Читать книгу The Master; a Novel - Israel Zangwill - Страница 13

â âI AM AFIRE WITH THIRST,â SHE CRIED.â

might drink water and drink water and never quench their thirst. Peggy was reputed quite harmless.

âYou havenât seen Peter, have you?â she cooed, suddenly.

âNo,â replied Matt, with a fresh, nervous thrill. âBut this is not a night for you to be out and about. Itâs bitter cold.â

âItâs bitter cold,â she repeated, âbitter cold for an old man like you, but not for a girl like me, loved by the handsomest young fellow in the Province; the heart within me keeps me warm, always warm and thirsty. Give me more water.â

âNo, youâve hed ânough,â said Matt. âItâs a shame your folks donât look arter you better.â

âLook after me! Theyâre all up at the ball, the heartless creatures; but I saw the weddings, both of them, in spite of them all, and I think itâs high time Peter came back from the sugaring to our wedding, and Iâve come to tell him so. This is the spot he used to sugar at. Are you sure you havenât seen him? You are his partner; confess, now,â she wound up, cajolingly, turning her lovely face towards his troubled gaze.

âCanât you see Iâm only a boy?â he replied.

âNonsense. Youâre not a boy. Boys always call after me and pull my shawl. I know all the boys.â

Matt felt the moisture gathering afresh under his eyelids.

âWhatâs your name, then?â she went on, sweetly.

âMatt,â he murmured.

âAh, mad!â she cried, in ecstasy. âWe are cousins—I knew it! Thatâs what they call me.â

Her wild eyes shone in the firelight. The boy shuddered.

âNot mad, but Matt!â he corrected her.

âAh, yes, Mad Matt! Cousins! Mad Peggy—Mad Matt!â

âIâm not mad,â he protested, feebly.

âYes, yes, you are!â she cried, passionately. âI can see it in your face. And yet you wonât give me a cup of water.â

âYouâve drunk ânough,â said the boy, soothingly.

âOh, what lovely little devils,â she exclaimed, catching sight of the wall decorations. âDo you see devils, too? Didnât I say we were cousins? Why, thereâs one of the bridegrooms—ha! ha! ha! I guess he didnât show the cloven hoof this morning.â

âWhich is the bridegroom?â asked Matt, piqued into curiosity.

âThere—there he is! There is the boy!â She pointed to the best portrait of Bully Preep. âHe always called after me, the little devil.â

Mattâs heart beat excitedly, his face crimsoned. But his strange visitorâs next words threw him back into uneasy chaos.

âOh, but everybody is saying how scandalous it is! with his wife only six months in her grave. Look how long Peter and I have waited. Most of the girls in the village get engaged half a dozen times; they donât know what love is, they donât know anything, theyâve got no education. But Iâve only been engaged once, and Iâm so thirsty. And youâve got her too, the little angel! Everybody is saying how hard it is for her! And yet they all go to the ball. May they dance till they drop, the hypocrites!â

âWhat are you sayinâ?â faltered Matt. âHard for Ruth Hailey? Why, sheâs only a little girl.â

âShe isnât a little girl. Little girls run after me. I know all the little girls. Sheâs a little angel! Just as youâve pictured her. Give me some more water.â

This time Matt surrendered the dipper to her.

âThank you, Cousin Matt,â she said, and drank feverishly. But seeing that she was about to dip again, he placed himself between her and the barrel. She turned away with a marvellously dexterous movement considering her cumbrous foot-gear, and dipped the ladle into the seething caldron instead. But Matt seized her arm and stayed her from extracting the dipper.

âYouâll scald yourself,â he said.

âLet go my arm,â she cried, threateningly. âHow dare you touch me—you are not Peter!â

âYou mustnât drink any more.â

âYou are very cruel!â she moaned. âWho is that sleeping there? Perhaps it is Peter. I will wake him up; he will give me water. I am so thirsty.â She moaned and crooned over the three-legged caldron, stirring the sap feebly with the ladle in her efforts to wrest herself free, and the white steam curled about her face, and gave her the air of a young, beautiful witch bent over a caldron. Matt forgot everything except that he would like to make a picture of her as she appeared now.

