"A faerye realm," the scribes themselves itemed it; "myriad3 lights--broad staircases gracef'y asc'd'g--ravish'g perfumes--met our gaze--garlandries of laurel and magn'a--prom'd'g from room to room--met our gaze--directed by masters of cerem'y in Conf'te G'd's unif'm--here turn'g to the right--fair women and brave men--carried thither4 by the dense5 throng--music with its volup's swell--met our gaze--again descend'g--arriv'g at din'g-hall--new scene of ench't bursts--refr't tables--enarched with ev'gr's and decked with labarums and burgees--thence your way lies through--costly volumes and shimm'g bijoutries--met our gaze!"
It was Kincaid who saw their laborious6 office in this flippant light, and so presented it to Anna that she laughed till she wept; laughing was now so easy. But when they saw one of the pencillers writing awkwardly with his left hand, aided by half a right arm in a pinned-up sleeve, her mirth had a sudden check. Yet presently it became a proud thrill, as the poor boy glowed with delight while Hilary stood and talked with him of the fearful Virginia day on which that ruin had befallen him at Hilary's own side in Kincaid's Battery, and then brought him to converse7 with her. This incident may account for the fervor8 with which a next morning's report extolled9 the wonders of the "fair chairman's" administrative10 skill and the matchless and most opportune11 executive supervision12 of Captain Hilary Kincaid. Flora read it with interest.
With interest of a different kind she read in a later issue another passage, handed her by the grandmother with the remark, "to warn you, my dear." The matter was a frothy bit of tragical13 romancing, purporting15 to have been gathered from two detectives out of their own experience of a year or so before, about a gift made to the Bazaar by Captain Kincaid, which had--"met our gaze jealously guarded under glass amid a brilliant collection of reliques, jewels, and bric-à-brac; a large, evil-looking knife still caked with the mud of the deadly affray, but bearing legibly in Italian on its blade the inscription16, 'He who gets me in his body never need take a medicine,' and with a hilt and scabbard encrusted with gems17."
Now, one of the things that made Madame Valcour good company among gentlewomen was her authoritative18 knowledge of precious stones. So when Flora finished reading and looked up, and the grandmother faintly smiled and shook her head, both understood.
"Paste?"
"Mostly."
"And the rest--not worth--?"
"Your stealing," simpered the connoisseur19, and, reading, herself, added meditatively20, "I should hate anyhow, for you to have that thing. The devil would be always at your ear."
"Whispering--what?"
The grandmother shrugged21: "That depends. I look to see you rise, yet, to some crime of dignity; something really tragic14 and Italian. Whereas at present--" she pursed her lips and shrugged again.
The girl blandly22 laughed: "You venerable ingrate23!"
At the Bazaar that evening, when Charlie and grandma and the crowd were gone, Flora handled the unlovely curiosity. She and Irby had seen Hilary and Anna and the Hyde & Goodrich man on guard just there draw near the glass case where it lay "like a snake on a log," as Charlie had said, take it in their hands and talk of it. The jeweller was expressing confidentially24 a belief that it had once been set with real stones, and Hilary was privately25 having a sudden happy thought, when Flora and Adolphe came up only in time to hear the goldsmith's statement of its present poor value.
"But surely," said Kincaid, "this old jewellery lying all about it here--."
"That? that's the costliest26 gift in the Bazaar!"
Irby inquired whose it was, Anna called it anonymous27, and Flora, divining that the giver was Anna, felt herself outrageously28 robbed. As the knife was being laid back in place she recalled, with odd interest, her grandmother's mention of the devil, and remembered a time or two when for a moment she had keenly longed for some such bit of steel; something much more slender, maybe, and better fitting a dainty hand, but quite as long and sharp. A wave from this thought may have prompted Anna's request that the thing be brought forth29 again and Flora allowed to finger it; but while this was being done Flora's main concern was to note how the jeweller worked the hidden spring by which he opened the glass case. As she finally gave up the weapon: "Thank you," she sweetly said to both Anna and Hilary, but with a meaning reserved to herself.
