At the beginning of June, when school closed, Thea had told Wunsch that she didn’t know how much practicing she could get in this summer because Thor had his worst teeth still to cut.
“My God! all last summer he was doing that!” Wunsch exclaimed furiously.
“I know, but it takes them two years, and Thor is slow,” Thea answered reprovingly.
The summer went well beyond her hopes, however. She told herself that it was the best summer of her life, so far. Nobody was sick at home, and her lessons were uninterrupted. Now that she had four pupils of her own and made a dollar a week, her practicing was regarded more seriously by the household. Her mother had always arranged things so that she could have the parlor1 four hours a day in summer. Thor proved a friendly ally. He behaved handsomely about his molars, and never objected to being pulled off into remote places in his cart. When Thea dragged him over the hill and made a camp under the shade of a bush or a bank, he would waddle2 about and play with his blocks, or bury his monkey in the sand and dig him up again. Sometimes he got into the cactus3 and set up a howl, but usually he let his sister read peacefully, while he coated his hands and face, first with an all-day sucker and then with gravel4.
Life was pleasant and uneventful until the first of September, when Wunsch began to drink so hard that he was unable to appear when Thea went to take her mid-week lesson, and Mrs. Kohler had to send her home after a tearful apology. On Saturday morning she set out for the Kohlers’ again, but on her way, when she was crossing the ravine, she noticed a woman sitting at the bottom of the gulch5, under the railroad trestle. She turned from her path and saw that it was Mrs. Tellamantez, and she seemed to be doing drawn-work. Then Thea noticed that there was something beside her, covered up with a purple and yellow Mexican blanket. She ran up the gulch and called to Mrs. Tellamantez. The Mexican woman held up a warning finger. Thea glanced at the blanket and recognized a square red hand which protruded6. The middle finger twitched7 slightly.
Mrs. Tellamantez shook her head. “No; very sick. He knows nothing,” she said quietly, folding her hands over her drawn-work.
Thea learned that Wunsch had been out all night, that this morning Mrs. Kohler had gone to look for him and found him under the trestle covered with dirt and cinders9. Probably he had been trying to get home and had lost his way. Mrs. Tellamantez was watching beside the unconscious man while Mrs. Kohler and Johnny went to get help.
Thea hung her head and looked wistfully toward the blanket.
“Couldn’t I just stay till they come?” she asked. “I’d like to know if he’s very bad.”
“Bad enough,” sighed Mrs. Tellamantez, taking up her work again.
Thea sat down under the narrow shade of one of the trestle posts and listened to the locusts11 rasping in the hot sand while she watched Mrs. Tellamantez evenly draw her threads. The blanket looked as if it were over a heap of bricks.
“I don’t see him breathing any,” she said anxiously.
“Yes, he breathes,” said Mrs. Tellamantez, not lifting her eyes.
It seemed to Thea that they waited for hours. At last they heard voices, and a party of men came down the hill and up the gulch. Dr. Archie and Fritz Kohler came first; behind were Johnny and Ray, and several men from the roundhouse. Ray had the canvas litter that was kept at the depot12 for accidents on the road. Behind them trailed half a dozen boys who had been hanging round the depot.
When Ray saw Thea, he dropped his canvas roll and hurried forward. “Better run along home, Thee. This is ugly business.” Ray was indignant that anybody who gave Thea music lessons should behave in such a manner.
Thea resented both his proprietary13 tone and his superior virtue14. “I won’t. I want to know how bad he is. I’m not a baby!” she exclaimed indignantly, stamping her foot into the sand.
Dr. Archie, who had been kneeling by the blanket, got up and came toward Thea, dusting his knees. He smiled and nodded confidentially15. “He’ll be all right when we get him home. But he wouldn’t want you to see him like this, poor old chap! Understand? Now, skip!”
Thea ran down the gulch and looked back only once, to see them lifting the canvas litter with Wunsch upon it, still covered with the blanket.
The men carried Wunsch up the hill and down the road to the Kohlers’. Mrs. Kohler had gone home and made up a bed in the sitting-room16, as she knew the litter could not be got round the turn in the narrow stairway. Wunsch was like a dead man. He lay unconscious all day. Ray Kennedy stayed with him till two o’clock in the afternoon, when he had to go out on his run. It was the first time he had ever been inside the Kohlers’ house, and he was so much impressed by Napoleon that the piece-picture formed a new bond between him and Thea.
