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XII The Daguerreotypist |
XI. El daguerrotipista |
| IT must not be supposed that the life of a personage naturally so active as Phoebe could be wholly confined within the precincts of the old Pyncheon House. Clifford′s demands upon her time were usually satisfied, in those long days, considerably earlier than sunset. Quiet as his daily existence seemed, it nevertheless drained all the resources by which he lived. It was not physical exercise that overwearied him,--for except that he sometimes wrought a little with a hoe, or paced the garden-walk, or, in rainy weather, traversed a large unoccupied room,--it was his tendency to remain only too quiescent, as regarded any toil of the limbs and muscles. But, either there was a smouldering fire within him that consumed his vital energy, or the monotony that would have dragged itself with benumbing effect over a mind differently situated was no monotony to Clifford. Possibly, he was in a state of second growth and recovery, and was constantly assimilating nutriment for his spirit and intellect from sights, sounds, and events which passed as a perfect void to persons more practised with the world. As all is activity and vicissitude to the new mind of a child, so might it be, likewise, to a mind that had undergone a kind of new creation, after its long-suspended life. | NO debe suponerse que la vida de una persona
tan activa como Phoebe se confinara al interior
de la vieja casa de los Pyncheon. En aquellos
largos días, mucho antes de ponerse el sol, ya
había atendido a Clifford todo el tiempo
necesario.
Por muy tranquila que pareciera su existencia diaria, el anciano agotaba sus reservas de energía. No le fatigaba el ejercicio físico; a veces hacía como que daba golpes de azada, o paseaba por un cuarto en tiempo lluvioso y por el jardín cuando hacía sol. Su tendencia a permanecer quieto le evitaba el cansancio. Pero en su interior ardía un fuego que consumía su energía vital; o, por lo menos, lo que para otros hubiera sido monotonía aterradora, para Clifford no lo era. Probablemente se hallaba en un estado de crecimiento, por decirlo así, y asimilaba constantemente alimentos para su espíritu, vistas, sonidos y hechos, a los que las personas más acostumbradas al mundo no prestan atención. Todo es actividad y vicisitud para la inteligencia incipiente de un niño, y lo mismo debía ser para Clifford, que pasaba por una especie de nueva creación, tras su largo periodo de suspensión de la vida. |
| Be the cause what it might, Clifford commonly retired to rest, thoroughly exhausted, while the sunbeams were still melting through his window-curtains, or were thrown with late lustre on the chamber wall. And while he thus slept early, as other children do, and dreamed of childhood, Phoebe was free to follow her own tastes for the remainder of the day and evening. | Sea la causa que fuere, solía retirarse a descansar, completamente exhausto, cuando aún los rayos del sol daban sobre las cortinas de su ventana o arrojaban su brillo postrero en los muros del dormitorio. Mientras él se acostaba temprano, como hacen los otros niños, y soñaba con la infancia, Phoebe se vela libre por el resto del día. |
| This was a freedom essential to the health even of a character so little susceptible of morbid influences as that of Phoebe. The old house, as we have already said, had both the dry-rot and the damp-rot in its walls; it was not good to breathe no other atmosphere than that. Hepzibah, though she had her valuable and redeeming traits, had grown to be a kind of lunatic by imprisoning herself so long in one place, with no other company than a single series of ideas, and but one affection, and one bitter sense of wrong. Clifford, the reader may perhaps imagine, was too inert to operate morally on his fellow-creatures, however intimate and exclusive their relations with him. But the sympathy or magnetism among human beings is more subtile and universal than we think; it exists, indeed, among different classes of organized life, and vibrates from one to another. A flower, for instance, as Phoebe herself observed, always began to droop sooner in Clifford′s hand, or Hepzibah′s, than in her own; and by the same law, converting her whole daily life into a flower fragrance for these two sickly spirits, the blooming girl must inevitably droop and fade much sooner than if worn on a younger and happier breast. Unless she had now and then indulged her brisk impulses, and breathed rural air in a suburban walk, or ocean breezes along the shore,--had occasionally obeyed the impulse of Nature, in New England girls, by attending a metaphysical or philosophical lecture, or viewing a seven-mile panorama, or listening to a concert,--had gone shopping about the city, ransacking entire depots of splendid merchandise, and bringing home a ribbon,--had employed, likewise, a little time to read the Bible in her chamber, and had stolen a little more to think of her mother and her native place--unless for such moral medicines as the above, we should soon have beheld our poor Phoebe grow thin and put on a bleached, unwholesome aspect, and assume strange, shy ways, prophetic of old-maidenhood and a cheerless future. | Era ésta una libertad esencial para la salud,
incluso en una persona tan poco propensa a
sufrir las influencias morbosas como lo era
Phoebe. La vieja casa era húmeda y estaba
carcomida. No era saludable respirar su
atmósfera. Hepzibah, aunque tenía rasgos que
la redimían, se había ido convirtiendo en una
especie de maniática a causa de haber vivido
recluida en aquel sitio, sin otra compañía que
una serie de ideas fijas. Clifford -según puede
imaginarse el lector- era demasiado apático -un
ser casi inerte- para influir sobre sus
semejantes, por muy íntimas que fueran sus
relaciones. La simpatía o el magnetismo entre
los seres humanos es más sutil y universal de lo
que pensamos; existe, realmente, en distintas
clases de vida organizada y vibra de unas a
otras.