âYouâd best go to sleep,â he said at last, awakening to a remembrance of the strange situation. âThereâs my bed—those fir-boughs—you kin lie down there till the morninâ, and Iâll cover you with my blanket.â

âI want water,â she crooned.

âYou kinât get it,â said Matt.

âThen may the curse light on you and yours,â she cried, stirring the sap more fiercely in her struggle, while the vapor and the wood smoke rose in denser volumes around her. âMay you thirst and thirst, and never be satisfied! And that is to be your fate, Cousin Matt. I read it in your face, in your eyes. Never to quench your thirst—never, never, never! To thirst and thirst and thirst for everything, and never to be satisfied, never to have anything you want. Mad Matt and Mad Peggy—cousins, you and I! Ha! ha! ha!â Her laugh of malicious glee made the boyâs blood run cold. From without came the answering screech of a wild-cat.

âLie down and rest!â repeated Matt, imperatively.

âWhat! stay here with you? No, no, no, Cousin Matt. I know what you want. You want to paint me and put me on the wall among the devils! No, no, I must be off to find Peter. I shall stay with him in his cabin.â

Her grip of the dipper relaxed; it reeled against the side of the pot. She turned away, and Matt let go her arm and watched her, spellbound. She drew the thick dun shawl over her head, again veiling the glory of the golden hair, and almost brought the edges together over her sad beautiful face, so that the eyes alone shone out with unearthly radiance. Then she moved slowly towards the door and thrust it open, and the wind came in, and filled the entire cabin with heavy, acrid smoke, which got into Mattâs eyes and throat, and woke even the Indian boy, who sat up choking and rubbing his black, beady eyes.

âDam door shuttum!â he cried, with unusual vehemence.

The words broke Mattâs spell. He rushed to the door, but his smarting eyes could detect no gray-shawled figure gliding among the gray trunks. He closed the door, wondering if he had been dreaming.

â âTainât your turn yet, Tommy,â he said, waving away the smoke with his hand, and Tommy fell back asleep, as if mesmerized. Matt was as relieved at not having to explain as at Tommyâs momentary wakefulness, which had braced him against the superstitious awe that had been invading him while the mad beauty cursed him with that sweet voice of hers that no anger could make harsh. He thought of the apparition with pity, mingled with a thrill of solemn adoration; she had for him the beauty and wildness of the elemental, like the sky or the sea. And yet she had left in him other feelings—not only the doubt of her reality, but an uneasy stirring of apprehensions. Was there nothing but insane babble in this talk of Ruth Hailey and Abner Preep? A fear he could not define weighed at his heart. Even if he had been dreaming, if he had drowsed over the fire—as he must in any case have done not to have heard the scrape and clatter of snow-shoes entering—the dream portended something evil. But, no! it was not a dream. Assuredly the sap in the barrel had sunk to a lower level. With a new thought he lit a resinous bough and slipped out quickly and examined the dry stiff snow. The double trail of departing snow-shoes was manifest, meandering among the bark dishes and irregularly intersecting the trail of arrival. The radiant moonlight falling through the thin bare maple-boughs made his torch superfluous, except in the fuscous glade of leafy evergreens, along which he followed the giant footmarks for some little distance. He paused, leaning against a tall hemlock. Doubt was impossible. He had really entertained a visitor. Not seldom in former years had he entertained visitors who came to camp out for the night, which they made uproarious. But never had his hut sheltered so strange a guest. He was moved at the thought of her drifting across the wastes of snow like some fallen spirit. He looked up and abstractedly watched a crow sleeping with its head under its wing on the top of the hemlock, then his vision wandered to the flashing streamers of northern light, and, higher still, to those keen depths of frosty sky where the stars stood beautiful, and they drew up his thoughts yearningly to the infinite spaces. Something cried within him for he knew not what—save that it was very great and very majestic and very beautiful, mystically blending the luminousness of light and color with the scent of flowers and the troubled sweetness of music; and at the back of his dim, delicious craving for it was a haunting certainty that he would never reach up to it, never, never. The prophecy of mad Peggy recurred to the boy like a cutting blast of wind. Was it true, then, that he would thirst and thirst, and nothing ever quench his thirst? He held up his torch yearningly to the stars, while the night moaned around him, and the flaring pinewood cast a grotesque shadow of him on the pure white snow, an uncouth image that danced and leered as in mockery.