章节正文
Ruth would say, "How is the child?" And always Israel would answer,
"She is well." But, if at that moment Naomi's laughter came up to them
from the patio, where she played with Ali, they would cover their faces
and be silent.
It was a melancholyparting. No one came near them--neither Moor nor Jew,
neither Rabbi nor elder. The idle women of the Mellah would sometimes
stand outside in the street and look up at their house,
knowing that the black camel of death was kneeling at their gate.
Other company they had none. In such solitude they passed four weeks,
and when the time of the end seemed near, Israel himself read aloud
the prayer for the dying, the prayer Shema' Yisrael, and Ruth repeated
the words of it after him.
Meantime, while Ruth lay in the upper chamber little Naomi sported
and played in the patio with Ali, but she missed her mother constantly.
This she made plain by many silent acts of helpless love that knew no way
to speak aloud. Thus she would lay flowers on the seats where her mother
had used to sit, and, if at night she found them untouched
where she had left them, her little face would fall,
and her laughter die off her lips; but if they had withered
and some one had cast them into the oven, she would laugh again
and fetch other flowers from the fields, until the house would be
full of the odour of the meadow and the scent of the hill.
And well they knew, who looked upon her then, whom she missed, and what
the question was that halted on her tongue; yet how could they answer her?
There was no way to do that until she herself knew how to ask.
But this she did on a day near to the end. It was evening,
and she was being put to bed by Habeebah, and had just risen
from her innocent pantomime of prayer beside Ali, when Israel,
coming from Ruth's chamber, entered the children's room. Then,
touching with her hand the seat whereon Ruth had used to sit,
Naomi laid down her head on the pillow, and then rose and lay down again,
and rose yet again and rose yet again lay down, and then came
to where Israel was and stood before him. And at that Israel knew
that the soul of his helpless child had asked him, as plainly as words
of the tongue can speak, how often she should lie to sleep at night
and rise to play in the morning before her mother came to her again.
The tears gushed into his eyes, and he left the children and
returned to his wife's chamber.
"Ruth," he cried, "call the child to you, I beseech you!"
"No, no, no!" cried Ruth.
"Let her come to you and touch you and kiss you, and be with you
before it is too late," said Israel. "She misses you, and fills the house
with flowers for you. It breaks my heart to see her."
"It will break mine also," said Ruth.
But she consented that Naomi should be called, and Fatimah was sent
to fetch her.
The sun was setting, and through the window which looked out to the west,
over the river and the orange orchards and the palpitating plains beyond,
its dying rays came into the room in a bar of golden light.
It fell at that instant on Ruth's face, and she was white and wasted.
And through the other window of the room, which looked out
over the Mellah into the town, and across the market-place to the mosque
and to the battery on the hill, there came up from the darkening streets
below the shuffle of the feet of a crowd and the sound of many voices.
The Jews of Tetuan were trooping back to their own little quarter,
that their Moorish masters might lock them into it for the night.
Naomi was already in bed, and Fatimah brought her away in her nightdress.
She seemed to know where she was to be taken, for she laughed
as Fatimah held her by the hand, and danced as she was led
to her mother's chamber. But when she was come to the door of it,
suddenly her laughter ceased, and her little face sobered,
as if something in the close abode of pain had troubled the senses
that were left to her.
It is, perhaps, the most touching experience of the deaf and blind
that no greeting can ever welcome them. When Naomi stood like
a little white vision at the threshold of the room, Israel took her hand
in silence, and drew her up to the pillow of the bed
where her mother rested, and in silence Ruth brought the child
to her bosom.
For a moment Naomi seemed to be perplexed. She touched
her mother's fingers, and they were changed, for they had grown thin
and long. Then she felt her face, and that was changed also,
for it was become withered and cold. And, missing the grasp
of one and the smile of the other, she first turned her little head aside
as one that listens closely, and then gentlywithdrew herself
from the arms that held her.
Ruth had watched her with eyes that overflowed, and now she burst
into sobs outright.
"The child does not know me!" she cried. "Did I not tell you
it would break my heart?"
"Try her again," said Israel; "try her again."
Ruth devoured her tears, and called on Fatimah to bring the child back
to her side. Then, loosening the necklace that was about her own neck,
she bound it about the neck of Naomi, and also the bracelets that were
on her wrists she unclasped and clasped them on the wrists of the child.
