"What, monsieur," answered Isaline; "you have seen him? You have been watching from your window? We did not know you had returned from the Aiguille."
"Oh, yes, I've been back for more than an hour," I replied; "the snow was so deep on the Col that I gave it up at last, and made up my mind not to try it without a guide."
"I am so glad," Isaline said demurely1. "I had such fears for monsieur. The Aiguille is dangerous, though it isn't very high, and I had been very distractedly anxious till monsieur returned."
"Thanks, mademoiselle," I answered, with a little bow. "Your solicitude2 for my safety flatters me immensely. But you haven't told me yet who is the gentleman with the black moustache."
Isaline smiled. "His name is M. Claude," she said; "M. Claude Tirard, you know; but we don't use surnames much among ourselves in the Pays de Vaud. He is the schoolmaster of the commune."
"M. Claude is a very happy man, then," I put in. "I envy his good fortune."[Pg 226]
Isaline blushed a pretty blush. "On the contrary," she answered, "he has just been declaring himself the most miserable3 of all mankind. He says his life is not worth having."
"They always say that under those peculiar4 circumstances," I said. "Believe me, mademoiselle, there are a great many men who would be glad to exchange their own indifferently tolerable lot for M. Claude's unendurable misery5."
Isaline said nothing, but she looked at me with a peculiar inquiring look, as if she would very much like to know exactly what I meant by it, and how much I meant it.
And what did I mean by it? Not very much after all, I imagine; for when it comes to retrospect6, which one of us is any good at analyzing7 his own motives8? The fact is, Isaline was a very pretty little girl, and I had nothing else to do, and I might just as well make myself agreeable to her as gain the reputation of being a bear of an Englishman. Besides, if there was the safeguard of M. Claude, a real indigenous9 suitor, in the background, there wasn't much danger of my polite attentions being misunderstood.
However, I haven't yet told you how I came to find myself on the farm at Les Pentes at all. This, then, is how it all came about. I was sick of the Temple; I had spent four or five briefless years in lounging about Brick Court and dropping in casually10 at important cases, just to let the world see I was the proud possessor of a well-curled wig11; but even a wig (which suits my complexion12 admirably) palls13 after five years, and I said to myself that I would really cut London altogether, and live upon my means somewhere on the Continent. Very small means, to be sure, but still enough to pull through upon in Switzerland or the Black Forest. So, just by way of experiment as to how I liked it, I packed up my fishing-rod and my[Pg 227] portmanteau (the first the most important), took the 7.18 express from the Gare de Lyon for Geneva, and found myself next afternoon comfortably seated on the verandah of my favourite hotel at Vevay. The lake is delightful14, that we all know; but I wanted to get somewhere where there was a little fishing; so I struck back at once into the mountain country round Chateau15 d'Oex and Les Avants, and came soon upon the exact thing I wanted at Les Pentes.
Picture to yourself a great amphitheatre of open alp or mountain pasture in the foreground, with peaks covered by vivid green pines in the middle distance, and a background of pretty aiguilles, naked at their base, but clad near the summit with frozen masses of sparkling ice. Put into the midst of the amphitheatre a clear green-and-white torrent16, with a church surrounded by a few wooden farmhouses17 on its slope, and there you have the commune of Les Pentes. But what was most delightful of all was this, that there was no hotel, no pension, not even a regular lodging-house. I was the first stranger to discover the capabilities19 of the village, and I was free to exploit them for my own private advantage. By a stroke of luck, it so happened that M. Clairon, the richest farmer of the place, with a pretty old-fashioned Vaudois farmhouse18, and a pretty, dainty little Vaudoise daughter, was actually willing to take me in for a mere20 song per week. I jumped at the chance; and the same day saw me duly installed in a pretty little room, under the eaves of the pretty little farmhouse, and with the pretty little daughter politely attending to all my wants.
Do you know those old-fashioned Vaudois houses, with their big gable-ends, their deep-thatched roofs, their cobs of maize21, and smoked hams, and other rural wealth, hanging out ostentatiously under the protecting ledges22? If you don't, you can't imagine what a delightful time I had of it at Les Pentes. The farm was a large one for the[Pg 228] Pays de Vaud, and M. Clairon actually kept two servants; but madame would have been scandalized at the idea of letting "that Sara" or "that Lisette" wait upon the English voyager; and the consequence was that Mademoiselle Isaline herself always came to answer my little tinkling23 hand-bell. It was a trifle awkward, for Mademoiselle Isaline was too much of a young lady not to be treated with deferential24 politeness; and yet there is a certain difficulty in being deferentially25 polite to the person who lays your table for dinner. However, I made the best of it, and I'm bound to say I managed to get along very comfortably.
