|
XI. The Arched Window |
XI. La ventana en arco |
| FROM the inertness, or what we may term the vegetative character, of his ordinary mood, Clifford would perhaps have been content to spend one day after another, interminably,--or, at least, throughout the summer-time,--in just the kind of life described in the preceding pages. Fancying, however, that it might be for his benefit occasionally to diversify the scene, Phoebe sometimes suggested that he should look out upon the life of the street. For this purpose, they used to mount the staircase together, to the second story of the house, where, at the termination of a wide entry, there was an arched window, of uncommonly large dimensions, shaded by a pair of curtains. It opened above the porch, where there had formerly been a balcony, the balustrade of which had long since gone to decay, and been removed. At this arched window, throwing it open, but keeping himself in comparative obscurity by means of the curtain, Clifford had an opportunity of witnessing such a portion of the great world′s movement as might be supposed to roll through one of the retired streets of a not very populous city. But he and Phoebe made a sight as well worth seeing as any that the city could exhibit. The pale, gray, childish, aged, melancholy, yet often simply cheerful, and sometimes delicately intelligent aspect of Clifford, peering from behind the faded crimson of the curtain,--watching the monotony of every-day occurrences with a kind of inconsequential interest and earnestness, and, at every petty throb of his sensibility, turning for sympathy to the eyes of the bright young girl ! | DADA su inercia y lo que podríamos llamar su
carácter vegetativo, Clifford se hubiera
alegrado quizá de poder pasar, un día tras otro,
interminablemente -por lo menos todo el
verano- sumergido en la vida que acabamos de
describir.
Creyendo que le sentaría bien cambiar de
escenario, Phoebe sugería que contemplara la
vida de la calle. A este fin, subían la escalera
hasta el segundo piso.
|
| If once he were fairly seated at the window, even Pyncheon Street would hardly be so dull and lonely but that, somewhere or other along its extent, Clifford might discover matter to occupy his eye, and titillate, if not engross, his observation. Things familiar to the youngest child that had begun its outlook at existence seemed strange to him. A cab; an omnibus, with its populous interior, dropping here and there a passenger, and picking up another, and thus typifying that vast rolling vehicle, the world, the end of whose journey is everywhere and nowhere; these objects he followed eagerly with his eyes, but forgot them before the dust raised by the horses and wheels had settled along their track. As regarded novelties (among which cabs and omnibuses were to be reckoned), his mind appeared to have lost its proper gripe and retentiveness. Twice or thrice, for example, during the sunny hours of the day, a water-cart went along by the Pyncheon House, leaving a broad wake of moistened earth, instead of the white dust that had risen at a lady′s lightest footfall; it was like a summer shower, which the city authorities had caught and tamed, and compelled it into the commonest routine of their convenience. With the water-cart Clifford could never grow familiar; it always affected him with just the same surprise as at first. His mind took an apparently sharp impression from it, but lost the recollection of this perambulatory shower, before its next reappearance, as completely as did the street itself, along which the heat so quickly strewed white dust again. It was the same with the railroad. Clifford could hear the obstreperous howl of the steam-devil, and, by leaning a little way from the arched window, could catch a glimpse of the trains of cars, flashing a brief transit across the extremity of the street. The idea of terrible energy thus forced upon him was new at every recurrence, and seemed to affect him as disagreeably, and with almost as much surprise, the hundredth time as the first. | Sentado en la ventana, por muy desierta y triste
que estuviera la calle Pyncheon, hallaba tema
para sus observaciones. Cosas familiares a los
niños, le resultaban extrañas y nuevas. Un
cabriolé, un ómnibus, dejando aquí y allá a un
pasajero y recogiendo a otro, como imagen del
mundo, el fin de cuyo viaje está en todas partes
y en ninguna. Todo lo seguía gravemente, pero
lo olvidaba antes de que el polvo levantado por
los caballos y las ruedas volviera a caer al
suelo. En cuanto a las novedades -entre las que
se contaban el cabriolé y el ómnibus- su
espíritu parecía haber perdido todo asidero y
toda retentiva. Dos o tres veces, por ejemplo,
durante las horas del sol, pasaba por la calle un
carro de riego, dejando un ancho barrizal, en
vez del polvo blanco levantado por las ligeras
pisadas de una dama. Clifford no llegó nunca a
familiarizarse con la carricuba; siempre le
sorprendía. Se impresionaba, pero olvidaba
aquella lluvia ambulante antes de su próxima
aparición. Y la olvidaba tan completamente
como la propia calle, que inmediatamente se
cubría de polvo blanco. Con el ferrocarril
ocurría lo mismo. Oía el estrépito de la
locomotora, y, asomándose un poco, echaba
una ojeada al tren que pasaba por el extremo de
la calle. La idea de terrible energía que le
sugería era nueva y le afectaba tan
desagradablemente y con tanta sorpresa al cabo
de cien veces como la primera.