Dr. Archie went back at six o’clock, and found Mrs. Kohler and Spanish Johnny with Wunsch, who was in a high fever, muttering and groaning17.
“There ought to be some one here to look after him to-night, Mrs. Kohler,” he said. “I’m on a confinement18 case, and I can’t be here, but there ought to be somebody. He may get violent.”
Mrs. Kohler insisted that she could always do anything with Wunsch, but the doctor shook his head and Spanish Johnny grinned. He said he would stay. The doctor laughed at him. “Ten fellows like you couldn’t hold him, Spanish, if he got obstreperous19; an Irishman would have his hands full. Guess I’d better put the soft pedal on him.” He pulled out his hypodermic.
Spanish Johnny stayed, however, and the Kohlers went to bed. At about two o’clock in the morning Wunsch rose from his ignominious20 cot. Johnny, who was dozing21 on the lounge, awoke to find the German standing22 in the middle of the room in his undershirt and drawers, his arms bare, his heavy body seeming twice its natural girth. His face was snarling23 and savage24, and his eyes were crazy. He had risen to avenge25 himself, to wipe out his shame, to destroy his enemy. One look was enough for Johnny. Wunsch raised a chair threateningly, and Johnny, with the lightness of a picador, darted26 under the missile and out of the open window. He shot across the gully to get help, meanwhile leaving the Kohlers to their fate.
Fritz, upstairs, heard the chair crash upon the stove. Then he heard doors opening and shutting, and some one stumbling about in the shrubbery of the garden. He and Paulina sat up in bed and held a consultation27. Fritz slipped from under the covers, and going cautiously over to the window, poked28 out his head. Then he rushed to the door and bolted it.
“The dresser,” cried Mrs. Kohler; “push the dresser before the door. Ach, if you had your rabbit gun, now!”
“It is in the barn,” said Fritz sadly. “It would do no good; he would not be afraid of anything now. Stay you in the bed, Paulina.” The dresser had lost its casters years ago, but he managed to drag it in front of the door. “He is in the garden. He makes nothing. He will get sick again, may-be.”
Fritz went back to bed and his wife pulled the quilt over him and made him lie down. They heard stumbling in the garden again, then a smash of glass.
“Ach, das Mistbeet!” gasped Paulina, hearing her hotbed shivered. “The poor soul, Fritz, he will cut himself. Ach! what is that?” They both sat up in bed. “Wieder! Ach, What is he doing?”
The noise came steadily30, a sound of chopping. Paulina tore off her night-cap. “Die Bäume, die Bäume! He is cutting our trees, Fritz!” Before her husband could prevent her, she had sprung from the bed and rushed to the window. “Der Taubenschlag! Gerechter Himmel, he is chopping the dove-house down!”
Fritz reached her side before she had got her breath again, and poked his head out beside hers. There, in the faint starlight, they saw a bulky man, barefoot, half dressed, chopping away at the white post that formed the pedestal of the dove-house. The startled pigeons were croaking31 and flying about his head, even beating their wings in his face, so that he struck at them furiously with the axe. In a few seconds there was a crash, and Wunsch had actually felled the dove-house.
“Oh, if only it is not the trees next!” prayed Paulina. “The dove-house you can make new again, but not die Bäume.”
They watched breathlessly. In the garden below Wunsch stood in the attitude of a woodman, contemplating32 the fallen cote. Suddenly he threw the axe over his shoulder and went out of the front gate toward the town.
“The poor soul, he will meet his death!” Mrs. Kohler wailed33. She ran back to her feather bed and hid her face in the pillow.
Fritz kept watch at the window. “No, no, Paulina,” he called presently; “I see lanterns coming. Johnny must have gone for somebody. Yes, four lanterns, coming along the gulch. They stop; they must have seen him already. Now they are under the hill and I cannot see them, but I think they have him. They will bring him back. I must dress and go down.” He caught his trousers and began pulling them on by the window. “Yes, here they come, half a dozen men. And they have tied him with a rope, Paulina!”
“Ach, the poor man! To be led like a cow,” groaned34 Mrs. Kohler. “Oh, it is good that he has no wife!” She was reproaching herself for nagging35 Fritz when he drank himself into foolish pleasantry or mild sulks, and felt that she had never before appreciated her blessings36.
