章节正文
you," she finished, charmingly and quietly, with a smile.
"I will not," I assured her. She was truly noble.
"But I did think that you understood us," she said pensively.
"Miss La Heu, when you talked to me about the President and the White
House, I said that you were hard to answer. Do you remember?"
"Perfectly. I said I was glad you found me so.'
"You helped me to understand you then, and now I want to be helped to
further understanding. Last night I heard the 'Ode for the Daughters of
Dixie.' I had a bad time listening to that."
"Do you presume to criticise it? Do we criticise your Grand Army
reunions, and your 'Marching through Georgia,' and your 'John Brown's
Body,' and your Arlington Museum? Can we not be allowed to celebrate our
heroes and our glories and sing our songs?"
She had helped me already! Still, still, the something I was groping for,
the something which had given me such pain during the ode, remained
undissolved, remained unanalyzed between us; I still had to have it out
with her, and the point was that it had to be with her, and not simply
with myself alone. We must thrash out together the way to an
understanding; an agreement was not in the least necessary--we could
agree to differ, for that matter, with perfect cordiality--but an
understanding we must reach. And as I was thinking this my light
increased, and I saw clearly the ultimate thing which lay at the bottom
of my own feeling, and which had been strangely confusing me all along.
This discovery was the key to the whole remainder of my talk; I never let
go of it. The first thing it opened for me was that Eliza La Heu didn't
understand me, which was quite natural, since I had only just this moment
become clear to myself.
"Many of us," I began, "who have watched the soiling touch of politics
make dirty one clean thing after another, would not be whollydesolated
to learn that the Grand Army of the Republic had gone to another world to
sing its songs and draw its pensions."
She looked astonished, and then she laughed. Down in the South here she
was too far away to feel the vile uses to which present politics had
turned past heroism
"But," I continued, "we haven't any Daughters of the Union banded
together and handing it down."
"It?" she echoed. "Well, if the deeds of your heroes are not a sacred
trust to you, don't invite us, please, to resemble you."
I waited for more, and a little more came.
"We consider Northerners foreigners, you know."
Again I felt that hurt which hearing the ode had given me, but I now knew
how I was going to take it, and where we were presently coming out; and I
knew she didn't mean quite all that--didn't mean it every day, at least--
and that my speech had driven her to saying it.
"No, Miss La Heu; you don't consider Northerners, who understand you, to
be foreigners."
"We have never met any of that sort."
("Yes," I thought, "but you really want to. Didn't you say you hoped I
was one? Away down deep there's a cry of kinship in you; and that you
don't hear it, and that we don't hear it, has been as much our fault as
yours. I see that very well now, but I'm afraid to tell you so, yet.")
What I said was: "We're handing the 'sacred trust' down, I hope."
"I understood you to say you weren't."
"I said we were not handing 'it' down."
I didn't wonder that irritation again moulded her reply. "You must excuse
a daughter of Dixie if she finds the words of a son of the Union beyond
her. We haven't had so many advantages."
There she touched what I had thought over during my wakeful hours: the
tale of the ashes, the desolate ashes! The war had not prevented my
parents from sending me to school and college, but here the old had seen
the young grow up starved of what their fathers had given them, and the
young had looked to the old and known their stripped heritage.
"Miss La Heu," I said, "I could not tell you, you would not wish me to
tell you, what the sight of Kings Port has made me feel. But you will let
me say this: I have understood for a long while about your old people,
your old ladies, whose faces are so fine and sad."
I paused, but she merely looked at me, and her eyes were hard.
"And I may say this, too. I thank you very sincerely for bringing
completely home to me what I had begun to make out for myself. I hope the
Daughters of Dixie will go on singing of their heroes."
I paused again, and now she looked away, out of the window into Royal
Street.
"Perhaps," I still continued, "you will hardly believe me when I say that
I have looked at your monuments here with an emotion more poignant even
than that which Northern monuments raise in me."
"Why?"
"Oh!" I exclaimed. "Need you have asked that? The North won."
