章节正文
tongues. She wore a loose-falling dress of some light stuff,
steel-gray in color;--boys' shoes were on her feet.
He did not reply;--and her large eyes grew larger for wonder at
the strange fixed gaze of the physician, whose face had visibly
bleached,--blanched to corpse-pallor. Silent seconds passed; and
still the eyes stared--flamed as if the life of the man had
centralized and focussed within them.
His voice had risen to a cry in his throat, quivered and swelled
one passionateinstant, and failed--as in a dream when one
strives to call, and yet can only moan ... She! Her unforgotten
eyes, her brows, her lips!--the oval of her face!--the dawn-light
of her hair! ... Adele's own poise,--her own grace!--even the
very turn of her neck, even the bird-tone of her speech! ... Had
the grave sent forth a Shadow to haunt him?--could the perfidious
Sea have yielded up its dead? For one terrible fraction of a
minute, memories, doubts, fears, mad fancies, went pulsing
through his brain with a rush like the rhythmic throbbing of an
electric stream;--then the shock passed, the Reason
spoke:--"Fool!--count the long years since you first saw her
thus!--countthe years that have gone since you looked upon her
last! And Time has never halted, silly heart!--neither has Death
stood still!"
... "Plait-il?"--the clear voice of the young girl asked. She
thought he had made some response she could not distinctly hear.
Mastering himself an instant, as the heart faltered back to its
duty, and the color remounted to his lips, he answered her in
French:--
"Pardon me!--I did not hear ... you gave me such a start!" ...
But even then another extraordinary fancy flashed through his
thought;--and with the tutoiement of a parent to a child, with an
irresistible outburst of such tenderness as almost frightened
her, he cried: "Oh! merciful God!--how like her! ... Tell me,
darling, your name; ... tell me who you are?" (Dis-moi qui tu es,
mignonne;--dis-moi ton nom.)
... Who was it had asked her the same question, in another idiom
ever so long ago? The man with the black eyes and nose like an
eagle's beak,--the one who gave her the compass. Not this
man--no!
She answered, with the timid gravity of surprise:--
--"Chita Viosca"
He still watched her face, and repeated the name
slowly,--reiterated it in a tone of wonderment:--"Chita
Viosca?--Chita Viosca!"
--"C'est a dire ..." she said, looking down at her
feet,--"Concha--Conchita. " His strange solemnity made her
smile,--the smile of shyness that knows not what else to do. But
it was the smile of dead Adele.
--"Thanks, my child, " he exclaimed of a sudden,--in a quick,
hoarse, changed tone. (He felt that his emotion would break
loose in some wild way, if he looked upon her longer.) "I would
like to see your mother this evening; but I now feel too ill to
go out. I am going to try to rest a little."
--"Nothing I can bring you?" she asked,--"some fresh milk?"
--"Nothing now, dear: if I need anything later, I will tell
your mother when she comes. "
--"Mamma does not understand French very well."
--"No importa, Conchita;--le hablare en Espanol."
--"Bien, entonces!" she responded, with the same exquisite
smile. "Adios, senor!" ...
But as she turned in going, his piercing eye discerned a little
brown speck below the pretty lobe of her right ear,--just in the
peachy curve between neck and cheek. ... His own little Zouzoune
had a birthmark like that!---he remembered the faint pink trace
left by his fingers above and below it the day he had slapped her
for overturning his ink bottle ... "To laimin moin?---to batte
moin!"
"Chita!---Chita!"
She did not hear ... After all, what a mistake he might have
made! Were not Nature's coincidences more wonderful than
fiction? Better to wait,--to question the mother first, and thus
make sure.
Still--there were so many coincidences! The face, the smile, the
eyes, the voice, the whole charm;---then that mark,---and the
fair hair. Zouzoune had always resembled Adele so strangely!
That golden hair was a Scandinavian bequest to the Florane
family;---the tall daughter of a Norwegian sea captain had once
become the wife of a Florane. Viosca?---who ever knew a Viosca
with such hair? Yet again, these Spanish emigrants sometimes
married blonde German girls ... Might be a case of atavism, too.
Who was this Viosca? If that was his wife,---the little brown
Carmen,---whence Chita's sunny hair? ...
