As I lifted my hand to the bell, my little companion’s dread5 of a beating revived in full force. He hid himself behind me; and when I asked what he was about, he answered, confidentially6: “Please stand between us, sir, when mother opens the door!”
A tall and truculent7 woman answered the bell. No introduction was necessary. Holding a cane8 in her hand, she stood self-proclaimed as my small friend’s mother.
“I thought it was that vagabond of a boy of mine,” she explained, as an apology for the exhibition of the cane. “He has been gone on an errand more than two hours. What did you please to want, sir?”
I interceded10 for the unfortunate boy before I entered on my own business.
“I must beg you to forgive your son this time,” I said. “I found him lost in the streets; and I have brought him home.”
The woman’s astonishment11 when she heard what I had done, and discovered her son behind me, literally12 struck her dumb. The language of the eye, superseding13 on this occasion the language of the tongue, plainly revealed the impression that I had produced on her: “You bring my lost brat14 home in a cab! Mr. Stranger, you are mad.”
“I hear that you have a lady named Brand lodging15 in the house,” I went on. “I dare say I am mistaken in supposing her to be a lady of the same name whom I know. But I should like to make sure whether I am right or wrong. Is it too late to disturb your lodger16 to-night?”
The woman recovered the use of her tongue.
“My lodger is up and waiting for that little fool, who doesn’t know his way about London yet!” She emphasized those words by shaking her brawny17 fist at her son — who instantly returned to his place of refuge behind the tail of my coat. “Have you got the money?” inquired the terrible person, shouting at her hidden offspring over my shoulder. “Or have you lost that as well as your own stupid little self?”
The boy showed himself again, and put the money into his mother’s knotty18 hand. She counted it, with eyes which satisfied themselves fiercely that each coin was of genuine silver — and then became partially19 pacified20.
“Go along upstairs,” she growled21, addressing her son; “and don’t keep the lady waiting any longer. They’re half starved, she and her child,” the woman proceeded, turning to me. “The food my boy has got for them in his basket will be the first food the mother has tasted today. She’s pawned22 everything by this time; and what she’s to do unless you help her is more than I can say. The doctor does what he can; but he told me today, if she wasn’t better nourished, it was no use sending for him. Follow the boy; and see for yourself if it’s the lady you know.”
I listened to the woman, still feeling persuaded that I had acted under a delusion23 in going to her house. How was it possible to associate the charming object of my heart’s worship with the miserable24 story of destitution25 which I had just heard? I stopped the boy on the first landing, and told him to announce me simply as a doctor, who had been informed of Mrs. Brand’s illness, and who had called to see her.
We ascended26 a second flight of stairs, and a third. Arrived now at the top of the house, the boy knocked at the door that was nearest to us on the landing. No audible voice replied. He opened the door without ceremony, and went in. I waited outside to hear what was said. The door was left ajar. If the voice of “Mrs. Brand” was (as I believed it would prove to be) the voice of a stranger, I resolved to offer her delicately such help as lay within my power, and to return forthwith to my post under “the shadow of Saint Paul’s.”
The first voice that spoke27 to the boy was the voice of a child.
“I’m so hungry, Jemmy — I’m so hungry!”
“All right, missy — I’ve got you something to eat.”
“Be quick, Jemmy! Be quick!”
There was a momentary28 pause; and then I heard the boy’s voice once more.
“There’s a slice of bread-and-butter, missy. You must wait for your egg till I can boil it. Don’t you eat too fast, or you’ll choke yourself. What’s the matter with your mamma? Are you asleep, ma’am?”
I could barely hear the answering voice — it was so faint; and it uttered but one word: “No!”
The boy spoke again.
“Cheer up, missus. There’s a doctor outside waiting to see you.”
This time there was no audible reply. The boy showed himself to me at the door. “Please to come in, sir. I can’t make anything of her.”
It would have been misplaced delicacy29 to have hesitated any longer to enter the room. I went in.
There, at the opposite end of a miserably30 furnished bed-chamber, lying back feebly in a tattered31 old arm-chair, was one more among the thousands of forlorn creatures, starving that night in the great city. A white handkerchief was laid over her face as if to screen it from the flame of the fire hard by. She lifted the handkerchief, startled by the sound of my footsteps as I entered the room. I looked at her, and saw in the white, wan9, death-like face the face of the woman I loved!
For a moment the horror of the discovery turned me faint and giddy. In another instant I was kneeling by her chair. My arm was round her — her head lay on my shoulder. She was past speaking, past crying out: she trembled silently, and that was all. I said nothing. No words passed my lips, no tears came to my relief. I held her to me; and she let me hold her. The child, devouring32 its bread-and-butter at a little round table, stared at us. The boy, on his knees before the grate, mending the fire, stared at us. And the slow minutes lagged on; and the buzzing of a fly in a corner was the only sound in the room.
