To begin with, her family had for two generations or more been the most important family in the village. When Lafayette stopped here to receive an address of welcome, on his tour through the State in 1825, it was a Parmalee who read that address, and who also, as tradition runs, made on his own account several remarks to the hero in the French language, all of which were understood. The elder son of this man has a secure place in history. He is the Judge Parmalee whose portrait hangs in the Court House, and whose learned work on “The Treaties of the Tuscarora Nation,” handsomely bound in morocco, used to have a place of honor on the parlor1 table of every well-to-do and cultured Octavius home.
This Judge was a banker, too, and did pretty well for himself in a number of other commercial paths. He it was who built the big Parmalee house, with a stone wall in front and the great garden and orchard2 stretching back to the next street, and the buff-colored statues on either side of the gravelled walk, where the Second National Dearborn County Bank now stands. The Judge had no children, and, on his widow’s death, the property went to his much younger brother Charles, who, from having been as a stripling on some forgotten Governor’s staff, bore through life the title of Colonel in the local speech.
This Colonel Parmalee had a certain distinction, too, though not of a martial3 character. His home was in New York, and for many years Octavius never laid eyes on him. He was understood to occupy a respected place among American men of letters, though exactly what he wrote did not come to our knowledge. It was said that he had been at Brook4 Farm. I have not been able to find any one who remembers him there, but the report is of use as showing the impression of superior intellectual force which he created, even by hearsay5, in his native village. When he finally came back to us, to play his part as the head of the Parmalee house, we saw at intervals6, when the sun was warm and the sidewalks were dry, the lean and bent7 figure of an old man, with a very yellow face and a sharp-edged brown wig8, moving feebly about with a thick gray shawl over his shoulders. His housekeeper9 was an elderly maiden10 cousin, who seemed never to come out at all, whether the sun was shining or not.
There were three or four of the Colonel’s daughters—all tall, well-made girls, with strikingly dark skins, and what we took to be gypsyish faces. Their appearance certainly bore out the rumor11 that their mother had been an opera-singer—some said an Italian, others a lady of Louisiana Creole extraction. No information, except that she was dead, ever came to hand about this person. Her daughters, however, were very much in evidence. They seemed always to wear white dresses, and they were always to be seen somewhere, either on their lawn playing croquet, or in the streets, or at the windows of their house. The consciousness of their existence pervaded12 the whole village from morning till night. To watch their goings and comings, and to speculate upon the identity and business of the friends from strange parts who were continually arriving to visit them, grew to be quite the standing13 occupation of the idler portion of the community.
Before such of our young people as naturally took the lead in these matters had had time to decide how best to utilize14 for the general good this influx15 of beauty, wealth, and ancestral dignity, the village was startled by an unlooked-for occurrence. A red carpet was spread one forenoon from the curb16 to the doorway17 of the Episcopal church: the old-fashioned Parmalee carriage turned out, with its driver clasping white reins18 in white cotton gloves; we had a confused glimpse of the dark Parmalee girls with bouquets19 in their hands, and dressed rather more in white than usual: and then astonished Octavius learned that two of them had been married, right there under its very eyes, and had departed with their husbands. It gave an angry twist to the discovery to find that the bridegrooms were both strangers, presumably from New York.
This episode had the figurative effect of doubling or trebling the height of that stone wall which stood between the Parmalee place and the public. Such budding hopes and projects of intimacy20 as our villagers may have entertained toward these polished newcomers fell nipped and lifeless on the stroke. Shortly afterward—that is to say, in the autumn of 1860—the family went away, and the big house was shut up. News came in time that the Colonel was dead: something was said about another daughter’s marriage; then the war broke out, and gave us other things to think of. We forgot all about the Parmalees.
