章节正文
Ah, Ruth! Ruth! It had escaped Israel's notice until then
that he had been thinking of his dead wife the whole night through.
When he put it to himself so, he saw the reason of it at once.
It was because there was a sort of secret charm in the certainty
that where she was she must surely know that her dream was come true.
There was also a kind of bitter pathos in the regret that she was only
an angel now and not a woman; therefore she could not be with him
to share his human joy.
As he walked through the Mellah, Israel thought of her again:
how she had sung by the cradle to her babe that could not hear.
Sung? Yes, he could almost fancy that he heard her singing yet.
That voice so soft, so clear even in its whispers--there had been nothing
like it in all the world. And her songs! Israel could also fancy
that he heard her favourite one. It was a song of love, a pure
but passionatemelodywherein his own delicious happiness
in the earlier days, before the death of the old Grand Rabbi,
had seemed to speak and sing.
Israel began to laugh at himself as he walked. To think that the warmth
and softness of the night, the sweet caressing night, the light and beauty
of the moon and the stillness and slumber of the town,
could betray an old fellow into forgotten dreams like these!
He had taken out of his pocket the big key of the clamped door
to his house, and was crossing the shadowed lane in front of it,
when suddenly he thought he heard music coating in the air above him.
He stopped and listened. Then he had no longer any doubt.
It was music, it was singing; he knew the song, and he knew the voice.
The song was the song he had been thinking of, and the voice was
the voice of Ruth.
O where is Love?
Where, where is Love?
Is it of heavenly birth ?
Is it a thing of earth?
Where, where is Love?
Israel felt himself rooted to the spot, and he stood some time
without stirring. He looked around. All else was still.
The night was as silent as death. He listened attentively.
The singing seemed to come from his own house. Then he thought
he must be dreaming still, and he took a step forward.
But he stopped again and covered both his ears. That was of no avail,
for when he removed his hands the voice was there as before.
A shiver ran over his limbs, yet he could not believe what his soul
was saying. The key dropped out of his hand and rang on the stone.
When the clangour was done the voice continued. Israel bethought him
then that his household must be asleep, and it flashed on his mind
that if this were a human voice the singing ought to awaken them.
Just at that moment the night guard went by and saluted him.
"God bless your morning!" the guard cried; and Israel answered,
"Your morning be blessed!" That was all. The guard seemed
to have heard nothing. His footsteps were dying away,
but the voice went on.
Then a strange emotion filled Israel's heart, and he reflected
that even if it were Ruth she could have come on no evil errand.
That thought gave him courage, and he pushed forward to the door.
As he fumbled the key into the lock he saw that a beggar was crouching
by the doorway in the shadow cast by the moonlight. The man was asleep.
Israel could hear his breathing, and smell his rags. Also he could hear
the thud of his own temples like the beating of a drum in his brain.
At length, as he was groping feebly through the crooked passage,
a new thought came to him. "Naomi," he told himself in a whisper of awe.
It was she. By the full flood of the moonlight in the patio he saw her.
She was on the balcony. Her beautiful white-robed figure was half sitting
on the rail, half leaning against the pillar. The whole lustre
of the moon was upon her. A look of joy beamed on her face.
She was singing her mother's song with her mother's voice,
and all the air, and the sky, and the quiet white town seemed to listen:--
Within my heart a voice
Bids earth and heaven rejoice
Sings--"Love, great Love
O come and claim shine own,
O come and take thy throne
Reign ever and alone,
Reign, glorious golden Love."
Then Israel's fear was turned to rapture. Why had he not thought
of this before? Yet how could he have thought of it? He had never once
heard Naomi's voice save in the utterance of single words.
But again, why had he not remembered that before the tongues
of children can speak words of their own they sing the words of others?
The singing ended, and then Israel, struggling with his dry throat,
stepped a pace forward--his foot grated on the pavement--and he called
to the singer--
"Naomi!"
The girl bent forward, as if peering down into the darkness below,
but Israel could see that her fixed eyes were blind.
"My father!" she whispered.
"Where did you learn it?" said Israel.