The instincts of the profession to which I had been trained, rather than any active sense of the horror of the situation in which I was placed, roused me at last. She was starving! I saw it in the deadly color of her skin; I felt it in the faint, quick flutter of her pulse. I called the boy to me, and sent him to the nearest public-house for wine and biscuits. “Be quick about it,” I said; “and you shall have more money for yourself than ever you had in your life!” The boy looked at me, spit on the coins in his hand, said, “That’s for luck!” and ran out of the room as never boy ran yet.
I turned to speak my first words of comfort to the mother. The cry of the child stopped me.
“I’m so hungry! I’m so hungry!”
I set more food before the famished33 child and kissed her. She looked up at me with wondering eyes.
“Are you a new papa?” the little creature asked. “My other papa never kisses me.”
I looked at the mother. Her eyes were closed; the tears flowed slowly over her worn, white cheeks. I took her frail34 hand in mine. “Happier days are coming,” I said; “you are my care now.” There was no answer. She still trembled silently, and that was all.
In less than five minutes the boy returned, and earned his promised reward. He sat on the floor by the fire counting his treasure, the one happy creature in the room. I soaked some crumbled35 morsels36 of biscuit in the wine, and, little by little, I revived her failing strength by nourishment37 administered at intervals38 in that cautious form. After a while she raised her head, and looked at me with wondering eyes that were pitiably like the eyes of her child. A faint, delicate flush began to show itself in her face. She spoke to me, for the first time, in whispering tones that I could just hear as I sat close at her side.
“How did you find me? Who showed you the way to this place?”
She paused; painfully recalling the memory of something that was slow to come back. Her color deepened; she found the lost remembrance, and looked at me with a timid curiosity. “What brought you here?” she asked. “Was it my dream?”
“Wait, dearest, till you are stronger, and I will tell you all.”
I lifted her gently, and laid her on the wretched bed. The child followed us, and climbing to the bedstead with my help, nestled at her mother’s side. I sent the boy away to tell the mistress of the house that I should remain with my patient, watching her progress toward recovery, through the night. He went out, jingling39 his money joyfully40 in his pocket. We three were left together.
As the long hours followed each other, she fell at intervals into a broken sleep; waking with a start, and looking at me wildly as if I had been a stranger at her bedside. Toward morning the nourishment which I still carefully administered wrought41 its healthful change in her pulse, and composed her to quieter slumbers42. When the sun rose she was sleeping as peacefully as the child at her side. I was able to leave her, until my return later in the day, under the care of the woman of the house. The magic of money transformed this termagant and terrible person into a docile43 and attentive44 nurse — so eager to follow my instructions exactly that she begged me to commit them to writing before I went away. For a moment I still lingered alone at the bedside of the sleeping woman, and satisfied myself for the hundredth time that her life was safe, before I left her. It was the sweetest of all rewards to feel sure of this — to touch her cool forehead lightly with my lips — to look, and look again, at the poor worn face, always dear, always beautiful, to my eyes. change as it might. I closed the door softly and went out in the bright morning, a happy man again. So close together rise the springs of joy and sorrow in human life! So near in our heart, as in our heaven, is the brightest sunshine to the blackest cloud!
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1
distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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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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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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confidentially
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| ad.秘密地，悄悄地 | |
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truculent
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| adj.野蛮的，粗野的 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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interceded
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| v.斡旋，调解( intercede的过去式和过去分词 )；说情 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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superseding
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| 取代，接替( supersede的现在分词 ) | |
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brat
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| n.孩子；顽童 | |
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lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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lodger
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| n.寄宿人，房客 | |
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brawny
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| adj.强壮的 | |
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knotty
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| adj.有结的，多节的，多瘤的，棘手的 | |
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partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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pacified
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| 使（某人）安静( pacify的过去式和过去分词 )； 息怒； 抚慰； 在（有战争的地区、国家等）实现和平 | |
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21
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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pawned
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| v.典当，抵押( pawn的过去式和过去分词 )；以（某事物）担保 | |
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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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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destitution
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| n.穷困，缺乏，贫穷 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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32
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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famished
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| adj.饥饿的 | |
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frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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crumbled
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| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
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morsels
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| n.一口( morsel的名词复数 )；（尤指食物）小块，碎屑 | |
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nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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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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39
jingling
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| 叮当声 | |
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joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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41
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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42
slumbers
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| 睡眠，安眠( slumber的名词复数 ) | |
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43
docile
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| adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的 | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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