Читать книгу A Modern Aladdin - Говард Пайл - Страница 2

Flourens was a little town lying quite out of the usual route of young English travellers of rich connections making the "grand tour," and so, having nothing to recommend it in itself, was unknown to the great world without – dull, stupid, stagnant. Hardly ever a visitor from that great outside world appeared within the circle of its hopeless isolation. So it was a very strange thing to the town when one morning a great coach, as big as a house, dragged by four horses, with postilions clad in scarlet faced with blue, their legs incased in huge jack-boots, and each with a club queue as thick as his wrist hanging down his back, came whirling, rattling, lumbering, in the midst of a swirling cloud of dust, into the silence of the town. It was twice wonderful when the coach stopped at the inn, and it was thrice wonderful when an odd, lean, wizened little man, evidently the servant, let down the steps and helped a strange gentleman from within. He was a tall, dark gentleman, dressed in black from head to foot – from the black hat with the black feather to the black silk stockings. From the gentleman's shoulder hung a long black cloak trimmed and lined with black fur, and Flourens had never seen his like before. He neither looked to the right nor to the left, but, without saying good or bad to any living soul, he and the odd, lean little servant entered the inn, leaving the crowd that stood without staring and gaping after him. Then the great coach disappeared through the arched gate that led to the stable-yard, but it was a long time before the crowd began to disperse, before the gossiping began to cease, before the cloud of silence and dullness and stagnation settled by degrees upon the town again. How it was maybe an hour and a half, and the last of those who had looked and wondered had gone about their business.

All is quiet, dull, heavily silent again, and in all the bald stretch of road nothing is to be seen but two women gossiping at a gate-way, and a solitary cat upon a garden wall watching two sparrows chirping and fluttering upon the eaves.

It is with this setting that the play opens, and Oliver Munier, the son of the late Jean Munier, is discovered leaning against the wall of the house, basking in the sun, his blouse tucked up, his hands in his pockets, and a straw in his mouth, which he now and then chews passively in drowsy laziness. Within, his mother is busied about the house-work, now and then rattling and stirring among the pots and pans, now and then scolding at him in a shrill, high-pitched voice, to which he listens with half-shut eyes, chewing his straw the while.

"I know not," said she, stopping for a moment in her work that her words might have more force in the pause – "I know not whether thou wert born so, but thou art the laziest scamp that ever my two eyes saw. Here art thou eighteen years old, and yet hast never earned a single sou to pay for keeping body and soul together since thy poor father died five months ago. Poor soul! with him it was snip, snip, snip, stitch, stitch, stitch. There was never a tailor in Picardy like him. His poor legs were bent like crooked billets from sitting cross-legged, and his poor fingers were as rough as horn from the prick of the needle. Thou lazy vagabond, with him it was work, work, work."

"Perhaps," said Oliver, without turning his head, "it was hard work that killed my poor father."

"Perhaps it was," said his mother; "but it will never do thee a harm."

Oliver shifted the straw he was chewing from one side of his mouth to the other. "Very well," said he. "Is not one in the family enough to die of the same thing?"

"Humph!" said his mother, and went back to her work with more clatter than ever.

Just then, at the farther end of the street, the inn door opened, and the strange gentleman in black came out, followed first by his servant, and then by Pierre, the landlord. He stopped for a moment at the head of a flight of stone steps, and Pierre pointed, as Oliver thought, towards their house. Then the strange gentleman came slowly down the steps, and picking his way around the puddles where the water from the trough flowed across the road and followed by his servant, came down the street towards where Oliver stood. At his coming a sudden breeze of interest seemed to awaken in the street. The two gossips turned and looked after him; the cat sat up on the wall, and also looked; and the two sparrows stopped chirping, and seemed to look. Two or three women appeared at the door-ways with children; three or four heads were thrust out at the windows, and Oliver, taking his hands out of his pockets, removed the straw that he might see better without the interruption of chewing.

The strange gentleman, when he had come to within a little distance of Oliver, stopped, and beckoning to the little lean serving-man who followed him, held a short whispered talk with him. The little lean serving-man nodded, and then the stranger came straight across the street.

Oliver gaped like a fish.

"You are Oliver Munier?" said the strange gentleman.