|
| Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay than this loss or suspension of the power to deal with unaccustomed things, and to keep up with the swiftness of the passing moment. It can merely be a suspended animation; for, were the power actually to perish, there would be little use of immortality. We are less than ghosts, for the time being, whenever this calamity befalls us. | |
| Clifford was indeed the most inveterate of conservatives. All the antique fashions of the street were dear to him; even such as were characterized by a rudeness that would naturally have annoyed his fastidious senses. He loved the old rumbling and jolting carts, the former track of which he still found in his long-buried remembrance, as the observer of to-day finds the wheel-tracks of ancient vehicles in Herculaneum. The butcher′s cart, with its snowy canopy, was an acceptable object; so was the fish-cart, heralded by its horn; so, likewise, was the countryman′s cart of vegetables, plodding from door to door, with long pauses of the patient horse, while his owner drove a trade in turnips, carrots, summer-squashes, string-beans, green peas, and new potatoes, with half the housewives of the neighborhood. The baker′s cart, with the harsh music of its bells, had a pleasant effect on Clifford, because, as few things else did, it jingled the very dissonance of yore. One afternoon a scissor-grinder chanced to set his wheel a-going under the Pyncheon Elm, and just in front of the arched window. Children came running with their mothers′ scissors, or the carving-knife, or the paternal razor, or anything else that lacked an edge (except, indeed, poor Clifford′s wits), that the grinder might apply the article to his magic wheel, and give it back as good as new. Round went the busily revolving machinery, kept in motion by the scissor-grinder′s foot, and wore away the hard steel against the hard stone, whence issued an intense and spiteful prolongation of a hiss as fierce as those emitted by Satan and his compeers in Pandemonium, though squeezed into smaller compass. It was an ugly, little, venomous serpent of a noise, as ever did petty violence to human ears. But Clifford listened with rapturous delight. The sound, however disagreeable, had very brisk life in it, and, together with the circle of curious children watching the revolutions of the wheel, appeared to give him a more vivid sense of active, bustling, and sunshiny existence than he had attained in almost any other way. Nevertheless, its charm lay chiefly in the past; for the scissor-grinder′s wheel had hissed in his childish ears. | Era, realmente, el más inveterado de los conservadores. Las antiguas costumbres de la calle le eran muy queridas, incluso las caracterizadas por una rudeza que debieran haber herido sus sentidos. Le encantaban los carros viejos, cuyas roderas todavía podía descubrir en su recuerdo, como los investigadores de hoy las descubren en las ruinas de Herculano. El carro del carnicero, con su lona blanca, era un objeto aceptable, igual que el del pescadero, anunciado por su trompeta, y el del labriego con su cargamento de verduras, que se detenía ante cada puerta, con largas pausas del paciente caballo, mientras el dueño vendía nabos, zanahorias, calabazas, alubias verdes, guisantes y patatas nuevas, a las amas de casa de la calle. El carrito del panadero, con su cascabeleo, le gustaba porque tenía las disonancias tle antaño. Una tarde, un afilador puso su rueda a la sombra del olmo de los Pyncheon, enfrente mismo de la ventana en arco. Los chiquillos acudieron, trayendo las tijeras de la madre o la navaja de afeitar del padre o el cuchillo de la cocina u otra cosa que necesitase ser afilada, para que el afilador las aplicase a su piedra mágica y las devolviese como nuevas. La rueda comenzó a girar al impulso de los pies del afilador y se llevó el acero con su roce chirriante y sus largos aullidos, fieros como los de Satanás y sus compadres en un Pandemonium. Era un ruido horripilante como el silbido de una serpiente, que enervaba al hombre más tranquilo. Pero Clifford lo escuchaba con alegría. El sonido, con ser desagradable, poseía vida chispeante y junto con el círculo de niños curiosos que rodeaba al afilador, le contagiaron una especie de sentido de la existencia más activo, brillante y bullicioso. Su encanto, sin embargo, residía principalmente en el pasado, pues la rueda del afilador había silbado en sus oídos de niño. |
| He sometimes made doleful complaint that there were no stage-coaches nowadays. And he asked in an injured tone what had become of all those old square-topped chaises, with wings sticking out on either side, that used to be drawn by a plough-horse, and driven by a farmer′s wife and daughter, peddling whortle-berries and blackberries about the town. Their disappearance made him doubt, he said, whether the berries had not left off growing in the broad pastures and along the shady country lanes. | A veces, se lamentaba de que ya no existieran diligencias y preguntaba, con tono ofendido, qué se había hecho de aquellos vehículos de techo cuadrado, arrastrados por un caballo percherón y guiados por la mujer o la hija de un granjero que venían a la ciudad a vender fresas, u otras frutas. Su desaparición le hacía dudar de si las fresas habían dejado de crecer a lo largo de los sombreados senderos del campo. |
| But anything that appealed to the sense of beauty, in however humble a way, did not require to be recommended by these old associations. This was observable when one of those Italian boys (who are rather a modern feature of our streets) came along with his barrel-organ, and stopped under the wide and cool shadows of the elm. With his quick professional eye he took note of the two faces watching him from the arched window, and, opening his instrument, began to scatter its melodies abroad. He had a monkey on his shoulder, dressed in a Highland plaid; and, to complete the sum of splendid attractions wherewith he presented himself to the public, there was a company of little figures, whose sphere and habitation was in the mahogany case of his organ, and whose principle of life was the music which the Italian made it his business to grind out. In all their variety of occupation,--the cobbler, the blacksmith, the soldier, the lady with her fan, the toper with his bottle, the milk-maid sitting by her cow--this fortunate little society might truly be said to enjoy a harmonious existence, and to make life literally a dance. The Italian turned a crank; and, behold ! every one of