This she did that Naomi might remember the hands that had been kind
to her always. But when the child felt the ornaments she seemed only
to know, by the quick instinct of a girl, that she was decked out bravely,
and giving no thought to Ruth, who waited and watched for the grasp
of recognition and the kiss of joy, she withdrew herself again
from her mother's arms, and bounded into the middle of the room,
and suddenly began to laugh and to dance.
The sun's dying light, which had rested on Ruth's wasted face,
now glistened and sparkled on the jewels of the child, and glowed
on her blind eyes, and gleamed on her fair hair, and reddened
her white nightdress, while she danced and laughed to her mother's death.
Nothing did the child know of death, any more than Adam himself
before Abel was slain, and it was almost as if a devil out of hell had
entered into her innocent heart and possessed it, that she might make
a mock of the dying of the dearest friend she had known on earth.
On and on she danced, to no measure and no time, and not with a child's
uncertain step which breaks down at motion as its tongue breaks down
at speech, but wildly and deliriously. The room was darkening fast,
but still across the nether end, by the foot of the bed,
streamed the dull red bar of sunlight with the little red figure leaping
and prancing and laughing in the midst of it.
With an awful cry Ruth fell back on the pillow and turned her eyes
to the wall. The black woman dropped her head that she might not see.
And Israel covered his face and groaned in his tearless agony,
"O Lord God, long hast Thou chastised me with whips,
and now I am chastised with scorpions!"
Ruth recovered herself quickly. "Bring her to me again!" she faltered;
and once more Fatimah brought Naomi back to the bedside.
Then, embracing and kissing the child, and seeming to forget
in the torment of her trouble that Naomi could not hear her,
she cried, "It's your mother, Naomi! your mother, darling, though so sick
and changed! Don't you know her, Naomi? Your mother, your own mother,
sweet one, your dear mother who loves you so, and must leave you now
and see you no more!"
Now what it was in that wild plea that touched the consciousness
of the child at last, only God Himself can say. But first Naomi's cheeks
grew pale at the embrace of the arms that held her, and then they
reddened, and then her little nervous fingers grasped at Ruth's hands
again, and then her little lips trembled, and then, at length,
she flung herself along Ruth's bosom and nestled close in her embrace.
Ruth fell back on her pillow now with a cry of Joy; the black woman stood
and wept by the wall and Israel, unable to bear up his heart any longer
was melted and unmanned. The sun had gone down, and the room was
darkening rapidly, for the twilight in that land is short;
the streets were quiet, and the mooddin of the neighbouring minaret
was chanting in the silence, "God is great, God is great!"
After awhile the little one fell asleep at her mother's bosom, and,
seeing this, Fatimah would have lifted her away and carried her back
to her own bed; but Ruth said, "No; leave her, let me have her with me
while I may."
"No one shall take her from you," said Israel.
Then she gazed down at the child's face and said, "It is hard to leave her
and never once to have heard her voice."
"That is the bitterest cup of all," said Israel.
"I shall not return to her," said Ruth, "but she shall come to me, and
then, perhaps--who knows?--perhaps in the resurrection I shall hear it."
Israel made no answer.
Ruth gazed down at the child again, and said, "My helplessdarling!
Who will care for you when I am gone?"
"Rest, rest, and sleep!" said Israel.
"Ah, yes, I know," said Ruth. "How foolish of me! You are her father,
and you love her also. Yet promise me--promise--"
"For love and tending she shall never lack," said Israel.
"And now lie you still, my dearest; lie still and sleep."
She stretched out her hand to him. "Yes, that was what I meant,"
she said, and smiled. Then a shadow crossed her face in the gloom.
"But when I am gone," she said, "will Naomi ever know that her mother
who is dead had wronged her?"
"You have never wronged her," said Israel. "Have done, oh, have done!"
"God punished us for our prayer, my husband," said Ruth.
"Peace, peace!" said Israel.
"But God is good," said Ruth, "and surely He will not afflict our child
much longer."
"Hush! Hush! You will awaken her," said Israel, not thinking what he said. "Now lie still and
sleep, dearest. You are tired also."