It must have been in the last weeks of 1861 that our vagrant21 attention was recalled to the subject by the appearance in the village of an elderly married couple of servants, who took up their quarters in the long empty mansion22, and began fitting it once more for habitation. They set all the chimneys smoking, shovelled23 the garden paths clear of snow, laid in huge supplies of firewood, vegetables, and the like, and turned the whole place inside out in a vigorous convulsion of housecleaning. Their preparations were on such a bold, large scale that we assumed the property must have passed to some voluminous collateral24 branch of the family, hitherto unknown to us. It came indeed to be stated among us, with an air of certainty, that a remote relation named Amos or Erasmus Parmalee, with eight or more children and a numerous adult household, was coming to live there. The legend of this wholly mythical25 personage had nearly a fortnight’s vogue26, and reached a point of distinctness where we clearly understood that the coming stranger was a violent secessionist. This seemed to open up a troubled and sinister27 prospect28 before loyal Octavius, and there was a good deal of plain talk in the barroom of the Excelsior Hotel as to how this impending29 crisis should be met.
It was just after New Year’s that our suspense30 was ended. The new Parmalees came, and Octavius noted31 with a sort of disappointed surprise that they turned out to be merely a shorn and trivial remnant of the old Parmalees. They were in fact only a couple of women—the elderly maiden cousin who had presided before over the Colonel’s household, and the youngest of his daughters, by name Miss Julia. What was more, word was now passed round upon authority that these were the sole remaining members of the family—that there never had been any Amos or Erasmus Parmalee at all.
The discovery cast the more heroic of our village home-guards into a temporary depression. It could hardly have been otherwise, for here were all their fine and strong resolves, their publicly registered vows32 about scowling33 at the odious34 Southern sympathizer in the street, about a “horning” party outside his house at night, about, perhaps, actually riding him on a rail—all brought to nothing. A less earnest body of men might have suspected in the situation some elements of the ridiculous. They let themselves down gently, however, and with a certain dignified35 sense of consolation36 that they had, at all events, shown unmistakably how they would have dealt with Amos or Erasmus Parmalee if there had been such a man, and he had moved to Octavius and had ventured to flaunt37 his rebel sentiments in their outraged38 faces.
The village, as a whole, consoled itself on more tangible39 grounds. It has been stated that Miss Julia Parmalee arrived at the family homestead in early January. Before April had brought the buds and birds, this young woman had become President of the St. Mark’s Episcopal Ladies’ Aid Society; had organized a local branch of the Sanitary40 Commission, and assumed active control of all its executive and clerical functions; had committed the principal people of the community to holding a grand festival and fair in May for the Field Hospital and Nurse Fund; had exhibited in the chief store window on Main Street a crayon portrait of her late father, and four water-color drawings of European scenery, all her own handiwork; had published over her signature, in the Thessaly Banner of Liberty, an original and spirited poem on “Pale Columbia, Shriek41 to Arms!” which no one could read without patriotic42 thrills; and had been reported, on more or less warrant of appearances, to be engaged to four different young men of the place. Truly a remarkable43 young woman!
We were only able in a dim kind of way to identify her with one of the group of girls in white dresses whom the village had stared at and studied from a distance two years before. There was no mystery about it, however: she was the youngest of them. They had all looked so much alike, with their precocious44 growth, their olive skins and foreign features, that we were quite surprised to find now that this one, regarded by herself, must be a great deal younger than the others. Perhaps it was only our rustic45 shyness which had imputed46 to the sisterhood, in that earlier experience, the hauteur47 and icy reserve of the rich and exclusive. We recognized now that if the others were at all like Julia, we had made an absurd mistake. It was impossible that any one could be freer from arrogance48 or pretence49 than Octavius found her to be. There were some, indeed, who deemed her emancipation50 almost too complete.
Some there were, too, who denied that she was beautiful, or even very good-looking. There is an old daguerreotype51 of her as she was in those days—or rather as she seemed to be to the unskilled sunbeams of the sixties—which gives these censorious people the lie direct. It is true that her hair is confined in a net at the sides and drawn52 stiffly across her temples from the parting. The full throat rises sheer from a flat horizon of striped dress goods, and is offered no relief whatever by the wide falling-away collar of coarse lace. And oh! the strangeness of that frock! The shoulder seams are to be looked for half-way down the upper arm, the sleeves swell53 themselves out into shapeless bags, the waist front might be the cover of a chair, of a guitar, of the documents in a corporation suit—of anything under the sun rather than the form of a charming girl. Yet, when you look at this thin old picture, all the same, you feel that you understand how it was that Julia Parmalee took the shine out of all the other girls in Octavius.
