W. Somerset Maugham
I was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him. The war had just finished and the passenger traffic in the ocean going liners was heavy. Accommodation was very hard to get and you had to put up with whatever the agents chose to offer you. You could not hope for a cabin to yourself and I was thankful to be given one in which there were only two berths. But when I was told the name of my companion my heart sank. It suggested closed portholes and the night air rigidly excluded. It was bad enough to share a cabin for fourteen days with anyone (I was going from San Francisco to Yokohama), but I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow passenger's name had been Smith or Brown.
When I went on board I found Mr. Kelada's luggage already below. I did not like the look of it; there were too many labels on the suitcases, and the wardrobe trunk was too big. He had unpacked his toilet things, and I observed that he was a patron of the excellent Monsieur Coty; for I saw on the washing-stand his scent, his hairwash and his brilliantine.
Mr. Kelada's brushes, ebony with his monogram in gold, would have been all the better for a scrub. I did not at all like Mr. Kelada. I made my way into the smoking-room. I called for a pack of cards and began to play patience.
I had scarcely started before a man came up to me and asked me if he was right in thinking my name was so and so.
"I am Mr. Kelada," he added, with a smile that showed a row of flashing teeth, and sat down.
"Oh, yes, we're sharing a cabin, I think."
"Bit of luck, I call it. You never know who you're going to be put in with. I was jolly glad when I heard you were English. I'm all for us English sticking together when we're abroad, if you understand what I mean."
I blinked.
"Are you English?" I asked, perhaps tactlessly.
"Rather. You don't think I look like an American, do you? British to the backbone, that's what I am."
To prove it, Mr. Kelada took out of his pocket a passport and airily waved it under my nose.
King George
has many strange subjects. Mr. Kelada was short and of a sturdy build, clean-shaven and dark skinned, with a fleshy, hooked nose and very large lustrous and liquid eyes. His long black hair was sleek and curly. He spoke with a fluency in which there was nothing English and his gestures were exuberant. I felt pretty sure that a closer inspection of that British passport would have betrayed the fact that Mr. Kelada was born under a bluer sky than is generally seen in England.
"What will you have?" he asked me.
I looked at him doubtfully. Prohibition was in force and to all appearances the ship was bone dry. When I am not thirsty I do not know which I dislike more, ginger ale or lemon squash. But Mr. Kelada flashed an oriental smile at me.
"Whisky and soda or a dry martini, you have only to say the word."
From each of his hip pockets he furnished a flask and laid it on the table before me. I chose the martini, and calling the steward he ordered a tumbler of ice and a couple of glasses.
"A very good cocktail," I said.
"Well, there are plenty more where that came from, and if you've got any friends on board, you tell them you've got a pal who's got all the liquor in the world."
Mr. Kelada was chatty. He talked of New York and of San Francisco. He discussed plays, pictures, and politics. He was patriotic. The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel that it loses somewhat in dignity. Mr. Kelada was familiar. I do not wish to put on airs, but I cannot help feeling that it is seemly in a total stranger to put mister before my name when he addresses me. Mr. Kelada, doubtless to set me at my ease, used no such formality. I did not like Mr. Kelada. I had put aside the cards when he sat down, but now, thinking that for this first occasion our conversation had lasted long enough, I went on with my game.
"The three on the four," said Mr. Kelada.
There is nothing more exasperating when you are playing patience than to be told where to put the card you have turned up before you have a chance to look for yourself.
"It's coming out, it's coming out," he cried. "The ten on the knave."
With rage and hatred in my heart I finished.
Then he seized the pack.
"Do you like card tricks?"
"No, I hate card tricks," I answered.
"Well, I'll just show you this one."
He showed me three. Then I said I would go down to the dining-room and get my seat at the table.
"Oh, that's all right," he said, "I've already taken a seat for you. I thought that as we were in the same stateroom we might just as well sit at the same table."
I did not like Mr. Kelada.
