Читать книгу Lillian Morris, and Other Stories - Генрик Сенкевич, Henryk Sienkiewicz - Страница 3

On a certain time, after we had passed the Mississippi, we halted for the night at Cedar River, the banks of which, grown over with cottonwood, gave us assurance of fuel for the night. While returning from the men on duty, who had gone into the thicket with axes, I saw, from a distance, that our people, taking advantage of the beautiful weather and the calm fair day, had wandered out on the prairie in every direction. It was very early; we halted for the night usually about five o’clock in the afternoon, so as to move in the morning at daybreak. Soon I met Miss Morris. I dismounted immediately, and leading my horse by the bridle, approached the young lady, happy that I could be alone with her even for a while. I inquired then why she, so young and unattended, had undertaken a journey which might wear out the strongest man.

“Never should I have consented to receive you into our caravan,” said I, “had I not thought during the first few days of our journey that you were the daughter of Aunt Atkins; now it is too late to turn back. But will you be strong enough, my dear child? You must be ready to find the journey hereafter less easy than hitherto.”

“I know all this,” answered she, without raising her pensive blue eyes, “but I must go on, and I am happy indeed that I cannot go back. My father is in California, and from the letter which he sent me by way of Cape Horn, I learn that for some months he has been ill of a fever in Sacramento. Poor father! he was accustomed to comfort and my care, – and it was only through love of me that he went to California. I do not know whether I shall find him alive; but I feel that in going to him, I am only fulfilling a duty that is dear to me.”

There was no answer to such words; moreover, all that I might object to this undertaking would be too late. I inquired then of Lillian for nearer details touching her father. These she gave with great pleasure, and I learned that in Boston Mr. Morris had been judge of the Supreme Court, or highest tribunal of the State; that he had lost his property, and had gone to the newly discovered mines of California in the hope of acquiring a new fortune, and bringing back to his daughter, whom he loved more than life, her former social position. Meanwhile, he caught a fever in the unwholesome Sacramento valley, and judging that he should die he sent Lillian his last blessing. She sold all the property that he had left with her, and resolved to hasten to him. At first she intended to go by sea; but an acquaintance with Aunt Atkins made by chance two days before the caravan started, changed her mind. Aunt Atkins, who was from Tennessee, having had her ears filled with tales which friends of mine from the banks of the Mississippi had told her and others of my daring expeditions to the famed Arkansas, of my experience in journeys over the prairies, and the care which I gave to the weak (this I consider as a simple duty), described me in such colors before Lillian that the girl, without hesitating longer, joined the caravan going under my leadership. To those exaggerated narratives of Aunt Atkins, who did not delay to add that I was of noble birth, it is necessary to ascribe the fact that Miss Morris was occupied with my person.

“You may be sure,” said I, when she had finished her story, “that no one will do you any wrong here, and that care will not fail you; as to your father, California is the healthiest country on earth, and no one dies of fever there. In every case, while I am alive, you will not be left alone; and meanwhile may God bless your sweet face!”

“Thank you, captain,” answered she, with emotion, and we went on; but my heart beat with more violence. Gradually our conversation became livelier, and no one could foresee that that sky above us would become cloudy.

“But all here are kind to you, Miss Morris?” asked I again, not supposing that just that question would be the cause of misunderstanding.

“Oh yes, all,” said she, “and Aunt Atkins and Aunt Grosvenor, and Henry Simpson too is very good.”

This mention of Simpson pained me suddenly, like the bite of a snake.

“Henry is a mule-driver,” answered I curtly, “and has to care for the wagons.”

But Lillian, occupied with the course of her own thoughts, had not noticed the change in my voice, and spoke on as if to herself, —

“He has an honest heart, and I shall be grateful to him all my life.”

“Miss Morris,” interrupted I, cut to the quick, “you may even give him your hand. I wonder, however, that you choose me as a confidant of your feelings.”

When I said that she looked at me with astonishment but made no reply, and we went on together in disagreeable silence. I knew not what to say, though my heart was full of bitterness and anger toward her and myself. I felt simply conquered by jealousy of Simpson, but still I could not fight against it. The position seemed to me so unendurable that I said all at once briefly and dryly, —

“Good night, Miss Morris!”

“Good night,” answered she calmly, turning her head to hide two tears that were dropping down her cheeks.

I mounted my horse and rode away again toward the point whence the sound of axes came, and where, among others, Henry Simpson was cutting a cottonwood. After a while I was seized by a certain measureless regret, for it seemed to me that those two tears were falling on my heart. I turned my horse, and next minute I was near Lillian a second time.

“Why are you crying, Miss Morris?” asked I.

“Oh, sir,” said she, “I know that you are of a noble family, Aunt Atkins told me that, and you have been so kind to me.”