"Yes," said Oliver, "I am."

The strange gentleman opened his arms, and before Oliver knew what had happened, he found himself being embraced in the open street, with all those looking on.

"I am thy uncle," said the strange gentleman, with a gulp, and thereupon, releasing Oliver, he took a fine cambric handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his eyes.

Oliver stood dumb and gaping. He did not know whether he was asleep or awake. "My uncle!" he repeated, stupidly, at last.

"Yes, thy uncle."

"My uncle!" repeated Oliver again.

"And thy dear mother?" asked the strange gentleman.

"She is in the house," said Oliver; and then he called, "Mother! mother!"

And his mother, stopping the clattering with the pots and pans, came to the door, and then, seeing a strange gentleman, stood quite still and stared.

"Mother," said Oliver, "here is a man who says he is my uncle."

"Your what?" said his mother.

"My uncle."

"Your uncle?"

"His uncle," said the strange gentleman.

"I never knew the child had one," said Oliver's mother.

"What," said the strange gentleman. "Did Jean Marie never speak of me – his brother Henri? Ah me! Well, perhaps he was ashamed of me, for I was the black-sheep of the flock. I have been to the Americas ever since I ran away from home two-and-thirty years ago, and now I have come back rich – very rich."

At the word "rich," Oliver's mother started as if she had been stung. "Oliver," she cried, "why do you stand gaping there like a stupid sot? You lazy vagabond, bring your uncle into the house! And you, Monsieur Brother, come in, come in!" And she almost dragged the strange gentleman through the door-way. "Brush your uncle a chair, Oliver, brush your uncle a chair! There, Monsieur Brother, that is very good. Now will you not sit down and rest after having come all the way from the Americas?"

"My servant – " began the strange gentleman.

"We have room for him also; we have room for him as well," said Oliver's mother. "Come, Monsieur Servant. Oliver, dust him a chair also."

"Very good," said the strange gentleman; "but it is not that. I had thought that a little supper – "

"He shall have his supper," said Oliver's mother. "There is enough for him and for all the rest of us; but no thanks to that son of mine for that. As lazy a vagabond as ever you saw, Monsieur Brother. He, too, might have been a tailor, as was his father; but no, he will not work. He would rather beg or starve than work."

"That is of no importance," said the strange gentleman. "Oliver will have no need to work; we shall make a gentleman of Oliver. But I was about to say that I have ordered a little supper at the inn, and my servant will go and bring it. Go, Gaspard, and see that all is done well. In the mean time let us talk over family matters among ourselves. See, here am I, come, as I said, from the Americas, and without a soul belonging to me but my servant Gaspard. Let us, then, all live together – you, my sister, and Oliver and me and Gaspard. To-night I will sleep here in your house. To-morrow Oliver and I shall go to Paris and choose another lodging, for this is a poor place for the sister and the nephew of a rich American to live."

Oliver's mother looked around her. "Yes," said she, "that is true. It is a poor place, a very poor place."

"Here is Gaspard with the little supper," said Oliver's new uncle.

Some one had knocked. Oliver opened the door, and Gaspard came in, followed by Jacques, the man from the inn, carrying a great basket upon his head. Oliver and his mother stared with open eyes and mouths, for they had never seen such a little supper as the ugly servant had fetched from the inn.

"Gaspard saw to the cooking," said the new uncle. "Gaspard is a famous cook, and I do not know how I could get along without him."

Oliver watched the servant furtively, and the longer he looked the more he felt something that made his skin creep. The servant was, as was said, a little thin, wiry man, and he had a lean, livid face and straight black hair that almost met the slanting eyebrows; he had a pair of little twinkling black eyes, mouse-like and cunning; he had thin, blue, grinning lips that showed every now and then beneath them a set of large white teeth; he had a long, sharp chin that stuck out like that of a punchinello; he was unpleasant to look at, but then he was a good servant – yes, he was a good servant; he might have had felt upon his feet for all the noise he made, and he spread the table with only a faint chink or tingle now and then to show that he was at work. So Oliver sat watching him from under his brows, while the new uncle talked with his mother.

At last Gaspard drew back from the table and bowed.

"Come," said the new uncle, drawing up a chair, "let us have supper."