these small individuals started into the most curious vivacity. The cobbler wrought upon a shoe; the blacksmith hammered his iron, the soldier waved his glittering blade; the lady raised a tiny breeze with her fan; the jolly toper swigged lustily at his bottle; a scholar opened his book with eager thirst for knowledge, and turned his head to and fro along the page; the milkmaid energetically drained her cow; and a miser counted gold into his strong-box,--all at the same turning of a crank. Yes; and, moved by the self-same impulse, a lover saluted his mistress on her lips ! Possibly some cynic, at once merry and bitter, had desired to signify, in this pantomimic scene, that we mortals, whatever our business or amusement,--however serious, however trifling,--all dance to one identical tune, and, in spite of our ridiculous activity, bring nothing finally to pass. For the most remarkable aspect of the affair was, that, at the cessation of the music, everybody was petrified at once, from the most extravagant life into a dead torpor. Neither was the cobbler′s shoe finished, nor the blacksmith′s iron shaped out; nor was there a drop less of brandy in the toper′s bottle, nor a drop more of milk in the milkmaid′s pail, nor one additional coin in the miser′s strong-box, nor was the scholar a page deeper in his book. All were precisely in the same condition as before they made themselves so ridiculous by their haste to toil, to enjoy, to accumulate gold, and to become wise. Saddest of all, moreover, the lover was none the happier for the maiden′s granted kiss ! But, rather than swallow this last too acrid ingredient, we reject the whole moral of the show. | Pero nada de lo que llamaba el sentido de la
belleza, por humilde que fuese precisaba
recurrir a esas viejas asociaciones de ideas. Eso
se vio fácilmente cuando uno de los niños
italianos -recién aparecidos a la sazón en
nuestras calles- llegó con su organillo a cuestas
y se detuvo a la sombra del olmo. Con rápida
mirada profesional descubrió a las dos figuras
que le observaban desde la ventana arqueada y,
abriendo su instrumento, comenzó a
desparramar melodía tras melodía. Llevaba al
hombro un mono vestido de escocés y, para
completar la suma de atracciones que ofrecía al
público, toda una compañía de figuritas,
habitantes de la caja de caoba del organillo que
se animaban por la música. En toda la variedad
de sus ocupaciones -el remendón, el herrero, el
soldado, la dama del abanico, el borracho con
su botella, la lechera sentada junto a la vaca-
esa afortunada sociedad disfrutaba de una
existencia armoniosa y hacía de la vida,
literalmente, un baile.
El italiano da vueltas a un manubrio y ¡mirad !
todas las figuritas se ponen en movimiento. El
remendón clava las suelas de unos zapatos; el
herrero martillea el hierro; el soldado blande su
reluciente espada; la dama levanta una leve
brisa con el abanico; el borracho sorbe
afanosamente el líquido de la botella; un
estudiante abre el libro con ansias de estudio y
mueve la cabeza de un lado a otro, siguiendo
las líneas; la lechera ordeña enérgicamente su
vaca; un avaro cuenta el oro de su cofre...
|
| The monkey, meanwhile, with a thick tail curling out into preposterous prolixity from beneath his tartans, took his station at the Italian′s feet. He turned a wrinkled and abominable little visage to every passer-by, and to the circle of children that soon gathered round, and to Hepzibah′s shop-door, and upward to the arched window, whence Phoebe and Clifford were looking down. Every moment, also, he took off his Highland bonnet, and performed a bow and scrape. Sometimes, moreover, he made personal application to individuals, holding out his small black palm, and otherwise plainly signifying his excessive desire for whatever filthy lucre might happen to be in anybody′s pocket. The mean and low, yet strangely man-like expression of his wilted countenance; the prying and crafty glance, that showed him ready to gripe at every miserable advantage; his enormous tail (too enormous to be decently concealed under his gabardine), and the deviltry of nature which it betokened,--take this monkey just as he was, in short, and you could desire no better image of the Mammon of copper coin, symbolizing the grossest form of the love of money. Neither was there any possibility of satisfying the covetous little devil. Phoebe threw down a whole handful of cents, which he picked up with joyless eagerness, handed them over to the Italian for safekeeping, and immediately recommenced a series of pantomimic petitions for more. | El mono, entretanto, con su cola curvada grotescamente, se sentaba a los pies del italiano. Volvía su carita arrugada y fea a los que pasaban, hacia los chiquillos que formaban círculo, hacia el escaparate de Hepzibah y hacia la ventana en arco, desde la cual miraban Phoebe y Clifford. A cada momento se quitaba el gorro escocés, saludaba y lo tendía para recibir calderilla. A veces, se dirigía a alguien determinado, expresando su deseo por todos los objetos relucientes que pudiera tener en los bolsillos. La maligna expresión de su arrugado semblante, su mirada astuta y codiciosa, su cola, demasiado grande para esconderla debajo de la gabardina y su diabólica naturaleza, todo ello, en resumen, hacían de aquel sjmio una imagen del Mammón de calderilla, símbolo de la forma más grosera del amor al dinero. No había posibilidad de satisfacer al codicioso diablejo. Phoebe le arrojó un puñado de calderilla, que él recogió del suelo con alegre presteza, alargándosela al italiano y comenzó de nuevo una serie de peticiones pantomímicas. |
| Doubtless, more than one New-Englander--or, let him be of what country he might, it is as likely to be the case--passed by, and threw a look at the monkey, and went on, without imagining how nearly his own moral condition was here exemplified. Clifford, however, was a being of another order. He had taken childish delight in the music, and smiled, too, at the figures which it set in motion. But, after looking awhile at the long-tailed imp, he was so shocked by his horrible ugliness, spiritual as well as physical, that he actually began to shed tears; a weakness which men of merely delicate endowments, and destitute of the fiercer, deeper, and more tragic power of laughter, can hardly avoid, when the worst and meanest aspect of life happens to be presented to them. | Sin duda más de un hijo de Nueva Inglaterra -o
de otra región del mundo- pasó, miró al simio y
siguió su camino, sin comprender que allí
estaba simbolizada su propia condición moral.
