病院で寝たきりの１５歳の少女がいる。
少女は、海を知らない。
病院の少女に海がどういうものかを説明する時、
あなたならなんて説明をするだろう。

ぼくは海が、ことばでは言い尽くせぬほど広いんだ、
と言いました。
「海は直径１２７００キロメートルの地球の表面の
約７０％を、わずか３.８キロメートルの厚さで
覆っている水の膜なんだ。」
と言っても少女はキョトンとするばかりでした。
と言っても少女はキョトンとするばかりでした。
「海は何しろ、真っ青なんだ」
ぼくは言いました。
すると少女は、
「青い水なんてほんとにあるのかしら」
と言って笑うのでした。
そこで、ぼくは少女に海を
「持ってきてみせてやる」
ことにしたのです。
五月の海に、ぼくはバケツをもって近づき、
なかでも一番青い部分を汲んできました。
大急ぎで駆け戻り、
「さあ、持ってきてやったぞ」
と病室に駆け込みました。
そして
「これが海だ！」
と言いました。
でも、バケツに汲まれた海は、
青くもなかったし、怒涛もありませんでした。
少女は、ぼくに「うそつき！」と言いました。
でも、ぼくは返す言葉もなく
途方にくれてしまったのです。
「たしかに、さっきまでは海だったのに！」

サマセット モーム

人間の絆


--------------------


II

It was a week later. Philip was sitting on the floor in the drawing-room
at Miss Watkin’s house in Onslow gardens. He was an only child and used to
amusing himself. The room was filled with massive furniture, and on each
of the sofas were three big cushions. There was a cushion too in each
arm-chair. All these he had taken and, with the help of the gilt rout
chairs, light and easy to move, had made an elaborate cave in which he
could hide himself from the Red Indians who were lurking behind the
curtains. He put his ear to the floor and listened to the herd of
buffaloes that raced across the prairie. Presently, hearing the door open,
he held his breath so that he might not be discovered; but a violent hand
piled away a chair and the cushions fell down.

"You naughty boy, Miss Watkin WILL be cross with you."

"Hulloa, Emma!" he said.

The nurse bent down and kissed him, then began to shake out the cushions,
and put them back in their places.

"Am I to come home?" he asked.

"Yes, I’ve come to fetch you."

"You’ve got a new dress on."

It was in eighteen-eighty-five, and she wore a bustle. Her gown was of
black velvet, with tight sleeves and sloping shoulders, and the skirt had
three large flounces. She wore a black bonnet with velvet strings. She
hesitated. The question she had expected did not come, and so she could
not give the answer she had prepared.

"Aren’t you going to ask how your mamma is?" she said at length.

"Oh, I forgot. How is mamma?"

Now she was ready.

"Your mamma is quite well and happy."

"Oh, I am glad."

"Your mamma’s gone away. You won’t ever see her any more." Philip did not
know what she meant.

"Why not?"

"Your mamma’s in heaven."

She began to cry, and Philip, though he did not quite understand, cried
too. Emma was a tall, big-boned woman, with fair hair and large features.
She came from Devonshire and, notwithstanding her many years of service in
London, had never lost the breadth of her accent. Her tears increased her
emotion, and she pressed the little boy to her heart. She felt vaguely the
pity of that child deprived of the only love in the world that is quite
unselfish. It seemed dreadful that he must be handed over to strangers.
But in a little while she pulled herself together.

"Your Uncle William is waiting in to see you," she said. "Go and say
good-bye to Miss Watkin, and we’ll go home."

"I don’t want to say good-bye," he answered, instinctively anxious to hide
his tears.

"Very well, run upstairs and get your hat."

He fetched it, and when he came down Emma was waiting for him in the hall.
He heard the sound of voices in the study behind the dining-room. He
paused. He knew that Miss Watkin and her sister were talking to friends,
and it seemed to him--he was nine years old--that if he went in they would
be sorry for him.

"I think I’ll go and say good-bye to Miss Watkin."

"I think you’d better," said Emma.

"Go in and tell them I’m coming," he said.

He wished to make the most of his opportunity. Emma knocked at the door
and walked in. He heard her speak.

"Master Philip wants to say good-bye to you, miss."

There was a sudden hush of the conversation, and Philip limped in.
Henrietta Watkin was a stout woman, with a red face and dyed hair. In
those days to dye the hair excited comment, and Philip had heard much
gossip at home when his godmother’s changed colour. She lived with an
elder sister, who had resigned herself contentedly to old age. Two ladies,
whom Philip did not know, were calling, and they looked at him curiously.

"My poor child," said Miss Watkin, opening her arms.

She began to cry. Philip understood now why she had not been in to
luncheon and why she wore a black dress. She could not speak.

"I’ve got to go home," said Philip, at last.

