现代灰姑娘 英文版 A Modern Cinderella
露意莎.梅.奥尔科特 Louisa May Alcott
A MODERN CINDERELLA OR, THE LITTLE OLD SHOE Page 2
John leaned toward her, saying, with a lookthat made his plain face handsome,--
"Di, my father began the world as I beginit, and left it the richer for the useful years hespent here,--as I hope I may leave it some half-century hence. His memory makes that dingyshop a pleasant place to me; for there he made anhonest name, led an honest life and bequeathedto me his reverence for honest work. That is asort of hardware, Di, that no rust can corrupt, andwhich will always prove a better fortune thanany your knights can achieve with sword andshield. I think I am not quite a clod, or quitewithout some aspirations above money-getting; forI sincerely desire that courage that makes dailylife heroic by self-denial and cheerfulness of heart;I am eager to conquer my own rebellious nature,and earn the confidence of innocent and uprightsouls; I have a great ambition to become as good aman and leave as good a memory behind me asold John Lord."
Di winked violently, and seamed five times inperfect silence; but quiet Nan had the gift ofknowing when to speak, and by a timely wordsaved her sister from a thunder-shower and herstocking from destruction.
"John, have you seen Philip since you wroteabout your last meeting with him?
The question was for John, but the soothingtone was for Di, who gratefully accepted it, andperked up again with speed.
"Yes; and I meant to have told you about it,"answered John, piunging into the subject at once.
"I saw him a few days before I came home, andfound him more disconsolate than ever,--' justready to go to the Devil,' as he forcibly expressedhimself. I consoled the poor lad as well as I could,telling him his wisest plan was to defer his proposedexpedition, and go on as steadily as he hadbegun,--thereby proving the injustice of yourfather's prediction concerning his want of perseverance,and the sincerity of his affection. I told himthe change in Laura's health and spirits was silentlyworking in his favor, and that a few more monthsof persistent endeavor would conquer your father'sprejudice against him, and make him a strongerman for the trial and the pain. I read him bitsabout Laura from your own and Di's letters, andhe went away at last as patient as Jacob ready toserve another 'seven years' for his belovedRachel."
"God bless you for it, John!" cried a ferventvoice; and, looking up, they saw the cold, listlessLaura transformed into a tender girl, all aglowwith love and longing, as she dropped her mask,and showed a living countenance eloquent withthe first passion and softened by the first grief ofher life.
John rose involuntarily in the presence of aninnocent nature whose sorrow needed no interpreterto him. The girl read sympathy in hisbrotherly regard, and found comfort in the friendlyvoice that asked, half playfully, half seriously,--
"Shall I tell him that he is not forgotten, evenfor an Apollo? that Laura the artist has notconquered Laura the woman? and predict that thegood daughter will yet prove the happy wife?"
With a gesture full of energy, Laura tore herMinerva from top to bottom, while two great tearsrolled down the cheeks grown wan with hopedeferred.
"Tell him I believe all things, hope all things,and that I never can forget."
Nan went to her and held her fast, leaving theprints of two loving but grimy hands upon hershoulders; Di looked on approvingly, for, thoughstony-hearted regarding the cause, she fullyappreciated the effect; and John, turning to thewindow, received the commendations of a robinswaying on an elm-bough with sunshine on itsruddy breast.
The clock struck five, and John declared that hemust go; for, being an old-fashioned soul, hefancied that his mother had a better right to hislast hour than any younger woman in the land,--always remembering that "she was a widow, andhe her only son."
Nan ran away to wash her hands, and cameback with the appearance of one who had washedher face also: and so she had; but there was adifference in the water.
"Play I'm your father, girls, and rememberthat it will be six months before 'that John' willtrouble you again."
With which preface the young man kissed hisformer playfellows as heartily as the boy had beenwont to do, when stern parents banished him todistant schools, and three little maids bemoanedhis fate. But times were changed now; for Digrew alarmingly rigid during the ceremony; Laurareceived the salute like a graceful queen; and Nanreturned it with heart and eyes and tender lips,making such an improvement on the childish fashionof the thing that John was moved to supporthis paternal character by softly echoing her father'swords,--"Take care of yourself, my little'Martha.'"
