The House of The Seven Gables -- [La casa de los siete tejados]




IX. Clifford and Phoebe

IX. Clifford y Phoebe

TRULY was there something high, generous, and noble in the native composition of our poor old Hepzibah ! Or else,--and it was quite as probably the case,--she had been enriched by poverty, developed by sorrow, elevated by the strong and solitary affection of her life, and thus endowed with heroism, which never could have characterized her in what are called happier circumstances. Through dreary years Hepzibah had looked forward--for the most part despairingly, never with any confidence of hope, but always with the feeling that it was her brightest possibility--to the very position in which she now found herself. In her own behalf, she had asked nothing of Providence but the opportunity of devoting herself to this brother, whom she had so loved,--so admired for what he was, or might have been,--and to whom she had kept her faith, alone of all the world, wholly, unfalteringly, at every instant, and throughout life. And here, in his late decline, the lost one had come back out of his long and strange misfortune, and was thrown on her sympathy, as it seemed, not merely for the bread of his physical existence, but for everything that should keep him morally alive. She had responded to the call. She had come forward,--our poor, gaunt Hepzibah, in her rusty silks, with her rigid joints, and the sad perversity of her scowl,--ready to do her utmost; and with affection enough, if that were all, to do a hundred times as much ! There could be few more tearful sights,--and Heaven forgive us if a smile insist on mingling with our conception of it !--few sights with truer pathos in them, than Hepzibah presented on that first afternoon.

 VERDADERAMENTE, había algo elevado, generoso y noble, innato en nuestra pobre vieja Hepzibah. De no ser así -no deja de ser posible-, la pobreza la había enriquecido, la tristeza la había desarrollado, el fuerte y solitario afecto de su vida la había elevado, dotándola de un heroísmo que no la había caracterizado en las circunstancias felices de su vida.

A lo largo de terribles años, Hepzibah había mirado siempre hacia adelante, hacia esta misma situación en que ahora se hallaba, a veces desesperadamente, nunca con confianza, pero siempre con la convicción de que aquel sería su destino más feliz.
No había pedido a la Providencia más que la oportunidad de consagrarse a su hermano, al cual quería tanto -admiraba tanto por lo que fue o pudo ser- y en el cual conservaba toda la fe, única en el mundo, entera, sin vacilaciones, en todos los momentos y a lo largo de toda la vida. En su vejez, el hermano había vuelto de su desgracia interminable y extraña, y se arrojaba en sus brazos no sólo en busca del pan de la existencia física, sino para que le mantuviese moralmente vivo. Ella había contestado a la llamada. Estaba dispuesta a hacer lo imposible, ella, nuestra pobre Hepzibah, vestida de negro, con sus achaques y su perverso ceño. Con el afecto y el cariño necesarios para hacer cien veces más. Pocos espectáculos pueden ofrecerse más patéticos que el que aquella primera tarde presentaba Hepzibah. ¡Que el cielo nos perdone si una sonrisa se mezcla con nuestro profundo respeto !

How patiently did she endeavor to wrap Clifford up in her great, warm love, and make it all the world to him, so that he should retain no torturing sense of the coldness and dreariness without ! Her little efforts to amuse him ! How pitiful, yet magnanimous, they were ! ¡Con qué paciencia envolvió a Clifford en su amor grande y cálido y lo convirtió en el mundo entero de su hermano, para que no se diera cuenta de la soledad torturante y de la tristeza del mundo exterior, y sus pequeños esfuerzos para distraerle, ¡qué lastimosos resultaban, en su magnanimidad !
Remembering his early love of poetry and fiction, she unlocked a bookcase, and took down several books that had been excellent reading in their day. There was a volume of Pope, with the Rape of the Lock in it, and another of the Tatler, and an odd one of Dryden′s Miscellanies, all with tarnished gilding on their covers, and thoughts of tarnished brilliancy inside. They had no success with Clifford. These, and all such writers of society, whose new works glow like the rich texture of a just-woven carpet, must be content to relinquish their charm, for every reader, after an age or two, and could hardly be supposed to retain any portion of it for a mind that had utterly lost its estimate of modes and manners. Hepzibah then took up Rasselas, and began to read of the Happy Valley, with a vague idea that some secret of a contented life had there been elaborated, which might at least serve Clifford and herself for this one day.

But the Happy Valley had a cloud over it. Hepzibah troubled her auditor, moreover, by innumerable sins of emphasis, which he seemed to detect, without any reference to the meaning; nor, in fact, did he appear to take much note of the sense of what she read, but evidently felt the tedium of the lecture, without harvesting its profit. His sister′s voice, too, naturally harsh, had, in the course of her sorrowful lifetime, contracted a kind of croak, which, when it once gets into the human throat, is as ineradicable as sin.
In both sexes, occasionally, this lifelong croak, accompanying each word of joy or sorrow, is one of the symptoms of a settled melancholy; and wherever it occurs, the whole history of misfortune is conveyed in its slightest accent. The effect is as if the voice had been dyed black; or,--if we must use a more moderate simile,--this miserable croak, running through all the variations of the voice, is like a black silken thread, on which the crystal beads of speech are strung, and whence they take their hue. Such voices have put on mourning for dead hopes; and they ought to die and be buried along with them !

Recordando su afición a la poesía y a la novela, abrió la biblioteca y cogió varios volúmenes que en un tiempo proporcionaron excelente lectura. Había allí un tomo de Pope, con El rapto del rizo, otro tomo del Tatler y una vieja antología de Dryden con adornos de un dorado empañado en la cubierta y pensamientos de brillantez empañada en el interior. No agradaron a Clifford. Estos y otros autores de sociedad, cuyas obras brillan como el rico tejido de una alfombra exquisita, deben ceder el puesto a otros, y resignarse a que los lectores posteriores no comprendan una vida y una mentalidad que ya no les pertenece. Hepzibah, entonces, cogió el Rasselas, del doctor Johnson, y empezó a leer la descripción del Valle Feliz con la vaga idea de que despertaría en Clifford nuevas esperanzas.

Pero el cielo del Valle Feliz estaba encapotado. Hepzibah, además, turbaba al anciano leyendo con acento enfático que él captaba sin relación aparente con el significado del texto. En realidad, no prestaba atención a la lectura. La voz de su hermana, dura de por sí, había adquirido, en el curso de su dolorida existencia, una especie de graznido.



En ambos sexos, ese graznido que acompaña a toda palabra, alegre o triste, es síntoma de melancolía que revela la infortunada historia de su poseedor. El efecto es como si la voz estuviera teñida de negro o para usar un simil más moderado- ese graznido es como hilo de seda negra al cual se atan las palabras de cristal, que adquieren así el color del bramante. Son voces que llevan luto por las esperanzas muertas y que deberían morir y ser enterradas con ellas.

Discerning that Clifford was not gladdened by her efforts, Hepzibah searched about the house for the means of more exhilarating pastime. At one time, her eyes chanced to rest on Alice Pyncheon′s harpsichord. It was a moment of great peril; for,--despite the traditionary awe that had gathered over this instrument of music, and the dirges which spiritual fingers were said to play on it,--the devoted sister had solemn thoughts of thrumming on its chords for Clifford′s benefit, and accompanying the performance with her voice. Poor Clifford ! Poor Hepzibah ! Poor harpsichord ! All three would have been miserable together. By some good agency,--possibly, by the unrecognized interposition of the long-buried Alice herself,--the threatening calamity was averted. Viendo que Clifford no se distraía, Hepzibah buscó un pasatiempo más risueño. Sus ojos se posaron casualmente en el clavicordio de Alice Pyncheon. Fue un momento de grave peligro, porque, a pesar del temor que inspiraba aquel instrumento musical y las melodías que dedos intangibles le arrancaban, la solterona se vio tentada a hacer sonar sus cuerdas melancólicas en honor de Clifford y de acompañar la música con su propia voz. ¡Pobre Clifford ! ¡Pobre Hepzibah ! ¡Pobre clavicordio ! Los tres se habrían sentido desgraciados. Pero una influencia misteriosa -quizá la de la misma Alice desde la tumba- evitó la calamidad.
But the worst of all--the hardest stroke of fate for Hepzibah to endure, and perhaps for Clifford, too was his invincible distaste for her appearance. Her features, never the most agreeable, and now harsh with age and grief, and resentment against the world for his sake; her dress, and especially her turban; the queer and quaint manners, which had unconsciously grown upon her in solitude,--such being the poor gentlewoman′s outward characteristics, it is no great marvel, although the mournfullest of pities, that the instinctive lover of the Beautiful was fain to turn away his eyes. There was no help for it. It would be the latest impulse to die within him. In his last extremity, the expiring breath stealing faintly through Clifford′s lips, he would doubtless press Hepzibah′s hand, in fervent recognition of all her lavished love, and close his eyes,--but not so much to die, as to be constrained to look no longer on her face ! Poor Hepzibah ! She took counsel with herself what might be done, and thought of putting ribbons on her turban; but, by the instant rush of several guardian angels, was withheld from an experiment that could hardly have proved less than fatal to the beloved object of her anxiety. Lo peor de todo -el peor golpe del destino que Hepzibah soportó en su vida y quizá también Clifford- era el desagrado que producía al anciano el aspecto de su hermana. Sus rasgos, jamás dulces y ahora endurecidos por el tiempo, las penas y el resentimiento contra el mundo; su vestido, especialmente su turbante; los extraños y fantásticos modales adquiridos en la soledad; todas esas características exteriores de la pobre señora hacen que no nos maraville el que, junto con la más profunda piedad, despertaran en aquel amante de la belleza la necesidad de apartar de ella la mirada. No podía remediarlo. Ese sería el último impulso que moriría en él. En su postrer aliento, no hay duda que Clifford apretaría entre las suyas las manos de Hepzibah, en fervoroso agradecimiento por sus amorosos cuidados y cerraría los ojos, no tanto para morir como para no seguir viendo su rostro. ¡Pobre Hepzibah ! Reflexionó hondamente sobre el caso y decidió ponerse unas cintas en el turbante, pero no se sabe qué le impidió llevar a cabo un experimento que habría resultado fatal.
To be brief, besides Hepzibah′s disadvantages of person, there was an uncouthness pervading all her deeds; a clumsy something, that could but ill adapt itself for use, and not at all for ornament. She was a grief to Clifford, and she knew it. In this extremity, the antiquated virgin turned to Phoebe. No grovelling jealousy was in her heart. Had it pleased Heaven to crown the heroic fidelity of her life by making her personally the medium of Clifford′s happiness, it would have rewarded her for all the past, by a joy with no bright tints, indeed, but deep and true, and worth a thousand gayer ecstasies. This could not be. She therefore turned to Phoebe, and resigned the task into the young girl′s hands. The latter took it up cheerfully, as she did everything, but with no sense of a mission to perform, and succeeding all the better for that same simplicity. Resumiendo: además de las desventajas físicas de Hepzibah, había una singular rareza en todos sus actos, un algo tosco que no servía de provecho y menos de adorno y a lo que tampoco lograba adaptarse. Ella daba pena a Clifford y lo sabía. En este punto, la vieja doncella recurrió a Phoebe. Su corazón no albergaba la más mínima envidia. Si el cielo se hubiera dignado hacer de su persona el instrumento de la felicidad de Clifford, se habría considerado compensada por todas sus penas pasadas y hubiera sentido una alegría sencilla, serena, aunque honda y verdadera, más valiosa que mil éxtasis. Eso, empero, no podía ser. Acudió, pues, a Phoebe y dejó esa tarea en manos de la muchacha, que la aceptó alegremente, como todo lo que hacía, pero sin tener ninguna idea de que aquello fuera una misión, y con tantas mayores probabilidades de éxito cuanto que lo iba a realizar con la máxima simplicidad.
By the involuntary effect of a genial temperament, Phoebe soon grew to be absolutely essential to the daily comfort, if not the daily life, of her two forlorn companions. The grime and sordidness of the House of the Seven Gables seemed to have vanished since her appearance there; the gnawing tooth of the dry-rot was stayed among the old timbers of its skeleton frame; the dust had ceased to settle down so densely, from the antique ceilings, upon the floors and furniture of the rooms below,--or, at any rate, there was a little housewife, as light-footed as the breeze that sweeps a garden walk, gliding hither and thither to brush it all away. The shadows of gloomy events that haunted the else lonely and desolate apartments; the heavy, breathless scent which death had left in more than one of the bedchambers, ever since his visits of long ago,--these were less powerful than the purifying influence scattered throughout the atmosphere of the household by the presence of one youthful, fresh, and thoroughly wholesome heart. There was no morbidness in Phoebe; if there had been, the old Pyncheon House was the very locality to ripen it into incurable disease. But now her spirit resembled, in its potency, a minute quantity of ottar of rose in one of Hepzibah′s huge, iron-bound trunks, diffusing its fragrance through the various articles of linen and wrought-lace, kerchiefs, caps, stockings, folded dresses, gloves, and whatever else was treasured there. As every article in the great trunk was the sweeter for the rose-scent, so did all the thoughts and emotions of Hepzibah and Clifford, sombre as they might seem, acquire a subtle attribute of happiness from Phoebe′s intermixture with them. Her activity of body, intellect, and heart impelled her continually to perform the ordinary little toils that offered themselves around her, and to think the thought proper for the moment, and to sympathize,--now with the twittering gayety of the robins in the pear-tree, and now to such a depth as she could with Hepzibah′s dark anxiety, or the vague moan of her brother. This facile adaptation was at once the symptom of perfect health and its best preservative. Por su carácter alegre, Phoebe se hizo en seguida indispensable para la comodidad cotidiana, por no decir la vida diaria, de sus dos desventurados compañeros. La sordidez y tenebrosidad de La Casa de los Siete Tejados se desvanecieron cuando Phoebe se alojó en ella. La carcoma dejó