She lay quiet for a time, gazing, while the light remained,
into the face of the sleeping child, and listening, when the light failed,
to her gentle breathing. Then she babbled and crooned over her
with a childish joy. "Yes, yes, father is right, and mother must
lie quiet--very quiet, and so her little Naomi will sleep long--very long,
and wake happy and well in the morning. How bonny she will look!
How fresh and rosy!"
She paused a moment. Her laboured breathing came quick and fast.
"But shall I be here to see her? shall I?"
She paused again, and then, as though to banish thought, she began to sing
in a low voice that was like a moan. Presently her singing ceased,
and she spoke again, but this time in broken whispers.
"How soft and glossy her hair is! I wonder if Fatimah will remember
to wash it every day. She should twist it around her fingers to keep it
in pretty curls. . . . Oh, why did God make my child so beautiful?. . . .
Dear me, her morning frock wanted stitching at the sleeves,
it's a chance if Habeebah has seen to it. Then there's
her underclothing. . . . Will she be deaf and blind and dumb always?
I wonder if I shall see her when I. . . . They say that angels are
sent. . . . Yes, yes, that's it, when I am there--there--I will go
to God and say, 'O Lord! my little girl whom I have left behind,
she is. . . . You would never think, O Lord, how many things may happen
to one like her. Let me go--only let me watch over her--O Lord,
let me be her guar--'"
Her weakness had conquered her, and she was quiet at last. Israel sat
in silence by the post of the bed. His heart was surging itself
out of his choking breast. The black woman stood somewhere by the wall.
After a time Ruth seemed to awake as from sleep. She was
in great excitement.
"Israel, Israel!" she cried in a voice of joy, "I have seen a vision.
It was Naomi. She was no longer deaf and blind and dumb.
She was grown to be a woman, but I knew her instantly.
Not a woman either, but a young maiden, and so beautiful, so beautiful!
Yes, and she could see and hear and speak."
Israel thought Ruth had become delirious, and he tried to soothe her,
but her agitation was not to be overcome. "The Lord hath seen our tears
at last," she cried. "He has put our sin beneath His feet.
We are forgiven. It will be well with the child yet."
Israel did not try to gainsay her, and at sight and sound of her joy,
seeing it so beautiful, yet thinking it so vain, he could not help
at last but weep. Presently she became quiet again, and then again,
"She is well." But, if at that moment Naomi's laughter came up to them
from the patio, where she played with Ali, they would cover their faces
and be silent.
It was a melancholyparting. No one came near them--neither Moor nor Jew,
neither Rabbi nor elder. The idle women of the Mellah would sometimes
stand outside in the street and look up at their house,
knowing that the black camel of death was kneeling at their gate.
Other company they had none. In such solitude they passed four weeks,
and when the time of the end seemed near, Israel himself read aloud
the prayer for the dying, the prayer Shema' Yisrael, and Ruth repeated
the words of it after him.
Meantime, while Ruth lay in the upper chamber little Naomi sported
and played in the patio with Ali, but she missed her mother constantly.
This she made plain by many silent acts of helpless love that knew no way
to speak aloud. Thus she would lay flowers on the seats where her mother
had used to sit, and, if at night she found them untouched
where she had left them, her little face would fall,
and her laughter die off her lips; but if they had withered
and some one had cast them into the oven, she would laugh again
and fetch other flowers from the fields, until the house would be
full of the odour of the meadow and the scent of the hill.
And well they knew, who looked upon her then, whom she missed, and what
the question was that halted on her tongue; yet how could they answer her?
There was no way to do that until she herself knew how to ask.
But this she did on a day near to the end. It was evening,
and she was being put to bed by Habeebah, and had just risen
from her innocent pantomime of prayer beside Ali, when Israel,
coming from Ruth's chamber, entered the children's room. Then,
touching with her hand the seat whereon Ruth had used to sit,
Naomi laid down her head on the pillow, and then rose and lay down again,
and rose yet again and rose yet again lay down, and then came
to where Israel was and stood before him. And at that Israel knew
that the soul of his helpless child had asked him, as plainly as words
of the tongue can speak, how often she should lie to sleep at night
and rise to play in the morning before her mother came to her again.
The tears gushed into his eyes, and he left the children and
returned to his wife's chamber.
"Ruth," he cried, "call the child to you, I beseech you!"