I not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table, but I could not walk round the deck without his joining me. It was impossible to snub him. It never occurred to him that he was not wanted. He was certain that you were as glad to see him as he was to see you. In your own house you might have kicked him downstairs and slammed the door in his face without the suspicion dawning on him that he was not a welcome visitor. He was a good mixer, and in three days knew everyone on board. He ran everything. He managed the sweeps, conducted the auctions, collected money for prizes at the sports, got up quoit and golf matches, organized the concert and arranged the fancy-dress ball. He was everywhere and always. He was certainly the best hated man in the ship. We called him Mr. Know-All, even to his face. He took it as a compliment. But it was at mealtimes that he was most intolerable. For the better part of an hour then he had us at his mercy. He was hearty, jovial, loquacious and argumentative. He knew everything better than anybody else, and it was an affront to his overweening vanity that you should disagree with him. He would not drop a subject, however unimportant, till he had brought you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred to him. He was the chap who knew. We sat at the doctor's table. Mr. Kelada would certainly have had it all his own way, for the doctor was lazy and I was frigidly indifferent, except for a man called Ramsay who sat there also. He was as dogmatic as Mr. Kelada and resented bitterly the Levantine's cocksureness. The discussions they had were acrimonious and interminable.
Ramsay was in the American Consular Service and was stationed at Kobe. He was a great heavy fellow from the Middle West, with loose fat under a tight skin, and he bulged out of his ready-made clothes. He was on his way back to resume his post, having been on a flying visit to New York to fetch his wife who had been spending a year at home. Mrs. Ramsay was a very pretty little thing, with pleasant manners and a sense of humor. The Consular Service is ill paid, and she was dressed always very simply; but she knew how to wear her clothes. She achieved an effect of quiet distinction. I should not have paid any particular attention to her but that she possessed a quality that may be common enough in women, but nowadays is not obvious in their demeanour. It shone in her like a flower on a coat.
One evening at dinner the conversation by chance drifted to the subject of pearls. There had been in the papers a good deal of talk about the cultured pearls which the cunning Japanese were making, and the doctor remarked that they must inevitably diminish the value of real ones. They were very good already; they would soon be perfect. Mr. Kelada, as was his habit, rushed the new topic. He told us all that was to be known about pearls. I do not believe Ramsay knew anything about them at all, but he could not resist the opportunity to have a fling at the Levantine, and in five minutes we were in the middle of a heated argument. I had seen Mr. Kelada vehement and voluble before, but never so voluble and vehement as now. At last something that Ramsay said stung him, for he thumped the table and shouted.
"Well, I ought to know what I am talking about, I'm going to Japan just to look into this Japanese pearl business. I'm in the trade and there's not a man in it who won't tell you that what I say about pearls goes. I know all the best pearls in the world, and what I don't know about pearls isn't worth knowing."
Here was news for us, for Mr. Kelada, with all his loquacity, had never told anyone what his business was. We only knew vaguely that he was going to Japan on some commercial errand. He looked around the table triumphantly.
"They'll never be able to get a cultured pearl that an expert like me can't tell with half an eye." He pointed to a chain that Mrs. Ramsay wore. "You take my word for it, Mrs. Ramsay, that chain you're wearing will never be worth a cent less than it is now."
Mrs. Ramsay in her modest way flushed a little and slipped the chain inside her dress. Ramsay leaned forward. He gave us all a look and a smile flickered in his eyes.
"That's a pretty chain of Mrs. Ramsay's, isn't it?"
"I noticed it at once," answered Mr. Kelada. "Gee, I said to myself, those are pearls all right."
"I didn't buy it myself, of course. I'd be interested to know how much you think it cost."
"Oh, in the trade somewhere round fifteen thousand dollars. But if it was bought on Fifth Avenue I shouldn't be surprised to hear anything up to thirty thousand was paid for it."
Ramsay smiled grimly.
"You'll be surprised to hear that Mrs. Ramsay bought that string at a department store the day before we left New York, for eighteen dollars."
Mr. Kelada flushed.
"Rot. It's not only real, but it's as fine a string for its size as I've ever seen."
"Will you bet on it? I'll bet you a hundred dollars it's imitation."
"Done."