Una flor, por ejemplo, según observó Phoebe, se ponía mustia siempre más aprisa en las manos de Clifford o Hepzibah que en las suyas. Por la misma ley, al convertir con su presencia la vida de aquellos dos espíritus enfermizos en una fragancia, la muchacha tenía que volverse mustia y marchitarse más aprisa, mucho más aprisa, que en un ambiente joven y feliz. Pronto hubiéramos visto a nuestra Phoebe adelgazar, palidecer, adquirir costumbres extrañas, que profetizaran la solterona futura, de no ser porque se iba a respirar el aire del campo en los suburbios, o las brisas del mar en la playa. Obedecía al impulso de la naturaleza, también, escuchando una conferencia filosófica, contemplando un panorama o asistiendo a un concierto. Iba de compras por la ciudad, escudriñando todos los almacenes atiborrados de mercancías y regresando a casa con una cinta. Disfrutaba un rato de soledad en su cuarto leyendo la Biblia, y otro, mucho más largo, pensando en su madre y su pueblo. Estas medicinas espirituales conservaron la lozanía de Phoebe. |
| Even as it was, a change grew visible; a change partly to be regretted, although whatever charm it infringed upon was repaired by another, perhaps more precious. She was not so constantly gay, but had her moods of thought, which Clifford, on the whole, liked better than her former phase of unmingled cheerfulness; because now she understood him better and more delicately, and sometimes even interpreted him to himself. Her eyes looked larger, and darker, and deeper; so deep, at some silent moments, that they seemed like Artesian wells, down, down, into the infinite. She was less girlish than when we first beheld her alighting from the omnibus; less girlish, but more a woman. | Con todo, se hizo visible un hondo cambio, en
parte lamentable, aunque los encantos que
perdía eran sustituidos por otros quizá más
preciosos. No estaba tan constantemente alegre;
tenía momentos de meditación. Clifford
prefería esto; ahora le comprendía mejor y más
delicadamente y a veces hasta le ayudaba a
interpretarse a sí mismo. Los ojos de Phoebe se
habían agrandado, eran más negros, y
profundos hasta el infinito. Era menos infantil
que cuando la vimos saltando del ómnibus;
menos infantil, pero más mujer.
|
| The only youthful mind with which Phoebe had an opportunity of frequent intercourse was that of the daguerreotypist. Inevitably, by the pressure of the seclusion about them, they had been brought into habits of some familiarity. Had they met under different circumstances, neither of these young persons would have been likely to bestow much thought upon the other, unless, indeed, their extreme dissimilarity should have proved a principle of mutual attraction. Both, it is true, were characters proper to New England life, and possessing a common ground, therefore, in their more external developments; but as unlike, in their respective interiors, as if their native climes had been at world-wide distance. During the early part of their acquaintance, Phoebe had held back rather more than was customary with her frank and simple manners from Holgrave′s not very marked advances. Nor was she yet satisfied that she knew him well, although they almost daily met and talked together, in a kind, friendly, and what seemed to be a familiar way. | El único espíritu juvenil con el cual Phoebe
tenía ocasión de comunicarse era el
daguerrotipista. Empujados por la soledad,
llegaron a familiarizarse. En otras
circunstancias, probablemente, no habría
sucedido así, a no ser que el hecho de ser tan
diferentes resultara un principio de atracción.
Ambos eran caracteres arrancados de la vida de
Nueva Inglaterra y arraigaban, pues, en un
terreno común... Pero sus espíritus eran tan
distintos como si entre ellos hubiera un mundo
de distancia.