Clifford, sin embargo, era un ser de otra clase. Se deleitó infantilmente con la música y sonrió ante el baile de las figurillas. Pero, después de mirar un rato al rabilargo mono, le impresionó tanto su horrible fealdad, que los ojos se le empañaron. Es ésta una debilidad que las gentes poseedoras de cierta delicadeza, que carecen del don de la risa, pueden rara vez evitar, cuando contemplan el aspecto peor y más vil de la vida. |
| Pyncheon Street was sometimes enlivened by spectacles of more imposing pretensions than the above, and which brought the multitude along with them. With a shivering repugnance at the idea of personal contact with the world, a powerful impulse still seized on Clifford, whenever the rush and roar of the human tide grew strongly audible to him. This was made evident, one day, when a political procession, with hundreds of flaunting banners, and drums, fifes, clarions, and cymbals, reverberating between the rows of buildings, marched all through town, and trailed its length of trampling footsteps, and most infrequent uproar, past the ordinarily quiet House of the Seven Gables. As a mere object of sight, nothing is more deficient in picturesque features than a procession seen in its passage through narrow streets. The spectator feels it to be fool′s play, when he can distinguish the tedious commonplace of each man′s visage, with the perspiration and weary self-importance on it, and the very cut of his pantaloons, and the stiffness or laxity of his shirt-collar, and the dust on the back of his black coat. In order to become majestic, it should be viewed from some vantage point, as it rolls its slow and long array through the centre of a wide plain, or the stateliest public square of a city; for then, by its remoteness, it melts all the petty personalities, of which it is made up, into one broad mass of existence,--one great life,--one collected body of mankind, with a vast, homogeneous spirit animating it. But, on the other hand, if an impressible person, standing alone over the brink of one of these processions, should behold it, not in its atoms, but in its aggregate,--as a mighty river of life, massive in its tide, and black with mystery, and, out of its depths, calling to the kindred depth within him,--then the contiguity would add to the effect. It might so fascinate him that he would hardly be restrained from plunging into the surging stream of human sympathies. | La calle Pyncheon se animaba en ocasiones,
con espectáculos de más imponentes
pretensiones que el citado, espectáculos que
llevaban consigo a una verdadera multitud.
Estremeciéndose ante la idea de un contacto
personal con el mundo, Clifford sentíase
dominado por un poderoso impulso cuando se
dejaba oír el rumor de la marea humana. Esto
se comprobó un día que pasó por la calle una
manifestación política, con centenares de
banderas, tambores, trompetas, clarines y
timbales. Como espectáculo, nada menos
pintoresco que una manifestación al pasar por
las calles estrechas. El espectador piensa que es
un juego de locos, cuando distingue la
vulgaridad del rostro de los componentes, el
sudor y el cansancio en sus facciones, el cuello
arrugado, los pantalones encogidos y la espalda
de la chaqueta polvorienta.
Para resultar majestuosa, una manifestación debe ser contemplada desde una altura, mientras pasa lentamente por el centro de una planicie o por la plaza más ancha de la ciudad, porque entonces, gracias a la lejanía, se mezclan las individualidades que la componen, y forman una masa, una gran vida única, animada por un espíritu homogéneo. Por otra parte, una persona impresionable, situada al margen de una de esas manifestaciones, puede verla no en sus átomos, sino en sus agregados, como un gran río, macizo en su corriente, negro y misterioso, llamando desde su profundidad a las profundidades humanas. Pudiera llegar a fascinarle tanto, que intentara incluso sumergirse en aquella corriente de simpatía humana. |
| So it proved with Clifford. He shuddered; he grew pale; he threw an appealing look at Hepzibah and Phoebe, who were with him at the window. They comprehended nothing of his emotions, and supposed him merely disturbed by the unaccustomed tumult. At last, with tremulous limbs, he started up, set his foot on the window-sill, and in an instant more would have been in the unguarded balcony. As it was, the whole procession might have seen him, a wild, haggard figure, his gray locks floating in the wind that waved their banners; a lonely being, estranged from his race, but now feeling himself man again, by virtue of the irrepressible instinct that possessed him. Had Clifford attained the balcony, he would probably have leaped into the street; but whether impelled by the species of terror that sometimes urges its victim over the very precipice which he shrinks from, or by a natural magnetism, tending towards the great centre of humanity, it were not easy to decide. Both impulses might have wrought on him at once. | Eso ocurrió a Clifford. Se estremeció,
palideció, miró suplicante a Hepzibah y a
Phoebe, que le acompañaban en la ventana.
Ellas no comprendieron sus emociones; le
suponían nuevamente impresionado por el
anómalo tumulto. Por fin, con temblorosos
miembros, se levantó, avanzando hacia el
balcón y, en un instante, habría estado en el
lugar de la desaparecida balaustrada. Los
manifestantes puede que vieran su figura
vacilante de cabellos blancos flotando al mismo
viento que hacía ondear sus banderas; puede
que vieran a un ser solitario, apartado de la
sociedad, pero que volvía a sentirse otra vez
hombre, en virtud del incontenible instinto que
le dominaba.
