死亡约会 Part I Chapter 6（3）（在线收听）

Gerard told her of his conversation with Jefferson Cope. ‘He doesn’t realize what is going on?’

she said thoughtfully.

‘How should he? He is not a psychologist.’

‘True. He hasn’t got our disgusting minds!’

‘Exactly. He has a nice, upright, sentimental, normal American mind. He believes in goodrather than evil. He sees that the atmosphere of the Boynton family is all wrong, but he credits MrsBoynton with misguided devotion rather than active maleficence.’

‘That should amuse her,’ said Sarah.

‘I should imagine it does!’

Sarah said impatiently:

‘But why don’t they break away? They could.’

Gerard shook his head.

‘No, there you are wrong. They cannot. Have you ever seen the old experiment with a cock?

You chalk a line on the floor and put the cock’s beak on it. The cock believes he is tied there. Hecannot raise his head. So with these unfortunates. She has worked on them, remember, since theywere children. And her dominance has been mental. She has hypnotized them to believe that theycannot disobey her. Oh, I know most people would say that was nonsense—but you and I knowbetter. She has made them believe that utter dependence on her is inevitable. They have been inprison so long that if the prison door stands open they would no longer notice! One of them, atleast, no longer even wants to be free! And they would all be afraid of freedom.’

Sarah asked practically: ‘What will happen when she dies?’

Gerard shrugged his shoulders.

‘It depends. On how soon that happens. If it happened now—well, I think it might not be toolate. The boy and girl—they are still young—impressionable. They would become, I believe,normal human beings. With Lennox, possibly, it has gone too far. He looks to me like a man whohas parted company with hope—he lives and endures like a brute beast.’

Sarah said impatiently: ‘His wife ought to have done something! She ought to have yanked himout of it.’

‘I wonder. She may have tried—and failed.’

‘Do you think she’s under the spell, too?’

Gerard shook his head.

‘No. I don’t think the old lady has any power over her, and for that reason she hates her with abitter hatred. Watch her eyes.’

Sarah frowned. ‘I can’t make her out—the young one, I mean. Does she know what is goingon?’

‘I think she must have a pretty shrewd idea.’

‘H’m,’ said Sarah. ‘That old woman ought to be murdered! Arsenic in her early morning teawould be my prescription.’

Then she said abruptly:

‘What about the youngest girl—the red-haired one with the rather fascinating vacant smile?’

Gerard frowned. ‘I don’t know. There is something queer there. Ginevra Boynton is the oldwoman’s own daughter, of course.’

‘Yes. I suppose that would be different—or wouldn’t it?’

Gerard said slowly: ‘I do not believe that when once the mania for power (and the lust forcruelty) has taken possession of a human being it can spare anybody—not even its nearest anddearest.’

He was silent for a moment, then he said: ‘Are you a Christian, mademoiselle?’

Sarah said slowly: ‘I don’t know. I used to think that I wasn’t anything. But now—I’m not sure.

I feel—oh, I feel that if I could sweep all this away’—she made a violent gesture—‘all thebuildings and the sects and the fierce squabbling churches—that—that I might see Christ’s quietfigure riding into Jerusalem on a donkey—and believe in Him.’

Dr Gerard said gravely: ‘I believe at least in one of the chief tenets of the Christian faith—contentment with a lowly place. I am a doctor and I know that ambition—the desire to succeed—to have power—leads to most ills of the human soul. If the desire is realized it leads to arrogance,violence and final satiety—and if it is denied—ah! if it is denied—let all the asylums for theinsane rise up and give their testimony! They are filled with human beings who were unable toface being mediocre, insignificant, ineffective and who therefore created for themselves ways ofescape from reality so as to be shut off from life itself for ever.’

Sarah said abruptly: ‘It’s a pity the old Boynton woman isn’t in an asylum.’

Gerard shook his head.

‘No—her place is not there among the failures. It is worse than that. She has succeeded, yousee! She has accomplished her dream.’

Sarah shuddered.

She cried passionately: ‘Such things ought not to be!’