And this was part of that same desolate shore whither the Last
Island dead had been drifted by that tremendous surge! On a
clear day, with a good glass, one might discern from here the
long blue streak of that ghastly coast ... Somewhere--between
here and there ... Merciful God! ...
... But again! That bivouac-night before the fight at
Chancellorsville, Laroussel had begun to tell him such a singular
story ... Chance had brought them,--the old enemies,--together;
made them dear friends in the face of Death. How little he had
comprehended the man!---what a brave, true, simple soul went up
that day to the Lord of Battles! ... What was it--that story
about the little Creole girl saved from Last Island,--that story
which was never finished? ... Eh! what a pain!
Evidently he had worked too much, slept too little. A decided
case of nervous prostration. He must lie down, and try to sleep.
These pains in the head and back were becoming unbearable.
Nothing but rest could avail him now.
He stretched himself under the mosquito curtain. It was very
still, breath. less, hot! The venomous insects were
thick;---they filled the room with a continuous ebullient sound,
as if invisible kettles were boiling overhead. A sign of
storm.... Still, it was strange!---he could not perspire ...
Then it seemed to him that Laroussel was bending over
him---Laroussel in his cavalry uniform. "Bon jour,
camarade!---nous allons avoir un bien mauvais temps, mon pauvre
Julien." How! bad weather?---"Comment un mauvais temps?" ...
He looked in Laroussel's face. There was something so singular
in his smile. Ah! yes,---he remembered now: it was the wound!
... "Un vilain temps!" whispered Laroussel. Then he was gone
... Whither?
---"Cheri!" ...
The whisper roused him with a fearful start ... Adele's whisper!
So she was wont to rouse him sometimes in the old sweet
nights,--to crave some little attention for ailing Eulalie,---to
make some little confidence she had forgotten to utter during the
happy evening ... No, no! It was only the trees. The sky was
clouding over. The wind was rising ... How his heart beat! how
his temples pulsed! Why, this was fever! Such pains in the back
and head!
Still his skin was dry,--dry as parchment,--burning. He rose up;
and a bursting weight of pain at the base of the skull made him
reel like a drunken man. He staggered to the little mirror
nailed upon the wall, and looked. How his eyes glowed;---and
there was blood in his mouth! He felt his pulse spasmodic,
terribly rapid. Could it possibly---? ... No: this must be
some pernicious malarial fever! The Creole does not easily fall
a prey to the great tropical malady,---unless after a long
absence in other climates. True! he had been four years in the
army! But this was 1867 ... He hesitated a moment;
then,--opening his medicine chest, he measured out and swallowed
thirty grains of quinine.
Then he lay down again. His head pained more and more;---it
seemed as if the cervical vertebrae were filled with fluid iron.
And still his skin remained dry as if tanned. Then the anguish
grew so intense as to force a groan with almost every aspiration
... Nausea,--and the stinging bitterness of quinine rising in his
throat;---dizziness, and a brutal wrenching within his stomach.
Everything began to look pink;---the light was rose-colored. It
darkened more,---kindled with deepening tint. Something kept
sparkling and spinning before his sight, like a firework ... Then
a burst of blood mixed with chemicalbitterness filled his mouth;
the light became scarlet as claret ... This--this was ... not
malaria ...
VI.
... Carmen knew what it was; but the brave little woman was not
afraid of it. Many a time before she had met it face to face, in
Havanese summers; she knew how to wrestle with it; she had torn
Feliu's life away from its yellow clutch, after one of those long
struggles that strain even the strength of love. Now she feared
mostly for Chita. She had ordered the girl under no
circumstances to approach the cabin.
Julien felt that blankets had been heaped upon him,---that some
gentle hand was bathing his scorching face with vinegar and
water. Vaguely also there came to him the idea that it was
night. He saw the shadow-shape of a woman moving against the red
light upon the wall;---he saw there was a lamp burning.
Then the delirium seized him: he moaned, sobbed, cried like a
child,---talked wildly at intervals in French, in English, in
Spanish.