de roer la madera de la casa, el polvo era menos denso, o por lo menos lo perseguía por todos los rincones un ama de casa tan ligera como la brisa que barre el jardín. La influencia purifícadora derramada en aquel ambiente por la presencia de un corazón joven, sano y fresco era más poderosa que las sombras de los lúgubres sucesos presenciados por aquellas estancias, que el olor pesado y denso dejado por la muerte en muchos dormitorios. No había nada de morboso en Phoebe, pues de haber sido así, la vieja casa de los Pyncheon era el lugar apropiado para convertirlo en una enfermedad incurable. Su espíritu parecíase a la esencia de rosas que Hepzibah esparcía en sus cofres, para dar fragancia a las más diversas piezas de lino, cintas, pañuelos, gorros de noche, enaguas, vestidos, guantes y otros mil objetos atesorados en ellos. Del mismo modo que cada pieza olía a rosa, así Hepzibah y Clifford, pese a su apariencia sombría, adquirieron un sutil aire de felicidad gracias a su convivencia con Phoebe. Su espíritu activo y sentimental, la impulsaba a realizar las tareas de la casa y a simpatizar con lo que le rodeaba, ya fuera con la alegría gorgeante de los petirrojos del peral, ya con un hondo suspiro de Hepzibah, ya con un vago murmullo de Clifford. Esa fácil adaptación era, a la par, síntoma de salud y su mejor guardián...
A nature like Phoebe′s has invariably its due influence, but is seldom regarded with due honor. Its spiritual force, however, may be partially estimated by the fact of her having found a place for herself, amid circumstances so stern as those which surrounded the mistress of the house; and also by the effect which she produced on a character of so much more mass than her own. For the gaunt, bony frame and limbs of Hepzibah, as compared with the tiny lightsomeness of Phoebe′s figure, were perhaps in some fit proportion with the moral weight and substance, respectively, of the woman and the girl. Una naturaleza como la de Phoebe ejerce siempre gran influencia, pero no siempre se le reconoce su mérito... Su fuerza espiritual, sin embargo, puede valorarse por el hecho de haberse conquistado un puesto en momento y circunstancias como aquellas y por el efecto que ejerció sobre un carácter de mucho más peso que el suyo.
To the guest,--to Hepzibah′s brother,--or Cousin Clifford, as Phoebe now began to call him,--she was especially necessary. Not that he could ever be said to converse with her, or often manifest, in any other very definite mode, his sense of a charm in her society. But if she were a long while absent he became pettish and nervously restless, pacing the room to and fro with the uncertainty that characterized all his movements; or else would sit broodingly in his great chair, resting his head on his hands, and evincing life only by an electric sparkle of ill-humor, whenever Hepzibah endeavored to arouse him. Phoebe′s presence, and the contiguity of her fresh life to his blighted one, was usually all that he required. Indeed, such was the native gush and play of her spirit, that she was seldom perfectly quiet and undemonstrative, any more than a fountain ever ceases to dimple and warble with its flow. She possessed the gift of song, and that, too, so naturally, that you would as little think of inquiring whence she had caught it, or what master had taught her, as of asking the same questions about a bird, in whose small strain of music we recognize the voice of the Creator as distinctly as in the loudest accents of his thunder. So long as Phoebe sang, she might stray at her own will about the house. Clifford was content, whether the sweet, airy homeliness of her tones came down from the upper chambers, or along the passageway from the shop, or was sprinkled through the foliage of the pear-tree, inward from the garden, with the twinkling sunbeams. He would sit quietly, with a gentle pleasure gleaming over his face, brighter now, and now a little dimmer, as the song happened to float near him, or was more remotely heard. It pleased him best, however, when she sat on a low footstool at his knee. Para el huésped, para el primo Clifford, como ya le llamaba Phoebe, ésta llegó a hacerse imprescindible. No es que conversara a menudo con ella ni que le manifestara de modo concreto el encanto de su presencia. Pero si ella se ausentaba mucho rato, Clifford se ponía nervioso e irritable, recoma la estancia con la incertidumbre que caracterizaba todos sus movimientos, o se sentaba muellemente en el ancho sillón, apoyando la cabeza en las manos y dando muestras de vida sólo por un chispazo de malhumor cuando Hepzibah intentaba animarle. La presencia de Phoebe y la contigÜidad de su juventud alegre y sana con la vida agotada de Clifford era todo lo que éste requería. Tenía ella un espíritu tan juguetón y radiante que pocas veces permanecía quieta; era como una fuente que no puede dejar de manar y murmurar entre los guijarros. Poseía el don de la canción de una manera tan natural que nadie atinaba a preguntarle dónde lo había adquirido o qué maestro se lo había enseñado, del mismo modo que no pensamos en hacerles esas preguntas a los pájaros, en cuyo raudal de música reconocemos la voz del Creador tan claramente como en los acentos más graves del trueno. Mientras cantara, podía vagabundear por la casa según su gusto. Clifford se sentía contento si aquellas melodías del hogar llegaban hasta él desde las habitaciones del piso superior, a lo largo del pasillo de la tienda o a través del follaje del peral, en compañía de un rayo de sol. Permanecía quieto, con un gesto de placer en el rostro, a veces brillante y a veces ligeramente sombrío, según la canción flotara cerca o viniera de lejos. Pero cuando estaba más contento era al sentarse Phoebe en un escabel, a su lado.
It is perhaps remarkable, considering her temperament, that Phoebe oftener chose a strain of pathos than of gayety. But the young and happy are not ill pleased to temper their life with a transparent shadow. The deepest pathos of Phoebe′s voice and song, moreover, came sifted through the golden texture of a cheery spirit, and was somehow so interfused with the quality thence acquired, that one′s heart felt all the lighter for having wept at it. Broad mirth, in the sacred presence of dark misfortune, would have jarred harshly and irreverently with the solemn symphony that rolled its undertone through Hepzibah′s and her brother′s life. Therefore, it was well that Phoebe so often chose sad themes, and not amiss that they ceased to be so sad while she was singing them. Es singular, teniendo en cuenta su temperamento, que Phoebe prefiriera cantar melodías tristes. A la gente joven y feliz no le desagrada templar la luz de la vida con una sombra transparente. La voz hondamente sentimental y la unción de Phoebe se amortiguaban al pasar por el tejido dorado de su alegría y se mezclaban instintivamente con esa cualidad, y el corazón del que escuchaba se sentía aligerado. Una alegría ruidosa en presencia de aquella sombría desgracia hubiera contrastado cruelmente con la solemne sinfonía que se estremecía con sordina en la vida de Hepzibah y de su hermano. Por esto, estaba bien que escogiera melodías tristes, pero al cantarlas perdían buena parte de su tristeza.
Becoming habituated to her companionship, Clifford readily showed how capable of imbibing pleasant tints and gleams of cheerful light from all quarters his nature must originally have been. He grew youthful while she sat by him. A beauty,--not precisely real, even in its utmost manifestation, and which a painter would have watched long to seize and fix upon his canvas, and, after all, in vain,--beauty, nevertheless, that was not a mere dream, would sometimes play upon and illuminate his face. It did more than to illuminate; it transfigured him with an expression that could only be interpreted as the glow of an exquisite and happy spirit.