"Oh, Elmer, you can't bet on a certainty," said Mrs. Ramsay.
She had a little smile on her lips and her tone was gently deprecating.
"Can't I? If I get a chance of easy money like that I should be all sorts of a fool not
Maugham โรงฝั่งตะวันตกฉันถูกเตรียมชิงชัง Kelada สูงสุดก่อนที่รู้ว่าเขา สงครามได้เสร็จสิ้นเพียง และโดยสารในมหาสมุทรไปอนามัยถูกหนัก สถานที่พักได้ยากมากที่จะได้รับ และก็ต้องทนกับสิ่งตัวแทนเลือกให้คุณ คุณไม่อาจหวังสำหรับห้องโดยสารกับตัวเอง และผมขอบคุณได้รับหนึ่งที่มีเพียงสองท่า แต่เมื่อฉันได้บอกชื่อของเพื่อนของฉัน หัวใจจม แนะนำนาซา portholes เกี่ยวกับปิดและอากาศคืน rigidly แยก มันไม่ดีพอร่วมกระท่อมวันสิบสี่กับใคร (ผมไปจาก San Francisco โย), แต่ฉันควรมองไว้กับกังวลน้อยถ้าชื่อของผู้โดยสารของฉันเพื่อนได้สมิธหรือสีน้ำตาลเมื่อฉันเดินบนเรือ พบนาย Kelada กระเป๋าด้านล่างแล้ว ไม่ได้ไม่ชอบหน้าตาของมัน มีป้ายชื่อมากเกินไปในการนำกระเป๋าเดินทาง และลำต้นมีขนาดใหญ่ เขาได้แยกกิจกรรมในห้องน้ำของเขา และผมสังเกตว่า เขาเป็นสมาชิกของ Monsieur Coty ดี สำหรับผมเห็นบนยืนซักผ้ากลิ่นของเขา ของเขา hairwash และ brilliantine ของเขานาย Kelada แปรง เอโบนีกับ monogram ของเขาในทอง มีทั้งหมดไปขัด ผมไม่ได้ชอบนาย Kelada ผมทำวิธีของฉันเป็น smoking-room เรียกชุดของบัตร และเริ่มเล่นทนผมแทบได้เริ่มก่อนคนมาให้ฉัน และถามฉันถ้าเขาอยู่ในความคิด ของฉันชื่อได้ และให้"ฉันเป็นนาย Kelada เขาเพิ่ม มีรอยยิ้มที่พบแถวฟันกะพริบ และนั่งลง"โอ้ ใช่ เรากำลังร่วมกันกระท่อม คิด""โชคดีมาก ฉันเรียก คุณไม่เคยรู้ที่คุณกำลังจะย้ายด้วย ผมดีใจร่าเริงเมื่อผมได้ยินคุณได้ภาษาอังกฤษ ฉันทั้งหมดสำหรับเราภาษาอังกฤษติดกันเมื่อเราต่างประเทศ ถ้าคุณเข้าใจไง "ผมคันนั้นกะพริบ"คุณใจภาษาอังกฤษ" ถาม ที tactlessly"แต่ คุณอย่าคิดว่า ฉันเหมือนชาวอเมริกัน คุณ ภาษาอังกฤษแกนหลัก เป็นสิ่งที่ฉัน"พิสูจน์ นาย Kelada เอาออกจากกระเป๋าของเขาหนังสือเดินทาง และ waved ข้างใต้จมูกของฉันกษัตริย์จอร์จมีเรื่องแปลกมาก นาย Kelada สั้น และของก่อสร้างที่ทนทาน clean-shaven และมืด แม้ จมูก fleshy ติดยาเสพติดและตาษะ และของเหลวที่มีขนาดใหญ่มาก ผมดำยาวของเขาเป็นเงา และหยิก เขาพูดกับแคล่วที่ซึ่งไม่มีอะไรภาษาอังกฤษ และรูปแบบลายเส้นของเขามีแห่งความสนุกสนานรื่นเริง ผมรู้สึกรักที่ทัวร์หนังสือที่อังกฤษจะได้ทรยศต่อความจริงที่ว่านาย Kelada เกิดภายใต้ท้องฟ้าที่ bluer กว่าจะเห็นโดยทั่วไปในอังกฤษ"อะไรจะมีไหม" เขาถามผมฉันมองเขา doubtfully Prohibition ถูกบังคับ และการนัดทั้งหมด เรือเป็นกระดูกแห้ง เมื่อฉันไม่กระหายน้ำ ฉันไม่รู้ ที่แนะนำเพิ่มเติม น้ำขิง หรือมะนาวสควอช แต่นาย Kelada ถ่ายยิ้มโอเรียนเต็ลที่ผม"วิสกี้ และโซดา หรือดรายมาร์ตินี่ ได้เท่าคำ"จากกระเป๋าของเขาฮิ เขาตกแต่งเป็นหนาว และวางบนโต๊ะก่อนฉัน ผมเลือกมาร์ตินี่ และเขาเรียก steward ที่สั่งจอกน้ำแข็งและคู่ของแว่นตา"ดีค็อกเทล ผมพูด"ดี มีสิ่งที่ที่มาจาก และถ้าคุณได้มีเพื่อนบนเรือ คุณบอกพวกเขาได้พาลที่มีเหล้าทั้งหมดในโลก"นาย Kelada chatty ได้ เขาพูด ของนิวยอร์ก และ San Francisco เขากล่าวถึงบทละคร รูปภาพ และการเมือง เขารักชาติ ธงเป็นประทับใจของผ้าม่าน แต่เมื่อมันเป็นความเจริญรุ่งเรือง โดยสุภาพบุรุษจาก Alexandria หรือเบรุต ฉันไม่ ได้รู้สึกสูญเสียค่อนข้างในศักดิ์ศรี นาย Kelada เพราะเคย ฉันไม่ต้องการวางท่า แต่ฉันไม่สามารถช่วยให้รู้สึกว่า มันเป็น seemly ในคนแปลกหน้ารวมให้มิสเตอร์ก่อนชื่อของฉันเมื่อเขาอยู่ฉัน