Nobody

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Susan Warner

Жанр

Зарубежная классика

Год написания книги

2017

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"Philip Dillwyn!" said the other, turning. "Philip! Where did you comefrom? What a lucky turn-up! That I should find you here!"

"I found you, man. Where have you come from?"

"O, from everywhere."

"Are you alone? Where are your people?"

"O, Julia and Lenox are gone home. Mamma and I are here yet. I leftmamma in a pension in Switzerland, where I could not hold it out anylonger; and I have been wandering about – Florence, and Pisa, and Idon't know all – till now I have brought up in Venice. It is so jolly toget you!"

"What are you doing here?"

"Nothing."

"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing. O, I have done everything, you know. There is nothing left toa fellow."

"That sounds hopeless," said Dillwyn, laughing.

"It is hopeless. Really I don't see, sometimes, what a fellow's life isgood for. I believe the people who have to work for it, have after allthe best time!"

"They work to live," said the other.

"I suppose they do."

"Therefore you are going round in a circle. If life is worth nothing, why should one work to keep it up?"

"Well, what is it worth, Dillwyn? Upon my word, I have never made itout satisfactorily."

"Look here – we cannot talk in this place. Have you ever been to

Torcello?"

"No."

"Suppose we take a gondola and go?"

"Now? What is there?"

"An old church."

"There are old churches all over. The thing is to find a new one."

"You prefer the new ones?"

"Just for the rarity," said Tom, smiling.

"I do not believe you have studied the old ones yet. Do you know themosaics in St. Mark's?"

"I never study mosaics."

"And I'll wager you have not seen the Tintorets in the Palace of the

Doges?"

"There are Tintorets all over!" said Tom, shrugging his shoulderswearily.

"Then have you seen Murano?"

"The glass-works, yes."

"I do not mean the glass-works. Come along – anywhere in a gondola willdo, such an evening as this; and we can talk comfortably. You need notlook at anything."

They entered a gondola, and were presently gliding smoothly over thecoloured waters of the lagoon; shining with richer sky reflections thanany mortal painter could put on canvas. Not long in silence.

"Where have you been, Tom, all this while?"

"I told you, everywhere!" said Tom, with another shrug of hisshoulders. "The one thing one comes abroad for, you know, is to runaway from the winter; so we have been doing that, as long as there wasany winter to run from, and since then we have been running away fromthe summer. Let me see – we came over in November, didn't we? orDecember; we went to Rome as fast as we could. There was very goodsociety in Rome last winter. Then, as spring came on, we coasted downto Naples and Palermo. We staid at Palermo a while. From there we wentback to England; and from England we came to Switzerland. And there wehave been till I couldn't stand Switzerland any longer; and I bolted."

"Palermo isn't a bad place to spend a while in."

"No; – but Sicily is stupid generally. It's all ridiculous, Philip.

Except for the name of the thing, one can get just as good nearer home.

I could get better sport at Appledore last summer, than in any place

I've been at in Europe."

"Ah! Appledore," said Philip slowly, and dipping his hand in the water.

"I surmise the society also was good there?"

"Would have been," Tom returned discontentedly, "if there had not beena little too much of it."

"Too much of it!"

"Yes. I couldn't stir without two or three at my heels. It's very kind, you know; but it rather hampers a fellow."

"Miss Lothrop was there, wasn't she?"

"Of course she was! That made all the trouble."

"And all the sport too; hey, Tom? Things usually are two-sided in thisworld."

"She made no trouble. It was my mother and sister. They were so awfullyafraid of her. And they drilled George in; so among them they were toomany for me. But I think Appledore is the nicest place I know."

"You might buy one of the islands – a little money would do it – build alodge, and have your Europe always at hand; when the winter is gone, asyou say. Even the winter you might manage to live through, if you couldsecure the right sort of society. Hey, Tom? Isn't that an idea? Iwonder it never occurred to you. I think one might bid defiance to theworld, if one were settled at the Isles of Shoals."