Al principio de su amistad, Phoebe se había mostrado reservada ante las insinuaciones de Holgrave. Al conocerle mejor, no por esto quedó más satisfecha, aunque hablaban casi diariamente amistosa y casi familiarmente. |
| The artist, in a desultory manner, had imparted to Phoebe something of his history. Young as he was, and had his career terminated at the point already attained, there had been enough of incident to fill, very creditably, an autobiographic volume. A romance on the plan of Gil Blas, adapted to American society and manners, would cease to be a romance. The experience of many individuals among us, who think it hardly worth the telling, would equal the vicissitudes of the Spaniard′s earlier life; while their ultimate success, or the point whither they tend, may be incomparably higher than any that a novelist would imagine for his hero. Holgrave, as he told Phoebe somewhat proudly, could not boast of his origin, unless as being exceedingly humble, nor of his education, except that it had been the scantiest possible, and obtained by a few winter-months′ attendance at a district school. Left early to his own guidance, he had begun to be self-dependent while yet a boy; and it was a condition aptly suited to his natural force of will. Though now but twenty-two years old (lacking some months, which are years in such a life), he had already been, first, a country schoolmaster; next, a salesman in a country store; and, either at the same time or afterwards, the political editor of a country newspaper. He had subsequently travelled New England and the Middle States, as a peddler, in the employment of a Connecticut manufactory of cologne-water and other essences. In an episodical way he had studied and practised dentistry, and with very flattering success, especially in many of the factory-towns along our inland streams. As a supernumerary official, of some kind or other, aboard a packet-ship, he had visited Europe, and found means, before his return, to see Italy, and part of France and Germany. At a later period he had spent some months in a community of Fourierists. Still more recently he had been a public lecturer on Mesmerism, for which science (as he assured Phoebe, and, indeed, satisfactorily proved, by putting Chanticleer, who happened to be scratching near by, to sleep) he had very remarkable endowments. | El artista, de modo inconexo y espontáneo, explicó a Phoebe algo de su historia. Muy joven, su vida contenía tantos incidentes como para llenar un volumen. Holgrave, según contó a Phoebe con cierto orgullo, no podía vanagloriarse de su origen, muy humilde, ni de su educación, corta y compuesta de unos cuantos meses invernales de escuela. Dejado pronto a su propia iniciativa, viose obligado a fiar sólo en él mismo. Ahora tenía veintidós años (menos algunos meses que cuentan por años en una vida así) y había sido maestro rural, dependiente de tienda y director de un periódico político. Luego había recorrido Nueva Inglaterra y los estados del este como viajante de una fábrica de perfumería de Connecticut. De manera episódica, estudió y practicó el arte de dentista, obteniendo muchos éxitos en varias ciudades. Como oficial de un paquebote, visitó Europa, encontrando la manera de recorrer Italia, parte de Francia y Alemania. Hacía poco había dado unas conferencias sobre hipnotismo, para cuya ciencia tenía grandes dotes, según aseguró y demostró satisfactoriamente durmiendo a Cantaclaro, que picoteaba por los alrededores. |
| His present phase, as a daguerreotypist, was of no more importance in his own view, nor likely to be more permanent, than any of the preceding ones. It had been taken up with the careless alacrity of an adventurer, who had his bread to earn. It would be thrown aside as carelessly, whenever he should choose to earn his bread by some other equally digressive means. But what was most remarkable, and, perhaps, showed a more than common poise in the young man, was the fact that, amid all these personal vicissitudes, he had never lost his identity. Homeless as he had been,--continually changing his whereabout, and, therefore, responsible neither to public opinion nor to individuals,--putting off one exterior, and snatching up another, to be soon shifted for a third,--he had never violated the innermost man, but had carried his conscience along with him. It was impossible to know Holgrave without recognizing this to be the fact. Hepzibah had seen it. Phoebe soon saw it likewise, and gave him the sort of confidence which such a certainty inspires. She was startled, however, and sometimes repelled,--not by any doubt of his integrity to whatever law he acknowledged, but by a sense that his law differed from her own. He made her uneasy, and seemed to unsettle everything around her, by his lack of reverence for what was fixed, unless, at a moment′s warning, it could establish its right to hold its ground. | Su presente profesión de daguerrotipista no
tenía mayor importancia para él, ni sería
probablemente menos provisional que las fases
precedentes de su vida. La había adoptado con
la despreocupación de un aventurero que ha de
ganarse el pan. Habría cambiado de profesión
con no menos rapidez, si hubiese encontrado
otra manera interesante de ganar dinero.
Pero lo que resultaba notable y demostraba,
quizá, más equilibrio del común, era el hecho
de que, en medio de tantas vicisitudes, nunca
perdió su personalidad.