You may remember how once she had gone feeling and prying30 along the fair woodwork of these rooms for any secret of construction it might hold. Lately, when the house began to fill with secretable things of large money value, she had done this again, and this time, in one side of a deep chimney-breast, had actually found a most innocent-looking panel which she fancied to be kept from sliding only by its paint. Now while she said her sweet thanks to Anna and Hilary she could almost believe in fairies, the panel was so near the store of old jewels. With the knife she might free the panel, and behind the panel hide the jewels till their scent31 grew cold, to make them her bank account when all the banks should be broken, let the city fall or stand. No one need ever notice, so many were parting with their gems perforce, so many buying them as a form of asset convenient for flight. So good-night, old dagger32 and jewels; see you again, but don't overdo33 your limited importance. Of the weapon Flora had further learned that it was given not to the Bazaar but to Anna, and of the jewels that they were not in that lottery34 of everything, with which the affair was to end and the proceeds of whose tickets were pouring in upon Anna, acting35 treasurer36, the treasurer being ill.
Tormentingly37 in Hilary's way was this Lottery and Bazaar. Even from Anna, sometimes especially from Anna, he could not understand why certain things must not be told or certain things could not be done until this Bazaar--etc. Why, at any hour he might be recalled! Yes, Anna saw that--through very moist eyes. True, also, she admitted, Beauregard and Johnston might fail to hold off Buell and Grant; and true, as well, New Orleans could fall, and might be sacked. It was while confessing this that with eyes down and bosom38 heaving she accepted the old Italian knife. Certainly unless the pooh-poohing Mandeville was wrong, who declared the forts down the river impregnable and Beauregard, on the Tennessee, invincible39, flight (into the Confederacy) was safest--but--the Bazaar first, flight afterward40. "We women," she said, rising close before him with both hands in his, "must stand by our guns. We've no more right"--it was difficult to talk while he kissed her fingers and pressed her palms to his gray breast--"no more right--to be cowards--than you men."
Her touch brought back his lighter41 mood and he told the happy thought--project--which had come to him while they talked with the jeweller. He could himself "do the job," he said, "roughly but well enough." Anna smiled at the fanciful scheme. Yet--yes, its oddity was in its favor. So many such devices were succeeding, some of them to the vast advantage of the Southern cause.
When Flora the next evening stole a passing glance at the ugly trinket in its place she was pleased to note how well it retained its soilure of clay. For she had that day used it to free the panel, behind which she had found a small recess43 so fitted to her want that she had only to replace panel and tool and await some chance in the closing hours of the show. Pleased she was, too, to observe that the old jewels lay in a careless heap. Now to conceal44 all interest and to divert all eyes, even grandmama's! Thus, however, night after night an odd fact eluded45 her: That Anna and her hero, always singly, and themselves careful to lure42 others away, glimpsed that disordered look of the gems and unmolested air of the knife with a content as purposeful as her own. Which fact meant, when came the final evening, that at last every sham46 jewel in the knife's sheath had exchanged places with a real one from the loose heap, while, nestling between two layers of the sheath's material, reposed47, payable48 to bearer, a check on London for thousands of pounds sterling49. Very proud was Anna of her lover's tremendous versatility50 and craftsmanship51.
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1
bazaar
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| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
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flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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fervor
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| n.热诚；热心；炽热 | |
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extolled
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| v.赞颂，赞扬，赞美( extol的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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administrative
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| adj.行政的，管理的 | |
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opportune
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| adj.合适的，适当的 | |
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supervision
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| n.监督，管理 | |
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tragical
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| adj. 悲剧的, 悲剧性的 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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purporting
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| v.声称是…，（装得）像是…的样子( purport的现在分词 ) | |
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inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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gems
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| growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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connoisseur
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| n.鉴赏家，行家，内行 | |
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meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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ingrate
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| n.忘恩负义的人 | |
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confidentially
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| ad.秘密地，悄悄地 | |
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privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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costliest
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| adj.昂贵的( costly的最高级 )；代价高的；引起困难的；造成损失的 | |
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anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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outrageously
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| 凶残地； 肆无忌惮地； 令人不能容忍地； 不寻常地 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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prying
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| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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overdo
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| vt.把...做得过头，演得过火 | |
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lottery
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| n.抽彩；碰运气的事，难于算计的事 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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treasurer
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| n.司库，财务主管 | |
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tormentingly
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| 使痛苦的，使苦恼的 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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42
lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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43
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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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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45
eluded
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的过去式和过去分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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47
reposed
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| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
payable
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| adj.可付的，应付的，有利益的 | |
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49
sterling
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| adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑) | |
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50
versatility
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| n.多才多艺，多样性，多功能 | |
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51
craftsmanship
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| n.手艺 | |
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