"You are quite dispassionate!" Her eyes were always toward the window.
"That's my 'sacred trust.'"
It made her look at me. "Yours?"
"Not yours--yet! It would be yours if you had won." I thought a slight
change came in her steady scrutiny. "And, Miss La Heu, it was awful about
the negro. It is awful. The young North thinks so just as much as you do.
Oh, we shock our old people! We don't expect them to change, but they
mustn't expect us not to. And even some of them have begun to whisper a
little doubtfully. But never mind them--here's the negro. We can't kick
him out. That plan is childish. So, it's like two men having to live in
one house. The white man would keep the house in repair, the black would
let it rot. Well, the black must take orders from the white. And it will
end so."
She was eager. "Slavery again, you think?"
"Oh, never! It was too injurious to ourselves. But something between
slavery and equality." And I ended with a quotation: "'Patience, cousin,
and shuffle the cards.'"
"You may call me cousin--this once--because you have been, really, quite
nice--for a Northerner."
Now we had come to the place where she must understand me.
"Not a Northerner, Miss La Heu."
She became mocking. "Scarcely a Southerner, I presume?"
But I kept my smile and my directness. "No more a Southerner than a
Northerner."
"Pray what, then?"
"An American."
She was silent.
"It's the 'sacred trust'--for me."
She was still silent.
"If my state seceded from the Union tomorrow, I should side with the
Union against her."
She was frankly astonished now. "Would you really?" And I think some
light about me began to reach her. A Northerner willing to side against a
Northern state! I was very glad that I had found that phrase to make
clear to her my American creed.
I proceeded. "I shall help to hand down all the glories and all the
sadnesses; Lee's, Lincoln's, everybody's. But I shall not hand 'it'
down."
This checked her.
"It's easy for me, you know," I hastily explained. "Nothing noble about
it at all. But from noble people"--and I looked hard at her--"one ex-
pects, sooner or later, noble things."
She repressed something she had been going to reply.
"If ever I have children," I finished, "they shall know 'Dixie' and
'Yankee Doodle' by heart, and never know the difference. By that time I
should think they might have a chance of hearing 'Yankee Doodle' in Kings
Port."
Again she checked a rapid retort. "Well," she, after a pause, repeated,
"you have been really quite nice."
"May I tell you what you have been?"
"Certainly not. Have you seen Mr. Mayrant to-day?"
"We have an engagement to walk this afternoon. May I go walking with you
sometime?"
"May he, General?" A wagging tail knocked on the floor behind the
counter. "General says that he will think about it. What makes you like
Mr. Mayrant so much?"
This question struck me as an odd one; nor could I make out the import of
the peculiar tone in which she put it. "Why, I should think everybody
would like him--except, perhaps, his double victim."
"Double?"
"Yes, first of his fist and then of--of his hand!"
But she didn't respond.
"Of his hand--his poker hand," I explained.
"Poker hand?" She remained honestly vague.
It rejoiced me to be the first to tell her. "You haven't heard of Master
John's last performance? Well, finding himself forced by that
immeasurable old Aunt Josephine of yours to shake hands, he shook 'em all
right, but he took thirty dollars away as a little set-off for his pious
docility."
"Oh!" she murmured, overwhelmed with astonishment. Then she broke into
one of her delicious peals of laughter.
"Anybody," I said, "likes a boy who plays a hand--and a fist--to that
tune." I continued to say a number of commendatory words about young
John, while her sparkling eyes rested upon me. But even as I talked I
grew aware that these eyes were not sparkling, were starry rather, and
distant, and that she was not hearing what I said; so I stopped abruptly,
and at the stopping she spoke, like a person waking up.
"Oh, yes! Certainly he can take care of himself. Why not?"
"Rather creditable, don't you think?"
"Creditable?"
"Considering his aunts and everything."
She became haughty on the instant. "Upon my word! And do you suppose the
women of South Carolina don't wish their men to be men? Why"--she
returned to mirth and that arch mockery which was her special charm--"we
South Carolina women consider virtue our business, and we don't expect
the men to meddle with it!"