He disengaged himself from Miss Watkin’s arms, and she kissed him again.
Then he went to her sister and bade her good-bye too. One of the strange
ladies asked if she might kiss him, and he gravely gave her permission.
Though crying, he keenly enjoyed the sensation he was causing; he would
have been glad to stay a little longer to be made much of, but felt they
expected him to go, so he said that Emma was waiting for him. He went out
of the room. Emma had gone downstairs to speak with a friend in the
basement, and he waited for her on the landing. He heard Henrietta
Watkin’s voice.

"His mother was my greatest friend. I can’t bear to think that she’s
dead."

"You oughtn’t to have gone to the funeral, Henrietta," said her sister. "I
knew it would upset you."

Then one of the strangers spoke.

"Poor little boy, it’s dreadful to think of him quite alone in the world.
I see he limps."

"Yes, he’s got a club-foot. It was such a grief to his mother."

Then Emma came back. They called a hansom, and she told the driver where
to go.



III


When they reached the house Mrs. Carey had died in--it was in a dreary,
respectable street between Notting Hill Gate and High Street,
Kensington--Emma led Philip into the drawing-room. His uncle was writing
letters of thanks for the wreaths which had been sent. One of them, which
had arrived too late for the funeral, lay in its cardboard box on the
hall-table.

"Here’s Master Philip," said Emma.

Mr. Carey stood up slowly and shook hands with the little boy. Then on
second thoughts he bent down and kissed his forehead. He was a man of
somewhat less than average height, inclined to corpulence, with his hair,
worn long, arranged over the scalp so as to conceal his baldness. He was
clean-shaven. His features were regular, and it was possible to imagine
that in his youth he had been good-looking. On his watch-chain he wore a
gold cross.

"You’re going to live with me now, Philip," said Mr. Carey. "Shall you
like that?"

Two years before Philip had been sent down to stay at the vicarage after
an attack of chicken-pox; but there remained with him a recollection of an
attic and a large garden rather than of his uncle and aunt.

"Yes."

"You must look upon me and your Aunt Louisa as your father and mother."

The child’s mouth trembled a little, he reddened, but did not answer.

"Your dear mother left you in my charge."

Mr. Carey had no great ease in expressing himself. When the news came that
his sister-in-law was dying, he set off at once for London, but on the way
thought of nothing but the disturbance in his life that would be caused if
her death forced him to undertake the care of her son. He was well over
fifty, and his wife, to whom he had been married for thirty years, was
childless; he did not look forward with any pleasure to the presence of a
small boy who might be noisy and rough. He had never much liked his
sister-in-law.

"I’m going to take you down to Blackstable tomorrow," he said.

"With Emma?"

The child put his hand in hers, and she pressed it.

"I’m afraid Emma must go away," said Mr. Carey.

"But I want Emma to come with me."

Philip began to cry, and the nurse could not help crying too. Mr. Carey
looked at them helplessly.

"I think you’d better leave me alone with Master Philip for a moment."

"Very good, sir."

Though Philip clung to her, she released herself gently. Mr. Carey took
the boy on his knee and put his arm round him.

"You mustn’t cry," he said. "You’re too old to have a nurse now. We must
see about sending you to school."

"I want Emma to come with me," the child repeated.

"It costs too much money, Philip. Your father didn’t leave very much, and
I don’t know what’s become of it. You must look at every penny you spend."

Mr. Carey had called the day before on the family solicitor. Philip’s
father was a surgeon in good practice, and his hospital appointments
suggested an established position; so that it was a surprise on his sudden
death from blood-poisoning to find that he had left his widow little more
than his life insurance and what could be got for the lease of their house
in Bruton Street. This was six months ago; and Mrs. Carey, already in
delicate health, finding herself with child, had lost her head and
accepted for the lease the first offer that was made. She stored her
furniture, and, at a rent which the parson thought outrageous, took a
furnished house for a year, so that she might suffer from no inconvenience
till her child was born. But she had never been used to the management of
money, and was unable to adapt her expenditure to her altered
circumstances. The little she had slipped through her fingers in one way
and another, so that now, when all expenses were paid, not much more than
two thousand pounds remained to support the boy till he was able to earn
his own living. It was impossible to explain all this to Philip and he was
sobbing still.

"You’d better go to Emma," Mr. Carey said, feeling that she could console
the child better than anyone.

Without a word Philip slipped off his uncle’s knee, but Mr. Carey stopped
him.

"We must go tomorrow, because on Saturday I’ve got to prepare my sermon,
and you must tell Emma to get your things ready today. You can bring all
your toys. And if you want anything to remember your father and mother by
you can take one thing for each of them. Everything else is going to be
sold."

The boy slipped out of the room. Mr. Carey was unused to work, and he
turned to his correspondence with resentment. On one side of the desk was
a bundle of bills, and these filled him with irritation. One especially
seemed preposterous. Immediately after Mrs. Carey’s death Emma had ordered
from the florist masses of white flowers for the room in which the dead
woman lay. It was sheer waste of money. Emma took far too much upon
herself. Even if there had been no financial necessity, he would have
dismissed her.

But Philip went to her, and hi