นาย Kelada อย่างไม่ต้องสงสัยการตั้งฉันที่ฉันง่าย ใช้ระดับดังกล่าวไม่ ผมไม่ได้ชอบนาย Kelada ฉันได้วางเฉยบัตร เมื่อเขานั่งลง ตอนนี้ คิดว่า สำหรับครั้งแรกนี้ สนทนาของเราก็กินเวลานานพอ ฉันไปกับเกมของฉัน"สามในสี่ กล่าวว่า นาย Keladaมีสิ่งใดที่หมาไม่แดกมากขึ้นเมื่อคุณกำลังเล่นทนกว่าเพื่อสามารถบอกตำแหน่งที่จะวางไพ่คุณได้เปิดก่อนคุณมีโอกาสที่จะค้นหาตัวเอง"ทิฟ ออก เป็นมา" เขาก็ร้อง "สิบบน knave"ความโกรธและความเกลียดชังในหัวใจของฉันฉันเสร็จแล้ว เขายึดในแพ็ค"ทำไหมบัตรเทคนิค""ไม่ ฉันเกลียดเทคนิคบัตร ฉันตอบ"ดี ฉันจะเพียงแสดงนี้"เขาแสดงให้ฉันเห็นสาม แล้ว ผมว่า จะไปลงไปห้องครัว และรับของฉันนั่งที่ตาราง"โอ้ นั่นคือ," เขากล่าวว่า "ฉันได้แล้วนั่งสำหรับคุณ คิดว่า ขณะที่เราอยู่รวมกัน เราอาจเพียงเช่นนั่งในตารางเดียวกัน"ผมไม่ได้ชอบนาย KeladaI not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table, but I could not walk round the deck without his joining me. It was impossible to snub him. It never occurred to him that he was not wanted. He was certain that you were as glad to see him as he was to see you. In your own house you might have kicked him downstairs and slammed the door in his face without the suspicion dawning on him that he was not a welcome visitor. He was a good mixer, and in three days knew everyone on board. He ran everything. He managed the sweeps, conducted the auctions, collected money for prizes at the sports, got up quoit and golf matches, organized the concert and arranged the fancy-dress ball. He was everywhere and always. He was certainly the best hated man in the ship. We called him Mr. Know-All, even to his face. He took it as a compliment. But it was at mealtimes that he was most intolerable. For the better part of an hour then he had us at his mercy. He was hearty, jovial, loquacious and argumentative. He knew everything better than anybody else, and it was an affront to his overweening vanity that you should disagree with him. He would not drop a subject, however unimportant, till he had brought you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred to him. He was the chap who knew. We sat at the doctor's table. Mr. Kelada would certainly have had it all his own way, for the doctor was lazy and I was frigidly indifferent, except for a man called Ramsay who sat there also. He was as dogmatic as Mr. Kelada and resented bitterly the Levantine's cocksureness. The discussions they had were acrimonious and interminable.Ramsay was in the American Consular Service and was stationed at Kobe. He was a great heavy fellow from the Middle West, with loose fat under a tight skin, and he bulged out of his ready-made clothes. He was on his way back to resume his post, having been on a flying visit to New York to fetch his wife who had been spending a year at home. Mrs. Ramsay was a very pretty little thing, with pleasant manners and a sense of humor. The Consular Service is ill paid, and she was dressed always very simply; but she knew how to wear her clothes. She achieved an effect of quiet distinction. I should not have paid any particular