|
| Then, moreover, she scarcely thought him affectionate in his nature. He was too calm and cool an observer. Phoebe felt his eye, often; his heart, seldom or never. He took a certain kind of interest in Hepzibah and her brother, and Phoebe herself. He studied them attentively, and allowed no slightest circumstance of their individualities to escape him. He was ready to do them whatever good he might; but, after all, he never exactly made common cause with them, nor gave any reliable evidence that he loved them better in proportion as he knew them more. In his relations with them, he seemed to be in quest of mental food, not heart-sustenance. Phoebe could not conceive what interested him so much in her friends and herself, intellectually, since he cared nothing for them, or, comparatively, so little, as objects of human affection. | Además, Phoebe no le creía bastante afectuoso. Era un observador demasiado frío. A menudo encontraba sus ojos, pero rara vez, o nunca, su corazón. Holgrave se tomaba cierto interés por Hepzibah, por Clifford y por la propia Phoebe. Les estudiaba atentamente, sin escapársele ningún aspecto de su personalidad. Estaba dispuesto a hacerles todo el bien que pudiera, pero nunca hacía causa común con ellos, ni daba pruebas de que, al irles conociendo mejor, les apreciaba más. En sus relaciones con ellos, parecía buscar una distracción intelectual, no un sustento para el corazón. Phoebe no acertaba a comprender por qué se interesaba tanto intelectualmente por ella y sus primos, puesto que nada o muy poco le importaban |
| Always, in his interviews with Phoebe, the artist made especial inquiry as to the welfare of Clifford, whom, except at the Sunday festival, he seldom saw. | En sus charlas con Phoebe, el artista preguntaba siempre por el estado de Clifford, al cual veía raramente, excepto los domingos por la tarde. |
| "Does he still seem happy ?" he asked one day. | -¿Sigue contento y feliz ? -preguntó un día. |
| "As happy as a child," answered Phoebe; "but--like a child, too--very easily disturbed." | -Feliz como un niño -contestó Phoebe-; pero... igual que un niño, de pronto, sin saber por qué, cambia de humor y se pone nervioso, intranquilo, se enoja... |
| "How disturbed ?" inquired Holgrave. "By things without, or by thoughts within ?" | -¿Por qué ? |
| "I cannot see his thoughts ! How should I ?" replied Phoebe with simple piquancy. "Very often his humor changes without any reason that can be guessed at, just as a cloud comes over the sun. Latterly, since I have begun to know him better, I feel it to be not quite right to look closely into his moods. He has had such a great sorrow, that his heart is made all solemn and sacred by it. When he is cheerful,--when the sun shines into his mind,--then I venture to peep in, just as far as the light reaches, but no further. It is holy ground where the shadow falls !" | -Lo ignoro -respondió Phoebe-. Su humor cambia a menudo, sin ninguna tazón. A medida que voy conociéndole, pienso que no está bien que me fije demasiado en su manera de ser. Ha sufrido una pena tan grande que su corazón se ha convertido en algo sagrado y solemne. Cuando está alegre, cuando el sol luce en su espíritu, me aventuro a mirar hasta donde llega la luz, pero no más allá. Lo que la sombra oculta es terreno sagrado para mí. |
| "How prettily you express this sentiment !" said the artist. "I can understand the feeling, without possessing it. Had I your opportunities, no scruples would prevent me from fathoming Clifford to the full depth of my plummet-line !" | -¡Qué lindamente expresa usted ese sentimiento ! -exclamó el artista-. Puedo comprenderlo aunque no lo posea. Si se me presentara ocasión, no tendría escrúpulo en sondearle. |
| "How strange that you should wish it !" remarked Phoebe involuntarily. "What is Cousin Clifford to you ?" | -Es extraño que se interese usted por estas cosas -dijo Phoebe casi involuntariamente-. ¿Qué es, para usted, el primo Clifford ? |
| "Oh, nothing,--of course, nothing !" answered Holgrave with a smile. "Only this is such an odd and incomprehensible world ! The more I look at it, the more it puzzles me, and I begin to suspect that a man′s bewilderment is the measure of his wisdom. Men and women, and children, too, are such strange creatures, that one never can be certain that he really knows them; nor ever guess what they have been from what he sees them to be now. Judge Pyncheon ! Clifford ! What a complex riddle--a complexity of complexities--do they present ! It requires intuitive sympathy, like a young girl′s, to solve it. A mere observer, like myself (who never have any intuitions, and am, at best, only subtile and acute), is pretty certain to go astray." | -Nada. Nada, por supuesto -contestó Holgrave con una sonrisa-. Pero el mundo es tan singular, tan incomprensible... Cuanto más lo estudio, tanto más perplejo me deja, y ya comienzo a sospechar que la perplejidad de un hombre es la medida de su sabiduría. Los hombres, las mujeres, hasta los niños, son criaturas tan extrañas que uno jamás puede estar seguro de conocerlas, ni siquiera adivinar lo que fueron por lo que ahora parecen ser ¡Fíjese en el juez Pyncheon ! ¡Fíjese en Clifford ! Qué enigma más complejo... qué complejidad de complejidades... Para resolverlo se precisa la simpatía intuitiva de una muchacha. Un mero observador como yo, que nunca tiene intuiciones y que, a lo sumo, es agudo y sutil, puede estar seguro de errar el camino. |