Wunsch was in bed for ten days, during which time he was gossiped about and even preached about in Moonstone. The Baptist preacher took a shot at the fallen man from his pulpit, Mrs. Livery Johnson nodding approvingly from her pew. The mothers of Wunsch’s pupils sent him notes informing him that their daughters would discontinue their music-lessons. The old maid who had rented him her piano sent the town dray for her contaminated instrument, and ever afterward37 declared that Wunsch had ruined its tone and scarred its glossy38 finish. The Kohlers were unremitting in their kindness to their friend. Mrs. Kohler made him soups and broths39 without stint40, and Fritz repaired the dove-house and mounted it on a new post, lest it might be a sad reminder41.
As soon as Wunsch was strong enough to sit about in his slippers42 and wadded jacket, he told Fritz to bring him some stout43 thread from the shop. When Fritz asked what he was going to sew, he produced the tattered44 score of “Orpheus” and said he would like to fix it up for a little present. Fritz carried it over to the shop and stitched it into pasteboards, covered with dark suiting-cloth. Over the stitches he glued a strip of thin red leather which he got from his friend, the harness-maker. After Paulina had cleaned the pages with fresh bread, Wunsch was amazed to see what a fine book he had. It opened stiffly, but that was no matter.
Sitting in the arbor45 one morning, under the ripe grapes and the brown, curling leaves, with a pen and ink on the bench beside him and the Gluck score on his knee, Wunsch pondered for a long while. Several times he dipped the pen in the ink, and then put it back again in the cigar box in which Mrs. Kohler kept her writing utensils46. His thoughts wandered over a wide territory; over many countries and many years. There was no order or logical sequence in his ideas. Pictures came and went without reason. Faces, mountains, rivers, autumn days in other vineyards far away. He thought of a Fuszreise he had made through the Hartz Mountains in his student days; of the innkeeper’s pretty daughter who had lighted his pipe for him in the garden one summer evening, of the woods above Wiesbaden, haymakers on an island in the river. The roundhouse whistle woke him from his reveries. Ah, yes, he was in Moonstone, Colorado. He frowned for a moment and looked at the book on his knee. He had thought of a great many appropriate things to write in it, but suddenly he rejected all of them, opened the book, and at the top of the much-engraved title-page he wrote rapidly in purple ink:—
Einst, O Wunder!—
A. Wunsch.
Moonstone, Colo.
September 30, 18—
Nobody in Moonstone ever found what Wunsch’s first name was. That “A” may have stood for Adam, or August, or even Amadeus; he got very angry if any one asked him.
He remained A. Wunsch to the end of his chapter there. When he presented this score to Thea, he told her that in ten years she would either know what the inscription47 meant, or she would not have the least idea, in which case it would not matter.
When Wunsch began to pack his trunk, both the Kohlers were very unhappy. He said he was coming back some day, but that for the present, since he had lost all his pupils, it would be better for him to try some “new town.” Mrs. Kohler darned and mended all his clothes, and gave him two new shirts she had made for Fritz. Fritz made him a new pair of trousers and would have made him an overcoat but for the fact that overcoats were so easy to pawn48.
Wunsch would not go across the ravine to the town until he went to take the morning train for Denver. He said that after he got to Denver he would “look around.” He left Moonstone one bright October morning, without telling any one good-bye. He bought his ticket and went directly into the smoking-car. When the train was beginning to pull out, he heard his name called frantically49, and looking out of the window he saw Thea Kronborg standing on the siding, bareheaded and panting. Some boys had brought word to school that they saw Wunsch’s trunk going over to the station, and Thea had run away from school. She was at the end of the station platform, her hair in two braids, her blue gingham dress wet to the knees because she had run across lots through the weeds. It had rained during the night, and the tall sunflowers behind her were fresh and shining.
“Good-bye, Herr Wunsch, good-bye!” she called waving to him.
He thrust his head out at the car window and called back, “Leben sie wohl, leben sie wohl, mein Kind!” He watched her until the train swept around the curve beyond the roundhouse, and then sank back into his seat, muttering, “She had been running. Ah, she will run a long way; they cannot stop her!”