"Fatimah, she taught me," Naomi answered; and then she added quickly,
as if with great but childlike pride, saying what she did not mean,
"Oh yes, it was I! Was I not beautiful?"
After that night Naomi's shyness of speech dropped away from her,
and what was left was only a sweet maidenly unconsciousness
of all faults and failings, with a soft and playful lisp that ran
in and out among the simple words that fell from her red lips
like a young squirrel among the fallen leaves of autumn.
It would be a long task to tell how her lisping tongue turned everything
then to favour and to prettiness. On the coming of the gift of hearing,
the world had first spoken to her; and now, on the coming
of the gift of speech, she herself was first speaking to the world.
What did she tell it at that first sweet greeting? She told it
what she had been thinking of it in those mute days that were gone,
when she had neither hearing nor speech, but was in the land of silence
as well as in the land of night.
The fancies of the blind maid so long shut up within the beautiful casket
of her body were strange and touching ones. Israel took delight in them
at the beginning. He loved to probe the dark places of the mind
they came from, thinking God Himself must surely have illumined it
at some time with a light that no man knew, so startling were some
of Naomi's replies, so tender and so beautiful.
One evening, not long after she had first spoken, he was sitting
with her on the roof of their house as the sun was going down
over the palpitating plains towards Arzila and Laraiche and
the great sea beyond. Twilight was gathering in the Feddan
under the Mosque, and the last light of day, which had parleyed longest
with the snowy heights of the Reef Mountains, was glowing only
on the sky above them.
"Sweetheart," said Israel, "what is the sun?"
"The sun is a fire in the sky," Naomi answered; "my Father lights it
every morning."
"Truly, little one, thy Father lights it," said Israel; "thy Father
which is in heaven."
"Sweetheart," he said again, "what is darkness?"
"Oh, darkness is cold," said Naomi promptly, and she seemed to shiver.
"Then the light must be warmth, little one?" said Israel.
"Yes, and noise," she answered; and then she added quickly,
"Light is alive."
Saying this, she crept closer to his side, and knelt there,
and by her old trick of love she took his hand in both of hers,
and pressed it against her cheek, and then, lifting her sweet face
with its motionless eyes she began to tell him in her broken words
and pretty lisp what she thought of night. In the night the world,
and everything in it, was cold and quiet. That was death.
The angels of God came to the world in the day. But God Himself came
in the night, because He loved silence, and because all the world
was dead. Then He kissed things, and in the morning all
that God had kissed came to life again. If you were to get up early
you would feel God's kiss on the flowers and on the grass.
And that was why the birds were singing then. God had kissed them
in the night, and they were glad.
One day Israel took Naomi to the mearrah of the Jews, the little cemetery
outside the town walls where he had buried Ruth. And there he told her
of her mother once more; that she was in the grave, but also with God;
that she was dead, but still alive; that Naomi must not expect
to find her in that place, but, nevertheless, that she would see her
yet again.
"Do you remember her, Naomi?" he said. "Do you remember her
in the old days, the old dark and silent days? Not Fatimah,
and not Habeebah, but some one who was nearer to you than either,
and loved you better than both; some one who had soft hands,
and smooth cheeks, and long, silken, wavy hair--do you remember,
little one?"
"Y-es, I think--I _think_ I remember," said Naomi.
"That was your mother, my darling."
"My mother?"
"Ah, you don't know what a mother is, sweetheart. How should you?
And how shall I tell you? Listen. She is the one who loves you first
and last and always. When you are a babe she suckles you
and nourishes you and fondles you, and watches for the first light
of your smile, and listens for the first accent of your tongue.
When you are a young child she plays with you, and sings to you,
and tells you little stories, and teaches you to speak.
Your smile is more bright to her than sunshine, and your childish lisp
more sweet than music. If you are sick she is beside you constantly,
and when you are well she is behind you still. Though you sin
and fall and all men spurn you, yet she clings to you;
and if you do well and God prospers you, there is no joy like her joy.