| The artist now turned the conversation to themes less dark than that which they had touched upon. Phoebe and he were young together; nor had Holgrave, in his premature experience of life, wasted entirely that beautiful spirit of youth, which, gushing forth from one small heart and fancy, may diffuse itself over the universe, making it all as bright as on the first day of creation. Man′s own youth is the world′s youth; at least, he feels as if it were, and imagines that the earth′s granite substance is something not yet hardened, and which he can mould into whatever shape he likes. So it was with Holgrave. He could talk sagely about the world′s old age, but never actually believed what he said; he was a young man still, and therefore looked upon the world--that gray-bearded and wrinkled profligate, decrepit, without being venerable--as a tender stripling, capable of being improved into all that it ought to be, but scarcely yet had shown the remotest promise of becoming. He had that sense, or inward prophecy,--which a young man had better never have been born than not to have, and a mature man had better die at once than utterly to relinquish,--that we are not doomed to creep on forever in the old bad way, but that, this very now, there are the harbingers abroad of a golden era, to be accomplished in his own lifetime. It seemed to Holgrave,--as doubtless it has seemed to the hopeful of every century since the epoch of Adam′s grandchildren,--that in this age, more than ever before, the moss-grown and rotten Past is to be torn down, and lifeless institutions to be thrust out of the way, and their dead corpses buried, and everything to begin anew. | El artista llevó la conversación hacia temas menos obscuros. En su prematura experiencia de la vida no había malgastado por entero el bello espíritu de la juventud que, brotando de un corazón pequeño y de la fantasía, puede difundirse por todo el universo, haciéndole brillar como el primer día de la creación. La juventud del hombre es la juventud del mundo, o por lo menos, siente como si lo fuera e imagina que la capa granítica de la tierra aún no se ha endurecido y puede moldearla a su antojo. Así le ocurría a Holgrave. Podía hablar sensatamente del mundo viejo, pero no creía lo que decía; era joven y consideraba el mundo -ese libertino arrugado y canoso, decrépito, pero no venerable- como mozalbete capaz de mejorar, pero que aún no da muestra de lo que puede llegar a ser. Poseía ese sentido o profecía interior que nos asegura que no estamos condenados a arrastrarnos por los caminos trillados y que podemos convertirnos en heraldos de una edad dorada que ha de tomar cuerpo durante nuestra propia vida; ese sentido, repetimos, sin el cual es mejor que un joven no hubiera nacido y que un hombre maduro muriera antes de abandonarlo o renunciar a él. A Holgrave le parecía -como sin duda les ha parecido a todos los jóvenes desde los tiempos de Adán- que en esta época, más que en ninguna otra, había que destruir el podrido pasado, enterrar su cadáver y comenzar de nuevo. |
| As to the main point,--may we never live to doubt it !--as to the better centuries that are coming, the artist was surely right. His error lay in supposing that this age, more than any past or future one, is destined to see the tattered garments of Antiquity exchanged for a new suit, instead of gradually renewing themselves by patchwork; in applying his own little life-span as the measure of an interminable achievement; and, more than all, in fancying that it mattered anything to the great end in view whether he himself should contend for it or against it. Yet it was well for him to think so. This enthusiasm, infusing itself through the calmness of his character, and thus taking an aspect of settled thought and wisdom, would serve to keep his youth pure, and make his aspirations high. And when, with the years settling down more weightily upon him, his early faith should be modified by inevitable experience, it would be with no harsh and sudden revolution of his sentiments. He would still have faith in man′s brightening destiny, and perhaps love him all the better, as he should recognize his helplessness in his own behalf; and the haughty faith, with which he began life, would be well bartered for a far humbler one at its close, in discerning that man′s best directed effort accomplishes a kind of dream, while God is the sole worker of realities. | En cuanto al punto principal -¡Dios nos libre de dudar de él !-, en cuanto a los siglos mejores que se acercan, el artista estaba seguro. Su error radicaba en suponer que nuestra época, mejor que otra, está destinada a ver los trajes andrajosos de la antigÜedad sustituidos por otros nuevos, en vez de irlos renovando gradualmente a fuerza de remiendos. Su error era aplicar el pequeño espacio de su vida como medida de una hazaña interminable y, más que nada, imaginar que no importaba para el objetivo final, que daba lo mismo que estuviera a su favor o en contra. Para él, lo mejor era pensar así. Ese entusiasmo, calando en la serenidad de su carácter y adoptando por ello un aspecto de cosa pensada y sensata, contribuía a conservar pura su juventud y elevada su aspiración. Cuando los años se fueran acumulando y la fe primera se modificara por la experiencia, no sufriría ningún cambio doloroso en sus sentimientos. Seguiría teniendo fe en el brillante destino del hombre al que tal vez amaría más al reconocer la impotencia de su propia conducta. La fe con que empezó a vivir se haría más humilde, al ver que los esfuerzos humanos mejor dirigidos realizan sólo una especie de sueño y que Dios es el único autor de realidades. |