What was it about the child that one believed in? Was it her dogged industry, so unusual in this free-and-easy country? Was it her imagination? More likely it was because she had both imagination and a stubborn will, curiously50 balancing and interpenetrating each other. There was something unconscious and unawakened about her, that tempted51 curiosity. She had a kind of seriousness that he had not met with in a pupil before. She hated difficult things, and yet she could never pass one by. They seemed to challenge her; she had no peace until she mastered them. She had the power to make a great effort, to lift a weight heavier than herself. Wunsch hoped he would always remember her as she stood by the track, looking up at him; her broad eager face, so fair in color, with its high cheek-bones, yellow eyebrows52 and greenishhazel eyes. It was a face full of light and energy, of the unquestioning hopefulness of first youth. Yes, she was like a flower full of sun, but not the soft German flowers of his childhood. He had it now, the comparison he had absently reached for before: she was like the yellow prickly pear blossoms that open there in the desert; thornier53 and sturdier than the maiden54 flowers he remembered; not so sweet, but wonderful.
That night Mrs. Kohler brushed away many a tear as she got supper and set the table for two. When they sat down, Fritz was more silent than usual. People who have lived long together need a third at table: they know each other’s thoughts so well that they have nothing left to say. Mrs. Kohler stirred and stirred her coffee and clattered55 the spoon, but she had no heart for her supper. She felt, for the first time in years, that she was tired of her own cooking. She looked across the glass lamp at her husband and asked him if the butcher liked his new overcoat, and whether he had got the shoulders right in a ready-made suit he was patching over for Ray Kennedy. After supper Fritz offered to wipe the dishes for her, but she told him to go about his business, and not to act as if she were sick or getting helpless.
When her work in the kitchen was all done, she went out to cover the oleanders against frost, and to take a last look at her chickens. As she came back from the hen-house she stopped by one of the linden trees and stood resting her hand on the trunk. He would never come back, the poor man; she knew that. He would drift on from new town to new town, from catastrophe56 to catastrophe. He would hardly find a good home for himself again. He would die at last in some rough place, and be buried in the desert or on the wild prairie, far enough from any linden tree!
Fritz, smoking his pipe on the kitchen doorstep, watched his Paulina and guessed her thoughts. He, too, was sorry to lose his friend. But Fritz was getting old; he had lived a long while and had learned to lose without struggle.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
parlor
|
|
| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
waddle
|
|
| vi.摇摆地走；n.摇摆的走路(样子) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
cactus
|
|
| n.仙人掌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
gravel
|
|
| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
gulch
|
|
| n.深谷，峡谷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
protruded
|
|
| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
twitched
|
|
| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
gasped
|
|
| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
cinders
|
|
| n.煤渣( cinder的名词复数 )；炭渣；煤渣路；煤渣跑道 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
narration
|
|
| n.讲述，叙述；故事；记叙体 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
locusts
|
|
| n.蝗虫( locust的名词复数 )；贪吃的人；破坏者；槐树 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
depot
|
|
| n.仓库，储藏处；公共汽车站；火车站 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
proprietary
|
|
| n.所有权，所有的；独占的；业主 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
confidentially
|
|
| ad.秘密地，悄悄地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
sitting-room
|
|
| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
groaning
|
|
| adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
confinement
|
|
| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
obstreperous
|
|
| adj.喧闹的，不守秩序的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
ignominious
|
|
| adj.可鄙的，不光彩的，耻辱的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
dozing
|
|
| v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
snarling
|
|
| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的现在分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
savage
|
|
| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
avenge
|
|
| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
darted
|
|
| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
consultation
|
|
| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
poked
|
|
| v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
axe
|
|
| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
steadily
|
|
| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
croaking
|
|
| v.呱呱地叫( croak的现在分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
contemplating
|
|
| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
wailed
|
|
| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
groaned
|
|
| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
nagging
|
|
| adj.唠叨的，挑剔的；使人不得安宁的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的现在分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
blessings
|
|
| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
afterward
|
|
| adv.后来；以后 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
glossy
|
|
| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
broths
|
|
| n.肉汤( broth的名词复数 )；厨师多了烧坏汤；人多手杂反坏事；人多添乱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
stint
|
|
| v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
reminder
|
|
| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
slippers
|
|
| n. 拖鞋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
tattered
|
|
| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
arbor
|
|
| n.凉亭；树木 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
utensils
|
|
| 器具，用具，器皿( utensil的名词复数 )； 器物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
inscription
|
|
| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
pawn
|
|
| n.典当，抵押，小人物，走卒；v.典当，抵押 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
frantically
|
|
| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
curiously
|
|
| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
tempted
|
|
| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
eyebrows
|
|
| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
thornier
|
|
| adj.多刺的( thorny的比较级 )；有刺的；棘手的；多障碍的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
maiden
|
|
| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
clattered
|
|
| 发出咔哒声（clatter的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
catastrophe
|
|
| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |