The divinity-student was exercised in his mind about the Little Gentleman, and, in the kindness of his heart,——for he was a good young man,——and in the strength of his convictions,——for he took it for granted that he and his crowd were right, and other folks and their crowd were wrong,——he determined2 to bring the Little Gentleman round to his faith before he died, if he could. So he sent word to the sick man, that he should be pleased to visit him and have some conversation with him; and received for answer that he would be welcome.
[71]
The divinity-student made him a visit, therefore, and had a somewhat remarkable3 interview with him, which I shall briefly4 relate, without attempting to justify5 the positions taken by the Little Gentleman. He found him weak, but calm. Iris6 sat silent by his pillow.
After the usual preliminaries, the divinity-student said, in a kind way, that he was sorry to find him in failing health, that he felt concerned for his soul, and was anxious to assist him in making preparations for the great change awaiting him.
I thank you, Sir,——said the Little Gentleman;——permit me to ask you, what makes you think I am not ready for it, Sir, and that you can do anything to help me, Sir?
I address you only as a fellow-man,——said the divinity-student,——and therefore a fellow-sinner.
I am not a man, Sir!——said the Little Gentleman.——I was born into this world the wreck7 of a man, and I shall not be judged with a race to which I do not belong. Look at this!——he said, and held up his withered8 arm.——See there!——and he pointed9 to his misshapen extremities10.——Lay your hand here!——and he laid his own on the region of his misplaced heart.——I have known nothing of the life of your race. When I first came to my consciousness, I found myself an object of pity, or a sight to show. The first strange child I ever remember hid its face and would not come near me. I was a broken-hearted as well as broken-bodied boy. I grew into the emotions of ripening11 youth, and all that I could have loved shrank from my presence. I became a man in years, and had nothing[72] in common with manhood but its longings12. My life is the dying pang13 of a worn-out race, and I shall go down alone into the dust, out of this world of men and women, without ever knowing the fellowship of the one or the love of the other. I will not die with a lie rattling14 in my throat. If another state of being has anything worse in store for me, I have had a long apprenticeship15 to give me strength that I may bear it. I don’t believe it, Sir! I have too much faith for that. God has not left me wholly without comfort, even here. I love this old place where I was born;——the heart of the world beats under the three hills of Boston, Sir! I love this great land, with so many tall men in it, and so many good, noble women.——His eyes turned to the silent figure by his pillow.——I have learned to accept meekly16 what has been allotted17 to me, but I cannot honestly say that I think my sin has been greater than my suffering. I bear the ignorance and the evil-doing of whole generations in my single person. I never drew a breath of air nor took a step that was not a punishment for another’s fault. I may have had many wrong thoughts, but I cannot have done many wrong deeds,——for my cage has been a narrow one, and I have paced it alone. I have looked through the bars and seen the great world of men busy and happy, but I had no part in their doings. I have known what it was to dream of the great passions; but since my mother kissed me before she died, no woman’s lips have pressed my cheek,——nor ever will.
——The young girl’s eyes glittered with a sudden film, and almost without a thought, but with a warm[73] human instinct that rushed up into her face with her heart’s blood, she bent18 over and kissed him. It was the sacrament that washed out the memory of long years of bitterness, and I should hold it an unworthy thought to defend her.
The Little Gentleman repaid her with the only tear any of us ever saw him shed.
The divinity-student rose from his place, and, turning away from the sick man, walked to the other side of the room, where he bowed his head and was still. All the questions he had meant to ask had faded from his memory. The tests he had prepared by which to judge of his fellow-creature’s fitness for heaven seemed to have lost their virtue19. He could trust the crippled child of sorrow to the Infinite Parent. The kiss of the fair-haired girl had been like a sign from heaven, that angels watched over him whom he was presuming but a moment before to summon before the tribunal of his private judgment20.
Shall I pray with you?——he said, after a pause.——A little before he would have said, Shall I pray for you?——The Christian21 religion, as taught by its Founder22, is full of sentiment. So we must not blame the divinity-student, if he was overcome by those yearnings of human sympathy which predominate so much more in the sermons of the Master than in the writings of his successors, and which have made the parable23 of the Prodigal24 Son the consolation25 of mankind, as it has been the stumbling-block of all exclusive doctrines26.
Pray!——said the Little Gentleman.
The divinity-student prayed, in low, tender tones, that[74] God would look on his servant lying helpless at the feet of his mercy; that he would remember his long years of bondage27 in the flesh; that he would deal gently with the bruised28 reed. Thou hast visited the sins of the fathers upon this their child. O, turn away from him the penalties of his own transgressions29! Thou hast laid upon him, from infancy30, the cross which thy stronger children are called upon to take up; and now that he is fainting under it, be Thou his stay, and do Thou succor31 him that is tempted32! Let his manifold infirmities come between him and Thy judgment; in wrath33 remember mercy! If his eyes are not opened to all thy truth, let thy compassion34 lighten the darkness that rests upon him, even as it came through the word of thy Son to blind Bartimeus, who sat by the wayside, begging!
Many more petitions he uttered, but all in the same subdued35 tone of tenderness. In the presence of helpless suffering, and in the fast-darkening shadow of the Destroyer, he forgot all but his Christian humanity, and cared more about consoling his fellow-man than making a proselyte of him.