| Holgrave had read very little, and that little in passing through the thoroughfare of life, where the mystic language of his books was necessarily mixed up with the babble of the multitude, so that both one and the other were apt to lose any sense that might have been properly their own. He considered himself a thinker, and was certainly of a thoughtful turn, but, with his own path to discover, had perhaps hardly yet reached the point where an educated man begins to think. The true value of his character lay in that deep consciousness of inward strength, which made all his past vicissitudes seem merely like a change of garments; in that enthusiasm, so quiet that he scarcely knew of its existence, but which gave a warmth to everything that he laid his hand on; in that personal ambition, hidden--from his own as well as other eyes--among his more generous impulses, but in which lurked a certain efficacy, that might solidify him from a theorist into the champion of some practicable cause. Altogether in his culture and want of culture,--in his crude, wild, and misty philosophy, and the practical experience that counteracted some of its tendencies; in his magnanimous zeal for man′s welfare, and his recklessness of whatever the ages had established in man′s behalf; in his faith, and in his infidelity; in what he had, and in what he lacked,--the artist might fitly enough stand forth as the representative of many compeers in his native land. | Holgrave había leído muy poco, y aun ese poco en el curso de su quehacer cotidiano, de modo que el místico lenguaje de los libros se mezclaba con el parloteo de la multitud, hasta que unos y otros perdían su propio sentido. Se consideraba un pensador y era realmente un individuo reflexivo, pero como tenía que descubrir su propio camino, no había llegado aún al punto en que un hombre culto cree que comienza a pensar. El verdadero valor de su carácter residía en la conciencia de su fuerza interior, que convertía las pasadas vicisitudes como en un mero cambio de traje; en su entusiasmo, tan poco visible, y que apenas si tenía noticia de su existencia, pero que caldeaba todo lo que tocaba; en su ambición, oculta entre otros impulsos más generosos, pero en la cual brillaba una eficacia capaz de convertir aquel idealista en campeón de alguna causa práctica. Además, en su cultura y en su falta de cultura, en su cruda y nebulosa filosofía y en la experiencia práctica que contrarrestaba muchas de sus tendencias, en su generoso celo por el bienestar humano, en su indiferencia por lo que las edades habían establecido, en su fe y en su infidelidad, en lo que le faltaba, en todo ello Holgrave podía considerarse digno representante de muchos jóvenes de su tierra natal. |
| His career it would be difficult to prefigure. There appeared to be qualities in Holgrave, such as, in a country where everything is free to the hand that can grasp it, could hardly fail to put some of the world′s prizes within his reach. But these matters are delightfully uncertain. At almost every step in life, we meet with young men of just about Holgrave′s age, for whom we anticipate wonderful things, but of whom, even after much and careful inquiry, we never happen to hear another word. The effervescence of youth and passion, and the fresh gloss of the intellect and imagination, endow them with a false brilliancy, which makes fools of themselves and other people. Like certain chintzes, calicoes, and ginghams, they show finely in their first newness, but cannot stand the sun and rain, and assume a very sober aspect after washing-day. | Sería difícil predecir su carrera. Poseía óptimas cualidades, de modo que, en un país donde todo está a disposición de la mano que pueda cogerlo, no podía dejar de haber algunas de las cosas buenas del mundo a su alcance/Pero estos son asuntos deliciosamente inciertos. Casi en todos nuestros pasos por la vida nos encontramos con jóvenes como Holgrave, de los cuales podemos anticipar cosas maravillosas, pero de quienes a pesar de nuestra atención, no volvemos a oír ni una palabra. La efervescencia de la juventud y la pasión, el brillo del intelecto y la imaginación les dota de un falso prestigio que engaña a ellos mismos y a los demás. |
| But our business is with Holgrave as we find him on this particular afternoon, and in the arbor of the Pyncheon garden. In that point of view, it was a pleasant sight to behold this young man, with so much faith in himself, and so fair an appearance of admirable powers,--so little harmed, too, by the many tests that had tried his metal,--it was pleasant to see him in his kindly intercourse with Phoebe. Her thought had scarcely done him justice when it pronounced him cold; or, if so, he had grown warmer now. Without such purpose on her part, and unconsciously on his, she made the House of the Seven Gables like a home to him, and the garden a familiar precinct. With the insight on which he prided himself, he fancied that he could look through Phoebe, and all around her, and could read her off like a page of a child′s story-book. But these transparent natures are often deceptive in their depth; those pebbles at the bottom of the fountain are