---"Mentira!---you could not be her mother ... Still, if you
were---And she must not come in here,---jamais! ... Carmen, did
you know Adele,---Adele Florane? So like her,---so like,---God
only knows how like! ... Perhaps I think I know;---but I do
not---do not know justly, fully---how like! ... Si! si!---es el
vomito!---yo lo conozco, Carmen! ... She must not die twice ... I
died twice ... I am going to die again. She only once. Till the
heavens be no more she will not rise ... Moi, au contraire, il
faut que je me leve toujours! They need me so much;---the slate
is always full; the bell will never stop. They will ring that
bell for me when I am dead ... So will I rise again!---resurgam!
... How could I save him?---could not save myself. It was a bad
case,--at seventy years! ... There! Qui ca?" ...
He saw Laroussel again,--reaching out a hand to him through a
whirl of red smoke. He tried to grasp it, and could not ...
"N'importe, mon ami," said Laroussel,---"tu vas la voir bientot."
Who was he to see soon?---"qui done, Laroussel?" But Laroussel
did not answer. Through the red mist he seemed to smile;---then
passed.
For some hours Carmen had trusted she could save her
patient,---desperate as the case appeared to be. His was one of
those rapid and violent attacks, such as often despatch their
victims in a single day. In the Cuban hospitals she had seen
many and many terrible examples: strong young men,---soldiers
fresh from Spain,---carried panting to the fever wards at
sunrise; carried to the cemeteries at sunset. Even troopers
riddled with revolutionary bullets had lingered longer ... Still,
she had believed she might save Julien's life: the burning
forehead once began to bead, the burning hands grew moist.
But now the wind was moaning;--the air had become lighter,
thinner, cooler. A stone was gathering in the east; and to the
fever-stricken man the change meant death ... Impossible to bring
the priest of the Caminada now; and there was no other within a
day's sail. She could only pray; she had lost all hope in her
own power to save.
Still the sick man raved; but he talked to himself at longer
intervals, and with longer pauses between his words;---his voice
was growing more feeble, his speech more incoherent. His thought
vacillated and distorted, like flame in a wind.
Weirdly the past became confounded with the present; impressions
of sight and of sound interlinked in fastastic affinity,---the
steel-gray in color;--boys' shoes were on her feet.
He did not reply;--and her large eyes grew larger for wonder at
the strange fixed gaze of the physician, whose face had visibly
bleached,--blanched to corpse-pallor. Silent seconds passed; and
still the eyes stared--flamed as if the life of the man had
centralized and focussed within them.
His voice had risen to a cry in his throat, quivered and swelled
one passionateinstant, and failed--as in a dream when one
strives to call, and yet can only moan ... She! Her unforgotten
eyes, her brows, her lips!--the oval of her face!--the dawn-light
of her hair! ... Adele's own poise,--her own grace!--even the
very turn of her neck, even the bird-tone of her speech! ... Had
the grave sent forth a Shadow to haunt him?--could the perfidious
Sea have yielded up its dead? For one terrible fraction of a
minute, memories, doubts, fears, mad fancies, went pulsing
through his brain with a rush like the rhythmic throbbing of an
electric stream;--then the shock passed, the Reason
spoke:--"Fool!--count the long years since you first saw her
thus!--countthe years that have gone since you looked upon her
last! And Time has never halted, silly heart!--neither has Death
stood still!"
... "Plait-il?"--the clear voice of the young girl asked. She
thought he had made some response she could not distinctly hear.
Mastering himself an instant, as the heart faltered back to its
duty, and the color remounted to his lips, he answered her in
French:--
"Pardon me!--I did not hear ... you gave me such a start!" ...
But even then another extraordinary fancy flashed through his
thought;--and with the tutoiement of a parent to a child, with an
irresistible outburst of such tenderness as almost frightened
her, he cried: "Oh! merciful God!--how like her! ... Tell me,
darling, your name; ... tell me who you are?" (Dis-moi qui tu es,
mignonne;--dis-moi ton nom.)
... Who was it had asked her the same question, in another idiom
ever so long ago? The man with the black eyes and nose like an
eagle's beak,--the one who gave her the compass. Not this
man--no!
She answered, with the timid gravity of surprise:--
--"Chita Viosca"
He still watched her face, and repeated the name
slowly,--reiterated it in a tone of wonderment:--"Chita
Viosca?--Chita Viosca!"
