Chapter III 第三章

The next day, in the afternoon, in the great grey suburb, he knew his long walk had tired him. In the dreadful cemetery alone he had been on his feet an hour. Instinctively, coming back, they had taken him a devious course, and it was a desert in which no circling cabman hovered over possible prey. Instintivamente, ao regressar, tinham-no levado por um caminho tortuoso, e era um deserto em que nenhum taxista circulante pairava sobre uma possível presa. He paused on a corner and measured the dreariness; then he made out through the gathered dusk that he was in one of those tracts of London which are less gloomy by night than by day, because, in the former case of the civil gift of light. Parou numa esquina e mediu a tristeza; depois, através do lusco-fusco, percebeu que estava numa daquelas zonas de Londres que são menos sombrias de noite do que de dia, porque, no primeiro caso, a luz é uma dádiva civil. By day there was nothing, but by night there were lamps, and George Stransom was in a mood that made lamps good in themselves. It wasn't that they could show him anything, it was only that they could burn clear. To his surprise, however, after a while, they did show him something: the arch of a high doorway approached by a low terrace of steps, in the depth of which - it formed a dim vestibule - the raising of a curtain at the moment he passed gave him a glimpse of an avenue of gloom with a glow of tapers at the end. Para sua surpresa, no entanto, passado algum tempo, mostraram-lhe algo: o arco de uma porta alta, aproximada por um terraço baixo de degraus, no fundo do qual - formava um vestíbulo sombrio - o levantar de uma cortina no momento em que ele passava deu-lhe um vislumbre de uma avenida sombria com um brilho de velas no final. He stopped and looked up, recognising the place as a church. The thought quickly came to him that since he was tired he might rest there; so that after a moment he had in turn pushed up the leathern curtain and gone in. Rapidamente lhe ocorreu a ideia de que, como estava cansado, poderia descansar ali; assim, passado um momento, empurrou a cortina de couro e entrou. It was a temple of the old persuasion, and there had evidently been a function - perhaps a service for the dead; the high altar was still a blaze of candles. This was an exhibition he always liked, and he dropped into a seat with relief. More than it had ever yet come home to him it struck him as good there should be churches.