"No, no, no!" cried Ruth.
"Let her come to you and touch you and kiss you, and be with you
before it is too late," said Israel. "She misses you, and fills the house
with flowers for you. It breaks my heart to see her."
"It will break mine also," said Ruth.
But she consented that Naomi should be called, and Fatimah was sent
to fetch her.
The sun was setting, and through the window which looked out to the west,
over the river and the orange orchards and the palpitating plains beyond,
its dying rays came into the room in a bar of golden light.
It fell at that instant on Ruth's face, and she was white and wasted.
And through the other window of the room, which looked out
over the Mellah into the town, and across the market-place to the mosque
and to the battery on the hill, there came up from the darkening streets
below the shuffle of the feet of a crowd and the sound of many voices.
The Jews of Tetuan were trooping back to their own little quarter,
that their Moorish masters might lock them into it for the night.
Naomi was already in bed, and Fatimah brought her away in her nightdress.
She seemed to know where she was to be taken, for she laughed
as Fatimah held her by the hand, and danced as she was led
to her mother's chamber. But when she was come to the door of it,
suddenly her laughter ceased, and her little face sobered,
as if something in the close abode of pain had troubled the senses
that were left to her.
It is, perhaps, the most touching experience of the deaf and blind
that no greeting can ever welcome them. When Naomi stood like
a little white vision at the threshold of the room, Israel took her hand
in silence, and drew her up to the pillow of the bed
where her mother rested, and in silence Ruth brought the child
to her bosom.
For a moment Naomi seemed to be perplexed. She touched
her mother's fingers, and they were changed, for they had grown thin
and long. Then she felt her face, and that was changed also,
for it was become withered and cold. And, missing the grasp
of one and the smile of the other, she first turned her little head aside
as one that listens closely, and then gentlywithdrew herself
from the arms that held her.
Ruth had watched her with eyes that overflowed, and now she burst
into sobs outright.
"The child does not know me!" she cried. "Did I not tell you
it would break my heart?"
"Try her again," said Israel; "try her again."
Ruth devoured her tears, and called on Fatimah to bring the child back
to her side. Then, loosening the necklace that was about her own neck,
she bound it about the neck of Naomi, and also the bracelets that were
on her wrists she unclasped and clasped them on the wrists of the child.
This she did that Naomi might remember the hands that had been kind
to her always. But when the child felt the ornaments she seemed only
to know, by the quick instinct of a girl, that she was decked out bravely,
and giving no thought to Ruth, who waited and watched for the grasp
of recognition and the kiss of joy, she withdrew herself again
from her mother's arms, and bounded into the middle of the room,
and suddenly began to laugh and to dance.
The sun's dying light, which had rested on Ruth's wasted face,
now glistened and sparkled on the jewels of the child, and glowed
on her blind eyes, and gleamed on her fair hair, and reddened
her white nightdress, while she danced and laughed to her mother's death.
Nothing did the child know of death, any more than Adam himself
before Abel was slain, and it was almost as if a devil out of hell had
entered into her innocent heart and possessed it, that she might make
a mock of the dying of the dearest friend she had known on earth.
On and on she danced, to no measure and no time, and not with a child's
uncertain step which breaks down at motion as its tongue breaks down
at speech, but wildly and deliriously. The room was darkening fast,
but still across the nether end, by the foot of the bed,
streamed the dull red bar of sunlight with the little red figure leaping
and prancing and laughing in the midst of it.
With an awful cry Ruth fell back on the pillow and turned her eyes
to the wall. The black woman dropped her head that she might not see.
And Israel covered his face and groaned in his tearless agony,
"O Lord God, long hast Thou chastised me with whips,
and now I am chastised with scorpions!"
Ruth recovered herself quickly. "Bring her to me again!" she faltered;
and once more Fatimah brought Naomi back to the bedside.
Then, embracing and kissing the child, and seeming to forget
in the torment of her trouble that Naomi could not hear her,
she cried, "It's your mother, Naomi! your mother, darling, though so sick
and changed! Don't you know her, Naomi? Your mother, your own mother,
sweet one, your dear mother who loves you so, and must leave you now
and see you no more!"