"Primal, perpetual, necessary!" I cried. "When that division gets
blurred, society is doomed. Are you sure John can take care of himself
every way?"
"I have other things than Mr. Mayrant to think about." She said this
quite sharply.
It surprised me. "To be sure," I assented. "But didn't you once tell me
that you thought he was simple?"
She opened her ledger. "It's a great honor to have one's words so well
remembered."
I was still at a loss. "Anyhow, the wedding is postponed," I continued;
"and the cake. Of course one can't help wondering how it's all coming
out."
She was now working at her ledger, bending her head over it. "Have you
ever met Miss Rieppe?" She inquired this with a sort of wonderful
softness--which I was to hear again upon a still more memorable occasion.
"Never," I answered, "but there's nobody at present living whom I long to
see so much."
She wrote on for a little while before saying, with her pencil steadily
busy, "Why?"
"Why? Don't you? After all this fuss?"
"Oh, certainly," she drawled. "She is so much admired--by Northerners."
"I do hope John is able to take care of himself," I purposely repeated.
"Take care of yourself!" she laughed angrily over her ledger.
"Me? Why? I understand you less and less!"
"Very likely."
"Why, I want to help him!" I protested. "I don't want him to marry her.
Oh, by the way do you happen to know what it is that she is coming here
to see for herself?"
In a moment her ledger was left, and she was looking at me straight.
Coming? When?
"Soon. In an automobile. To see something for herself."
She pondered for quite a long moment; then her eyes returned,
searchingly, to me. "You didn't make that up?"
I laughed, and explained. "Some of them, at any rate," I finished, "know
what she's coming for. They were rather queer about it, I thought."
She pondered again. I noticed that she had deeply flushed, and that the
flush was leaving her. Then she fixed her eyes on me once more. "They
wouldn't tell you?"
"I will not," I assured her. She was truly noble.
"But I did think that you understood us," she said pensively.
"Miss La Heu, when you talked to me about the President and the White
House, I said that you were hard to answer. Do you remember?"
"Perfectly. I said I was glad you found me so.'
"You helped me to understand you then, and now I want to be helped to
further understanding. Last night I heard the 'Ode for the Daughters of
Dixie.' I had a bad time listening to that."
"Do you presume to criticise it? Do we criticise your Grand Army
reunions, and your 'Marching through Georgia,' and your 'John Brown's
Body,' and your Arlington Museum? Can we not be allowed to celebrate our
heroes and our glories and sing our songs?"
She had helped me already! Still, still, the something I was groping for,
the something which had given me such pain during the ode, remained
undissolved, remained unanalyzed between us; I still had to have it out
with her, and the point was that it had to be with her, and not simply
with myself alone. We must thrash out together the way to an
understanding; an agreement was not in the least necessary--we could
agree to differ, for that matter, with perfect cordiality--but an
understanding we must reach. And as I was thinking this my light
increased, and I saw clearly the ultimate thing which lay at the bottom
of my own feeling, and which had been strangely confusing me all along.
This discovery was the key to the whole remainder of my talk; I never let
go of it. The first thing it opened for me was that Eliza La Heu didn't
understand me, which was quite natural, since I had only just this moment
become clear to myself.
"Many of us," I began, "who have watched the soiling touch of politics
make dirty one clean thing after another, would not be whollydesolated
to learn that the Grand Army of the Republic had gone to another world to
sing its songs and draw its pensions."
She looked astonished, and then she laughed. Down in the South here she
was too far away to feel the vile uses to which present politics had
turned past heroism
"But," I continued, "we haven't any Daughters of the Union banded
together and handing it down."
"It?" she echoed. "Well, if the deeds of your heroes are not a sacred
trust to you, don't invite us, please, to resemble you."
I waited for more, and a little more came.
"We consider Northerners foreigners, you know."