This one was almost empty and the other altars were dim; a verger shuffled about, an old woman coughed, but it seemed to Stransom there was hospitality in the thick sweet air. Este estava quase vazio e os outros altares estavam sombrios; um sacristão andava de um lado para o outro, uma velhota tossia, mas parecia a Stransom que havia hospitalidade no ar denso e doce. Was it only the savour of the incense or was it something of larger intention? He had at any rate quitted the great grey suburb and come nearer to the warm centre. He presently ceased to feel intrusive, gaining at last even a sense of community with the only worshipper in his neighbourhood, the sombre presence of a woman, in mourning unrelieved, whose back was all he could see of her and who had sunk deep into prayer at no great distance from him. Pouco a pouco, deixou de se sentir intrometido, ganhando, por fim, um sentido de comunidade com o único fiel da sua vizinhança, a presença sombria de uma mulher, de luto não aliviado, cujas costas eram tudo o que ele conseguia ver e que se tinha afundado em oração a uma distância não muito grande dele. He wished he could sink, like her, to the very bottom, be as motionless, as rapt in prostration. Ele desejava afundar-se, como ela, até ao fundo, ficar tão imóvel, tão extasiado na prostração. After a few moments he shifted his seat; it was almost indelicate to be so aware of her. Passados alguns instantes, mudou de lugar; era quase indelicado estar tão atento a ela. But Stransom subsequently quite lost himself, floating away on the sea of light. If occasions like this had been more frequent in his life he would have had more present the great original type, set up in a myriad temples, of the unapproachable shrine he had erected in his mind. Se ocasiões como esta tivessem sido mais frequentes na sua vida, ele teria tido mais presente o grande tipo original, montado numa miríade de templos, do santuário inatingível que tinha erigido na sua mente. That shrine had begun in vague likeness to church pomps, but the echo had ended by growing more distinct than the sound. Aquele santuário tinha começado com uma vaga semelhança com as pompas da igreja, mas o eco tinha acabado por se tornar mais distinto do que o som. The sound now rang out, the type blazed at him with all its fires and with a mystery of radiance in which endless meanings could glow. O som soou agora, o tipo fulgurou para ele com todos os seus fogos e com um mistério de brilho em que podiam brilhar infinitos significados. The thing became as he sat there his appropriate altar and each starry candle an appropriate vow. A coisa tornou-se, enquanto ele se sentava ali, o seu altar apropriado e cada vela estrelada um voto apropriado. He numbered them, named them, grouped them - it was the silent roll-call of his Dead. Numerou-os, deu-lhes nomes, agrupou-os - era a lista silenciosa dos seus mortos. They made together a brightness vast and intense, a brightness in which the mere chapel of his thoughts grew so dim that as it faded away he asked himself if he shouldn't find his real comfort in some material act, some outward worship. Criavam juntos um brilho vasto e intenso, um brilho em que a mera capela dos seus pensamentos se tornava tão fraca que, à medida que se desvanecia, ele perguntava a si próprio se não deveria encontrar o seu verdadeiro conforto nalgum ato material, nalgum culto exterior. This idea took possession of him while, at a distance, the black-robed lady continued prostrate; he was quietly thrilled with his conception, which at last brought him to his feet in the sudden excitement of a plan. He wandered softly through the aisles, pausing in the different chapels, all save one applied to a special devotion. It was in this clear recess, lampless and unapplied, that he stood longest - the length of time it took him fully to grasp the conception of gilding it with his bounty. Foi neste recesso claro, sem lâmina e sem aplicação, que ele permaneceu mais tempo - o tempo que levou para entender completamente a conceção de dourá-lo com sua generosidade. He should snatch it from no other rites and associate it with nothing profane; he would simply take it as it should be given up to him and make it a masterpiece of splendour and a mountain of fire. Tended sacredly all the year, with the sanctifying church round it, it would always be ready for his offices. Cuidada sagradamente durante todo o ano, com a igreja santificadora à sua volta, estaria sempre pronta para os seus ofícios. There would be difficulties, but from the first they presented themselves only as difficulties surmounted. Even for a person so little affiliated the thing would be a matter of arrangement. Mesmo para uma pessoa tão pouco afiliada, a coisa seria uma questão de arranjo. He saw it all in advance, and how bright in especial the place would become to him in the intermissions of toil and the dusk of afternoons; how rich in assurance at all times, but especially in the indifferent world. Viu tudo de antemão, e como o lugar se tornaria especialmente luminoso para ele nos intervalos da labuta e no crepúsculo das tardes; como seria rico em segurança em todos os momentos, mas especialmente no mundo indiferente. Before withdrawing he drew nearer again to the spot where he had first sat down, and in the movement he met the lady whom he had seen praying and who was now on her way to the door. She passed him quickly, and he had only a glimpse of her pale face and her unconscious, almost sightless eyes. For that instant she looked faded and handsome. Naquele instante, ela parecia desbotada e bonita.

This was the origin of the rites more public, yet certainly esoteric, that he at last found himself able to establish. It took a long time, it took a year, and both the process and the result would have been - for any who knew - a vivid picture of his good faith. No one did know, in fact - no one but the bland ecclesiastics whose acquaintance he had promptly sought, whose objections he had softly overridden, whose curiosity and sympathy he had artfully charmed, whose assent to his eccentric munificence he had eventually won, and who had asked for concessions in exchange for indulgences. Stransom had of course at an early stage of his enquiry been referred to the Bishop, and the Bishop had been delightfully human, the Bishop had been almost amused. Stransom tinha, naturalmente, numa fase inicial do seu inquérito, sido remetido para o Bispo, e o Bispo tinha sido deliciosamente humano, o Bispo quase se tinha divertido. Success was within sight, at any rate from the moment the attitude of those whom it concerned became liberal in response to liberality. The altar and the sacred shell that half encircled it, consecrated to an ostensible and customary worship, were to be splendidly maintained; all that Stransom reserved to himself was the number of his lights and the free enjoyment of his intention. O altar e a concha sagrada que o circundava, consagrados a um culto ostensivo e habitual, deviam ser esplendidamente mantidos; tudo o que Stransom reservava para si próprio era o número das suas luzes e o livre gozo da sua intenção. When the intention had taken complete effect the enjoyment became even greater than he had ventured to hope. He liked to think of this effect when far from it, liked to convince himself of it yet again when near. He was not often indeed so near as that a visit to it hadn't perforce something of the patience of a pilgrimage; but the time he gave to his devotion came to seem to him more a contribution to his other interests than a betrayal of them. Even a loaded life might be easier when one had added a new necessity to it. Mesmo uma vida carregada pode ser mais fácil quando se lhe acrescenta uma nova necessidade.