farther from us than we think. Thus the artist, whatever he might judge of Phoebe′s capacity, was beguiled, by some silent charm of hers, to talk freely of what he dreamed of doing in the world. He poured himself out as to another self. Very possibly, he forgot Phoebe while he talked to her, and was moved only by the inevitable tendency of thought, when rendered sympathetic by enthusiasm and emotion, to flow into the first safe reservoir which it finds. But, had you peeped at them through the chinks of the garden-fence, the young man′s earnestness and heightened color might have led you to suppose that he was making love to the young girl ! | Pero nosotros sólo hemos de ocuparnos del Holgrave que encontramos en una tarde determinada, en el cenador del jardín de La Casa de los Siete Tejados. Desde este punto de vista, resultaba agradable contemplar al joven artista, tan confiado en sí mismo, tan dotado, aparentemente, de admirables poderes, tan poco maleado por las pruebas innumerables... Era agradable contemplarle conversando con Phoebe. Esta no le había hecho justicia, al juzgarle frío o, en todo caso, ahora había dejado de serlo. Sin que Phoebe se lo propusiera y sin que Holgrave se diera cuenta, la muchacha convertía La Casa de los Siete Tejados en una especie de hogar para él, y el jardín en un recinto familiar. Con la penetración de que se vanagloriaba, se imaginaba que podía ver a través de Phoebe y leer en ella como en la página de un libro para niños. Pero esas naturalezas transparentes suelen ser engañosas en su profundidad. Los guijarros del fondo de la fuente son muy distintos de como los vemos. Así, el artista, juzgara como juzgase la capacidad de Phoebe, se sentía impulsado, por algún silencioso encanto de ella, a hablar ampliamente de lo que soñaba hacer en el mundo. Se expansionaba, se derramaba, por. así decirlo, en otro yo. Es posible que se olvidase de Phoebe, al hablarle, y se sintiera impulsado únicamente por la inevitable tendencia del pensamiento a lanzarse sobre el primer recipiente que se encuentra, cuando la emoción y el entusiasmo lo hacen desbordar. Si hubierais visto a través del follaje, el ardor, la vehemencia del joven y su rostro encendido, quizá os hubieran llevado a sospechar que estaba cortejando a la muchacha. |
| At length, something was said by Holgrave that made it apposite for Phoebe to inquire what had first brought him acquainted with her cousin Hepzibah, and why he now chose to lodge in the desolate old Pyncheon House. Without directly answering her, he turned from the Future, which had heretofore been the theme of his discourse, and began to speak of the influences of the Past. One subject, indeed, is but the reverberation of the other. | En el curso de la charla, Phoebe le preguntó cuándo conoció a Hepzibah y cómo se le ocurrió alojarse en el desolado caserón. Sin contestarle directamente, Holgrave empezó a hablar de las influencias del pasado, tema que no era en verdad más que la reverberación del otro. |
| "Shall we never, never get rid of this Past ?" cried he, keeping up the earnest tone of his preceding conversation. "It lies upon the Present like a giant′s dead body In fact, the case is just as if a young giant were compelled to waste all his strength in carrying about the corpse of the old giant, his grandfather, who died a long while ago, and only needs to be decently buried. Just think a moment, and it will startle you to see what slaves we are to bygone times,--to Death, if we give the matter the right word !" | -¿Es que nunca, nunca nos libraremos del pasado ? -exclamó el artista, conservando el tono vehemente anterior-. Yace sobre el presente como el cadáver de un gigante viejo, abuelo suyo, que murió hace mucho tiempo y sólo quiere′ser enterrado decorosamente. Reflexione un momento y verá qué esclavos somos de los tiempos ya idos... de la muerte, para decirlo con la palabra exacta. |
| "But I do not see it," observed Phoebe. | -Pues yo no lo veo -observó Phoebe. |
| "For example, then," continued Holgrave: "a dead man, if he happens to have made a will, disposes of wealth no longer his own; or, if he die intestate, it is distributed in accordance with the notions of men much longer dead than he. A dead man sits on all our judgment-seats; and living judges do but search out and repeat his decisions. We read in dead men′s books ! We laugh at dead men′s jokes, and cry at dead men′s pathos ! We are sick of dead men′s diseases, physical and moral, and die of the same remedies with which dead doctors killed their patients ! We worship the living Deity according to dead men′s forms and creeds. Whatever we seek to do, of our own free motion, a dead man′s icy hand obstructs us ! Turn our eyes to what point we may, a dead man′s white, immitigable face encounters them, and freezes our very heart ! And we must be dead ourselves before we can begin to have our proper influence on our own world, which will then be no longer our world, but the world of another generation, with which we shall have no shadow of a right to interfere. I ought to have said, too, that we live in dead men′s houses; as, for instance, in this of the Seven Gables !" | -Por ejemplo -explicó Holgrave-: un muerto dispone en su testamento de bienes que ya no le pertenecen, y si muere intestado, se reparte su fortuna de acuerdo con nociones de hombres que han muerto mucho antes que él. Las leyes redactadas por legisladores ya desaparecidos