--"C'est a dire ..." she said, looking down at her
feet,--"Concha--Conchita. " His strange solemnity made her
smile,--the smile of shyness that knows not what else to do. But
it was the smile of dead Adele.
--"Thanks, my child, " he exclaimed of a sudden,--in a quick,
hoarse, changed tone. (He felt that his emotion would break
loose in some wild way, if he looked upon her longer.) "I would
like to see your mother this evening; but I now feel too ill to
go out. I am going to try to rest a little."
--"Nothing I can bring you?" she asked,--"some fresh milk?"
--"Nothing now, dear: if I need anything later, I will tell
your mother when she comes. "
--"Mamma does not understand French very well."
--"No importa, Conchita;--le hablare en Espanol."
--"Bien, entonces!" she responded, with the same exquisite
smile. "Adios, senor!" ...
But as she turned in going, his piercing eye discerned a little
brown speck below the pretty lobe of her right ear,--just in the
peachy curve between neck and cheek. ... His own little Zouzoune
had a birthmark like that!---he remembered the faint pink trace
left by his fingers above and below it the day he had slapped her
for overturning his ink bottle ... "To laimin moin?---to batte
moin!"
"Chita!---Chita!"
She did not hear ... After all, what a mistake he might have
made! Were not Nature's coincidences more wonderful than
fiction? Better to wait,--to question the mother first, and thus
make sure.
Still--there were so many coincidences! The face, the smile, the
eyes, the voice, the whole charm;---then that mark,---and the
fair hair. Zouzoune had always resembled Adele so strangely!
That golden hair was a Scandinavian bequest to the Florane
family;---the tall daughter of a Norwegian sea captain had once
become the wife of a Florane. Viosca?---who ever knew a Viosca
with such hair? Yet again, these Spanish emigrants sometimes
married blonde German girls ... Might be a case of atavism, too.
Who was this Viosca? If that was his wife,---the little brown
Carmen,---whence Chita's sunny hair? ...
And this was part of that same desolate shore whither the Last
Island dead had been drifted by that tremendous surge! On a
clear day, with a good glass, one might discern from here the
long blue streak of that ghastly coast ... Somewhere--between
here and there ... Merciful God! ...
... But again! That bivouac-night before the fight at
Chancellorsville, Laroussel had begun to tell him such a singular
story ... Chance had brought them,--the old enemies,--together;
made them dear friends in the face of Death. How little he had
comprehended the man!---what a brave, true, simple soul went up
that day to the Lord of Battles! ... What was it--that story
about the little Creole girl saved from Last Island,--that story
which was never finished? ... Eh! what a pain!
Evidently he had worked too much, slept too little. A decided
case of nervous prostration. He must lie down, and try to sleep.
These pains in the head and back were becoming unbearable.
Nothing but rest could avail him now.
He stretched himself under the mosquito curtain. It was very
still, breath. less, hot! The venomous insects were
thick;---they filled the room with a continuous ebullient sound,
as if invisible kettles were boiling overhead. A sign of
storm.... Still, it was strange!---he could not perspire ...
Then it seemed to him that Laroussel was bending over
him---Laroussel in his cavalry uniform. "Bon jour,
camarade!---nous allons avoir un bien mauvais temps, mon pauvre
Julien." How! bad weather?---"Comment un mauvais temps?" ...
He looked in Laroussel's face. There was something so singular
in his smile. Ah! yes,---he remembered now: it was the wound!
... "Un vilain temps!" whispered Laroussel. Then he was gone
... Whither?
---"Cheri!" ...
The whisper roused him with a fearful start ... Adele's whisper!
So she was wont to rouse him sometimes in the old sweet
nights,--to crave some little attention for ailing Eulalie,---to
make some little confidence she had forgotten to utter during the
happy evening ... No, no! It was only the trees. The sky was
clouding over. The wind was rising ... How his heart beat! how
his temples pulsed! Why, this was fever! Such pains in the back
and head!