How much easier was probably never guessed by those who simply knew there were hours when he disappeared and for many of whom there was a vulgar reading of what they used to call his plunges. O quão mais fácil era provavelmente nunca foi adivinhado por aqueles que simplesmente sabiam que havia horas em que ele desaparecia e para muitos dos quais havia uma leitura vulgar do que costumavam chamar os seus mergulhos. These plunges were into depths quieter than the deep sea-caves, and the habit had at the end of a year or two become the one it would have cost him most to relinquish. Now they had really, his Dead, something that was indefensibly theirs; and he liked to think that they might in cases be the Dead of others, as well as that the Dead of others might be invoked there under the protection of what he had done. Whoever bent a knee on the carpet he had laid down appeared to him to act in the spirit of his intention. Quem se ajoelhava no tapete que ele tinha estendido, parecia-lhe estar a agir no espírito da sua intenção. Each of his lights had a name for him, and from time to time a new light was kindled. This was what he had fundamentally agreed for, that there should always be room for them all. What those who passed or lingered saw was simply the most resplendent of the altars called suddenly into vivid usefulness, with a quiet elderly man, for whom it evidently had a fascination, often seated there in a maze or a doze; but half the satisfaction of the spot for this mysterious and fitful worshipper was that he found the years of his life there, and the ties, the affections, the struggles, the submissions, the conquests, if there had been such, a record of that adventurous journey in which the beginnings and the endings of human relations are the lettered mile-stones. He had in general little taste for the past as a part of his own history; at other times and in other places it mostly seemed to him pitiful to consider and impossible to repair; but on these occasions he accepted it with something of that positive gladness with which one adjusts one's self to an ache that begins to succumb to treatment. De um modo geral, tinha pouco gosto pelo passado como parte da sua própria história; noutros tempos e noutros lugares, parecia-lhe, na maior parte das vezes, lamentável de considerar e impossível de reparar; mas, nestas ocasiões, aceitava-o com algo daquela alegria positiva com que nos ajustamos a uma dor que começa a sucumbir ao tratamento. To the treatment of time the malady of life begins at a given moment to succumb; and these were doubtless the hours at which that truth most came home to him. The day was written for him there on which he had first become acquainted with death, and the successive phases of the acquaintance were marked each with a flame.

The flames were gathering thick at present, for Stransom had entered that dark defile of our earthly descent in which some one dies every day. It was only yesterday that Kate Creston had flashed out her white fire; yet already there were younger stars ablaze on the tips of the tapers. Foi apenas ontem que Kate Creston acendeu o seu fogo branco; no entanto, já havia estrelas mais jovens a arder nas pontas dos círios. Various persons in whom his interest had not been intense drew closer to him by entering this company. He went over it, head by head, till he felt like the shepherd of a huddled flock, with all a shepherd's vision of differences imperceptible. Percorreu-a, cabeça a cabeça, até se sentir como o pastor de um rebanho amontoado, com toda a visão de pastor das diferenças imperceptíveis. He knew his candles apart, up to the colour of the flame, and would still have known them had their positions all been changed. To other imaginations they might stand for other things - that they should stand for something to be hushed before was all he desired; but he was intensely conscious of the personal note of each and of the distinguishable way it contributed to the concert. There were hours at which he almost caught himself wishing that certain of his friends would now die, that he might establish with them in this manner a connexion more charming than, as it happened, it was possible to enjoy with them in life. In regard to those from whom one was separated by the long curves of the globe such a connexion could only be an improvement: it brought them instantly within reach. Em relação àqueles de quem se estava separado pelas longas curvas do globo, tal ligação só podia ser uma melhoria: colocava-os instantaneamente ao nosso alcance. Of course there were gaps in the constellation, for Stransom knew he could only pretend to act for his own, and it wasn't every figure passing before his eyes into the great obscure that was entitled to a memorial. There was a strange sanctification in death, but some characters were more sanctified by being forgotten than by being remembered. The greatest blank in the shining page was the memory of Acton Hague, of which he inveterately tried to rid himself. O maior vazio na página brilhante era a recordação de Acton Hague, da qual tentava inveteradamente livrar-se. For Acton Hague no flame could ever rise on any altar of his.