The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays. Charles Waddell Chesnutt

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ who loved honor, and tried to deal justly with all men. I will even carry the case further, and suppose that perhaps he had set his heart upon another, whom he had hoped to call his own. What would he do, or rather what ought he to do, in such a crisis of a lifetime?

      "It seemed to me that he might hesitate, and I imagined that I was an old friend, a near friend, and that he had come to me for advice; and I argued the case with him. I tried to discuss it impartially. After we had looked upon the matter from every point of view, I said to him, in words that we all know:–

      "'This above all: to thine own self be true,

      And it must follow, as the night the day,

      Thou canst not then be false to any man.'

      "Then, finally, I put the question to him, 'Shall you acknowledge her?'

      "And now, ladies and gentlemen, friends and companions, I ask you, what should he have done?"

      There was something in Mr. Ryder's voice that stirred the hearts of those who sat around him. It suggested more than mere sympathy with an imaginary situation; it seemed rather in the nature of a personal appeal. It was observed, too, that his look rested more especially upon Mrs. Dixon, with a mingled expression of renunciation and inquiry.

      She had listened, with parted lips and streaming eyes. She was the first to speak: "He should have acknowledged her."

      "Yes," they all echoed, "he should have acknowledged her."

      "My friends and companions," responded Mr. Ryder, "I thank you, one and all. It is the answer I expected, for I knew your hearts."

      He turned and walked toward the closed door of an adjoining room, while every eye followed him in wondering curiosity. He came back in a moment, leading by the hand his visitor of the afternoon, who stood startled and trembling at the sudden plunge into this scene of brilliant gayety. She was neatly dressed in gray, and wore the white cap of an elderly woman.

      "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "this is the woman, and I am the man, whose story I have told you. Permit me to introduce to you the wife of my youth."

      Her Virginia Mammy

I

      The pianist had struck up a lively two-step, and soon the floor was covered with couples, each turning on its own axis, and all revolving around a common centre, in obedience perhaps to the same law of motion that governs the planetary systems. The dancing-hall was a long room, with a waxed floor that glistened with the reflection of the lights from the chandeliers. The walls were hung in paper of blue and white, above a varnished hard wood wainscoting; the monotony of surface being broken by numerous windows draped with curtains of dotted muslin, and by occasional engravings and colored pictures representing the dances of various nations, judiciously selected. The rows of chairs along the two sides of the room were left unoccupied by the time the music was well under way, for the pianist, a tall colored woman with long fingers and a muscular wrist, played with a verve and a swing that set the feet of the listeners involuntarily in motion.

      The dance was sure to occupy the class for a quarter of an hour at least, and the little dancing-mistress took the opportunity to slip away to her own sitting-room, which was on the same floor of the block, for a few minutes of rest. Her day had been a hard one. There had been a matinee at two o'clock, a children's class at four, and at eight o'clock the class now on the floor had assembled.

      When she reached the sitting-room she gave a start of pleasure. A young man rose at her entrance, and advanced with both hands extended—a tall, broad-shouldered, fair-haired young man, with a frank and kindly countenance, now lit up with the animation of pleasure. He seemed about twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. His face was of the type one instinctively associates with intellect and character, and it gave the impression, besides, of that intangible something which we call race. He was neatly and carefully dressed, though his clothing was not without indications that he found it necessary or expedient to practice economy.

      "Good-evening, Clara," he said, taking her hands in his; "I 've been waiting for you five minutes. I supposed you would be in, but if you had been a moment later I was going to the hall to look you up. You seem tired to-night," he added, drawing her nearer to him and scanning her features at short range. "This work is too hard; you are not fitted for it. When are you going to give it up?"

      "The season is almost over," she answered, "and then I shall stop for the summer."

      He drew her closer still and kissed her lovingly. "Tell me, Clara," he said, looking down into her face,—he was at least a foot taller than she,—"when I am to have my answer."

      "Will you take the answer you can get to-night?" she asked with a wan smile.

      "I will take but one answer, Clara. But do not make me wait too long for that. Why, just think of it! I have known you for six months."

      "That is an extremely long time," said Clara, as they sat down side by side.

      "It has been an age," he rejoined. "For a fortnight of it, too, which seems longer than all the rest, I have been waiting for my answer. I am turning gray under the suspense. Seriously, Clara dear, what shall it be? or rather, when shall it be? for to the other question there is but one answer possible."

      He looked into her eyes, which slowly filled with tears. She repulsed him gently as he bent over to kiss them away.

      "You know I love you, John, and why I do not say what you wish. You must give me a little more time to make up my mind before I can consent to burden you with a nameless wife, one who does not know who her mother was"–

      "She was a good woman, and beautiful, if you are at all like her."

      "Or her father"–

      "He was a gentleman and a scholar, if you inherited from him your mind or your manners."

      "It is good of you to say that, and I try to believe it. But it is a serious matter; it is a dreadful thing to have no name."

      "You are known by a worthy one, which was freely given you, and is legally yours."

      "I know—and I am grateful for it. After all, though, it is not my real name; and since I have learned that it was not, it seems like a garment—something external, accessory, and not a part of myself. It does not mean what one's own name would signify."

      "Take mine, Clara, and make it yours; I lay it at your feet. Some honored men have borne it."

      "Ah yes, and that is what makes my position the harder. Your great-grandfather was governor of Connecticut."

      "I have heard my mother say so."

      "And one of your ancestors came over in the Mayflower."

      "In some capacity—I have never been quite clear whether as ship's cook or before the mast."

      "Now you are insincere, John; but you cannot deceive me. You never spoke in that way about your ancestors until you learned that I had none. I know you are proud of them, and that the memory of the governor and the judge and the Harvard professor and the Mayflower pilgrim makes you strive to excel, in order to prove yourself worthy of them."

      "It did until I met you, Clara. Now the one inspiration of my life is the hope to make you mine."

      "And your profession?"

      "It will furnish me the means to take you out of this; you are not fit for toil."

      "And your book—your СКАЧАТЬ