attention to her but that she possessed a quality that may be common enough in women, but nowadays is not obvious in their demeanour. It shone in her like a flower on a coat.One evening at dinner the conversation by chance drifted to the subject of pearls. There had been in the papers a good deal of talk about the cultured pearls which the cunning Japanese were making, and the doctor remarked that they must inevitably diminish the value of real ones. They were very good already; they would soon be perfect. Mr. Kelada, as was his habit, rushed the new topic. He told us all that was to be known about pearls. I do not believe Ramsay knew anything about them at all, but he could not resist the opportunity to have a fling at the Levantine, and in five minutes we were in the middle of a heated argument. I had seen Mr. Kelada vehement and voluble before, but never so voluble and vehement as now. At last something that Ramsay said stung him, for he thumped the table and shouted.
"Well, I ought to know what I am talking about, I'm going to Japan just to look into this Japanese pearl business. I'm in the trade and there's not a man in it who won't tell you that what I say about pearls goes. I know all the best pearls in the world, and what I don't know about pearls isn't worth knowing."
Here was news for us, for Mr. Kelada, with all his loquacity, had never told anyone what his business was. We only knew vaguely that he was going to Japan on some commercial errand. He looked around the table triumphantly.
"They'll never be able to get a cultured pearl that an expert like me can't tell with half an eye." He pointed to a chain that Mrs. Ramsay wore. "You take my word for it, Mrs. Ramsay, that chain you're wearing will never be worth a cent less than it is now."
Mrs. Ramsay in her modest way flushed a little and slipped the chain inside her dress. Ramsay leaned forward. He gave us all a look and a smile flickered in his eyes.
"That's a pretty chain of Mrs. Ramsay's, isn't it?"
"I noticed it at once," answered Mr. Kelada. "Gee, I said to myself, those are pearls all right."
"I didn't buy it myself, of course. I'd be interested to know how much you think it cost."
"Oh, in the trade somewhere round fifteen thousand dollars. But if it was bought on Fifth Avenue I shouldn't be surprised to hear anything up to thirty thousand was paid for it."
Ramsay smiled grimly.
"You'll be surprised to hear that Mrs. Ramsay bought that string at a department store the day before we left New York, for eighteen dollars."
Mr. Kelada flushed.
"Rot. It's not only real, but it's as fine a string for its size as I've ever seen."
"Will you bet on it? I'll bet you a hundred dollars it's imitation."
"Done."
"Oh, Elmer, you can't bet on a certainty," said Mrs. Ramsay.
She had a little smile on her lips and her tone was gently deprecating.
"Can't I? If I get a chance of easy money like that I should be all sorts of a fool not
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..