This is the likeness54 of her which always seemed to me the best, but Marsena Pulford made a great many others as well. When you reflect, indeed, that his output of portraits of Julia Parmalee was limited in time to the two months of April and May, their number suggests that he could hardly have done anything else the while.
The first of this large series of pictures was the one which Marsena liked least. It is true that Julia looked well in it, standing erect55, with a proud, fine backward tilt56 to her dark face and a delicately formed white hand resting gracefully57 on the back of a chair. But it happened that in that chair was seated Lieut. Dwight Ransom58, all spick and span in his new uniform, with his big gauntlets and sword hilt brought prominently forward, and with a kind of fatuous59 smile on his ruddy face, as if he felt the presence of those fair fingers on the chair-back, so teasingly close to his shoulder-strap.
Marsena, in truth, had a strong impulse to run a destroying thumbnail over the seated figure on this plate, when the action of the developer began to reveal its outlines under the faint yellow light in the dark-room. Of all the myriad60 pictures he had washed and drained and nursed in their wet growth over this tank, no other had ever stirred up in his breast such a swift and sharp hostility61. He lavished62 the deadly cyanide upon that portion of the plate, too, with grim unction, and noted the results with a scornful curl on his lip. Like his partner downstairs, he was wondering what on earth possessed63 Miss Parmalee to take up with a Dwight Ransom.
The frown was still on his brow when he opened the dark-room door. Then he started back, flushed red, and labored64 at an embarrassed smile. Miss Parmalee had left her place, and stood right in front of him, so near that he almost ran against her. She beamed confidently and reassuringly65 upon him.
“Oh, I want to come in and see you do all that,” she exclaimed, with vivacity66. “It didn’t occur to me till after you’d shut the door, or I’d have asked to come in with you. I have the greatest curiosity about all these matters. Oh, it is all done? That’s too bad! But you can make another one—and that I can see from the beginning. You know, I’m something of an artist myself; I’ve taken lessons for years—and this all interests me so much! No, Lieutenant67!”—she called out from where she was standing just inside the open door, at sound of her companion’s rising—“you stay where you are! There’s going to be another, and it’s such trouble to get you posed properly. Try and keep exactly as you were!”
Thus it happened that she stood very close to Marsena, as he took out another plate, flooded it with the sweet-smelling, pungent68 collodion, and, with furtive69 precautions against the light, lowered it down into the silver bath. Then he had to shut the door, and she was still there just beside him. He heard himself pretending to explain the processes of the films to her, but his mind was concentrated instead upon a suggestion of perfume which she had brought into the reeking70 little cupboard of a room, and which mingled71 languorously72 with the scents73 of ether and creosote in the air. He had known her by sight for but a couple of months; he had been introduced to her only a week or so ago, and that in the most casual way; yet, strange enough, he could feel his hand trembling as it perfunctorily moved the plate dipper up and down in the bath.
A gentle voice fell upon the darkness. “Do you know, Mr. Pulford,” it murmured, “I felt sure that you were an artist, the very first time I saw you.”
Marsena heaved a long sigh—a sigh with a tremulous catch in it, as where sorrow and sweet solace74 should meet. “I did start out to be one,” he answered, “but I—I never amounted to anything at it. I tried for years, but I wasn’t any good. I had to give it up—at last—and take to this instead.”
He lifted the plate with caution, bent to look obliquely75 across its surface, and lowered it again. Then all at once he turned abruptly76 and faced her. They were so close to each other that even in the obscure gloom she caught the sudden flash of resolution in his eyes.
“I’ll tell you what I never told any other living soul,” he said, beginning with husky eagerness, but lapsing77 now into grave deliberation of emphasis: “I hate—this—like pizen!”