This was the last prayer to which the Little Gentleman ever listened. Some change was rapidly coming over him during this last hour of which I have been speaking. The excitement of pleading his cause before his self-elected spiritual adviser,——the emotion which overcame him, when the young girl obeyed the sudden impulse of her feelings and pressed her lips to his cheek,——the thoughts that mastered him while the divinity-student poured out his soul for him in prayer, might well hurry on the inevitable36 moment. When the divinity-student[75] had uttered his last petition, commending him to the Father through his Son’s intercession, he turned to look upon him before leaving his chamber37. His face was changed.——There is a language of the human countenance38 which we all understand without an interpreter, though the lineaments belong to the rudest savage39 that ever stammered40 in an unknown barbaric dialect. By the stillness of the sharpened features, by the blankness of the tearless eyes, by the fixedness41 of the smileless mouth, by the deadening tints43, by the contracted brow, by the dilating44 nostril45, we know that the soul is soon to leave its mortal tenement46, and is already closing up its windows and putting out its fires.——Such was the aspect of the face upon which the divinity-student looked, after the brief silence which followed his prayer. The change had been rapid, though not that abrupt47 one which is liable to happen at any moment in these cases.——The sick man looked towards him.——Farewell,——he said——I thank you. Leave me alone with her.
When the divinity-student had gone, and the Little Gentleman found himself alone with Iris, he lifted his hand to his neck, and took from it, suspended by a slender chain, a quaint48, antique-looking key,——the same key I had once seen him holding. He gave this to her, and pointed to a carved cabinet opposite his bed, one of those that had so attracted my curious eyes and set me wondering as to what it might contain.
Open it,——he said,——and light the lamp.——The young girl walked to the cabinet and unlocked the door.[76] A deep recess49 appeared, lined with black velvet50, against which stood in white relief an ivory crucifix. A silver lamp hung over it. She lighted the lamp and came back to the bedside. The dying man fixed42 his eyes upon the figure of the dying Saviour51.——Give me your hand,——he said; and Iris placed her right hand in his left. So they remained, until presently his eyes lost their meaning, though they still remained vacantly fixed upon the white image. Yet he held the young girl’s hand firmly, as if it were leading him through some deep-shadowed valley and it was all he could cling to. But presently an involuntary muscular contraction52 stole over him, and his terrible dying grasp held the poor girl as if she were wedged in an engine of torture. She pressed her lips together and sat still. The inexorable hand held her tighter and tighter, until she felt as if her own slender fingers would be crushed in its gripe. It was one of the tortures of the Inquisition she was suffering, and she could not stir from her place. Then, in her great anguish53, she, too, cast her eyes upon that dying figure, and, looking upon its pierced hands and feet and side and lacerated forehead, she felt that she also must suffer uncomplaining. In the moment of her sharpest pain she did not forget the duties of her tender office, but dried the dying man’s moist forehead with her handkerchief, even while the dews of agony were glistening54 on her own. How long this lasted she never could tell. Time and thirst are two things you and I talk about; but the victims whom holy men and righteous judges used to stretch on their engines knew better what they meant than you or I!——What is that great bucket of water[77] for? said the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, before she was placed on the rack.——For you to drink,——said the torturer to the little woman.——She could not think that it would take such a flood to quench55 the fire in her and so keep her alive for her confession56. The torturer knew better than she.
After a time not to be counted in minutes, as the clock measures,——without any warning,——there came a swift change of his features; his face turned white, as the waters whiten when a sudden breath passes over their still surface; the muscles instantly relaxed, and Iris, released at once from her care for the sufferer and from his unconscious grasp, fell senseless, with a feeble cry,——the only utterance57 of her long agony.
——Iris went into mourning for the Little Gentleman. Although he left the bulk of his property, by will, to a public institution, he added a codicil58, by which he disposed of various pieces of property as tokens of kind remembrance. It was in this way I became the possessor of the wonderful instrument I have spoken of, which had been purchased for him out of an Italian convent. The landlady59 was comforted with a small legacy60. The following extract relates to Iris: “——in consideration of her manifold acts of kindness, but only in token of grateful remembrance, and by no means as a reward for services which cannot be compensated61, a certain messuage, with all the land thereto appertaining, situate in —— Street, at the North End, so called, of Boston, aforesaid, the same being the house in which I was born, but now inhabited by several families, and known as[78] ‘the Rookery.’” Iris had also the crucifix, the portrait, and the red-jewelled ring. The funeral or death’s-head ring was buried with him.
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1
WHIMS
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| 虚妄，禅病 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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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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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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iris
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| n.虹膜，彩虹 | |
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7
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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extremities
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| n.端点( extremity的名词复数 )；尽头；手和足；极窘迫的境地 | |
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11
ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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longings
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| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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14
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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15
apprenticeship
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| n.学徒身份；学徒期 | |
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meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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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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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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parable
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| n.寓言，比喻 | |
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prodigal
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| adj.浪费的，挥霍的，放荡的 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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transgressions
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| n.违反，违法，罪过( transgression的名词复数 ) | |
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infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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succor
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| n.援助，帮助；v.给予帮助 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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33
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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40
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
fixedness
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| n.固定；稳定；稳固 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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43
tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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44
dilating
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| v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的现在分词 ) | |
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45
nostril
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| n.鼻孔 | |
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46
tenement
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| n.公寓；房屋 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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48
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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recess
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| n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处） | |
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50
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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51
saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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52
contraction
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| n.缩略词，缩写式，害病 | |
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53
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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54
glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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55
quench
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| vt.熄灭，扑灭；压制 | |
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56
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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codicil
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| n.遗嘱的附录 | |
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landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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61
compensated
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| 补偿，报酬( compensate的过去式和过去分词 )； 给（某人）赔偿（或赔款） | |
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