She did everything not to cry; but she could not restrain herself, and could not finish her answer, for tears choked her voice. The poor thing! she had been touched to the bottom of her pensive soul by my answer regarding Simpson, for there was evident in it a certain aristocratic contempt; but I was not even dreaming of aristocracy, – I was simply jealous; and now, seeing her so unhappy, I wanted to seize my own collar and throttle myself. Grasping her hand, I said with animation: —

“Lillian, Lillian, you did not understand me. I take God to witness that no pride was speaking through me. Look at me: I have nothing in the world but these two hands, – what is my descent to me? Something else pained me, and I wanted to go away; but I could not support your tears. And I swear to you also, that what I have said to you pains me more than it does you. You are not an object of indifference to me, Lillian. Oh, not at all! for if you were, what you think of Henry would not concern me. He is an honest fellow, but that does not touch the question. You see how much your tears cost me; then forgive me as sincerely as I entreat your forgiveness.”

Speaking in this way I raised her hand and pressed it to my lips; that high proof of respect, and the truthfulness which sounded in my request, succeeded in quieting the maiden somewhat. She did not cease at once to weep, but her tears were of another kind, for a smile was visible through them, as a sun-ray through mist. Something too was sticking in my throat, and I could not stifle my emotion. A certain tender feeling mastered my heart. We walked on in silence, and round about us the world was pleasant and sweet.

Meanwhile, the day was inclining toward evening; the weather was beautiful, and in the air, already dusky, there was so much light that the whole prairie, the distant groups of cottonwood-trees, the wagons in our train, and the flocks of wild geese flying northward through the sky, seemed golden and rosy. Not the least wind moved the grass; from a distance came to us the sound of rapids, which the Cedar River formed in that place, and the neighing of horses from the direction of the camp. That evening with such charms, that virgin land, and the presence of Lillian, brought me to such a state of mind that my soul was almost ready to fly out of me somewhere to the sky. I thought myself a shaken bell, as it were. At moments I wanted to take Lillian’s hand again, raise it to my lips, and not put it down for a long time; but I feared lest this might offend her. Meanwhile she walked on near me, calm, mild, and thoughtful. Her tears had dried already; at moments she raised her bright eyes to me; then we began to speak again, – and so reached the camp.

That day, in which I had experienced so many emotions, was to end joyfully, for the people, pleased with the beautiful weather, had resolved to have a “picnic,” or open air festival. After a supper more abundant than usual, one great fire was kindled, before which there was to be dancing. Henry Simpson had cleared away the grass purposely from a space of many square yards, and sprinkled it with sand brought from Cedar River. When the spectators had assembled on the place thus prepared, Simpson began to dance a jig, with the accompaniment of negro flutes, to the admiration of all. With hands hanging at his sides he kept his whole body motionless; but his feet were working so nimbly, striking the ground in turn with heel and toe, that their movement could hardly be followed by the eye.

Meanwhile the flutes played madly; a second dancer came out, a third, then a fourth, – and the fun was universal. The audience joined the negroes who were playing on the flutes, and thrummed on tin pans, intended for washing the gold-bearing earth, or kept time with pieces of ox-ribs held between the fingers of each hand, which gave out a sound like the clatter of castanets.

Suddenly the cry of “minstrels! minstrels!” was heard through the whole camp. The audience formed a circle around the dancing-place; into this stepped our negroes, Jim and Crow. Jim held a little drum covered with snake-skin, Crow the pieces of ox-rib mentioned already. For a time they stared at each other, rolling the whites of their eyes; then they began to sing a negro song, interrupted by stamping and violent springs of the body; at times the song was sad, at times wild. The prolonged “Dinah! ah! ah!” with which each verse ended, changed at length into a shout, and almost into a howling like that of beasts. As the dancers warmed up and grew excited, their movements became wilder, and at last they fell to butting each other with blows from which European skulls would have cracked like nutshells. Those black figures, shone upon by the bright gleam of the fire and springing in wild leaps, presented a spectacle truly fantastic. With their shouts and the sounds of the drum, pipes, and tin pans, and the click of the bones, were mingled shouts of the spectators: “Hurrah for Jim! Hurrah for Crow!” and then shots from revolvers.

