警察与赞美诗（英文版）
2008-01-26 15:26阅读：
The Cop And The Anthem(O.
Henry)
On his bench in Madison Square Soapy moved
uneasily. When wild geese honk high of nights, and when women
without sealskin coats grow kind to their husbands, and when Soapy
moves uneasily on his bench in the park, you may know that winter
is near at hand.
A dead leaf fell in Soapy's lap. That was Jack
Frost's card. Jack is kind to the regular denizens of Madison
Square, and gives fair warning of his annual call. At the corners
of four streets he hands his pasteboard to the North Wind, footman
of the mansion of All Outdoors, so that the inhabitants thereof may
make ready.
Soapy's mind became cognisant of the fact that
the time had come for him to resolve himself into a singular
Committee of Ways and Means to provide against the coming rigour.
And therefore
he moved uneasily on his bench.
The hibernatorial ambitions of Soapy were not
of the highest. In them there were no considerations of
Mediterranean cruises, of soporific Southern skies drifting in the
Vesuvian Bay. Three months on the Island was what his soul craved.
Three months of assured board and bed and congenial company, safe
from Boreas and bluecoats, seemed to Soapy the essence of things
desirable.
For years the hospitable Blackwell's had been
his winter quarters. Just as his more fortunate fellow New Yorkers
had bought their tickets to Palm Beach and the Riviera each winter,
so Soapy had made his humble arrangements for his annual hegira to
the Island. And now the time was come. On the previous night three
Sabbath newspapers, distributed beneath his coat, about his ankles
and over his lap, had failed to repulse the cold as he slept on his
bench near the spurting fountain in the ancient square. So the
Island loomed big and timely in Soapy's mind. He scorned the
provisions made in the name of charity for the city's dependents.
In Soapy's opinion the Law was more benign than Philanthropy. There
was an endless round of institutions, municipal and eleemosynary,
on which he might set out and receive lodging and food accordant
with the simple life. But to one of Soapy's proud spirit the gifts
of charity are encumbered. If not in coin you must pay in
humiliation of spirit for every benefit received at the hands of
philanthropy. As Caesar had his Brutus, every bed of charity must
have its toll of a bath, every loaf of bread its compensation of a
private and personal inquisition. Wherefore it is better to be a
guest of the law, which though conducted by rules, does not meddle
unduly with a gentleman's private affairs.
Soapy, having decided to go to the Island, at
once set about accomplishing his desire. There were many easy ways
of doing this. The pleasantest was to dine luxuriously at some
expensive restaurant; and then, after declaring insolvency, be
handed over quietly and without uproar to a policeman. An
accommodating magistrate would do the rest.
Soapy left his bench and strolled out of the
square and across the level sea of asphalt, where Broadway and
Fifth Avenue flow together. Up Broadway he turned, and halted at a
glittering cafe, where are gathered together nightly the choicest
products of the grape, the silkworm and the protoplasm.
Soapy had confidence in himself from the
lowest button of his vest upward. He was shaven, and his coat was
decent and his neat black, ready-tied four-in-hand had been
presented to him by a lady missionary on Thanksgiving Day. If he
could reach a table in the restaurant unsuspected success would be
his. The portion of him that would show above the table would raise
no doubt in the waiter's mind. A roasted mallard duck, thought
Soapy, would be about the thing--with a bottle of Chablis, and then
Camembert, a demi-tasse and a cigar. One dollar for the cigar would
be enough. The total would not be so high as to call forth any
supreme manifestation of revenge from the cafe management; and yet
the meat would leave him filled and happy for the journey to his
winter refuge.
But as Soapy set foot inside the restaurant
door the head waiter's eye fell upon his frayed trousers and
decadent shoes. Strong and ready hands turned him about and
conveyed him in silence and haste to the sidewalk and averted the
ignoble fate of the menaced mallard.
Soapy turned off Broadway. It seemed that his
route to the coveted island was not to be an epicurean one. Some
other way of entering limbo must be thought of.