Then they all streamed after him along thegarden-path, with the endless messages and warningsgirls are so prone to give; and the young man,with a great softness at his heart, went away, asmany another John has gone, feeling better for thecompanionship of innocent maidenhood, andstronger to wrestle with temptation, to wait andhope and work.
"Let's throw a shoe after him for luck, as dearold 'Mrs. Gummage' did after 'David' and the'willin' Barkis!' Quick, Nan! you always haveold shoes on; toss one, and shout, 'Good luck!'"cried Di, with one of her eccentric inspirations.
Nan tore off her shoe, and threw it far along thedusty road, with a sudden longing to become thatauspicious article of apparel, that the omen mightnot fail.
Looking backward from the hill-top, John answeredthe meek shout cheerily, and took in thegroup with a lingering glance: Laura in the shadowof the elms, Di perched on the fence, and Nanleaning far over the gate with her hand above hereyes and the sunshine touching her brown hairwith gold. He waved his hat and turned away;but the music seemed to die out of the blackbird'ssong, and in all the summer landscape his eyes sawnothing but the little figure at the gate.
"Bless and save us! here's a flock of peoplecoming; my hair is in a toss, and Nan's withouther shoe; run! fly, girls! or the Philistines will beupon us!" cried Di, tumbling off her perch insudden alarm.
Three agitated young ladies, with flying draperiesand countenances of mingled mirth and dismay,might have been seen precipitating themselves intoa respectable mansion with unbecoming haste; butthe squirrels were the only witnesses of this "visionof sudden flight," and, being used to ground-and-loftytumbling, didn't mind it.
When the pedestrians passed, the door wasdecorously closed, and no one visible but a youngman, who snatched something out of the road,and marched away again, whistling with morevigor of tone than accuracy of tune, "Only that,and nothing more."
HOW IT WAS FOUND.
Summer ripened into autumn, and somethingfairer than
"Sweet-peas and mignonetteIn Annie's garden grew."
Her nature was the counterpart of the hill-sidegrove, where as a child she had read her fairytales, and now as a woman turned the first pagesof a more wondrous legend still. Lifted abovethe many-gabled roof, yet not cut off from theecho of human speech, the little grove seemed agreen sanctuary, fringed about with violets, andfull of summer melody and bloom. Gentle creatureshaunted it, and there was none to makeafraid; wood-pigeons cooed and crickets chirpedtheir shrill roundelays, anemones and lady-fernslooked up from the moss that kissed the wanderer'sfeet. Warm airs were all afloat, full of vernalodors for the grateful sense, silvery birchesshimmered like spirits of the wood, larches gave theirgreen tassels to the wind, and pines made airymusic sweet and solemn, as they stood lookingheavenward through veils of summer sunshine orshrouds of wintry snow.
Nan never felt alone now in this charmed wood;for when she came into its precincts, once so full ofsolitude, all things seemed to wear one shape,familiar eyes looked at her from the violets in thegrass, familiar words sounded in the whisper ofthe leaves, grew conscious that an unseeninfluence filled the air with new delights, andtouched earth and sky with a beauty never seenbefore. Slowly these Mayflowers budded in hermaiden heart, rosily they bloomed and silently theywaited till some lover of such lowly herbs shouldcatch their fresh aroma, should brush away thefallen leaves, and lift them to the sun.
Though the eldest of the three, she had longbeen overtopped by the more aspiring maids. Butthough she meekly yielded the reins of government,whenever they chose to drive, they were soon restoredto her again; for Di fell into literature, andLaura into love. Thus engrossed, these two forgotmany duties which even bluestockings and inamoratosare expected to perform, and slowly all thehomely humdrum cares that housewives knowbecame Nan's daily life, and she accepted it withouta thought of discontent. Noiseless and cheerfulas the sunshine, she went to and fro, doing thetasks that mothers do, but without a mother's sweetreward, holding fast the numberless slight threadsthat bind a household tenderly together, andmaking each day a beautiful success.