Si Clifford hubiese alcanzado el extremo del balcón, probablemente hubiera saltado a la calle. No sabemos si le impulsaba esa especie de terror que lanza a su víctima en el mismo precipicio que la aterroriza, o si se sentía movido por un magnetismo que le atraía hacia el centro de la humanidad. Quizá ambos impulsos obraron simultáneamente. |
| But his companions, affrighted by his gesture,--which was that of a man hurried away in spite of himself,--seized Clifford′s garment and held him back. Hepzibah shrieked. Phoebe, to whom all extravagance was a horror, burst into sobs and tears. | Pero las dos mujeres, asustadas por su gesto -el de un hombre atraído a pesar suyo-, le cogieron por los brazos y le hicieron retroceder. Hepzibah chilló. Phoebe, para la cual toda extravagancia resultaba horrorosa, chilló y sollozó. |
| "Clifford, Clifford ! are you crazy ?" cried his sister. | -¡Clifford ! ¿estás loco ? -gritó la solterona. |
| "I hardly know, Hepzibah," said Clifford, drawing a long breath. "Fear nothing,--it is over now,--but had I taken that plunge, and survived it, methinks it would have made me another man !" | -Casi no lo sé, Hepzibah -replicó el anciano,
suspirando hondamente-. No te asustes...
Bueno, ya pasó;
pero si hubiese saltado y sobrevivido al salto, creo que sería otro hombre. |
| Possibly, in some sense, Clifford may have been right. He needed a shock; or perhaps he required to take a deep, deep plunge into the ocean of human life, and to sink down and be covered by its profoundness, and then to emerge, sobered, invigorated, restored to the world and to himself. Perhaps again, he required nothing less than the great final remedy--death ! | Posiblemente, en cierto sentido, tenía razón.
Necesitaba una fuerte impresión o, quizá,
sumergirse en el océano de la vida humana,
para emerger,
|
| A similar yearning to renew the broken links of brotherhood with his kind sometimes showed itself in a milder form; and once it was made beautiful by the religion that lay even deeper than itself. In the incident now to be sketched, there was a touching recognition, on Clifford′s part, of God′s care and love towards him,--towards this poor, forsaken man, who, if any mortal could, might have been pardoned for regarding himself as thrown aside, forgotten, and left to be the sport of some fiend, whose playfulness was an ecstasy of mischief. | Este anhelo para restablecer los lazos rotos de hermandad con sus semejantes manifestábase en ocasiones bajo formas más suaves; y una vez fue embellecido por la religión, que yacía en las capas más profundas de su alma. En el suceso que vamos a narrar se ve la emocionante gratitud, por parte de Clifford, de los cuidados y el amor de Dios por él, por aquel pobre hombre abandonado, merecedor del perdón por creerse desamparado, olvidado y dejado para diversión de alguna furia que con él encontraba motivo para verdaderos éxtasis de maldad. |
| It was the Sabbath morning; one of those bright, calm Sabbaths, with its own hallowed atmosphere, when Heaven seems to diffuse itself over the earth′s face in a solemn smile, no less sweet than solemn. On such a Sabbath morn, were we pure enough to be its medium, we should be conscious of the earth′s natural worship ascending through our frames, on whatever spot of ground we stood. The church-bells, with various tones, but all in harmony, were calling out and responding to one another,--"It is the Sabbath !--The Sabbath !--Yea; the Sabbath !"--and over the whole city the bells scattered the blessed sounds, now slowly, now with livelier joy, now one bell alone, now all the bells together, crying earnestly,--"It is the Sabbath !"--and flinging their accents afar off, to melt into the air and pervade it with the holy word. The air with God′s sweetest and tenderest sunshine in it, was meet for mankind to breathe into their hearts, and send it forth again as the utterance of prayer. | Era un domingo por la mañana, uno de esos
domingos brillantes y calurosos, con su
atmósfera santificada, y el cielo que difunde
sobre la paz de la tierra una sonrisa, no menos
dulce que solemne. Las campanas se llamaban
unas a otras, y se contestaban con metálica
armonía.
-¡Hoy es domingo ! -¡Domingo ! -¡Domingo ! Las campanas expandían sus sonidos por toda la ciudad, ya apagadas, ya con alegría, ya una sola, ya todas juntas, gravemente, repicando, esparciendo la santa palabra: -¡Hoy es domingo ! ¡Hoy es domingo ! El aire, aquel día, con la dulzura de Dios y la ternura del sol, parecía hecho para llevar las plegarias hasta las alturas. |
| Clifford sat at the window with Hepzibah, watching the neighbors as they stepped into the street. All of them, however unspiritual on other days, were transfigured by the Sabbath influence; so that their very garments--whether it were an old man′s decent coat well brushed for the thousandth time, or a little boy′s first sack and trousers finished yesterday by his mother′s needle--had somewhat of the quality of ascension-robes. Forth, likewise, from the portal of the old house stepped Phoebe, putting up her small green sunshade, and throwing upward a glance and smile of parting kindness to the faces at the arched window. In her aspect there was a familiar gladness, and a holiness that you could play with, and yet reverence it as much as ever. She was like a prayer, offered up in the homeliest beauty of one′s mother-tongue. Fresh was Phoebe, moreover, and airy and sweet in her apparel; as if nothing that she wore--neither her gown, nor her small straw bonnet, nor her little kerchief, any more than her snowy stockings--had ever been put on before; or, if worn, were all the fresher for it, and with a fragrance as if they had lain among the rosebuds. | Clifford hallábase sentado en la ventana, con Hepzibah al lado, contemplando a los vecinos que pasaban por la calle. Todos ellos, por poco espirituales que fueran los otros días, aparecían transfigurados gracias a la influencia del domingo. Hasta sus trajes tenían algo de las ropas de la ascensión, ya fuera la decente chaqueta de un anciano, cepillada por milésima vez, o los primeros pantalones largos de un chiquillo, acabados el día anterior por su madre. Por el portal de la vieja casa salió Phoebe, con su sombrilla verde y sonriendo a las dos figuras de la ventana en arco. En su faz había una alegría familiar y una santidad que armonizaba muy bien con aquélla. Era como una plegaria ofrecida con la belleza de la lengua materna. Fresca, etérea y dulce era Phoebe, y diríase que nada de lo que vestía lo había usado antes; ni su vestido, ni su sombrero de paja, ni su chai, ni sus niveas medias. O si ya lo había usado, le daba nuevo frescor con ello y nueva fragancia, como si hubiesen estado entre rosas. La muchacha agitó una mano en gesto de despedida y siguió calle adelante. -Hepzibah -preguntó Clifford, después que Phoebe hubo doblado la esquina:-: ¿tú no vas nunca a la iglesia ? -No, Clifford -contestó ella-, no he ido durante todos estos años... -Si yo fuera, me parece que podría rezar una vez más, con tantas almas rezando a mi alrededor. La solterona vio en el rostro de Clifford una profunda emoción de la que se contagió. |
| The girl waved her hand to Hepzibah and Clifford, and went up the street; a religion in herself, warm, simple, true, with a substance that could walk on earth, and a spirit that was capable of heaven. | La muchacha agitó una mano en gesto de despedida y siguió calle adelante. |
| "Hepzibah," asked Clifford, after watching Phoebe to the corner, "do you never go to church ?" | -Hepzibah -preguntó Clifford, después que Phoebe hubo doblado la esquina:-: ¿tú no vas nunca a la iglesia ? |
| "No, Clifford !" she replied,--"not these many, many years !" | -No, Clifford -contestó ella-, no he ido durante todos estos años... |
| "Were I to be there," he rejoined, "it seems to me that I could pray once more, when so many human souls were praying all around me !" | -Si yo fuera, me parece que podría rezar una vez más, con tantas almas rezando a mi alrededor. |
| She looked into Clifford′s face, and beheld there a soft natural effusion; for his heart gushed out, as it were, and ran over at his eyes, in delightful reverence for God, and kindly affection for his human brethren. The emotion communicated itself to Hepzibah. She yearned to take him by the hand, and go and kneel down, they two together,--both so long separate from the world, and, as she now recognized, scarcely friends with Him above,--to kneel down among the people, and be reconciled to God and man at once. | La solterona vio en el rostro de Clifford una
profunda emoción de la que se contagió.
Ansiaba cogerle la mano, ir con él a la iglesia, arrodillarse los dos juntos -ambos alejados del mundo durante tanto tiempo, y según ahora se daba cuenta, tan poco amigos de Dios-, arrodillarse entre los fieles y reconciliarse a la vez con el Señor y con los hombres. |
| "Dear brother," said she earnestly, "let us go ! We belong nowhere. We have not a foot of space in any church to kneel upon; but let us go to some place of worship, even if we stand in the broad aisle. Poor and forsaken as we are, some pew-door will be opened to us !" | -Vamos, querido -dijo gravemente-. No pertenecemos a ninguna iglesia determinada, no tenemos ni un palmo de terreno en ningún templo, para arrodillarnos. Vamos a cualquier iglesia, aunque tengamos que permanecer en el pasillo. Siempre encontraremos abierta alguna puerta compasiva. |
| So Hepzibah and her brother made themselves, ready--as ready as they could in the best of their old-fashioned garments, which had hung on pegs, or been laid away in trunks, so long that the dampness and mouldy smell of the past was on them,--made themselves ready, in their faded bettermost, to go to church. They descended the staircase together,--gaunt, sallow Hepzibah, and pale, emaciated, age-stricken Clifford ! They pulled open the front door, and stepped across the threshold, and felt, both of them, as if they were standing in the presence of the whole world, and with mankind′s great and terrible eye on them alone. The eye of their Father seemed to be withdrawn, and gave them no encouragement. The warm sunny air of the street made them shiver. Their hearts quaked within them at the idea of taking one step farther. | Se arreglaron; se vistieron tan bien como pudieron, con sus prendas anticuadas que olían a pasado, a fuerza de permanecer colgadas o en los baúles durante muchos años. Juntos bajaron las escaleras. ¡Hepzibah, delgada y lívida; Clifford, pálido y flaco ! Abrieron el portal, franquearon el umbral y se sintieron ambos, como si se hallaran frente al mundo entero, y con los terribles ojos de la humanidad clavados en ellos. Los ojos del Padre parecían haberse apartado y no les daban ánimos... El aire cálido de la calle les hizo estremecer. El corazón les latía aceleradamente, ante la idea de dar un paso. |