Her love never changes, for it is a fount which the cold winds
of the world cannot freeze. . . . And if you are a little
helpless girl--blind and deaf and dumb maybe--then she loves you
best of all. She cannot tell you stories, and she cannot sing to you,
because you cannot hear; she cannot smile into your eyes,
because you cannot see; she cannot talk to you, because you cannot speak;
but she can watch your quiet face, and feel the touch
of your little fingers and hear the sound of your merry laughter."
"My mother! my mother!" whispered Naomi to herself, as if in awe.
"Yes," said Israel, "your mother was like that, Naomi, long ago,
in the days before your great gifts came to you. But she is gone,
she has left us, she could not stay; she is dead, and only
from the blue mountains of memory can she smile back upon us now."
Naomi could not understand, but her fixed blue eyes filled with tears,
and she said abruptly, "People who die are deceitful. They want to go
out in the night to be with God. That is where they are
when they go away. They are wandering about the world when it is dead."
The same night Naomi was missed out of the house, and for many hours
no search availed to find her. She was not in the Mellah,
and therefore she must have passed into the Moorish town
before the gates closed at sunset. Neither was she to be seen
in the Feddan or at the Kasbah, or among the Arabs who sat
in the red glow of the fires that burnt before their tents.
At last Israel bethought him of the mearrah, and there he found her.
It was dark, and the lonesome place was silent. The reflection
of the lights of the town rose into the sky above it, and the distant hum
of voices came over the black town walls. And there, within
the straggling hedge of prickly pear, among the long white stones
that lay like sheep asleep among the grass, Naomi in her double darkness,
the darkness of the night and of her blindness was running to and fro,
and crying, "Mother! Mother!"
Fatimah took her the four miles to Marteel, that the breath
of the sea might bring colour to her cheeks, which had been whitened
by the heat and fumes of the town. The day was soft and beautiful,
the water was quiet, and only a gentle wind came creeping over it.
But Naomi listened to every sound with eager intentness--the light plash
of the blue wavelets that washed to her feet, the ripple of their crests
that he had been thinking of his dead wife the whole night through.
When he put it to himself so, he saw the reason of it at once.
It was because there was a sort of secret charm in the certainty
that where she was she must surely know that her dream was come true.
There was also a kind of bitter pathos in the regret that she was only
an angel now and not a woman; therefore she could not be with him
to share his human joy.
As he walked through the Mellah, Israel thought of her again:
how she had sung by the cradle to her babe that could not hear.
Sung? Yes, he could almost fancy that he heard her singing yet.
That voice so soft, so clear even in its whispers--there had been nothing
like it in all the world. And her songs! Israel could also fancy
that he heard her favourite one. It was a song of love, a pure
but passionatemelodywherein his own delicious happiness
in the earlier days, before the death of the old Grand Rabbi,
had seemed to speak and sing.
Israel began to laugh at himself as he walked. To think that the warmth
and softness of the night, the sweet caressing night, the light and beauty
of the moon and the stillness and slumber of the town,
could betray an old fellow into forgotten dreams like these!
He had taken out of his pocket the big key of the clamped door
to his house, and was crossing the shadowed lane in front of it,
when suddenly he thought he heard music coating in the air above him.
He stopped and listened. Then he had no longer any doubt.
It was music, it was singing; he knew the song, and he knew the voice.
The song was the song he had been thinking of, and the voice was
the voice of Ruth.
O where is Love?
Where, where is Love?
Is it of heavenly birth ?
Is it a thing of earth?
Where, where is Love?
Israel felt himself rooted to the spot, and he stood some time
without stirring. He looked around. All else was still.
The night was as silent as death. He listened attentively.
The singing seemed to come from his own house. Then he thought
he must be dreaming still, and he took a step forward.
But he stopped again and covered both his ears. That was of no avail,
for when he removed his hands the voice was there as before.
A shiver ran over his limbs, yet he could not believe what his soul
was saying. The key dropped out of his hand and rang on the stone.
When the clangour was done the voice continued. Israel bethought him
then that his household must be asleep, and it flashed on his mind
that if this were a human voice the singing ought to awaken them.