Isaline was one of those pretty, plump, laughing-eyed, dimple-cheeked, dark little girls that you hardly ever see anywhere outside the Pays de Vaud. It was almost impossible to look at her without smiling; I'm sure it was quite impossible for her to look at any one else and not smile at them. She wore the prettiest little Vaudois caps you ever saw in your life; and she looked so coquettish in them that you must have been very hard-hearted indeed if you did not straightway fall head over ears in love with her at first sight. Besides, she had been to school at Lausanne, and spoke26 such pretty, delicate, musical French. Now, my good mother thought badly of my French accent; and when I told her I meant to spend a summer month or two in western Switzerland, she said to me, "I do hope, Charlie dear, you will miss no opportunity of conversing27 with the people, and improving yourself in colloquial28 French a little." I am certainly the most dutiful of sons, and I solemnly assure you that whenever I was not fishing or climbing I missed no opportunity whatsoever29 of conversing with pretty little Isaline.
"Mademoiselle Isaline," I said on this particular afternoon, "I should much like a cup of tea; can Sara bring me one out here in the garden?"
"Perfectly30, monsieur; I will bring you out the little[Pg 229] table on to the grass plot," said Isaline. "That will arrange things for you much more pleasantly."
"Not for worlds," I said, running in to get it myself; but Isaline had darted31 into the house before me, and brought it out with her own white little hands on to the tiny lawn. Then she went in again, and soon reappeared with a Japanese tray—bought at Montreux specially32 in my honour—and a set of the funniest little old China tea-things ever beheld33 in a London bric-à-brac cabinet.
"Won't you sit and take a cup with me, mademoiselle?" I asked.
"Ma foi, monsieur," answered Isaline, blushing again, "I have never tasted any except as pthisane. But you other English drink it so, don't you? I will try it, for the rest: one learns always."
I poured her out a cup, and creamed it with some of that delicious Vaudois cream (no cream in the world so good as what you get in the Pays de Vaud—you see I am an enthusiast34 for my adopted country—but that is anticipating matters), and handed it over to her for her approval. She tasted it with a little moue. English-women don't make the moue, so, though I like sticking to my mother tongue, I confess my inability to translate the word. "Brrrr," she said. "Do you English like that stuff! Well, one must accommodate one's self to it, I suppose;" and to do her justice, she proceeded to accommodate herself to it with such distinguished35 success that she asked me soon for another cup, and drank it off without even a murmur36.
"And this M. Claude, then," I asked; "he is a friend of yours? Eh?"
"Passably," she answered, colouring slightly. "You see, we have not much society at Les Pontes. He comes from the Normal School at Geneva. He is instructed, a man of education. We see few such here. What would you have?" She said it apologetically, as though she[Pg 230] thought she was bound to excuse herself for having made M. Claude's acquaintance.
"But you like him very much?"
"Like him? Well, yes; I liked him always well enough. Bat he is too haughty37. He gives himself airs. To-day he is angry with me. He has no right to be angry with me."
"Mademoiselle," I said, "have you ever read our Shakespeare?"
"Oh, yes, in English I have read him. I can read English well enough, though I speak but a little."
"And have you read the 'Tempest'?"
"How? Ariel, Ferdinand, Miranda, Caliban? Oh, yes. It is beautiful."
"Well, mademoiselle," I said, "do you remember how Miranda first saw Ferdinand?"
She smiled and blushed again—she was such a little blusher. "I know what you would say," she said. "You English are blunt. You talk to young ladies so strangely."
"Well, Mademoiselle Isaline, it seems to me that you at Les Pentes are like Miranda on the island. You see nobody, and there is nobody here to see you. You must not go and fall in love, like Miranda, with the very first man you happen to meet with, because he comes from the Normal School at Geneva. There are plenty of men in the world, believe me, beside M. Claude."
"Ah, but Miranda and Ferdinand both loved one another," said Isaline archly; "and they were married, and both lived happily ever afterward38." I saw at once she was trying to pique39 me.