Still his skin was dry,--dry as parchment,--burning. He rose up;
and a bursting weight of pain at the base of the skull made him
reel like a drunken man. He staggered to the little mirror
nailed upon the wall, and looked. How his eyes glowed;---and
there was blood in his mouth! He felt his pulse spasmodic,
terribly rapid. Could it possibly---? ... No: this must be
some pernicious malarial fever! The Creole does not easily fall
a prey to the great tropical malady,---unless after a long
absence in other climates. True! he had been four years in the
army! But this was 1867 ... He hesitated a moment;
then,--opening his medicine chest, he measured out and swallowed
thirty grains of quinine.
Then he lay down again. His head pained more and more;---it
seemed as if the cervical vertebrae were filled with fluid iron.
And still his skin remained dry as if tanned. Then the anguish
grew so intense as to force a groan with almost every aspiration
... Nausea,--and the stinging bitterness of quinine rising in his
throat;---dizziness, and a brutal wrenching within his stomach.
Everything began to look pink;---the light was rose-colored. It
darkened more,---kindled with deepening tint. Something kept
sparkling and spinning before his sight, like a firework ... Then
a burst of blood mixed with chemicalbitterness filled his mouth;
the light became scarlet as claret ... This--this was ... not
malaria ...
VI.
... Carmen knew what it was; but the brave little woman was not
afraid of it. Many a time before she had met it face to face, in
Havanese summers; she knew how to wrestle with it; she had torn
Feliu's life away from its yellow clutch, after one of those long
struggles that strain even the strength of love. Now she feared
mostly for Chita. She had ordered the girl under no
circumstances to approach the cabin.
Julien felt that blankets had been heaped upon him,---that some
gentle hand was bathing his scorching face with vinegar and
water. Vaguely also there came to him the idea that it was
night. He saw the shadow-shape of a woman moving against the red
light upon the wall;---he saw there was a lamp burning.
Then the delirium seized him: he moaned, sobbed, cried like a
child,---talked wildly at intervals in French, in English, in
Spanish.
---"Mentira!---you could not be her mother ... Still, if you
were---And she must not come in here,---jamais! ... Carmen, did
you know Adele,---Adele Florane? So like her,---so like,---God
only knows how like! ... Perhaps I think I know;---but I do
not---do not know justly, fully---how like! ... Si! si!---es el
vomito!---yo lo conozco, Carmen! ... She must not die twice ... I
died twice ... I am going to die again. She only once. Till the
heavens be no more she will not rise ... Moi, au contraire, il
faut que je me leve toujours! They need me so much;---the slate
is always full; the bell will never stop. They will ring that
bell for me when I am dead ... So will I rise again!---resurgam!
... How could I save him?---could not save myself. It was a bad
case,--at seventy years! ... There! Qui ca?" ...
He saw Laroussel again,--reaching out a hand to him through a
whirl of red smoke. He tried to grasp it, and could not ...
"N'importe, mon ami," said Laroussel,---"tu vas la voir bientot."
Who was he to see soon?---"qui done, Laroussel?" But Laroussel
did not answer. Through the red mist he seemed to smile;---then
passed.
For some hours Carmen had trusted she could save her
patient,---desperate as the case appeared to be. His was one of
those rapid and violent attacks, such as often despatch their
victims in a single day. In the Cuban hospitals she had seen
many and many terrible examples: strong young men,---soldiers
fresh from Spain,---carried panting to the fever wards at
sunrise; carried to the cemeteries at sunset. Even troopers
riddled with revolutionary bullets had lingered longer ... Still,
she had believed she might save Julien's life: the burning
forehead once began to bead, the burning hands grew moist.
But now the wind was moaning;--the air had become lighter,
thinner, cooler. A stone was gathering in the east; and to the
fever-stricken man the change meant death ... Impossible to bring
the priest of the Caminada now; and there was no other within a
day's sail. She could only pray; she had lost all hope in her
own power to save.
Still the sick man raved; but he talked to himself at longer
intervals, and with longer pauses between his words;---his voice
was growing more feeble, his speech more incoherent. His thought
vacillated and distorted, like flame in a wind.