Just at that moment the night guard went by and saluted him.
"God bless your morning!" the guard cried; and Israel answered,
"Your morning be blessed!" That was all. The guard seemed
to have heard nothing. His footsteps were dying away,
but the voice went on.
Then a strange emotion filled Israel's heart, and he reflected
that even if it were Ruth she could have come on no evil errand.
That thought gave him courage, and he pushed forward to the door.
As he fumbled the key into the lock he saw that a beggar was crouching
by the doorway in the shadow cast by the moonlight. The man was asleep.
Israel could hear his breathing, and smell his rags. Also he could hear
the thud of his own temples like the beating of a drum in his brain.
At length, as he was groping feebly through the crooked passage,
a new thought came to him. "Naomi," he told himself in a whisper of awe.
It was she. By the full flood of the moonlight in the patio he saw her.
She was on the balcony. Her beautiful white-robed figure was half sitting
on the rail, half leaning against the pillar. The whole lustre
of the moon was upon her. A look of joy beamed on her face.
She was singing her mother's song with her mother's voice,
and all the air, and the sky, and the quiet white town seemed to listen:--
Within my heart a voice
Bids earth and heaven rejoice
Sings--"Love, great Love
O come and claim shine own,
O come and take thy throne
Reign ever and alone,
Reign, glorious golden Love."
Then Israel's fear was turned to rapture. Why had he not thought
of this before? Yet how could he have thought of it? He had never once
heard Naomi's voice save in the utterance of single words.
But again, why had he not remembered that before the tongues
of children can speak words of their own they sing the words of others?
The singing ended, and then Israel, struggling with his dry throat,
stepped a pace forward--his foot grated on the pavement--and he called
to the singer--
"Naomi!"
The girl bent forward, as if peering down into the darkness below,
but Israel could see that her fixed eyes were blind.
"My father!" she whispered.
"Where did you learn it?" said Israel.
"Fatimah, she taught me," Naomi answered; and then she added quickly,
as if with great but childlike pride, saying what she did not mean,
"Oh yes, it was I! Was I not beautiful?"
After that night Naomi's shyness of speech dropped away from her,
and what was left was only a sweet maidenly unconsciousness
of all faults and failings, with a soft and playful lisp that ran
in and out among the simple words that fell from her red lips
like a young squirrel among the fallen leaves of autumn.
It would be a long task to tell how her lisping tongue turned everything
then to favour and to prettiness. On the coming of the gift of hearing,
the world had first spoken to her; and now, on the coming
of the gift of speech, she herself was first speaking to the world.
What did she tell it at that first sweet greeting? She told it
what she had been thinking of it in those mute days that were gone,
when she had neither hearing nor speech, but was in the land of silence
as well as in the land of night.
The fancies of the blind maid so long shut up within the beautiful casket
of her body were strange and touching ones. Israel took delight in them
at the beginning. He loved to probe the dark places of the mind
they came from, thinking God Himself must surely have illumined it
at some time with a light that no man knew, so startling were some
of Naomi's replies, so tender and so beautiful.
One evening, not long after she had first spoken, he was sitting
with her on the roof of their house as the sun was going down
over the palpitating plains towards Arzila and Laraiche and
the great sea beyond. Twilight was gathering in the Feddan
under the Mosque, and the last light of day, which had parleyed longest
with the snowy heights of the Reef Mountains, was glowing only
on the sky above them.
"Sweetheart," said Israel, "what is the sun?"
"The sun is a fire in the sky," Naomi answered; "my Father lights it
every morning."
"Truly, little one, thy Father lights it," said Israel; "thy Father
which is in heaven."
"Sweetheart," he said again, "what is darkness?"
"Oh, darkness is cold," said Naomi promptly, and she seemed to shiver.
"Then the light must be warmth, little one?" said Israel.
"Yes, and noise," she answered; and then she added quickly,
"Light is alive."
Saying this, she crept closer to his side, and knelt there,
and by her old trick of love she took his hand in both of hers,
and pressed it against her cheek, and then, lifting her sweet face
with its motionless eyes she began to tell him in her broken words
and pretty lisp what she thought of night. In the night the world,
and everything in it, was cold and quiet. That was death.