Again I felt that hurt which hearing the ode had given me, but I now knew
how I was going to take it, and where we were presently coming out; and I
knew she didn't mean quite all that--didn't mean it every day, at least--
and that my speech had driven her to saying it.
"No, Miss La Heu; you don't consider Northerners, who understand you, to
be foreigners."
"We have never met any of that sort."
("Yes," I thought, "but you really want to. Didn't you say you hoped I
was one? Away down deep there's a cry of kinship in you; and that you
don't hear it, and that we don't hear it, has been as much our fault as
yours. I see that very well now, but I'm afraid to tell you so, yet.")
What I said was: "We're handing the 'sacred trust' down, I hope."
"I understood you to say you weren't."
"I said we were not handing 'it' down."
I didn't wonder that irritation again moulded her reply. "You must excuse
a daughter of Dixie if she finds the words of a son of the Union beyond
her. We haven't had so many advantages."
There she touched what I had thought over during my wakeful hours: the
tale of the ashes, the desolate ashes! The war had not prevented my
parents from sending me to school and college, but here the old had seen
the young grow up starved of what their fathers had given them, and the
young had looked to the old and known their stripped heritage.
"Miss La Heu," I said, "I could not tell you, you would not wish me to
tell you, what the sight of Kings Port has made me feel. But you will let
me say this: I have understood for a long while about your old people,
your old ladies, whose faces are so fine and sad."
I paused, but she merely looked at me, and her eyes were hard.
"And I may say this, too. I thank you very sincerely for bringing
completely home to me what I had begun to make out for myself. I hope the
Daughters of Dixie will go on singing of their heroes."
I paused again, and now she looked away, out of the window into Royal
Street.
"Perhaps," I still continued, "you will hardly believe me when I say that
I have looked at your monuments here with an emotion more poignant even
than that which Northern monuments raise in me."
"Why?"
"Oh!" I exclaimed. "Need you have asked that? The North won."
"You are quite dispassionate!" Her eyes were always toward the window.
"That's my 'sacred trust.'"
It made her look at me. "Yours?"
"Not yours--yet! It would be yours if you had won." I thought a slight
change came in her steady scrutiny. "And, Miss La Heu, it was awful about
the negro. It is awful. The young North thinks so just as much as you do.
Oh, we shock our old people! We don't expect them to change, but they
mustn't expect us not to. And even some of them have begun to whisper a
little doubtfully. But never mind them--here's the negro. We can't kick
him out. That plan is childish. So, it's like two men having to live in
one house. The white man would keep the house in repair, the black would
let it rot. Well, the black must take orders from the white. And it will
end so."
She was eager. "Slavery again, you think?"
"Oh, never! It was too injurious to ourselves. But something between
slavery and equality." And I ended with a quotation: "'Patience, cousin,
and shuffle the cards.'"
"You may call me cousin--this once--because you have been, really, quite
nice--for a Northerner."
Now we had come to the place where she must understand me.
"Not a Northerner, Miss La Heu."
She became mocking. "Scarcely a Southerner, I presume?"
But I kept my smile and my directness. "No more a Southerner than a
Northerner."
"Pray what, then?"
"An American."
She was silent.
"It's the 'sacred trust'--for me."
She was still silent.
"If my state seceded from the Union tomorrow, I should side with the
Union against her."
She was frankly astonished now. "Would you really?" And I think some
light about me began to reach her. A Northerner willing to side against a
Northern state! I was very glad that I had found that phrase to make
clear to her my American creed.
I proceeded. "I shall help to hand down all the glories and all the
sadnesses; Lee's, Lincoln's, everybody's. But I shall not hand 'it'
down."
This checked her.
"It's easy for me, you know," I hastily explained. "Nothing noble about
it at all. But from noble people"--and I looked hard at her--"one ex-
pects, sooner or later, noble things."
She repressed something she had been going to reply.
"If ever I have children," I finished, "they shall know 'Dixie' and
'Yankee Doodle' by heart, and never know the difference. By that time I
should think they might have a chance of hearing 'Yankee Doodle' in Kings
Port."
