The Yoke of the Thorah. Harland Henry

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СКАЧАТЬ outside. Inside it was darker still. It took a little while for Elias's eyesight to accommodate itself to the change. Then the first object of which it became conscious was the sere and yellow pier-glass between the windows. Far in its mottled depths—down, that is to say, at the remotest and darkest end of the room—he saw Matthew Redwood, the costumer, in conversation with a young girl. The young girl's face, a spot of light amid the surrounding shadows, had an instantaneous and magnetic effect upon Elias Bacharach's gaze. He quite forgot his old friends, the cupids. Turning about, and drawing as near to the couple as discretion would warrant, he made the young girl the victim of a fixed, eager stare.

      She was worth staring at. From under the brim of her bonnet escaped an abundance of golden hair—true golden hair, that gleamed like a mesh of sunbeams. In rare and beautiful contrast to this, she had a pair of luminous brown eyes, set like living jewels beneath dark eyebrows and a snowy forehead. Add a rose-red, full-lipped mouth, white teeth, and faintly blushing cheeks; and you have the elements from which to form a conception of her. She was chatting vivaciously with the master of the premises. In response to some remark of his, she laughed. Her laugh was as crisp, as merry, as melodious, as a chime of musical glasses. Who could she be, and what, Elias wondered. Probably an actress. Few ladies, unless actresses, had dealings with the costumer, Redwood. Yet, at the utmost, she was not more than seventeen years old; and her natural and unsophisticated bearing seemed in no wise suggestive of the green-room. Ah! now she was going. “Good-by,” Elias heard her say, in a voice that started a quick vibration in his heart; and next moment she swept past, within a yard of him, and crossed the threshold, and was gone. For an instant, never so delicate and impalpable a perfume, shaken from her apparel, lingered upon the air. Elias stood still, facing the door through which she had disappeared.

      “Ah, good-day, Mr. Bacharach; what can I do for you?” old Redwood asked, coming up and offering his hand.

      “You can tell me who that wonderful young lady is,” it was on the tip of Elias's tongue to reply: but he stopped himself. Without clearly knowing why, he was loth to reveal to another the interest and the admiration that she had aroused in him. He was afraid that his motive might be misconstrued, afraid of compromising his dignity, of appearing too easily susceptible in the old man's eyes. So he put down his curiosity, and began about Mirèio, demanding enlightenment on the score of Provençal costumes.

      “Provençal costumes,” the old man repeated, with a twang that savored of New Hampshire; “South-French, we say in the trade. Why, certainly. I've got a whole lot of lithographs, that show all the varieties. But they're up to my house. You couldn't make it convenient to come and look at them there, could ye? Then I'd lend you those that struck your fancy.”

      “That's very kind of you,” said Elias. “Where do you live? And when would it suit you to have me call?”

      “I live up in West Sixty-third Street, No.——; and you might drop in most any evening after dinner—to-night, if you've got nothing better to do.”

      “Very well; to-night, then,” agreed Elias, and bade the old man good afternoon.

      He went back to his studio. He had got rid of his blues; but he could not get rid of his vision of the golden-haired young lady. That, fleeting as it had been, had photographed itself upon his retina. Again and again he heard her tinkling laughter. Again and again he breathed the evanescent, penetrating perfume that she had left behind her upon quitting the costumer's shop. Excepting his mother, now dead, and the models whom he employed, Elias Bacharach had never known a woman, young or old, upon terms of greater intimacy than those required for bowing in the street, or paying one or two formal calls a year. Until to-day, indeed, he had never even seen a woman whom he had desired to know more closely. But this young girl with the golden hair had taken singular possession of his fancy. A score of questions concerning her presented themselves for solution. Her name? He ran over all the women's names that he could think of, from Abigail down to Zillah, seeking for one that seemed to fit her. None struck him as delicate or musical enough. Her condition in life? Was she, after all, an actress? If so, at what theater? He did not care much for the theater as a general thing; but if he only knew at which one she performed, he would certainly go to see her. Her age? Had he been right in setting it down at seventeen? Where did she live? Who were her family? Would he, Elias Bacharach, ever come face to face with her again? What were the chances of his some time having an opportunity to make her acquaintance? Perhaps he knew somebody who knew her, and could introduce him to her. Only, he was ignorant of her name, and therefore powerless to institute inquiries. How stupid he had been not to ask Redwood; how absurdly timid and self-conscious! But it was not yet too late. He would ask him at his house in the evening. Then, having identified her, it might be possible, by one means or another, to procure a presentation. Delightful prospect! How he would enjoy talking to her, and hearing her talk, and all the while feasting his eyes upon the delicious loveliness of her face! He wondered whether her character accorded with her appearance. Was she as sweet and as pure and as bright, as she was beautiful? He wondered—But it would take too long to tell all the wonderment of which she was subject. When evening came, Elias promised himself, old Redwood should gratify his thirst for information.

II.

       Table of Contents

      AT eight o'clock Elias was ushered by a maid, servant into Redwood's parlor. Redwood's parlor was the conventional oblong parlor of the conventional New York house, conventionally furnished and decorated. It had white walls, black walnut wood-work, a gaudily stenciled ceiling, and a florid velvet carpet, into which your feet sank an inch, and which gave off a faint but acrid odor of dye-stuffs. For pictures there were three steel engravings—The Last Supper, The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, The Landing of the Pilgrims—all hung as near to heaven as the limitations of space would allow. The chairs were of mahogany, upholstered in sleek and slippery hair cloth. Upon the huge sarcophagus which served for mantelpiece, a gilt clock, under a glass dome, registered five minutes past six, with stationary hands. This started one's mind irresistibly backward, in quest of the precise point in time at which the clock had stopped, and set one to speculating upon what the condition of the world was then.. Years ago, or only months? In summer, or winter? Morning or afternoon? What of moment was happening then? Who was President? Where was I, and what doing? Perhaps—it was such an old-fashioned clock—perhaps I had not yet been born. In the corner furthest from the window there was a square piano, closed, and covered by a dark brown cloth, like a pall. Just above it, so that they could not be reached except by standing upon it, some book-shelves were suspended. These contained the “Arabian Nights,” “The History of the Bible,” Cooper's novels, and an old edition of the “New American Cyclopedia.” Beneath the chandelier stood a center table, with a top of variegated marbles. This bore a student's lamp, a Russia leather writing case, an ivory paper knife, a photograph of Mr. Emerson, and half a score of books. The literature of the center table was rather more seasonable than that of the hanging shelves. Greene's “Short History of the English People,” “The Victorian Poets,” “Society and Solitude,” and the “Poems of Dante Gabriel Rossetti,” testified that somebody had modern instincts, testimony which was corroborated by an open copy of “Adam Bede,” laid face downward upon the sofa. Elias wondered who somebody might be.

      Presently old Redwood entered, in dressing-gown and slippers. He carried a large bundle under his arm.

      “Here,” said he, “are the plates I spoke of. Run them over, and pick out those that please ye.” The examination of the plates occupied perhaps a quarter-hour. When it was finished, Elias thanked the old man, and began to make his adieux. Then, abruptly, as though the question had but just occurred to him, “Oh, by the way,” he inquired, in a tone meant to be careless and casual, “can you tell me who that young lady was—the young lady I saw down at your place this afternoon?”

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