Di, being tired of running, riding, climbing, andboating, decided at last to let her body rest andput her equally active mind through what classicalcollegians term "a course of sprouts." Havingundertaken to read and know everything, she devotedherself to the task with great energy, goingfrom Sue to Swedenborg with perfect impartiality,and having different authors as children have sundrydistempers, being fractious while they lasted,but all the better for them when once over. Carlyleappeared like scarlet-fever, and raged violentlyfor a time; for, being anything but a "passivebucket," Di became prophetic with Mahomet,belligerent with Cromwell, and made the FrenchRevolution a veritable Reign of Terror to herfamily. Goethe and Schiller alternated like feverand ague; Mephistopheles became her hero, Joanof Arc her model, and she turned her black eyesred over Egmont and Wallenstein. A mild attack ofEmerson followed, during which she was lost in afog, and her sisters rejoiced inwardly when sheemerged informing them that
"The Sphinx was drowsy,Her wings were furled."
Poor Di was floundering slowly to her properplace; but she splashed up a good deal of foam bygetting out of her depth, and rather exhaustedherself by trying to drink the ocean dry.
Laura, after the "midsummer night's dream "that often comes to girls of seventeen, woke up tofind that youth and love were no match for age andcommon sense. Philip had been flying about theworld like a thistle-down for five-and-twenty years,generous-hearted. frank, and kind, but with neveran idea of the serious side of life in his handsomehead. Great, therefore, were the wrath and dismayof the enamored thistle-down, when the fatherof his love mildly objected to seeing her begin theworld in a balloon with a very tender but veryinexperienced aeronaut for a guide.
"Laura is too young to 'play house' yet, andyou are too unstable to assume the part of lordand master, Philip. Go and prove that you haveprudence, patience, energy, and enterprise, and Iwill give you my girl,--but not before. I mustseem cruel, that I may be truly kind; believe this,and let a little pain lead you to great happiness,or show you where you would have made a bitterblunder."
your father, girls, and rememberthat it will be six months before 'that John' willtrouble you.
The lovers listened, owned the truth of the oldman's words, bewailed their fate, and yielded,--Laura for love of her father, Philip for love of her.He went away to build a firm foundation for hiscastle in the air, and Laura retired into an invisibleconvent, where she cast off the world, and regardedher sympathizing sisters throug a grate of superiorknowledge and unsharable grief. Like a devout nun, sheworshipped "St. Philip," and firmly believed in hismiraculous powers. She fancied that her woes set herapart from common cares, and slowly fell into a dreamystate, professing no interest in any mundane matter, butthe art that first attacted Philip. Crayons, bread-crusts,and gray paper became glorified in Laura's eyes; andher one pleasure was to sit pale and still beforeher easel, day after day, filling her portfolios withthe faces he had once admired. Her sisters observedthat every Bacchus, Piping Faun, or DyingGladiator bore some likeness to a comely countenancethat heathen god or hero never owned;and seeing this, they privately rejoiced that shehad found such solace for her grief.
Mrs. Lord's keen eye had read a certain newlywritten page in her son's heart,--his first chapterof that romance, begun in paradise, whose interestnever flags, whose beauty never fades, whose endcan never come till Love lies dead. Withwomanly skill she divined the secret, with motherlydiscretion she counselled patience, and her sonaccepted her advice, feeling that, like many ahealthful herb, its worth lay in its bitterness.
"Love like a man, John, not like a boy, andlearn to know yourself before you take a woman'shappiness into your keeping. You and Nan haveknown each other all your lives; yet, till this lastvisit, you never thought you loved her more thanany other childish friend. It is too soon to say thewords so often spoken hastily,--so hard to be recalled.Go back to your work, dear, for another year; thinkof Nan in the light of this new hope:compare her with comelier, gayer girls; and byabsence prove the truth of your belief. Then,if distance only makes her dearer, if time onlystrengthens your affection, and no doubt of yourown worthiness disturbs you, come back and offerher what any woman should be glad to take,--my boy's true heart."
John smiled at the motherly pride of her words,but answered with a wistful look.
"It seems very long to wait, mother. If I couldjust ask her for a word of hope, I could be verypatient then."
"Ah, my dear, better bear one year of impatiencenow than a lifetime of regret hereafter. Nanis happy; why disturb her by a word which willbring the tender cares and troubles that come soonenough to such conscientious creatures as herself?If she loves you, time will prove it; therefore, letthe new affection spring and ripen as your earlyfriendship has done, and it will be all the strongerfor a summer's growth. Philip was rash, and hasto bear his trial now, and Laura shares it with him.Be more generous, John; make your trial, bearyour doubts alone, and give Nan the happinesswithout the pain. Promise me this, dear,--promiseme to hope and wait."