Now what it was in that wild plea that touched the consciousness
of the child at last, only God Himself can say. But first Naomi's cheeks
grew pale at the embrace of the arms that held her, and then they
reddened, and then her little nervous fingers grasped at Ruth's hands
again, and then her little lips trembled, and then, at length,
she flung herself along Ruth's bosom and nestled close in her embrace.
Ruth fell back on her pillow now with a cry of Joy; the black woman stood
and wept by the wall and Israel, unable to bear up his heart any longer
was melted and unmanned. The sun had gone down, and the room was
darkening rapidly, for the twilight in that land is short;
the streets were quiet, and the mooddin of the neighbouring minaret
was chanting in the silence, "God is great, God is great!"
After awhile the little one fell asleep at her mother's bosom, and,
seeing this, Fatimah would have lifted her away and carried her back
to her own bed; but Ruth said, "No; leave her, let me have her with me
while I may."
"No one shall take her from you," said Israel.
Then she gazed down at the child's face and said, "It is hard to leave her
and never once to have heard her voice."
"That is the bitterest cup of all," said Israel.
"I shall not return to her," said Ruth, "but she shall come to me, and
then, perhaps--who knows?--perhaps in the resurrection I shall hear it."
Israel made no answer.
Ruth gazed down at the child again, and said, "My helplessdarling!
Who will care for you when I am gone?"
"Rest, rest, and sleep!" said Israel.
"Ah, yes, I know," said Ruth. "How foolish of me! You are her father,
and you love her also. Yet promise me--promise--"
"For love and tending she shall never lack," said Israel.
"And now lie you still, my dearest; lie still and sleep."
She stretched out her hand to him. "Yes, that was what I meant,"
she said, and smiled. Then a shadow crossed her face in the gloom.
"But when I am gone," she said, "will Naomi ever know that her mother
who is dead had wronged her?"
"You have never wronged her," said Israel. "Have done, oh, have done!"
"God punished us for our prayer, my husband," said Ruth.
"Peace, peace!" said Israel.
"But God is good," said Ruth, "and surely He will not afflict our child
much longer."
"Hush! Hush! You will awaken her," said Israel, not thinking what he said. "Now lie still and
sleep, dearest. You are tired also."
She lay quiet for a time, gazing, while the light remained,
into the face of the sleeping child, and listening, when the light failed,
to her gentle breathing. Then she babbled and crooned over her
with a childish joy. "Yes, yes, father is right, and mother must
lie quiet--very quiet, and so her little Naomi will sleep long--very long,
and wake happy and well in the morning. How bonny she will look!
How fresh and rosy!"
She paused a moment. Her laboured breathing came quick and fast.
"But shall I be here to see her? shall I?"
She paused again, and then, as though to banish thought, she began to sing
in a low voice that was like a moan. Presently her singing ceased,
and she spoke again, but this time in broken whispers.
"How soft and glossy her hair is! I wonder if Fatimah will remember
to wash it every day. She should twist it around her fingers to keep it
in pretty curls. . . . Oh, why did God make my child so beautiful?. . . .
Dear me, her morning frock wanted stitching at the sleeves,
it's a chance if Habeebah has seen to it. Then there's
her underclothing. . . . Will she be deaf and blind and dumb always?
I wonder if I shall see her when I. . . . They say that angels are
sent. . . . Yes, yes, that's it, when I am there--there--I will go
to God and say, 'O Lord! my little girl whom I have left behind,
she is. . . . You would never think, O Lord, how many things may happen
to one like her. Let me go--only let me watch over her--O Lord,
let me be her guar--'"
Her weakness had conquered her, and she was quiet at last. Israel sat
in silence by the post of the bed. His heart was surging itself
out of his choking breast. The black woman stood somewhere by the wall.
After a time Ruth seemed to awake as from sleep. She was
in great excitement.
"Israel, Israel!" she cried in a voice of joy, "I have seen a vision.
It was Naomi. She was no longer deaf and blind and dumb.
She was grown to be a woman, but I knew her instantly.
Not a woman either, but a young maiden, and so beautiful, so beautiful!
Yes, and she could see and hear and speak."
Israel thought Ruth had become delirious, and he tried to soothe her,
but her agitation was not to be overcome. "The Lord hath seen our tears
at last," she cried. "He has put our sin beneath His feet.
We are forgiven. It will be well with the child yet."