At a corner of Sixth Avenue electric lights
and cunningly displayed wares behind plate-glass made a shop window
conspicuous. Soapy took a cobblestone and dashed it through the
glass. People came running around the corner, a policeman in the
lead. Soapy stood still, with his hands in his pockets, and smiled
at the sight of brass buttons.
'Where's the man that done that?' inquired the
officer excitedly.
'Don't you figure out that I might have had
something to do with it?' said Soapy, not without sarcasm, but
friendly, as one greets good fortune.
The policeman's mind refused to accept Soapy
even as a clue. Men who smash windows do not remain to parley with
the law's minions. They take to their heels. The policeman saw a
man half way down the block running to catch a car. With drawn club
he joined in the pursuit. Soapy, with disgust in his heart, loafed
along, twice unsuccessful.
On the opposite side of the street was a
restaurant of no great pretensions. It catered to large appetites
and modest purses. Its crockery and atmosphere were thick; its soup
and napery thin. Into this place Soapy took his accusive shoes and
telltale trousers without challenge. At a table he sat and consumed
beefsteak, flapjacks, doughnuts and pie. And then to the waiter be
betrayed the fact that the minutest coin and himself were
strangers.
'Now, get busy and call a cop,' said Soapy.
'And don't keep a gentleman waiting.'
'No cop for youse,' said the waiter, with a
voice like butter cakes and an eye like the cherry in a Manhattan
cocktail. 'Hey, Con!'
Neatly upon his left ear on the callous
pavement two waiters pitched Soapy. He arose, joint by joint, as a
carpenter's rule opens, and beat the dust from his clothes. Arrest
seemed but a rosy dream. The Island seemed very far away. A
policeman who stood before a drug store two doors away laughed and
walked down the street.
Five blocks Soapy travelled before his courage
permitted him to woo capture again. This time the opportunity
presented what he fatuously termed to himself a 'cinch.' A young
woman of a modest and pleasing guise was standing before a show
window gazing with sprightly interest at its display of shaving
mugs and inkstands, and two yards from the window a large policeman
of severe demeanour leaned against a water plug.
It was Soapy's design to assume the role of
the despicable and execrated 'masher.' The refined and elegant
appearance of his victim and the contiguity of the conscientious
cop encouraged him to believe that he would soon feel the pleasant
official clutch upon his arm that would insure his winter quarters
on the right little, tight little isle.
Soapy straightened the lady missionary's
readymade tie, dragged his shrinking cuffs into the open, set his
hat at a killing cant and sidled toward the young woman. He made
eyes at her, was taken with sudden coughs and 'hems,' smiled,
smirked and went brazenly through the impudent and contemptible
litany of the 'masher.' With half an eye Soapy saw that the
policeman was watching him fixedly. The young woman moved away a
few steps, and again bestowed her absorbed attention upon the
shaving mugs. Soapy followed, boldly stepping to her side, raised
his hat and said:
'Ah there, Bedelia! Don't you want to come and
play in my yard?'
The policeman was still looking. The
persecuted young woman had but to beckon a finger and Soapy would
be practically en route for his insular haven. Already he imagined
he could feel the cozy warmth of the station-house. The young woman
faced him and, stretching out a hand, caught Soapy's coat
sleeve.
Sure, Mike,' she said joyfully, 'if you'll
blow me to a pail of suds. I'd have spoke to you sooner, but the
cop was watching.'
With the young woman playing the clinging ivy
to his oak Soapy walked past the policeman overcome with gloom. He
seemed doomed to liberty.
At the next corner he shook off his companion
and ran. He halted in the district where by night are found the
lightest streets, hearts, vows and librettos.
Women in furs and men in greatcoats moved
gaily in the wintry air. A sudden fear seized Soapy that some
dreadful enchantment had rendered him immune to arrest. The thought
brought a little of panic upon it, and when he came upon another
policeman lounging grandly in front of a transplendent theatre he
caught at the immediate straw of 'disorderly conduct.'