| "It cannot be, Hepzibah !--it is too late," said Clifford with deep sadness. "We are ghosts ! We have no right among human beings,--no right anywhere but in this old house, which has a curse on it, and which, therefore, we are doomed to haunt ! And, besides," he continued, with a fastidious sensibility, inalienably characteristic of the man, "it would not be fit nor beautiful to go ! It is an ugly thought that I should be frightful to my fellow-beings, and that children would cling to their mothers′ gowns at sight of me !" | -¡No puede ser, Hepzibah ! ¡Es demasiado tarde ! -murmuró Clifford con profunda tristeza-. Somos como fantasmas. No tenemos derecho a estar entre los hombres... no tenemos derecho a estar en ninguna parte, excepto en esta casa maldita, que nos vemos condenados a habitar. Y además -continuó- no sería oportuno... Me asusta que yo pueda resultar desagradable a mis semejantes, y que al verme los niños se peguen a las faldas de sus madres. |
| They shrank back into the dusky passage-way, and closed the door. But, going up the staircase again, they found the whole interior of the house tenfold more dismal, and the air closer and heavier, for the glimpse and breath of freedom which they had just snatched. They could not flee; their jailer had but left the door ajar in mockery, and stood behind it to watch them stealing out. At the threshold, they felt his pitiless gripe upon them. For, what other dungeon is so dark as one′s own heart ! What jailer so inexorable as one′s self ! | Retrocedieron, sepultándose en la obscuridad, y cerraron la puerta. Al subir las escaleras encontraron el interior de la casa más triste y su atmósfera más pesada a causa de aquella libertad entrevista un instante. El carcelero, como una mofa, les había dejado la puerta entreabierta y permanecía tras ellos, contemplándoles. En el umbral sintieron ya su garra despiadada. Porque, ¿qué calabozo es más obscuro que el propio corazón ? ¿Qué carcelero es más inexorable que uno mismo ? |
| But it would be no fair picture of Clifford′s state of mind were we to represent him as continually or prevailingly wretched. On the contrary, there was no other man in the city, we are bold to affirm, of so much as half his years, who enjoyed so many lightsome and griefless moments as himself. He had no burden of care upon him; there were none of those questions and contingencies with the future to be settled which wear away all other lives, and render them not worth having by the very process of providing for their support. In this respect he was a child,--a child for the whole term of his existence, be it long or short. Indeed, his life seemed to be standing still at a period little in advance of childhood, and to cluster all his reminiscences about that epoch; just as, after the torpor of a heavy blow, the sufferer′s reviving consciousness goes back to a moment considerably behind the accident that stupefied him. He sometimes told Phoebe and Hepzibah his dreams, in which he invariably played the part of a child, or a very young man. So vivid were they, in his relation of them, that he once held a dispute with his sister as to the particular figure or print of a chintz morning-dress which he had seen their mother wear, in the dream of the preceding night. Hepzibah, piquing herself on a woman′s accuracy in such matters, held it to be slightly different from what Clifford described; but, producing the very gown from an old trunk, it proved to be identical with his remembrance of it. Had Clifford, every time that he emerged out of dreams so lifelike, undergone the torture of transformation from a boy into an old and broken man, the daily recurrence of the shock would have been too much to bear. It would have caused an acute agony to thrill from the morning twilight, all the day through, until bedtime; and even then would have mingled a dull, inscrutable pain and pallid hue of misfortune with the visionary bloom and adolescence of his slumber. But the nightly moonshine interwove itself with the morning mist, and enveloped him as in a robe, which he hugged about his person, and seldom let realities pierce through; he was not often quite awake, but slept open-eyed, and perhaps fancied himself most dreaming then. | Pero no sería una idea exacta del estado de ánimo de Clifford si nos lo imagináramos constantemente desgraciado. Al contrario, nos atreveríamos a decir que no había otro hombre en la ciudad, de la mitad de su edad, que disfrutara de mayor número de momentos luminosos y sin pena. No tenía ninguna preocupación ni carga, no tenía que solucionar ningún problema relacionado con el futuro, esos problemas que se llevan la mitad de la vida y que hacen que casi no valga la pena de resolverlos. A este respecto era un niño durante toda su existencia, fuera corta o larga. Realmente, parecía estar en un periodo escasamente posterior al de la infancia y acumular sus reminiscencias de aquella época. Era como si después del sopor causado por un golpe, al recobrar el sentido, se encontrara en un momento muy anterior al del accidente que le derribó. A veces, explicaba sus sueños, en los que invariablemente representaba el papel de un niño adolescente. Eran tan vividos, en su relato, que en una ocasión discutió con Hepzibah sobre el color de un vestido con el cual había visto a su madre en sueños. La solterona afirmaba que la prenda era ligeramente distinta a como Clifford la describía, pero al sacarla del cofre donde yacía, resultó ser idéntica. Si cada vez que despertaba de esos sueños tan reales, Clifford hubiese experimentado las torturas de la transformación de muchacho en viejo, habría resultado insoportable la repetición cotidiana de esos sufrimientos. Le habría causado una aguda agonía, desde el alba al crepúsculo, y aun al acostarse hubiera sentido una pena indescriptible mezclada con las visiones de su adolescencia. Pero el claro de luna se unía a las brumas mañaneras y los sueños le envolvían como un traje protector que raramente atravesaban las realidades. No solía estar nunca completamente despierto; dormía con los ojos abiertos y quizá en estos momentos es cuando más se imaginaba soñar. |