Again she checked a rapid retort. "Well," she, after a pause, repeated,
"you have been really quite nice."
"May I tell you what you have been?"
"Certainly not. Have you seen Mr. Mayrant to-day?"
"We have an engagement to walk this afternoon. May I go walking with you
sometime?"
"May he, General?" A wagging tail knocked on the floor behind the
counter. "General says that he will think about it. What makes you like
Mr. Mayrant so much?"
This question struck me as an odd one; nor could I make out the import of
the peculiar tone in which she put it. "Why, I should think everybody
would like him--except, perhaps, his double victim."
"Double?"
"Yes, first of his fist and then of--of his hand!"
But she didn't respond.
"Of his hand--his poker hand," I explained.
"Poker hand?" She remained honestly vague.
It rejoiced me to be the first to tell her. "You haven't heard of Master
John's last performance? Well, finding himself forced by that
immeasurable old Aunt Josephine of yours to shake hands, he shook 'em all
right, but he took thirty dollars away as a little set-off for his pious
docility."
"Oh!" she murmured, overwhelmed with astonishment. Then she broke into
one of her delicious peals of laughter.
"Anybody," I said, "likes a boy who plays a hand--and a fist--to that
tune." I continued to say a number of commendatory words about young
John, while her sparkling eyes rested upon me. But even as I talked I
grew aware that these eyes were not sparkling, were starry rather, and
distant, and that she was not hearing what I said; so I stopped abruptly,
and at the stopping she spoke, like a person waking up.
"Oh, yes! Certainly he can take care of himself. Why not?"
"Rather creditable, don't you think?"
"Creditable?"
"Considering his aunts and everything."
She became haughty on the instant. "Upon my word! And do you suppose the
women of South Carolina don't wish their men to be men? Why"--she
returned to mirth and that arch mockery which was her special charm--"we
South Carolina women consider virtue our business, and we don't expect
the men to meddle with it!"
"Primal, perpetual, necessary!" I cried. "When that division gets
blurred, society is doomed. Are you sure John can take care of himself
every way?"
"I have other things than Mr. Mayrant to think about." She said this
quite sharply.
It surprised me. "To be sure," I assented. "But didn't you once tell me
that you thought he was simple?"
She opened her ledger. "It's a great honor to have one's words so well
remembered."
I was still at a loss. "Anyhow, the wedding is postponed," I continued;
"and the cake. Of course one can't help wondering how it's all coming
out."
She was now working at her ledger, bending her head over it. "Have you
ever met Miss Rieppe?" She inquired this with a sort of wonderful
softness--which I was to hear again upon a still more memorable occasion.
"Never," I answered, "but there's nobody at present living whom I long to
see so much."
She wrote on for a little while before saying, with her pencil steadily
busy, "Why?"
"Why? Don't you? After all this fuss?"
"Oh, certainly," she drawled. "She is so much admired--by Northerners."
"I do hope John is able to take care of himself," I purposely repeated.
"Take care of yourself!" she laughed angrily over her ledger.
"Me? Why? I understand you less and less!"
"Very likely."
"Why, I want to help him!" I protested. "I don't want him to marry her.
Oh, by the way do you happen to know what it is that she is coming here
to see for herself?"
In a moment her ledger was left, and she was looking at me straight.
Coming? When?
"Soon. In an automobile. To see something for herself."
She pondered for quite a long moment; then her eyes returned,
searchingly, to me. "You didn't make that up?"
I laughed, and explained. "Some of them, at any rate," I finished, "know
what she's coming for. They were rather queer about it, I thought."
She pondered again. I noticed that she had deeply flushed, and that the
flush was leaving her. Then she fixed her eyes on me once more. "They
wouldn't tell you?"