In the silence which followed, Marsena mechanically took the plate from the bath, fastened it in the holder78, and stepped to the door. Then he halted, to prolong for one little instant this tender spell of magic which had stolen over him. Here, in the close darkness beside him, was a sorceress, a siren, who had at a glance read his sore heart’s deepest secret—at a word drawn the confession79 of his maimed and embittered80 pride. It was like being shut up with an angel, who was also a beautiful woman. Oh, the wonder of it! Broad sunlit landscapes with Italian skies seemed to be forming themselves before his mind’s eye; his soul sang songs within him. He very nearly dropped the plate-holder.
The soft, hovering81, half touch of a hand upon his arm, the cool, restful tones of the voice in the darkness, came to complete the witchery.
“I know,” she said, “I can sympathize with you. I also had my dreams, my aspirations82. But you are wrong to think that you have failed. Why, this beautiful work of yours, it all is Art—pure Art. No person who really knows could look at it and not see that. No, Mr. Pulford, you do yourself an injustice83; believe me, you do. Why, you couldn’t help being an artist if you tried; it’s born in you. It shows in everything you do. I saw it from the very first.”
The unmistakable sound of Dwight Ransom’s large artillery84 boots moving on the floor outside intervened here, and Marsena hurriedly opened the door. The Lieutenant glanced with good-natured raillery at the couple who stood revealed, blinking in the sharp light.
“One of my legs got asleep,” he remarked, by way of explanation, “so I had to get up and stamp around. I began to think,” he added, “that you folks were going to set up housekeeping in there, and not come out any more at all.”
“Don’t be vulgar, if you please,” said Julia Par-malee, with a dash of asperity85 in what purported86 to be a bantering87 tone. “We were talking of matters quite beyond you—of Art, if you desire to know. Mr. Pulford and I discover that we have a great many opinions and sentiments about Art in common. It is a feeling that no one can understand unless they have it.”
“It’s the same with getting one’s leg asleep,” said Dwight, “quite the same, I assure you;” and then came the laughter which Newton Shull heard downstairs.
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1
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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martial
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| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
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brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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hearsay
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| n.谣传，风闻 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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7
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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wig
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| n.假发 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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rumor
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| n.谣言，谣传，传说 | |
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pervaded
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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utilize
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| vt.使用，利用 | |
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influx
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| n.流入，注入 | |
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curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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bouquets
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| n.花束( bouquet的名词复数 )；（酒的）芳香 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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vagrant
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| n.流浪者，游民；adj.流浪的，漂泊不定的 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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23
shovelled
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| v.铲子( shovel的过去式和过去分词 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份 | |
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collateral
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| adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品 | |
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mythical
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| adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的 | |
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Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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scowling
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的现在分词 ) | |
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odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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flaunt
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| vt.夸耀，夸饰 | |
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outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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sanitary
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| adj.卫生方面的，卫生的，清洁的，卫生的 | |
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41
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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precocious
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| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
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45
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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46
imputed
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| v.把（错误等）归咎于( impute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47
hauteur
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| n.傲慢 | |
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48
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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49
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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50
emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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51
daguerreotype
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| n.银板照相 | |
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52
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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53
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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54
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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55
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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56
tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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57
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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58
ransom
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| n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救 | |
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59
fatuous
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| adj.愚昧的；昏庸的 | |
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60
myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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61
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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62
lavished
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| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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labored
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| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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reassuringly
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| ad.安心，可靠 | |
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vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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67
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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69
furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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70
reeking
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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71
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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72
languorously
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| adv.疲倦地，郁闷地 | |
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73
scents
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| n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉 | |
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74
solace
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| n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和 | |
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75
obliquely
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| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
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76
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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77
lapsing
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| v.退步( lapse的现在分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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78
holder
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| n.持有者，占有者；(台，架等)支持物 | |
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79
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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80
embittered
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| v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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81
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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82
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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83
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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84
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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85
asperity
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| n.粗鲁，艰苦 | |
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86
purported
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| adj.传说的，谣传的v.声称是…，（装得）像是…的样子( purport的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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87
bantering
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| adj.嘲弄的v.开玩笑，说笑，逗乐( banter的现在分词 )；（善意地）取笑，逗弄 | |
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