Israel did not try to gainsay her, and at sight and sound of her joy,
seeing it so beautiful, yet thinking it so vain, he could not help
at last but weep. Presently she became quiet again, and then again,
- laughter [´lɑ:ftə]
n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词) - helpless [´helpləs] a.无助的，无依靠的 (初中英语单词)
- meadow [´medəu] n.草地；牧场 (初中英语单词)
- innocent [´inəsənt] a.无罪的；单纯的 (初中英语单词)
- plainly [´pleinli] ad.平坦地；简单地 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- welcome [´welkəm] a.受欢迎的；可喜的 (初中英语单词)
- vision [´viʒən] n.视觉；想象力；幻影 (初中英语单词)
- missing [´misiŋ] a.缺掉的；失踪的 (初中英语单词)
- gently [´dʒentli] ad.温和地；静静地 (初中英语单词)
- instinct [´instiŋkt] n.本能；直觉；天资 (初中英语单词)
- recognition [,rekəg´niʃən] n.认出；认识；承认 (初中英语单词)
- measure [´meʒə] n.量度；范围 vt.测量 (初中英语单词)
- sunlight [´sʌnlait] n.日光 (初中英语单词)
- darling [´dɑ:liŋ] n.爱人 a.亲爱的 (初中英语单词)
- embrace [im´breis] vt.&n.拥抱；采纳；信奉 (初中英语单词)
- nervous [´nə:vəs] a.神经的；神经过敏的 (初中英语单词)
- unable [ʌn´eibəl] a.不能的；无能为力的 (初中英语单词)
- twilight [´twailait] n.黎明；黄昏 (初中英语单词)
- awhile [ə´wail] ad.少顷；片刻 (初中英语单词)
- awaken [ə´weikən] v.唤起，叫醒 (初中英语单词)
- sleeping [´sli:piŋ] n.&a.睡着(的) (初中英语单词)
- childish [´tʃaildiʃ] a.孩子的；幼稚的 (初中英语单词)
- presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
- weakness [´wi:knis] n.虚弱；弱点，缺点 (初中英语单词)
- maiden [´meidn] n.少女 a.未婚的 (初中英语单词)
- overcome [,əuvə´kʌm] vt.战胜，克服 (初中英语单词)
- israel [´izreiəl] n.以色列 (高中英语单词)
- melancholy [´melənkəli] n.忧郁 a.忧郁的 (高中英语单词)
- solitude [´sɔlitju:d] n.孤独；寂寞；荒凉 (高中英语单词)
- chamber [´tʃeimbə] n.房间；议院；会议室 (高中英语单词)
- beseech [bi´si:tʃ] v.恳求，哀求 (高中英语单词)
- battery [´bætəri] n.炮兵连；炮台；电池 (高中英语单词)
- threshold [´θreʃhəuld] n.门槛；入门；开端 (高中英语单词)
- withdrew [wið´dru:] withdraw的过去式 (高中英语单词)
- motion [´məuʃən] n.手势 vt.打手势 (高中英语单词)
- torment [´tɔ:ment] vt.(使)痛苦，折磨 (高中英语单词)
- banish [´bæniʃ] vt.流放；消除(顾虑等) (高中英语单词)
- soothe [su:ð] vt.安慰；镇定；减轻 (高中英语单词)
- agitation [,ædʒi´teiʃən] n.鼓动；摇动；焦虑 (高中英语单词)
- parting [´pɑ:tiŋ] a.&n.分离(的) (英语四级单词)
- setting [´setiŋ] n.安装；排字；布景 (英语四级单词)
- shuffle [´ʃʌf(ə)l] v.洗(牌) n.搅乱 (英语四级单词)
- touching [´tʌtʃiŋ] a.动人的 prep.提到 (英语四级单词)
- necklace [´neklis] n.项链 (英语四级单词)
- seeming [´si:miŋ] a.表面上的 n.外观 (英语四级单词)
- afflict [ə´flikt] vt.使痛苦；折磨 (英语四级单词)
- forgiven [fə´givn] forgive的过去分词 (英语四级单词)
- whereon [weər´ɔn] ad.在什么上面；因此 (英语六级单词)
- nether [´neðə] a.下面的；地下的 (英语六级单词)
- glossy [´glɔsi] a.光滑的，有光泽的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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