- celebrate [´selibreit]
vt.庆祝；表扬；赞美 (初中英语单词) - agreement [ə´gri:mənt] n.同意；一致；协议 (初中英语单词)
- differ [´difə] vi.不同；有差别 (初中英语单词)
- strangely [´streindʒli] ad.奇怪地；陌生地 (初中英语单词)
- wholly [´həul-li] ad.完全，十足；统统 (初中英语单词)
- republic [ri´pʌblik] n.共和国；共和政体 (初中英语单词)
- politics [´pɔlitiks] n.政治(学)；政治活动 (初中英语单词)
- resemble [ri´zembəl] vt.类似，象 (初中英语单词)
- presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
- driven [´driv(ə)n] drive 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- emotion [i´məuʃən] n.感情；情绪；激动 (初中英语单词)
- whisper [´wispə] v.耳语 n.低语；沙沙声 (初中英语单词)
- childish [´tʃaildiʃ] a.孩子的；幼稚的 (初中英语单词)
- repair [ri´peə] v.&n.修理，修补 (初中英语单词)
- frankly [´fræŋkli] ad.直率地；慷慨地 (初中英语单词)
- willing [´wiliŋ] a.情愿的，乐意的 (初中英语单词)
- phrase [freiz] n.短语；词组；措词 (初中英语单词)
- hastily [´heistili] ad.急速地；草率地 (初中英语单词)
- engagement [in´geidʒmənt] n.婚约；雇用；受聘 (初中英语单词)
- import [im´pɔ:t, ´impɔ:t] vt.&n.进口；输入 (初中英语单词)
- peculiar [pi´kju:liə] a.特有的；奇异的 (初中英语单词)
- honestly [´ɔnistli] ad.诚实地，老实地 (初中英语单词)
- performance [pə´fɔ:məns] n.履行；行为；工作 (初中英语单词)
- astonishment [ə´stɔniʃmənt] n.吃惊；惊异 (初中英语单词)
- delicious [di´liʃəs] a.美味的，可口的 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- virtue [´və:tʃu:] n.美德；贞操；长处 (初中英语单词)
- wedding [´wediŋ] n.婚礼，结婚 (初中英语单词)
- working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- presume [pri´zju:m] v.假定；推测；以为 (高中英语单词)
- criticise [´kritisaiz] v.批评；批判；评论 (高中英语单词)
- thrash [θræʃ] v.打(谷)；(用棍)痛打 (高中英语单词)
- ultimate [´ʌltimit] a.最终的 n.终极；顶点 (高中英语单词)
- remainder [ri´meində] n.剩余物；残余部分 (高中英语单词)
- hearing [´hiəriŋ] n.听力；听证会；审讯 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- desolate [´desəleit] a.荒凉的；孤独的 (高中英语单词)
- sincerely [sin´siəli] ad.真诚地；诚恳地 (高中英语单词)
- quotation [kwəu´teiʃən] n.引用；引文；语录 (高中英语单词)
- retort [ri´tɔ:t] n.&v.报复；反击；反驳 (高中英语单词)
- finding [´faindiŋ] n.发现物；判断；结果 (高中英语单词)
- haughty [´hɔ:ti] a.傲慢的，高傲的 (高中英语单词)
- meddle [´medl] vi.干涉(预)；乱弄 (高中英语单词)
- perpetual [pə´petʃuəl] a.永恒的；终身的 (高中英语单词)
- memorable [´memərəbəl] a.难忘的；重大的 (高中英语单词)
- angrily [´æŋgrili] ad.生气地；愤怒地 (高中英语单词)
- injurious [in´dʒuəriəs] a.(中)伤的；腐败的 (英语四级单词)
- shuffle [´ʃʌf(ə)l] v.洗(牌) n.搅乱 (英语四级单词)
- starry [´stɑ:ri] a.星光照耀的，闪亮的 (英语四级单词)
- assured [ə´ʃuəd] a.确实的 n.被保险人 (英语六级单词)
- irritation [,iri´teiʃən] n.(被)激怒；疼痛处 (英语六级单词)
- doubtfully [´dautfuli] ad.怀疑地，可疑地 (英语六级单词)
- mockery [´mɔkəri] n.嘲笑；笑柄 (英语六级单词)
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