

    明明一句“我喜欢你”就可以搞定的事情,江陌妍和林子初拖拖拉拉折腾了十五年。想要交付一生,对方却百般躲闪。五千四百七十五天,江陌妍终于决定握住别人的手。年少时期觉得早恋不现实,什么话都憋在心里可是目光里。十五年后,江陌妍却要跟着别的男人走了,难道还要盛装出席,只说一句祝你们幸福吗?
  • 大汉遗梦之未央浮沉

    大汉遗梦之未央浮沉

    刘邦死后,大汉王朝才算真正意义上的进入了和平的时期,天下大的战事基本结束。直到刘彻登基这数十年的时间中,统治阶级上层相继发生了吕雉擅权、诸吕乱政、铲除诸吕、文帝登基,以及后来波及天下的七国之乱等大事件。
  • 残酷王爷的弃妃(全本)

    残酷王爷的弃妃(全本)

    【古代情殇文】她本是他明媒正娶的王妃,大婚那夜他却当着众人的面要验她的身,她悲凉一笑,没想到自己的贞操不是由自己的夫君来验却是以这样屈辱的方式。也就在那一夜,她由王妃被贬为侍妾,他的美妾三千,却个个要致她于死地。可怜她腹中的骨肉却无辜被他认为是和别人珠胎暗结。他心爱的女子稍有偏差他便算在她头上,她何其无辜不过是一缕幽魂。他亲手将有毒的茶让她饮下只为了替他心爱的女子试药,不顾他在她体内种下的寒毒。而背后那绽开的一朵圣洁睡莲却是一道生死符,只为那残忍邪佞的男子致惑的恨意纠葛……
  • 快穿之逆天炮灰

    快穿之逆天炮灰

    乔秋:我的性别究竟是什么?季如枫:我也想知道我的性别究竟是什么?乔秋:兄弟,要怀疑人生么?季如枫:已经在怀疑了……
  • 何为何薇

    何为何薇

    林子为和何晓微二人是青梅竹马,从小到大,两人都是互相伤害,谁也不肯让谁。但是,大多数都是林子为欺负赢何晓微。何晓微十八岁,什么都变了……林子为露出本性了
  • 超级无敌系统

    超级无敌系统

    【新书,从召唤开始无敌全球】当李凌得到系统之后,以为自己会成为世界的‘主角’。可没想到,这片天地,并不仅仅一个系统。超级古武系统!超级机甲系统!超级恶魔系统!无数系统拥有者,在这片囚笼天地厮杀!蓦然回首,李凌已经站在神之颠峰,俯视这片天地。“吾之愿望,神州大地,人人如龙!”
  • 美人为馅纯白记徐司白

    美人为馅纯白记徐司白

    尊重原著是同人文写者的原则,想给徐司白一个温暖的结局。
  • 绝世鬼修

    绝世鬼修

    六道皆可修真,唯我鬼修独尊!冥界是死者的国度,这里有一望无际的荒野与黑暗浑浊的冥河,但却没有丝毫生气。这里没有草木,没有动物,有的只是躺在荒野之中,数之不尽的遗骸白骨,以及被冥河吞噬,不断挣扎,哭喊的死者亡魂。而我们的故事就是在这个死气森森的冥界开始的。
  • 恐怖森林

    恐怖森林

    五个青年相约去森林游玩,他们一连失踪了好多天,几天后,有一个青年回来了,由于他说话失常,不久便被送到了疯人院。警察陈枫奉命前往森林查案,随着案件一步步的进行,结果马上揭晓,陈枫能否逃出死亡森林,真相到底是什么,让我们一起看死亡森林。