The Yoke of the Thorah. Harland Henry
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Название: The Yoke of the Thorah
Автор: Harland Henry
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4064066151898
isbn:
Elias caught a glimpse of a golden opportunity. “I wish, Miss Redwood, I wish you would go with me,” he ventured, a little timidly, and waited anxiously for her response.
“There you are, Chris!” cried her father. “There's your chance! But”—turning to Elias—“but she won't. You see if she will.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Bacharach? That's lovely. I'll go with the very greatest pleasure.”
Her eyes lighted up; and leaving her seat, she ran around the table, and deposited a wholly irrelevant kiss upon her father's forehead.
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed that gentleman, clapping his hands. “You're the first young fellow I've seen, Mr. Bacharach, who she thought was good enough for her. By George, Chris, there's hope for you, after all.”
“Oh,” cried Christine, “I'm so glad. I never wanted any thing more in my life, than I did to hear the—the—it sounds awfully profane, doesn't it?—'Damnation of Faust.'”
“Well, now,” said the old man, “there's nothing like killing two birds with one stone. So what I propose is this: I propose that you come up here Friday forenoon, Mr. Bacharach; and then you can work for a while at her portrait. Afterward she'll give you a bite of lunch—won't ye, Chris?—and you can tote her off to the concert. By the way, where does it take place? At the Academy?”
“No; at Steinway Hall.”
“And when does it let out?”
“At about half-past four, I think.”
“All right. Then I'll meet you at the door when it's over—my shop, you know, is just around the corner—I'll meet you at the door and save you the trouble of bringing her home. How does that suit, eh?”
“Very well,” said Elias; but he thought that he should not have minded the trouble of bringing her home.
When he returned to the quiet, dark house on Stuyvesant Square, late that afternoon, he sat down at the big window of his studio, and went over the happenings of the day. He felt wonderfully lighthearted, wonderfully elated, as though he had drunken of some subtle stimulant. What a pleasant, interesting city New York was, after all! How thoroughly one could enjoy one's self in it! The noises of it, mingling in a confused, continuous rumble, and falling upon his ears, sounded like the voice of a good old friend. It was an old friend's face that greeted him, as he looked out upon the bare trees in the park. Every now and then he drew a deep, tremulous, audible breath. The colors faded from the sky. Dusk gathered. The bell of St. George's Church rang to vespers. The street lamps were lighted. It got dark. Elias did not stir.
“Oh, what a sweet, natural, beautiful girl!” he was soliloquizing. “And what a rough old bear of a father! And what—what a heavenly time we'll have on Friday!”
He marveled at himself, it gave him such a swift, exultant thrill to think of Friday; but the obvious psychological explanation of it, he never once suspected.
IV.
TOWARD the close of Friday's sitting Elias said: “You know, Berlioz has taken great liberties with Goethe's text—quite altered the story, indeed, and given it an ending to suit himself.”
“That won't matter much to me,” responded Christine, “because I've never read 'Faust,' and I have only the vaguest notion of what the story is.”
“Did it suffer a like fate to 'Wilhelm Meister's?'”
“No; but I can't read German, and I didn't know whether there was any good translation. Is there?”
“Oh, yes; 'Bayard Taylor's is beautiful. You ought to read it.”
“Then, besides, I had an idea that it was very deep and obscure—very hard to understand. Do you think I could understand it?”
“I'm sure you could—all that's essential. You could get the story and the human nature. I believe you'd find it even more moving than 'Adam Bede.'”
“Can't you tell me the story? Won't you tell it to me now?”
“Oh, I should only spoil it.”
But Christine begged him to give her the outline of it, pleading that she would enjoy the music so much more intelligently if she were not altogether ignorant of the plot. So, during their luncheon, Elias related as best he could something of the love-story of Faust and Margaret. Christine listened with bated breath, and wide eyes fastened upon his face; and at its conclusion she drew a profound sigh, and murmured: “Oh, how sad, how sad!”
“Now,” said Elias, “I must explain how Berlioz has tampered with it.” Which he proceeded to do.
They walked as far as Seventh Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street, where they took the University Place car. Elias thought he had never been so happy. It was an exhilaration merely to share this young girl's presence, breathing the same air that she breathed. The sunshine caught new radiance from her hair. Lambent fires burned in her eyes. There was no music that Elias would rather have heard, than the music of her voice as she talked to him. They had the car to themselves for the first few blocks; but then it began to fill up with ladies, and at last chivalry compelled Elias to sacrifice his seat at Christine's side. He clung to the strap in front of her, and looked down at her; and she looked up at him; and so, with their glances, they communed together, very rarely opening their lips, until, having reached Fourteenth Street, it behooved them to dismount.
The music began. Christine sat forward in her chair, and listened with manifest appreciation. But she made no sign to her companion till the musicians had played, and the chorus sung, the first bar or two of the “Peasants' Rondo.” Then she turned upon him suddenly, with eyes dilated and lips apart, and drew a quick breath, and uttered an ecstatic little “Oh!” The syllable sped straight to his heart, and started an unfamiliar palpitation there. From that moment until the concert was terminated, both of these young people were in Heaven; she, thanks to the marvelous music, which seized hold of her, and bore her away, like a blossom upon its bosom: he, thanks to the beautiful girl who was seated next to him, and whose eyes kept smiling into his, and whose breath for one priceless second fell upon his cheek. Every most trifling incident of that afternoon somehow engraved itself upon Elias Bacharach's memory. Long afterward he recalled it all: how Christine was dressed, the shape of her bonnet, the color of her gloves, the fragrance of the rose that she wore in her breast; how he had wrapped her cloak about her shoulders when she complained of a draught; how she had beat time with her fan when the students sang their drinking song, and laughed when Brander sang the ballad of the rat, and looked grave when Gretchen sang “There was a King in Thule,” and started, and paled, and caught her breath, and put her hand impulsively upon Elias's arm, when Faust and Mephistopheles began their tempestuous ride into hell. He remembered it all, in exceeding bitterness of spirit. He would have followed Faust's example, and pledged his soul to eternal bondage, gladly, eagerly, if by doing so he could have won back the possibilities of that vanished afternoon.
Old Redwood met them, as he had promised, on the curbstone in front of the exit.
“You'd СКАЧАТЬ