On the sidewalk Soapy began to yell drunken
gibberish at the top of his harsh voice. He danced, howled, raved
and otherwise disturbed the welkin.
The policeman twirled his club, turned his
back to Soapy and remarked to a citizen.
''Tis one of them Yale lads celebratin' the
goose egg they give to the Hartford College. Noisy; but no harm.
We've instructions to lave them be.'
Disconsolate, Soapy ceased his unavailing
racket. Would never a policeman lay hands on him? In his fancy the
Island seemed an unattainable Arcadia. He buttoned his thin coat
against the chilling wind.
In a cigar store he saw a well-dressed man
lighting a cigar at a swinging light. His silk umbrella he had set
by the door on entering. Soapy stepped inside, secured the umbrella
and sauntered off with it slowly. The man at the cigar light
followed hastily.
'My umbrella,' he said, sternly.
'Oh, is it?' sneered Soapy, adding insult to
petit larceny. 'Well, why don't you call a policeman? I took it.
Your umbrella! Why don't you call a cop? There stands one on the
corner.'
The umbrella owner slowed his steps. Soapy did
likewise, with a presentiment that luck would again run against
him. The policeman looked at the two curiously.
'Of course,' said the umbrella man--'that
is--well, you know how these mistakes occur--I--if it's your
umbrella I hope you'll excuse me--I picked it up this morning in a
restaurant--If you recognise it as yours, why--I hope
you'll--'
'Of course it's mine,' said Soapy,
viciously.
The ex-umbrella man retreated. The policeman
hurried to assist a tall blonde in an opera cloak across the street
in front of a street car that was approaching two blocks
away.
Soapy walked eastward through a street damaged
by improvements. He hurled the umbrella wrathfully into an
excavation. He muttered against the men who wear helmets and carry
clubs. Because he wanted to fall into their clutches, they seemed
to regard him as a king who could do no wrong.
At length Soapy reached one of the avenues to
the east where the glitter and turmoil was but faint. He set his
face down this toward Madison Square, for the homing instinct
survives even when the home is a park bench.
But on an unusually quiet corner Soapy came to
a standstill. Here was an old church, quaint and rambling and
gabled. Through one violet-stained window a soft light glowed,
where, no doubt, the organist loitered over the keys, making sure
of his mastery of the coming Sabbath anthem. For there drifted out
to Soapy's ears sweet music that caught and held him transfixed
against the convolutions of the iron fence.
The moon was above, lustrous and serene;
vehicles and pedestrians were few; sparrows twittered sleepily in
the eaves--for a little while the scene might have been a country
churchyard. And the anthem that the organist played cemented Soapy
to the iron fence, for he had known it well in the days when his
life contained such things as mothers and roses and ambitions and
friends and immaculate thoughts and collars.
The conjunction of Soapy's receptive state of
mind and the influences about the old church wrought a sudden and
wonderful change in his soul. He viewed with swift horror the pit
into which he had tumbled, the degraded days, unworthy desires,
dead hopes, wrecked faculties and base motives that made up his
existence.
And also in a moment his heart responded
thrillingly to this novel mood. An instantaneous and strong impulse
moved him to battle with his desperate fate. He would pull himself
out of the mire; he would make a man of himself again; he would
conquer the evil that had taken possession of him. There was time;
he was comparatively young yet; he would resurrect his old eager
ambitions and pursue them without faltering. Those solemn but sweet
organ notes had set up a revolution in him. To-morrow he would go
into the roaring downtown district and find work. A fur importer
had once offered him a place as driver. He would find him to-morrow
and ask for the position. He would be somebody in the world. He
would--
Soapy felt a hand laid on his arm. He looked
quickly around into the broad face of a policeman.
'What are you doin' here?' asked the
officer.
'Nothin',' said Soapy.
'Then come along,' said the policeman.
'Three months on the Island,' said the
Magistrate in the Police Court the next morning.
