1705039591
西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033848]
1705039592
30 EVOLUTION
1705039593
1705039594
By John Galsworthy
1705039595
1705039596
1705039597
EVOLUTION, by John Galsworthy, in his The Inn of Tranquillity , New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912. As reprinted in Chamberlain and Bolton,Progressive Readings in Prose , pp. 45-47.
1705039598
1705039599
1705039600
1705039601
John Galsworthy （1867-1933）, English novelist, is well known among present-day English writers of plays and novels subtly analyzing the upper and the middle classes of England and revealing the conditions which largely determine them. Of his novels The Patrician , dealing with class distinctions and conventions, and The Man of Property , studying the passion for possession in the Forsyte family, are best known.Strife , a powerful account of the evil and the futility of a strike, and Justice , an indictment of the English legal system, are two of his finest plays.Evolution （1910）is a characteristic essay in its treatment of a changing phase of society and is typical of the exposition which combines the informality of the essay with the narrative interest of fiction.
1705039602
1705039603
Coming out of the theater, we found it utterly impossible to get a taxicab; and, though it was raining slightly, walked through Leicester Square in the hope of picking one up as it returned down Piccadily. Numbers of hansoms and four-wheelers passed, or stood by the curb, hailing us feebly, or not even attempting to attract our attention, but every taxi seemed to have its load. At Piccadily Circus, losing patience, we beckoned to a four-wheeler and resigned ourselves to a long, slow journey. A sou’westerly air blew through the open windows, and there was in it the scent of change, that wet scent which visits even the hearts and towns and inspires the watcher of their myriad activities with thought of the restless Force that forever cries: “On, on!” But gradually the steady patter of the horse’s hoofs, the rattling of the windows, the slow thudding of the wheels, pressed on us so drowsily that when, at last, we reached home we were more than half asleep. The fare was two shillings, and, standing in the lamplight to make sure the coin was a half-crown before handing it to the driver, we happened to look up. This cabman appeared to be a man of about sixty, with a long thin face, whose chin and drooping gray mustaches seemed in permanent repose on the up-turned collar of his old blue overcoat. But the remarkable features of his face were the two furrows down his cheeks, so deep and hollow that it seemed as though that face were a collection of bones without coherent flesh, among which the eyes were sunk back so far that they had lost their luster. He sat quite motionless, gazing at the tail of his horse. And, almost unconsciously, one added the rest of one’s silver to that half-crown. He took the coins without speaking; but, as we were turning into the garden gate, we heard him say:
1705039604
1705039605
“Thank you; you’ve saved my life.”
1705039606
1705039607
Not knowing, either of us, what to reply to such a curious speech, we closed the gate again and came back to the cab.
1705039608
1705039609
“Are things so very bad?”
1705039610
1705039611
“They are,” replied the cabman. “It’s done with—is this job. We’re not wanted now.” And, taking up his whip, he prepared to drive away.
1705039612
1705039613
“How long have they been as bad as this?”
1705039614
1705039615
The cabman dropped his hand again, as though glad to rest it, and answered incoherently:
1705039616
1705039617
“Thirty-five year I’ve been drivin’ a cab.”
1705039618
1705039619
And, sunk again in contemplation of his horse’s tail, he could only be roused by many questions to express himself, having, as it seemed, no knowledge of the habit.
1705039620
1705039621
“I don’t blame the taxis, I don’t blame nobody. It’s come on us, that’s what it has. I left the wife this morning with nothing in the house. She was saying to me only yesterday:‘What have you brought home the last four months? ‘ ‘Put it at six shillings a week, ‘ I said. ‘No, ‘ she said, ‘seven.’ Well, that’s right—she enters it all down in her book.”
1705039622
1705039623
“You are really going short of food?”
1705039624
1705039625
The cabman smiled; and that smile between those two deep hollows was surely as strange as ever shone on a human face.
1705039626
1705039627
“You may say that,” he said. “Well, what does it amount to? Before I picked you up, I had one eighteenpenny fare to-day; and yesterday I took five shillings. And I’ve got seven bob a day to pay for the cab, and that’s low, too. There’s many and many a proprietor that’s broke and gone—every bit as bad as us. They let us down as easy as ever they can; you can’t get blood from a stone, can you?” Once again he smiled. “I’m sorry for them, too, and I’m sorry for the horses, though they come out the best of the three of us, I do believe.”
1705039628
1705039629
One of us muttered something about the Public.
1705039630
1705039631
The cabman turned his face and stared down through the darkness.
1705039632
1705039633
“The Public?” he said, and his voice had in it a faint surprise. “Well, they all want the taxis. It’s natural. They get about faster in them, and time’s money. I was seven hours before I picked you up. And then you was lookin’ for a taxi. Them as take us because they can’t get better, they’re not in a good temper, as a rule. And there’s a few old ladies that’s frightened of the motors, but old ladies aren’t never very free with their money—can’t afford to be, the most of them, I expect.”
1705039634
1705039635
“Everybody’s sorry for you; one would have thought that—”
1705039636
1705039637
He interrupted quietly: “Sorrow don’t buy bread… . I never had nobody ask me about things before.” And, slowly moving his long face from side to side, he added: “Besides, what could people do? They can’t be expected to support you; and if they started askin’ you questions they’d feel it very awkward. They know that, I suspect. Of course, there’s such a lot of us; the hansoms are pretty nigh as bad off as we are. Well, we’re gettin’ fewer every day, that’s one thing.”
1705039638
1705039639
Not knowing whether or no to manifest sympathy with this extinction, we approached the horse. It was a horse that “stood over” a good deal at the knee, and in the darkness seemed to have innumerable ribs. And suddenly one of us said: “Many people want to see nothing but taxis on the streets, if only for the sake of the horses.”
1705039640