The angels of God came to the world in the day. But God Himself came
in the night, because He loved silence, and because all the world
was dead. Then He kissed things, and in the morning all
that God had kissed came to life again. If you were to get up early
you would feel God's kiss on the flowers and on the grass.
And that was why the birds were singing then. God had kissed them
in the night, and they were glad.
One day Israel took Naomi to the mearrah of the Jews, the little cemetery
outside the town walls where he had buried Ruth. And there he told her
of her mother once more; that she was in the grave, but also with God;
that she was dead, but still alive; that Naomi must not expect
to find her in that place, but, nevertheless, that she would see her
yet again.
"Do you remember her, Naomi?" he said. "Do you remember her
in the old days, the old dark and silent days? Not Fatimah,
and not Habeebah, but some one who was nearer to you than either,
and loved you better than both; some one who had soft hands,
and smooth cheeks, and long, silken, wavy hair--do you remember,
little one?"
"Y-es, I think--I _think_ I remember," said Naomi.
"That was your mother, my darling."
"My mother?"
"Ah, you don't know what a mother is, sweetheart. How should you?
And how shall I tell you? Listen. She is the one who loves you first
and last and always. When you are a babe she suckles you
and nourishes you and fondles you, and watches for the first light
of your smile, and listens for the first accent of your tongue.
When you are a young child she plays with you, and sings to you,
and tells you little stories, and teaches you to speak.
Your smile is more bright to her than sunshine, and your childish lisp
more sweet than music. If you are sick she is beside you constantly,
and when you are well she is behind you still. Though you sin
and fall and all men spurn you, yet she clings to you;
and if you do well and God prospers you, there is no joy like her joy.
Her love never changes, for it is a fount which the cold winds
of the world cannot freeze. . . . And if you are a little
helpless girl--blind and deaf and dumb maybe--then she loves you
best of all. She cannot tell you stories, and she cannot sing to you,
because you cannot hear; she cannot smile into your eyes,
because you cannot see; she cannot talk to you, because you cannot speak;
but she can watch your quiet face, and feel the touch
of your little fingers and hear the sound of your merry laughter."
"My mother! my mother!" whispered Naomi to herself, as if in awe.
"Yes," said Israel, "your mother was like that, Naomi, long ago,
in the days before your great gifts came to you. But she is gone,
she has left us, she could not stay; she is dead, and only
from the blue mountains of memory can she smile back upon us now."
Naomi could not understand, but her fixed blue eyes filled with tears,
and she said abruptly, "People who die are deceitful. They want to go
out in the night to be with God. That is where they are
when they go away. They are wandering about the world when it is dead."
The same night Naomi was missed out of the house, and for many hours
no search availed to find her. She was not in the Mellah,
and therefore she must have passed into the Moorish town
before the gates closed at sunset. Neither was she to be seen
in the Feddan or at the Kasbah, or among the Arabs who sat
in the red glow of the fires that burnt before their tents.
At last Israel bethought him of the mearrah, and there he found her.
It was dark, and the lonesome place was silent. The reflection
of the lights of the town rose into the sky above it, and the distant hum
of voices came over the black town walls. And there, within
the straggling hedge of prickly pear, among the long white stones
that lay like sheep asleep among the grass, Naomi in her double darkness,
the darkness of the night and of her blindness was running to and fro,
and crying, "Mother! Mother!"
Fatimah took her the four miles to Marteel, that the breath
of the sea might bring colour to her cheeks, which had been whitened
by the heat and fumes of the town. The day was soft and beautiful,
the water was quiet, and only a gentle wind came creeping over it.
But Naomi listened to every sound with eager intentness--the light plash
of the blue wavelets that washed to her feet, the ripple of their crests
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:]
ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词) - cradle [´kreidl] n.摇篮；发源地 (初中英语单词)
- delicious [di´liʃəs] a.美味的，可口的 (初中英语单词)
- slumber [´slʌmbə] v.&n.睡眠；沉睡状态 (初中英语单词)
- betray [bi´trei] vt.背叛；辜负；暴露 (初中英语单词)
- shiver [´ʃivə] v.&n.(使)颤抖；碎片 (初中英语单词)
- awaken [ə´weikən] v.唤起，叫醒 (初中英语单词)
- emotion [i´məuʃən] n.感情；情绪；激动 (初中英语单词)
- beggar [´begə] n.乞丐 (初中英语单词)
- doorway [´dɔ:wei] n.门口 (初中英语单词)
- moonlight [´mu:nlait] n.&a.月光(的) (初中英语单词)
- whisper [´wispə] v.耳语 n.低语；沙沙声 (初中英语单词)
- glorious [´glɔ:riəs] a.光荣的；辉煌的 (初中英语单词)
- squirrel [´skwirəl] n.松鼠 (初中英语单词)
- spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- twilight [´twailait] n.黎明；黄昏 (初中英语单词)
- promptly [´prɔmptli] ad.敏捷地；即时地 (初中英语单词)
- warmth [wɔ:mθ] n.温暖；热情；激动 (初中英语单词)
- nevertheless [,nevəðə´les] conj.&ad.然而；不过 (初中英语单词)
- accent [´æksənt, æk´sent] n.重音；口音 vt.重读 (初中英语单词)
- sunshine [´sʌnʃain] n.日光，阳光 (初中英语单词)
- childish [´tʃaildiʃ] a.孩子的；幼稚的 (初中英语单词)
- freeze [fri:z] v.结冰；凝固；冷淡 (初中英语单词)
- abruptly [ə´brʌptli] ad.突然地；粗鲁地 (初中英语单词)
- sunset [´sʌnset] n.日落；晚霞 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- israel [´izreiəl] n.以色列 (高中英语单词)
- passionate [´pæʃənit] a.易动情的；易怒的 (高中英语单词)
- melody [´melədi] n.悦耳的音调；乐曲 (高中英语单词)
- wherein [weər´in] ad.那里面 (高中英语单词)
- stillness [´stilnis] n.不动；无声，寂静 (高中英语单词)
- heavenly [´hevənli] a.天的，天空的 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- crooked [´krukid] a.弯曲的；畸形的 (高中英语单词)
- pillar [´pilə] n.支柱 vt.用柱支持 (高中英语单词)
- rapture [´ræptʃə] n.着迷；全神贯注 (高中英语单词)
- hearing [´hiəriŋ] n.听力；听证会；审讯 (高中英语单词)
- startling [´stɑ:tliŋ] a.惊人的 (高中英语单词)
- motionless [´məuʃənləs] a.静止的；固定的 (高中英语单词)
- silken [´silkən] a.丝制的；柔软光滑的 (高中英语单词)
- sweetheart [´swi:thɑ:t] n.爱人；情人 (高中英语单词)
- lonesome [´ləunsəm] a.孤独的；冷清清的 (高中英语单词)
- ripple [´ripəl] n.涟漪 v.(使)起涟漪 (高中英语单词)
- stirring [´stə:riŋ] a.活跃的；热闹的 (英语四级单词)
- feebly [´fi:bli] ad.虚弱地；贫乏地 (英语四级单词)
- balcony [´bælkəni] n.阳台；(戏院的)楼厅 (英语四级单词)
- utterance [´ʌtərəns] n.发音；言辞；所说的话 (英语四级单词)
- touching [´tʌtʃiŋ] a.动人的 prep.提到 (英语四级单词)
- gathering [´gæðəriŋ] n.集会，聚集 (英语四级单词)
- blindness [´blaindnis] n.失明；愚味，文盲 (英语四级单词)
- softness [´sɔftnis] n.柔软；柔和；温柔 (英语六级单词)
- beating [´bi:tiŋ] n.敲；搅打；失败 (英语六级单词)
- playful [´pleifəl] a.爱玩耍的；幽默的 (英语六级单词)
- speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)
- deceitful [di´si:tful] a.欺骗的，骗人的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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