That gray hair, and those furrows,--with their record of infinite sorrow so deeply written across his brow, and so compressed, as with a futile effort to crowd in all the tale, that the whole inscription was made illegible,--these, for the moment, vanished. An eye at once tender and acute might have beheld in the man some shadow of what he was meant to be. Anon, as age came stealing, like a sad twilight, back over his figure, you would have felt tempted to hold an argument with Destiny, and affirm, that either this being should not have been made mortal, or mortal existence should have been tempered to his qualities. There seemed no necessity for his having drawn breath at all; the world never wanted him; but, as he had breathed, it ought always to have been the balmiest of summer air. The same perplexity will invariably haunt us with regard to natures that tend to feed exclusively upon the Beautiful, let their earthly fate be as lenient as it may.

Acostumbrándose a su compañía, Clifford demostraba que, en otro tiempo, su naturaleza había absorbido los colores agradables y las luces alegres. Al sentarse al lado de Phoebe, se rejuvenecía. Una belleza, que no era simplemente un sueño, iluminaba de vez en cuando su rostro; pero no era una belleza precisamente real y un pintor hubiera esperado largo tiempo, y en vano, la ocasión de captarla con sus pinceles. Hemos de rectificar: no le iluminaba, le transfiguraba y le daba una expresión que sólo podía ser interpretada como el brillo de un espíritu exquisito y feliz.

Aquellos cabellos grises, aquellas arrugas, recuerdo de infinitas penas tan profundamente grabadas, todo eso se desvanecía ante la presencia de Phoebe. Unos ojos, a la vez tiernos y agudos, hubieran podido ver en el anciano una sombra de lo que hubiera podido ser. Ahora que la vejez se reflejaba en su rostro, uno se sentía tentado a discutir con el destino y afirmar que aquel ser no debiera haber sido mortal o, por lo menos, que su existencia mortal debiera haber sido adecuada a sus cualidades. No parecía que hubiera habido necesidad de haberle dado el aliento -el mundo nunca lo deseó-; pero ya que alentaba era justo que se le proporcionase un ambiente suave, un aire estival.

Phoebe, it is probable, had but a very imperfect comprehension of the character over which she had thrown so beneficent a spell. Nor was it necessary. The fire upon the hearth can gladden a whole semicircle of faces round about it, but need not know the individuality of one among them all. Indeed, there was something too fine and delicate in Clifford′s traits to be perfectly appreciated by one whose sphere lay so much in the Actual as Phoebe′s did. For Clifford, however, the reality, and simplicity, and thorough homeliness of the girl′s nature were as powerful a charm as any that she possessed. Beauty, it is true, and beauty almost perfect in its own style, was indispensable. Had Phoebe been coarse in feature, shaped clumsily, of a harsh voice, and uncouthly mannered, she might have been rich with all good gifts, beneath this unfortunate exterior, and still, so long as she wore the guise of woman, she would have shocked Clifford, and depressed him by her lack of beauty. But nothing more beautiful--nothing prettier, at least--was ever made than Phoebe. And, therefore, to this man,--whose whole poor and impalpable enjoyment of existence heretofore, and until both his heart and fancy died within him, had been a dream,--whose images of women had more and more lost their warmth and substance, and been frozen, like the pictures of secluded artists, into the chillest ideality,--to him, this little figure of the cheeriest household life was just what he required to bring him back into the breathing world.

Persons who have wandered, or been expelled, out of the common track of things, even were it for a better system, desire nothing so much as to be led back. They shiver in their loneliness, be it on a mountain-top or in a dungeon. Now, Phoebe′s presence made a home about her,--that very sphere which the outcast, the prisoner, the potentate,--the wretch beneath mankind, the wretch aside from it, or the wretch above it,--instinctively pines after,--a home ! She was real ! Holding her hand, you felt something; a tender something; a substance, and a warm one: and so long as you should feel its grasp, soft as it was, you might be certain that your place was good in the whole sympathetic chain of human nature. The world was no longer a delusion.

