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Options-Part14_O.Henry(1862-1910)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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The hermit had hermited there for ten years. He was an asset of the

Viewpoint Inn. To its guests he was second in interest only to the



Mysterious Echo in the Haunted Glen. And the Lover's Leap beat him

only a few inches, flat-footed. He was known far (but not very wide,



on account of the topography) as a. scholar of brilliant intellect

who had forsworn the world because he had been jilted in a love



affair. Every Saturday night the Viewpoint Inn sent to him

surreptitiously a basket of provisions. He never left the immediate



outskirts of his hermitage. Guests of the inn who visited him said

his store of knowledge, wit, and scintillating philosophy were simply



wonderful, you know.

That summer the Viewpoint Inn was crowded with guests. So, on



Saturday nights, there were extra cans of tomatoes, and sirloin steak,

instead of "rounds," in the hermit's basket.



Now you have the material allegations in the case. So, make way for

Romance.



Evidently the hermit expected a visitor. He carefully combed his long

hair and parted his apostolic beard. When the ninety-eight-cent



alarm-clock on a stone shelf announced the hour of five he picked up

his gunny-sacking skirts, brushed them carefully, gathered an oaken



staff, and strolled slowly into the thick woods that surrounded the

hermitage.



He had not long to wait. Up the faint pathway, slippery with its

carpet of pine-needles, toiled Beatrix, youngest and fairest of the



famous Trenholme sisters. She was all in blue from hat to canvas

pumps, varying in tint from the shade of the tinkle of a bluebell at



daybreak on a spring Saturday to the deep hue of a Monday morning at

nine when the washer-woman has failed to show up.



Beatrix dug her cerulean parasol deep into the pine-needles and

sighed. The hermit, on the q. t., removed a grass burr from the



ankle of one sandalled foot with the big toe of his other one.

She blued--and almost starched and ironed him--with her cobalt eyes.



"It must be so nice," she said in little, tremulous gasps, "to be a

hermit, and have ladies climb mountains to talk to you."



The hermit folded his arms and leaned against a tree. Beatrix, with a

sigh, settled down upon the mat of pine-needles like a bluebird upon



her nest. The hermit followed suit; drawing his feet rather awkwardly

under his gunny-sacking.



"It must be nice to be a mountain," said he, with ponderous lightness,

"and have angels in blue climb up you instead of flying over you."



"Mamma had neuralgia," said Beatrix, "and went to bed, or I couldn't

have come. It's dreadfully hot at that horrid old inn. But we hadn't



the money to go anywhere else this summer."

"Last night," said the hermit, "I climbed to the top of that big rock



above us. I could see the lights of the inn and hear a strain or two

of the music when the wind was right. I imagined you moving



gracefully in the arms of others to the dreamy music of the waltz amid

the fragrance of flowers. Think how lonely I must have been!"



The youngest, handsomest, and poorest of the famous Trenholme sisters

sighed.



"You haven't quite hit it," she said, plaintively. "I was moving

gracefully at the arms of another. Mamma had one of her periodical



attacks of rheumatism in both elbows and shoulders, and I had to rub

them for an hour with that horrid old liniment. I hope you didn't



think that smelled like flowers. You know, there were some West Point

boys and a yachtload of young men from the city at last evening's



weekly dance. I've known mamma to sit by an open window for three

hours with one-half of her registering 85 degrees and the other half



frostbitten, and never sneeze once. But just let a bunch of

ineligibles come around where I am, and she'll begin to swell at the



knuckles and shriek with pain. And I have to take her to her room and

rub her arms. To see mamma dressed you'd be surprised to know the



number of square inches of surface there are to her arms. I think it

must be delightful to be a hermit. That--cassock-- gabardine, isn't



it?--that you wear is so becoming. Do you make it--or them--of course

you must have changes- yourself? And what a blessedrelief it must be



to wear sandals instead of shoes! Think how we must suffer--no matter

how small I buy my shoes they always pinch my toes. Oh, why can't



there be lady hermits, too!"

The beautifulest and most adolescent Trenholme sister extended two



slender blue ankles that ended in two enormous blue-silk bows that




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