| Thus, lingering always so near his childhood, he had sympathies with children, and kept his heart the fresher thereby, like a reservoir into which rivulets were pouring not far from the fountain-head. Though prevented, by a subtile sense of propriety, from desiring to associate with them, he loved few things better than to look out of the arched window and see a little girl driving her hoop along the sidewalk, or schoolboys at a game of ball. Their voices, also, were very pleasant to him, heard at a distance, all swarming and intermingling together as flies do in a sunny room. | Así, rondando por su infancia, simpatizaba con los niños y conservaba fresco el corazón, como un lago al cual arrojasen sus aguas alegres arroyuelos, no lejos de la fuente principal. Un sutil sentido de la convivencia le guardaba de desear asociarse con ellos, pero pocas cosas le agradaban tanto como contemplar, desde la ventana en arco, a una chiquilla haciendo rodar el aro o a los pequeños regresar de la escuela I jugando a la pelota. Sus voces le resultaban agradables, oídas desde lejos, entremezcladas como las moscas en una habitación llena de sol. |
| Clifford would, doubtless, have been glad to share their sports. One afternoon he was seized with an irresistible desire to blow soap-bubbles; an amusement, as Hepzibah told Phoebe apart, that had been a favorite one with her brother when they were both children. Behold him, therefore, at the arched window, with an earthen pipe in his mouth ! Behold him, with his gray hair, and a wan, unreal smile over his countenance, where still hovered a beautiful grace, which his worst enemy must have acknowledged to be spiritual and immortal, since it had survived so long ! Behold him, scattering airy spheres abroad from the window into the street ! Little impalpable worlds were those soap-bubbles, with the big world depicted, in hues bright as imagination, on the nothing of their surface. It was curious to see how the passers-by regarded these brilliant fantasies, as they came floating down, and made the dull atmosphere imaginative about them. Some stopped to gaze, and perhaps, carried a pleasant recollection of the bubbles onward as far as the street-corner; some looked angrily upward, as if poor Clifford wronged them by setting an image of beauty afloat so near their dusty pathway. A great many put out their fingers or their walking-sticks to touch, withal; and were perversely gratified, no doubt, when the bubble, with all its pictured earth and sky scene, vanished as if it had never been. | Sin duda, le hubiera gustado participar en sus juegos. Cierta tarde sintió un irresistible deseo de hacer burbujas de jabón, una diversión que, según dijo Hepzibah a Phoebe, fue su pasatiempo favorito en la niñez. ¡Imaginadle en el quicio de la ventana en arco, con una taza en la mano y la pajita entre los labios ! ¡Imaginadle con sus cabellos grises, y una sonrisa en el rostro, resplandeciente con una hermosura que su peor enemigo debiera reconocer que era espiritual e inmortal, puesto que había sobrevivido a tantas penas ! ¡Imaginadle esparciendo por el aire esféricas burbujas de jabón, desde la ventana a la calle, como pequeños mundos impalpables que reflejaban el mundo enorme de los hombres con colores brillantes ! Era curioso ver cómo los transeúntes contemplaban aquellas resplandecientes bolitas que flotaban por la atmósfera de la calle, enriqueciéndola con su fantasía. Algunos se detenían a mirar y quizá conservaban hasta la esquina un agradable recuerdo. Otros miraban enojados hacia arriba, como si el pobre Clifford les causara algún daño al enviar una imagen de belleza a la calle polvorienta. Muchos intentaron tocarlas con los dedos o con la punta del bastón y perversamente se alegraban cuando la burbuja se desvanecía, con el cielo y la tierra reflejados en su superficie etérea, como si jamás hubieran existido. |
| At length, just as an elderly gentleman of very dignified presence happened to be passing, a large bubble sailed majestically down, and burst right against his nose ! He looked up,--at first with a stern, keen glance, which penetrated at once into the obscurity behind the arched window,--then with a smile which might be conceived as diffusing a dog-day sultriness for the space of several yards about him. | Pasaba un caballero anciano de aspecto muy digno, cuando una gran burbuja descendió majestuosamente y fue a estallar contra su nariz. El caballero miró para arriba, primero con ojos duros y torvos, que penetraron en seguida en la obscuridad de la ventana, y luego con una sonrisa. |
| "Aha, Cousin Clifford !" cried Judge Pyncheon. "What ! Still blowing soap-bubbles !" | -¡Ah, primo Clifford ! -gritó el juez Pyncheon-. ¿Cómo es eso ? ¿Todavía haces burbujas de jabón ? |
| The tone seemed as if meant to be kind and soothing, but yet had a bitterness of sarcasm in it. As for Clifford, an absolute palsy of fear came over him. Apart from any definite cause of dread which his past experience might have given him, he felt that native and original horror of the excellent Judge which is proper to a weak, delicate, and apprehensive character in the presence of massive strength. Strength is incomprehensible by weakness, and, therefore, the more terrible. There is no greater bugbear than a strong-willed relative in the circle of his own connections. | El tono de la voz quería ser benévolo, pero tenía algo de amargo sarcasmo. Clifford quedó paralizado de terror. Aparte de algún motivo de temor que pudiera radicar en su pasada experiencia, sentía por el excelente juez el horror propio de los caracteres débiles, delicados y aprensivos, en presencia de la fuerza maciza. La fuerza es incomprensible para la debilidad y por esto resulta todavía más terrible. No hay peor espantajo que un pariente inflexible en el círculo de sus propios deudos. |