Within the Tides: Tales. Джозеф Конрад
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Название: Within the Tides: Tales
Автор: Джозеф Конрад
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4057664645432
isbn:
“I have the less hesitation in speaking to you about my anxiety, because I feel you are friendly to us and at the same time you are detached from all these sublimities—confound them.”
“What do you mean?” murmured Renouard.
“I mean that you are capable of calm judgment. Here the atmosphere is simply detestable. Everybody has knuckled under to sentiment. Perhaps your deliberate opinion could influence …”
“You want Miss Moorsom to give it up?” The professor turned to the young man dismally.
“Heaven only knows what I want.”
Renouard leaning his back against the balustrade folded his arms on his breast, appeared to meditate profoundly. His face, shaded softly by the broad brim of a planter’s Panama hat, with the straight line of the nose level with the forehead, the eyes lost in the depth of the setting, and the chin well forward, had such a profile as may be seen amongst the bronzes of classical museums, pure under a crested helmet—recalled vaguely a Minerva’s head.
“This is the most troublesome time I ever had in my life,” exclaimed the professor testily.
“Surely the man must be worth it,” muttered Renouard with a pang of jealousy traversing his breast like a self-inflicted stab.
Whether enervated by the heat or giving way to pent up irritation the professor surrendered himself to the mood of sincerity.
“He began by being a pleasantly dull boy. He developed into a pointlessly clever young man, without, I suspect, ever trying to understand anything. My daughter knew him from childhood. I am a busy man, and I confess that their engagement was a complete surprise to me. I wish their reasons for that step had been more naïve. But simplicity was out of fashion in their set. From a worldly point of view he seems to have been a mere baby. Of course, now, I am assured that he is the victim of his noble confidence in the rectitude of his kind. But that’s mere idealising of a sad reality. For my part I will tell you that from the very beginning I had the gravest doubts of his dishonesty. Unfortunately my clever daughter hadn’t. And now we behold the reaction. No. To be earnestly dishonest one must be really poor. This was only a manifestation of his extremely refined cleverness. The complicated simpleton. He had an awful awakening though.”
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