The young man's eye kindled, and in his heartthere rose a better chivalry, a truer valor, than anyDi's knights had ever known.
"I'll try, mother," was all he said; but she wassatisfied, for John seldom tried in vain.
"Oh, girls, how splendid you are! It doesmy heart good to see my handsome sisters in theirbest array," cried Nan, one mild October night,as she put the last touches to certain airy raimentfashioned by her own skilful hands, and then fellback to survey the grand effect.
"Di and Laura were preparing to assist at anevent of the season," and Nan, with her ownlocks fallen on her shoulders, for want of sundrycombs promoted to her sisters' heads and her dressin unwonted disorder, for lack of the many pinsextracted in exciting crises of the toilet, hoveredlike an affectionate bee about two very full-blownflowers.
"Laura looks like a cool Undine, with the ivy-wreaths in her shining hair; and Di has illuminatedherself to such an extent with those scarlet leaves.that I don't know what great creature she resemblesmost," said Nan, beaming with sisterly admiration.
"Like Juno, Zenobia, and Cleopatra simmeredinto one, with a touch of Xantippe by way ofspice. But, to my eye, the finest woman of thethree is the dishevelled young person embracingthe bed-post: for she stays at home herself, andgives her time and taste to making homely peoplefine,--which is a waste of good material, and animposition on the public."
As Di spoke, both the fashion-plates lookedaffectionately at the gray-gowned figure; but, beingworks of art, they were obliged to nip their feelingsin the bud, and reserve their caresses till theyreturned to common life.
"Put on your bonnet, and we'll leave you atMrs. Lord's on our way. It will do you good,Nan; and perhaps there may be news from John,"added Di, as she bore down upon the door like aman-of-war under full sail.
"Or from Philip," sighed Laura, with a wistfullook.
Whereupon Nan persuaded herself that herstrong inclination to sit down was owing to wantof exercise, and the heaviness of her eyelids a freakof imagination; so, speedily smoothing her ruffledplumage, she ran down to tell her father of the newarrangement.
"Go, my dear, by alll means. I shall be writing;and you will be lonely if you stay. But Imust see my girls; for I caught glimpses of certainsurprising phantoms flitting by the door."
Nan led the way, and the two pyramids revolvedbefore him with the rapidity of lay-figures,much to the good man's edification: for with hisfatherly pleasure there was mingled much mildwonderment at the amplitude of array.
"Yes, I see my geese are really swans, thoughthere is such a cloud between us that I feel a longway off, and hardly know them. But this littledaughter is always available, always my 'cricketon the hearth.'
As he spoke, her father drew Nan closer, kissedher tranquil face, and smiled content.
"Well, if ever I see picters, I see 'em now, andI declare to goodness it's as interestin' asplayactin', every bit. Miss Di with all them boughsin her head, looks like the Queen of Sheby, whenshe went a-visitin' What's-his-name; and if MissLaura ain't as sweet as a lally-barster figger, Ishould like to know what is."
In her enthusiasm, Sally gambolled about thegirls, flourishing her milk-pan like a modernMiriam about to sound her timbrel for excess ofjoy.
Laughing merrily, the two Mont Blancs bestowedthemselves in the family ark, Nan hoppedup beside Patrick, and Solon, roused from hislawful slumbers, morosely trundled them away.But, looking backward with a last "Good-night!" Nan saw her father still standing at thedoor with smiling countenance, and the moonlightfalling like a benediction on his silver hair.
"Betsey shall go up the hill with you, my dear,and here's a basket of eggs for your father. Givehim my love, and be sure you let me know thenext time he is poorly," Mrs. Lord said, when herguest rose to depart, after an hour of pleasant chat.
But Nan never got the gift; for, to her greatdismay, her hostess dropped the basket with acrash, and flew across the room to meet a tallshape pausing in the shadow of the door. Therewas no need to ask who the new-comer was; for,even in his mother's arms, John looked over hershoulder with an eager nod to Nan, who stoodamong the ruins with never a sign of weariness inher face, nor the memory of a care at her heart.--for they all went out when John came in.