Weirdly the past became confounded with the present; impressions
of sight and of sound interlinked in fastastic affinity,---the
- physician [fi´ziʃən]
n.(内科)医生 (初中英语单词) - throat [θrəut] n.咽喉；嗓子；出入口 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- distinctly [di´stiŋktli] ad.清楚地，明晰地 (初中英语单词)
- extraordinary [ik´strɔ:dinəri] a.非常的；额外的 (初中英语单词)
- compass [´kʌmpəs] n.指南针；圆规 (初中英语单词)
- emotion [i´məuʃən] n.感情；情绪；激动 (初中英语单词)
- tremendous [tri´mendəs] a.可怕的；巨大的 (初中英语单词)
- nervous [´nə:vəs] a.神经的；神经过敏的 (初中英语单词)
- mosquito [məs´ki:təu] n.蚊子 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- continuous [kən´tinjuəs] a.连续不断的；延长的 (初中英语单词)
- invisible [in´vizəbəl] a.看不见的；无形的 (初中英语单词)
- overhead [´əuvə,hed] ad.当头 a.在头上的 (初中英语单词)
- whisper [´wispə] v.耳语 n.低语；沙沙声 (初中英语单词)
- fearful [´fiəfəl] a.可怕的；担心的 (初中英语单词)
- drunken [´drʌŋkən] a.喝醉的；常醉的 (初中英语单词)
- chemical [´kemikəl] a.化学的 n.化学制品 (初中英语单词)
- scarlet [´skɑ:lit] n.猩红色 a.猩红的 (初中英语单词)
- clutch [klʌtʃ] v.抓住 n.爪子；控制 (初中英语单词)
- violent [´vaiələnt] a.强暴的；猛烈的 (初中英语单词)
- sunset [´sʌnset] n.日落；晚霞 (初中英语单词)
- priest [pri:st] n.教士；牧师；神父 (初中英语单词)
- feeble [´fi:bəl] a.虚弱的，无力的 (初中英语单词)
- passionate [´pæʃənit] a.易动情的；易怒的 (高中英语单词)
- fraction [´frækʃən] n.小部分；一点儿 (高中英语单词)
- response [ri´spɔns] n.回答；响应 (高中英语单词)
- tenderness [´tendənis] n.娇嫩；柔软；温柔 (高中英语单词)
- gravity [´græviti] n.严肃；严重；重力 (高中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- desolate [´desəleit] a.荒凉的；孤独的 (高中英语单词)
- discern [di´sə:n] v.辩认出 (高中英语单词)
- streak [stri:k] n.纹理 v.用线条(条纹) (高中英语单词)
- ghastly [´gɑ:stli] a.苍白的；可怕的 (高中英语单词)
- cavalry [´kævəlri] n.骑兵(部队) (高中英语单词)
- tropical [´trɔpikəl] a.热带地区的 (高中英语单词)
- intense [in´tens] a.强烈的；紧张的 (高中英语单词)
- bitterness [´bitənis] n.苦味；辛酸；苦难 (高中英语单词)
- spinning [´spiniŋ] n.纺织 a.纺织品的 (高中英语单词)
- strain [strein] vt.拉紧 vi.拖 n.张力 (高中英语单词)
- despatch [di´spætʃ] n.&v.发送；派遣；调度 (高中英语单词)
- revolutionary [,revə´lu:ʃənəri] a.革命的 n.革命者 (高中英语单词)
- norwegian [nɔ:´wi:dʒən] a.&n.挪威人(语)(的) (英语四级单词)
- brutal [´bru:tl] a.兽性的；残暴的 (英语四级单词)
- wrestle [´resəl] n.&v.摔交；搏斗；角力 (英语四级单词)
- vinegar [´vinigə] n.醋 (英语四级单词)
- vaguely [´veigli] ad.含糊地，暖昧地 (英语四级单词)
- justly [´dʒʌstli] ad.公正地，正当地 (英语四级单词)
- gathering [´gæðəriŋ] n.集会，聚集 (英语四级单词)
- outburst [´autbə:st] n.喷发；爆发；激增 (英语六级单词)
- merciful [´mə:sifəl] a.仁慈的；宽大的 (英语六级单词)
- solemnity [sə´lemniti] n.庄严；(隆重的)仪式 (英语六级单词)
- piercing [´piəsiŋ] a.刺(贯)穿的；尖刻的 (英语六级单词)
- venomous [´venəməs] a.有毒的；恶意的 (英语六级单词)
- pernicious [pə´niʃəs] a.有害的；有毒的；致命的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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