When at last the black men were wearied and had fallen on the ground, they began to labor with their breasts and to pant. I commanded to give each a drink of brandy; this put them on their feet again. But at that moment the people began to call for a “speech.” In an instant the uproar and music ceased. I had to drop Lillian’s arm, climb to the seat of a wagon, and turn to those present. When I looked from my height on those forms illuminated by the fires, forms large, broad-shouldered, bearded, with knives at their girdles, and hats with torn crowns, it seemed to me that I was in some theatre, or had become a chieftain of robbers. They were honest brave hearts, however, though the rough life of more than one of these men was stormy perhaps and half wild; but here we formed, as it were, a little world torn away from the rest of society and confined to ourselves, destined to a common fate and threatened by common dangers. Here shoulder had to touch shoulder; each felt that he was brother to the next man; the roadless places and boundless deserts with which we were surrounded commanded those hardy miners to love one another. The sight of Lillian, the poor defenceless maiden, fearless among them and safe as if under her father’s roof, brought those thoughts to my head; hence I told everything, just as I felt it, and as befitted a soldier leader who was at the same time a brother of wanderers. Every little while they interrupted me with cries: “Hurrah for the Pole! Hurrah for the captain! Hurrah for Big Ralph!” and with clapping of hands; but what made me happiest of all was to see between the network of those sunburnt strong hands one pair of small palms, rosy with the gleam of the fire and flying like a pair of white doves. I felt then at once, What care I for the desert, the wild beasts, the Indians and the “outlaws”? and cried with mighty ardor, “I will conquer anything, I will kill anything that comes in my way, and lead the train even to the end of the earth, – and may God forget my right hand, if this is not true!” A still louder “Hurrah!” answered these words, and all began to sing with great enthusiasm the emigrants’ song: “I crossed the Mississippi, I will cross the Missouri.” Then Smith, the oldest among the emigrants, a miner from near Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, spoke in answer. He thanked me in the name of the whole company, and lauded my skill in leading the caravan. After Smith, from nearly every wagon a man spoke. Some made very amusing remarks, for instance Henry Simpson, who cried out every little while: “Gentlemen! I’ll be hanged if I don’t tell the truth!” When the speakers had grown hoarse at last, the flutes sounded, the bones rattled, and the men began to dance a jig again.

Night had fallen completely; the moon came out in the sky and shone so brightly that the flame of the fires almost paled before its gleams; the people and the wagons were illuminated doubly by a red and a white light. That was a beautiful night. The uproar of our camp offered a strange but pleasing contrast to the calmness and deep slumber of the prairie.

Taking Lillian’s arm, I went with her around the whole camp; our gaze passed from the fires to the distance, and was lost in the waves of the tall and dark grasses of the prairie, silvery from the rays of the moon and as mysterious as spirits. We strolled alone in that way. Meanwhile, at one of the fires, two Scottish Highlanders began to play on pipes their plaintive air of “Bonnie Dundee.” We both stopped at a distance and listened for some time in silence; all at once I looked at Lillian, she dropped her eyes, – and without knowing myself why I did so, I pressed to my heart long and powerfully that hand which she had rested on my arm. In Lillian too the poor heart began to beat with such force that I felt it as clearly as if on my palm; we trembled, for we saw that something was rising between us, that that something was conquering, and that we would not be to each other as we had been hitherto. As to me I was swimming already whithersoever that current was bearing me. I forgot that the night was so bright, that the fires were not distant, and that there were people around them; and I wanted to fall at her feet at once, or at least to look into her eyes. But she, though leaning on my arm, turned her head, as if glad to hide her face in the shade. I wished to speak but could not; for it seemed to me that I should call out with some voice not my own, or if I should say the words “I love” to Lillian I should drop to the earth. I was not bold, being young then, and was led not by my thoughts simply, but by my soul too; and I felt this also clearly, that if I should say “I love,” a curtain would fall on my past; one door would close and another would open, through which I should pass into a certain new region. Hence, though I saw happiness beyond that threshold I halted, for this very reason it may be, – that the brightness beating from out that place dazzled me. Besides, when loving comes not from the lips, but the heart, there is perhaps nothing so difficult to speak about.

I had dared to press Lillian’s hand to my breast; we were silent, for I had not the boldness to mention love, and I had no wish to speak of aught else, – it was impossible at such a time. It ended with this, that we both raised our heads and looked at the stars, like people who are praying. Then some one at the great fire called me; we returned; the festival had closed, but to end it worthily and well, the emigrants had determined to sing a psalm before going to rest. The men had uncovered their heads, and though among them were persons of various faiths, all knelt on the grass of the prairie and began to sing the psalm, “Wandering in the Wilderness.” The sight was impressive. At moments of rest the silence became so perfect that the crackling of sparks in the fire could be heard, and from the river the sound of the waterfalls came to us.

Kneeling near Lillian, I looked once or twice at her face; her eyes were uplifted and wonderfully shining, her hair was a little disarranged; and, singing the hymn with devotion, she was so like an angel, that it seemed almost possible to pray to her.

After the psalm, the people went to their wagons. I, according to custom, repaired to the sentries, and then to my rest, like the others. But this time when the mosquitoes began to sing in my ears, as they did every evening, “Lillian! Lillian! Lillian!” I knew that in that wagon beyond there was sleeping the sight of my eye and the soul of my soul, and that in all the world there was nothing dearer to me than that maiden.