酷兔英语
    当前位置:
  1. 首页
  2. 文章
  3. 娱乐英语
  4. 原版小说
  5. 正文

Chita-A Memory of Last Island-Part5_Lafcadio Hearn(1850-1904)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

0 收藏 0 分享 0 赞

章节正文
文章总共2页
the gentle presence ceased to haunt her,--seemed to have lain

down to sleep forever under the high bright grass and yellow



flowers. Why did it return, that night of all nights, to kiss

her, to cling to her, to nestle in her arms?



For in her dream she thought herself still kneeling before the

waxen Image, while the terrors of the tempest were ever deepening



about her,--raving of winds and booming of waters and a shaking

of the land. And before her, even as she prayed her



dream-prayer, the waxen Virgin became tall as a woman, and

taller,--rising to the roof and smiling as she grew. Then Carmen



would have cried out for fear, but that something smothered her

voice,--paralyzed her tongue. And the Virgin silently stooped



above her, and placed in her arms the Child,--the brown Child

with the Indian face. And the Child whitened in her hands and



changed,--seeming as it changed to send a sharp pain through her

heart: an old pain linked somehow with memories of bright windy



Spanish hills, and summer scent of olive groves, and all the

luminous Past;--it looked into her face with the soft dark gaze,



with the unforgotten smile of ... dead Conchita!

And Carmen wished to thank; the smiling Virgin for that priceless



bliss, and lifted up her eyes, but the sickness of ghostly fear

returned upon her when she looked; for now the Mother seemed as a



woman long dead, and the smile was the smile of fleshlessness,

and the places of the eyes were voids and darknesses ... And the



sea sent up so vast a roar that the dwelling rocked.

Carmen started from sleep to find her heart throbbing so that the



couch shook with it. Night was growing gray; the door had just

been opened and slammed again. Through the rain-whipped panes



she discerned the passing shape of Feliu, making for the beach--a

broad and bearded silhouette, bending against the wind. Still



the waxen Virgin smiled her Mexican smile,--but now she was only

seven inches high; and her bead-glass eyes seemed to twinkle with



kindliness while the flame of the last expiring taper struggled

for life in the earthensocket at her feet.



III.

Rain and a blind sky and a bursting sea Feliu and his men, Miguel



and Mateo, looked out upon the thundering and flashing of the

monstrous tide. The wind had fallen, and the gray air was full



of gulls. Behind the cheniere, back to the cloudy line of low

woods many miles away, stretched a wash of lead-colored water,



with a green point piercing it here and there--elbow-bushes or

wild cane tall enough to keep their heads above the flood. But



the inundation was visibly decreasing;--with the passing of each

hour more and more green patches and points had been showing



themselves: by degrees the course of the bayou had become

defined--two parallel winding lines of dwarf-timber and bushy



shrubs traversing the water toward the distant cypress-swamps.

Before the cheniere all the shell-beach slope was piled with



wreck--uptorn trees with the foliage still fresh upon them,

splintered timbers of mysteriousorigin, and logs in multitude,



scarred with gashes of the axe. Feliu and his comrades had saved

wood enough to build a little town,--working up to their waists



in the surf, with ropes, poles, and boat-hooks. The whole sea

was full of flotsam. Voto a Cristo!--what a wrecking there must



have been! And to think the Carmencita could not be taken out!

They had seen other luggers making eastward during the



morning--could recognize some by their sails, others by their

gait,--exaggerated in their struggle with the pitching of the



sea: the San Pablo, the Gasparina, the Enriqueta, the Agueda,

the Constanza. Ugly water, yes!--but what a chance for wreckers!



... Some great ship must have gone to pieces;--scores of casks

were rolling in the trough,--casks of wine. Perhaps it was the



Manila,--perhaps the Nautilus!

A dead cow floated near enough for Mateo to throw his rope over



one horn; and they all helped to get it out. It was a milch cow

of some expensive breed; and the owner's brand had been burned



upon the horns:--a monographic combination of the letters A and

P. Feliu said he knew that brand: Old-man Preaulx, of



Belle-Isle, who kept a sort of dairy at Last Island during the

summer season, used to mark all his cows that way. Strange!



But, as they worked on, they began to see stranger things,--white

dead faces and dead hands, which did not look like the hands or






文章总共2页
文章标签:名著  

章节正文
Copyright © 2023 Qeto All rights reserved.
商务合作 | 联系我们 | 关于我们 | 版权声明 | 隐私条款 | 如果智培

京ICP备05059198号-1 京公网安备 11011202003401号