Phoebe tenía, con toda probabilidad, una comprensión muy imperfecta del carácter de la persona a quien tan beneficiosamente encantaba. No era menestar más. Una hoguera puede iluminar todo un círculo de rostros sin necesidad de conocer individualmente a cada uno. Había algo demasiado fino y delicado en los rasgos de Clifford para poder apreciarlo una persona como Phoebe, sencilla y natural. Para Clifford, sin embargo, la realidad, la simplicidad y la sencillez de la muchacha constituían su más poderoso encanto. Es cierto que la belleza, y una belleza casi perfecta en su propio estilo, era indispensable. Si las facciones de Phoebe hubieran sido toscas, su cuerpo macizo y su voz dura, por muy rica que hubiera sido espiritualmente y mientras hubiera tenido la apariencia de mujer, hubiera herido a Clifford y le hubiera deprimido por su falta de belleza. Pero nada más hermoso, nada más lindo por lo menos, que Phoebe, y por esto para ese hombre -cuyo mísero e impalpable disfrute de la existencia era, mientras su corazón y su fantasía no murieran en su interior, un simple sueño cuyas imágenes de mujeres habían ido perdiendo calor y substancia hasta convertirse, como las pinturas de los artistas monacales, en una idealidad fría, helada para él -esa figurita de alegre ama de casa era lo que necesitaba para devolverle al mundo de la vida.

Los que han vagabundeado o han sido expulsados del camino común, aun siendo para mejorar, nada desean tanto como el volver atrás. Se estremecen en su soledad, ya sea en la cima de una montaña o en un calabozo. La presencia de Phoebe constituía un auténtico hogar, es decir, la esfera por la cual suspiran instintivamente el prisionero, el exiliado, el desterrado o el potentado -el desgraciado inferior a la humanidad, el desgraciado apartado de la humanidad. ¡Un hogar ! Phoebe era algo real. Al coger su mano se sentía algo; un algo tierno, una substancia cálida y, mientras uno sienta este contacto, por leve que sea, puede estar seguro de que ocupa un buen lugar en ¡a cadena de simpatías de la naturaleza humana. El mundo ya no es un engaño.

By looking a little further in this direction, we might suggest an explanation of an often-suggested mystery. Why are poets so apt to choose their mates, not for any similarity of poetic endowment, but for qualities which might make the happiness of the rudest handicraftsman as well as that of the ideal craftsman of the spirit ? Because, probably, at his highest elevation, the poet needs no human intercourse; but he finds it dreary to descend, and be a stranger. Mirando un poco más lejos en esta dirección podemos sugerir una explicación de un misterio frecuente. ¿Por qué son los poetas tan aptos para escoger sus compañeras no por una semejanza de dotes poéticas, sino por cualidades que podrían hacer, igualmente, la felicidad del más rudo artesano que la del artesano ideal del espíritu ? Porque probablemente en sus momentos más altos el poeta no necesita la ayuda humana, pero le aterroriza el tener que bajar y teme sentirse forastero en todas partes.

There was something very beautiful in the relation that grew up between this pair, so closely and constantly linked together, yet with such a waste of gloomy and mysterious years from his birthday to hers. On Clifford′s part it was the feeling of a man naturally endowed with the liveliest sensibility to feminine influence, but who had never quaffed the cup of passionate love, and knew that it was now too late. He knew it, with the instinctive delicacy that had survived his intellectual decay. Thus, his sentiment for Phoebe, without being paternal, was not less chaste than if she had been his daughter. He was a man, it is true, and recognized her as a woman. She was his only representative of womankind. He took unfailing note of every charm that appertained to her sex, and saw the ripeness of her lips, and the virginal development of her bosom. All her little womanly ways, budding out of her like blossoms on a young fruit-tree, had their effect on him, and sometimes caused his very heart to tingle with the keenest thrills of pleasure. At such moments,--for the effect was seldom more than momentary,--the half-torpid man would be full of harmonious life, just as a long-silent harp is full of sound, when the musician′s fingers sweep across it. But, after all, it seemed rather a perception, or a sympathy, than a sentiment belonging to himself as an individual. He read Phoebe as he would a sweet and simple story; he listened to her as if she were a verse of household poetry, which God, in requital of his bleak and dismal lot, had permitted some angel, that most pitied him, to warble through the house. She was not an actual fact for him, but the interpretation of all that he lacked on earth brought warmly home to his conception; so that this mere symbol, or life-like picture, had almost the comfort of reality.