"How do you know that?" I asked. "It doesn't say so in the play. For all I know, Ferdinand lost the crown of Naples through a revolution, and went and settled down at a country school in Savoy or somewhere, and took to drinking, and became brutally40 unsociable, and[Pg 231] made Miranda's life a toil41 and a burden to her. At any rate, I'm sure of one thing; he wasn't worthy42 of her."
What made me go on in this stupid way? I'm sure I don't know. I certainly didn't mean to marry Isaline myself: ... at least, not definitely: and yet when you are sitting down at tea on a rustic43 garden seat, with a pretty girl in a charming white crimped cap beside you, and you get a chance of insinuating44 that other fellows don't think quite as much of her as you do, it isn't human nature to let slip the opportunity of insinuating it.
"But you don't know M. Claude," said Isaline practically, "and so you can't tell whether he is worthy of me or not."
"I'm perfectly certain," I answered, "that he can't be, even though he were a very paragon45 of virtue46, learning, and manly47 beauty."
"If monsieur talks in that way," said Isaline, "I shall have to go back at once to mamma."
"Wait a moment," I said, "and I will talk however you wish me. You know, you agree to give me instruction in conversational48 French. That naturally includes lessons in conversation with ladies of exceptional personal attractions. I must practise for every possible circumstance of life.... So you have read Shakespeare, then. And any other English books?"
"Oh, many. Scott, and Dickens, and all, except Byron. My papa says a young lady must not read Byron. But I have read what he has said of our lake, in a book of extracts. It is a great pleasure to me to look down among the vines and chestnuts49, there, and to think that our lake, which gleams so blue and beautiful below, is the most famous in poetry of all lakes. You know, Jean Jacques says, 'Mon lac est le premier,' and so it is."
"Then you have read Jean Jacques too?"
"Oh, mon Dieu, no. My papa says a young lady must especially not read Jean Jacques. But I know something[Pg 232] about him—so much as is convenable50. Hold here! do you see that clump51 of trees down there by the lake, just above Clarens? That is Julie's grove—'le bosquet de Julie' we call it. There isn't a spot along the lake that is not thus famous, that has not its memories and its associations. It is for that that I could not choose ever to leave the dear old Pays de Vaud."
"You would not like to live in England, then?" I asked. (What a fool I was, to be sure.)
"Oh, ma foi, no. That would make one too much shiver, with your chills, and your fogs, and your winters. I could not stand it. It is cold here, but at any rate it is sunny.... Well, at least, it would not be pleasant.... But, after all, that depends.... You have the sun, too, sometimes, don't you?"
"Isaline!" cried madame from the window. "I want you to come and help me pick over the gooseberries!" And, to say the truth, I thought it quite time she should go.
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1
demurely
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| adv.装成端庄地，认真地 | |
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solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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6
retrospect
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| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
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7
analyzing
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| v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析 | |
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8
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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indigenous
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| adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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wig
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| n.假发 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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palls
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| n.柩衣( pall的名词复数 )；墓衣；棺罩；深色或厚重的覆盖物v.（因过多或过久而）生厌，感到乏味，厌烦( pall的第三人称单数 ) | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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farmhouses
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| n.农舍，农场的主要住房( farmhouse的名词复数 ) | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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capabilities
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| n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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maize
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| n.玉米 | |
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ledges
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| n.（墙壁，悬崖等）突出的狭长部分( ledge的名词复数 )；（平窄的）壁架；横档；（尤指）窗台 | |
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tinkling
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| n.丁当作响声 | |
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deferential
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| adj. 敬意的，恭敬的 | |
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deferentially
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| adv.表示敬意地，谦恭地 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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colloquial
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| adj.口语的，会话的 | |
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whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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enthusiast
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| n.热心人，热衷者 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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pique
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| v.伤害…的自尊心，使生气 n.不满，生气 | |
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40
brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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41
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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42
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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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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44
insinuating
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| adj.曲意巴结的，暗示的v.暗示( insinuate的现在分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
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45
paragon
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| n.模范，典型 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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47
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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48
conversational
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| adj.对话的，会话的 | |
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49
chestnuts
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| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
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50
convenable
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| 可召集的，可召唤的 | |
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51
clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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