Había algo muy hermoso en las relaciones entre Phoebe y Clifford, tan estrechamente unidos, a pesar de los muchos años sombríos que separaban el nacimiento del uno del nacimiento de la otra. Por parte de Clifford era el sentimiento de un hombre dotado de la más aguda sensibilidad para percibir la influencia femenina, pero que jamás había bebido en la copa del amor apasionado y que sabía que ya era demasiado tarde. Se daba cuenta de esto con la instintiva delicadeza que había sobrevivido a su decadencia intelectual. De este modo experimentaba hacia Phoebe un sentimiento que, sin ser paternal, no era menos casto que si ella hubiera sido su hija. El era un hombre, es cierto, y veía en ella a una mujer. Ella constituía su única imagen de la feminidad. No le pasaba inadvertido ninguno de los encantos que pertenecían a su sexo y notaba la madurez de sus labios y el virginal desarrollo de sus senos. Sus ademanes y movimientos, sus rasgos femeninos, que florecían en ella como capullos, ejercían hondo efecto en él y a veces hacían estremecer su corazón de placer. En estos momentos -el efecto era sólo momentáneo- aquel hombre, sumido en una especie de estupor, se sentía lleno de armoniosa vida igual que un arpa, largos años silenciosa, está llena de sonidos cuando los dedos del músico la recorren. Pero parecían más bien una percepción y una simpatía que un sentimiento que le perteneciera como individuo. Leía a Phoebe como si fuera una historia sencilla y dulce, la escuchaba como si fuera un verso de poesía doméstica que Dios, compadecido de la suerte del desventurado, hubiera permitido que un ángel derramara por la casa. Phoebe no era para él un hecho real, sino la interpretación de todo cuanto le había faltado en la tierra y que ahora encontraba en el hogar, de modo que aquel mero símbolo le proporcionaba los consuelos de la realidad.
But we strive in vain to put the idea into words. No adequate expression of the beauty and profound pathos with which it impresses us is attainable. This being, made only for happiness, and heretofore so miserably failing to be happy,--his tendencies so hideously thwarted, that, some unknown time ago, the delicate springs of his character, never morally or intellectually strong, had given way, and he was now imbecile,--this poor, forlorn voyager from the Islands of the Blest, in a frail bark, on a tempestuous sea, had been flung, by the last mountain-wave of his shipwreck, into a quiet harbor. There, as he lay more than half lifeless on the strand, the fragrance of an earthly rose-bud had come to his nostrils, and, as odors will, had summoned up reminiscences or visions of all the living and breathing beauty amid which he should have had his home. With his native susceptibility of happy influences, he inhales the slight, ethereal rapture into his soul, and expires ! Pero es luchar en vano querer describir esta idea con palabras. Jamás lograremos expresar adecuadamente la belleza y el sentimiento que nos impresionan. Clifford era un ser hecho para la felicidad y, sin embargo, fracasado miserablemente en su obtención; sus ilusiones habían sido tan horriblemente frustradas, que la delicadeza de su carácter, nunca moral o intelectualmente fuerte, había dado paso a una especie de imbecilidad. Este pobre viajero desamparado que viene desde las islas Felios en frágil bajel, en un mar tempestuoso, había sido arrojado por la última montaña de agua de su naufragio a un puerto tranquilo. Y cuando yacía medio muerto en la arena, había percibido la fragancia de un rosal que había despertado en él reminiscencias y visiones de las bellezas entre las cuales hubiera debido tener su hogar. ¡Con su innata sensibilidad, aspira hasta el fondo del alma el etéreo aroma y expira !
And how did Phoebe regard Clifford ? The girl′s was not one of those natures which are most attracted by what is strange and exceptional in human character. The path which would best have suited her was the well-worn track of ordinary life; the companions in whom she would most have delighted were such as one encounters at every turn. The mystery which enveloped Clifford, so far as it affected her at all, was an annoyance, rather than the piquant charm which many women might have found in it. Still, her native kindliness was brought strongly into play, not by what was darkly picturesque in his situation, nor so much, even, by the finer graces of his character, as by the simple appeal of a heart so forlorn as his to one so full of genuine sympathy as hers. She gave him an affectionate regard, because he needed so much love, and seemed to have received so little. With a ready tact, the result of ever-active and wholesome sensibility, she discerned what was good for him, and did it. Whatever was morbid in his mind and experience she ignored; and thereby kept their intercourse healthy, by the incautious, but, as it were, heaven-directed freedom of her whole conduct. The sick in mind, and, perhaps, in body, are rendered more darkly and hopelessly so by the manifold reflection of their disease, mirrored back from all quarters in the deportment of those about them; they are compelled to inhale the poison of their own breath, in infinite repetition. But Phoebe afforded her poor patient a supply of purer air. She impregnated it, too, not with a wild-flower scent,--for wildness was no trait of hers,--but with the perfume of garden-roses, pinks, and other blossoms of much sweetness, which nature and man have consented together in making grow from summer to summer, and from century to century. Such a flower was Phoebe in her relation with Clifford, and such the delight that he inhaled from her.

Y ¿cómo consideraba Phoebe a Clifford ? La muchacha no era de esas naturalezas que se sienten atraídas por lo raro y excepcional en un carácter humano. El sendero que más le hubiera convenido hubiera sido el de la vida ordinaria y los compañeros con los cuales más disfrutaría se contarían en el número de las personas corrientes normales. El misterio que envolvía a Clifford, en lo que a ella le afectaba, le resultaba un fastidio más bien que el encanto que hubiera sido para muchas mujeres. Pero su bondad innata respondió, no por lo obscuro y pintoresco de la situación del anciano, ni siquiera por la fina gracia de su carácter, sino por la simple llamada de un corazón tan solitario y abandonado como el de él a uno tan lleno de auténtica simpatía como el de ella. Lo miraba con afecto porque él necesitaba mucho amor y había encontrado muy poco. Con tacto acertado adivinó lo que a él le convenía y lo hizo. Ignoraba lo que había de morboso en el espíritu y la experiencia de Clifford y por esto sus relaciones fueron siempre sanas, gracias a su conducta incauta, es cierto, pero al parecer dirigida por el Cielo. Las enfermedades del espíritu y quizá las del cuerpo resultan más sombrías y desesperadas por los múltiples reflejos de la dolencia en la conducta de los que rodean al enfermo, que se ve obligado a aspirar, repetido infinitamente, el veneno de su propio aliento. Phoebe, en cambio, suministraba a su pobre paciente un suplemento de aire puro. Introducía, también, no el aroma de las flores silvestres -pues lo silvestre no era uno de sus rasgos-, sino el perfume de las rosas del jardín, de los claveles y de otras flores de mucha dulzura que la naturaleza y el hombre han acordado cultivar de verano en verano y de siglo en siglo. Phoebe, en sus relaciones con Clifford, era una de esas flores, cuyo aroma él aspiraba.

Yet, it must be said, her petals sometimes drooped a little, in consequence of the heavy atmosphere about her. She grew more thoughtful than heretofore. Looking aside at Clifford′s face, and seeing the dim, unsatisfactory elegance and the intellect almost quenched, she would try to inquire what had been his life. Was he always thus ? Had this veil been over him from his birth ?--this veil, under which far more of his spirit was hidden than revealed, and through which he so imperfectly discerned the actual world,--or was its gray texture woven of some dark calamity ? Phoebe loved no riddles, and would have been glad to escape the perplexity of this one. Nevertheless, there was so far a good result of her meditations on Clifford′s character, that, when her involuntary conjectures, together with the tendency of every strange circumstance to tell its own story, had gradually taught her the fact, it had no terrible effect upon her. Let the world have done him what vast wrong it might, she knew Cousin Clifford too well--or fancied so--ever to shudder at the touch of his thin, delicate fingers.

Hay que reconocer que sus pétalos se volvían mustios a veces, a consecuencia del ambiente lúgubre en que vivía. Se volvió más pensativa. Contemplando a Clifford y viendo su elegancia sombría y su intelecto casi apagado, intentaba adivinar cuál había sido su vida. ¿Había sido siempre así ? ¿Siempre le había cubierto aquella especie de velo que ocultaba su espíritu y que le impedía ver el mundo real o era una trama gris tejida por alguna calamidad ? A Phoebe no le gustaban los enigmas y se habría alegrado de poder solucionar éste. No obstante, esas meditaciones tuvieron un buen resultado, pues con sus conjeturas y la tendencia que tienen todas las circunstancias extrañas a narrar su propia historia, la habían convencido de que, aunque el mundo dijera de él cosas singulares, ella conocía al primo Clifford bastante bien -o por lo menos lo suponía-, para estremecerse al contacto de sus dedos finos y delicados.

Within a few days after the appearance of this remarkable inmate, the routine of life had established itself with a good deal of uniformity in the old house of our narrative. In the morning, very shortly after breakfast, it was Clifford′s custom to fall asleep in his chair; nor, unless accidentally disturbed, would he emerge from a dense cloud of slumber or the thinner mists that flitted to and fro, until well towards noonday. These hours of drowsihead were the season of the old gentlewoman′s attendance on her brother, while Phoebe took charge of the shop; an arrangement which the public speedily understood, and evinced their decided preference of the younger shopwoman by the multiplicity of their calls during her administration of affairs. Dinner over, Hepzibah took her knitting-work,--a long stocking of gray yarn, for her brother′s winter wear,--and with a sigh, and a scowl of affectionate farewell to Clifford, and a gesture enjoining watchfulness on Phoebe, went to take her seat behind the counter. It was now the young girl′s turn to be the nurse,--the guardian, the playmate,--or whatever is the fitter phrase,--of the gray-haired man. Pocos días después de la aparición de aquel notable huésped, la vida adquirió una rutina uniforme en la vieja casa objeto de nuestro relato. Por las mañanas, tras el desayuno, Clifford tenía la costumbre de dormitar en su sillón. Si no interrumpían su sueño, hacia mediodía despertaba. Durante esas horas de amodorramiento, Hepzibah cuidaba de su hermano y Phoebe de la tienda. Los parroquianos pronto lo advirtieron y demostraron una decidida preferencia por la joven tendera, multiplicando sus compras durante el espacio de tiempo en que ella regía los negocios. Terminada la comida, Hepzibah cogía los ganchillos y agujas de hacer calceta, exhalaba un suspiro, fruncía las cejas en afectuoso adiós a Clifford y, finalmente, con gesto elocuente, indicando a Phoebe que vigilase, salía para sentarse detrás del mostrador. Le llegaba a la muchacha el turno de hacer de guardián, compañera de charla, compañera  de juegos, o como quiera llamársele, del anciano de cabellera canosa.