sirven para decidir en los asuntos de los vivos. Leemos libros compuestos por escritores muertos. Nos reímos con los chistes inventados por los muertos, física y moralmente, y morimos de los mismos remedios con que doctores muertos mataron a sus pacientes. A cualquier cosa que queramos hacer por nuestra cuenta, siempre nos encontraremos con las manos heladas de un muerto que nos obstruye el camino. Volvamos la vista donde quiera que sea y nos encontraremos con el rostro lívido de un muerto que nos hiela el corazón. Y habremos muerto antes de que nuestra influencia se deje sentir en un mundo que no será ya nuestro mundo, sino el de otra generación, en el cual no tenemos ni sombra de derecho a intervenir... He olvidado decir que habitamos en las casas de los muertos, como esta de los Siete Tejados, por ejemplo. |
| "And why not," said Phoebe, "so long as we can be comfortable in them ?" | -¿Y por qué no -dijo Phoebe-, mientras estemos cómodos en ellas ? |
| "But we shall live to see the day, I trust," went on the artist, "when no man shall build his house for posterity. Why should he ? He might just as reasonably order a durable suit of clothes,--leather, or guttapercha, or whatever else lasts longest,--so that his great-grandchildren should have the benefit of them, and cut precisely the same figure in the world that he himself does. If each generation were allowed and expected to build its own houses, that single change, comparatively unimportant in itself, would imply almost every reform which society is now suffering for. I doubt whether even our public edifices--our capitols, state-houses, court-houses, city-hall, and churches,--ought to be built of such permanent materials as stone or brick. It were better that they should crumble to ruin once in twenty years, or thereabouts, as a hint to the people to examine into and reform the institutions which they symbolize." | -Sin embargo, espero vivir hasta el día en que nadie construya su casa para la posteridad. ¿Por qué ha de hacerlo ? Con el mismo motivo uno podría encargar un traje de cuero o gutapercha o de cualquier otro material de más duración, para que sus biznietos pudieran usarlo y hacer en el mundo el mismo papel que el bisabuelo. Si a cada generación se le permitiese edificar sus propias casas, ese cambio, relativamente leve en sí mismo, acarrearía todas las reformas que necesita la sociedad. Dudo de si nuestros edificios públicos tendrían que ser construidos oon piedra sillar. Lo mejor sería que se derrumbaran a los veinte o treinta años, como una insinuación de que hay que examinar las instituciones que simbolizan para saber si aún son útiles. |
| "How you hate everything old !" said Phoebe in dismay. "It makes me dizzy to think of such a shifting world !" | -¡Cómo odia usted las cosas viejas ! -comentó Phoebe algo alarmada-. Me da vértigo de pensar en un mundo tan cambiado. |
| "I certainly love nothing mouldy," answered Holgrave. "Now, this old Pyncheon House ! Is it a wholesome place to live in, with its black shingles, and the green moss that shows how damp they are ?--its dark, low-studded rooms--its grime and sordidness, which are the crystallization on its walls of the human breath, that has been drawn and exhaled here in discontent and anguish ? The house ought to be purified with fire,--purified till only its ashes remain !" | -No me gusta lo enmohecido... Esta casa vieja de los Pyncheon, ¿es un lugar saludable para vivir, con sus muros cubiertos de musgo., con sus habitaciones bajas de techo, sombrías, sin aire... con su sordidez, que es la cristalización en las paredes del aliento que han exhalado entre ellas personas angustiadas y desgraciadas ?... Habría que purificar esta casa con fuego... hasta que sólo quedaran sus cenizas. |
| "Then why do you live in it ?" asked Phoebe, a little piqued. | -Entonces, ¿por qué vive usted en ella ? -preguntó Phoebe. |
| "Oh, I am pursuing my studies here; not in books, however," replied Holgrave. "The house, in my view, is expressive of that odious and abominable Past, with all its bad influences, against which I have just been declaiming. I dwell in it for a while, that I may know the better how to hate it. By the bye, did you ever hear the story of Maule, the wizard, and what happened between him and your immeasurably great-grandfather ?" | -Porque aquí continúo mis estudios -repuso él- aunque no en los libros... La casa es una expresión del pasado con todas sus influencias. Vivo en ella para aprender mejor a odiarlo.... A propósito, ¿ha oído usted la historia de Maule, el brujo, y de lo que ocurrió entre él y el inconmensurable bisabuelo de ustedes, los Pyncheon ? |
| "Yes, indeed !" said Phoebe; "I heard it long ago, from my father, and two or three times from my cousin Hepzibah, in the month that I have been here. She seems to think that all the calamities of the Pyncheons began from that quarrel with the wizard, as you call him. And you, Mr. Holgrave look as if you thought so too ! How singular that you should believe what is so very absurd, when you reject many things that are a great deal worthier of credit !" | -Si -dijo Phoebe-. Hace mucho tiempo que me lo contó mi padre y mi prima Hepzibah me la ha repetido dos o tres veces, en el mes que llevo aquí. Parece que opina que las calamidades de los Pyncheon arrancan de la disputa con aquel brujo. Y usted míster Holgrave, usted parece que también lo cree. ¡Qué extraño qué acepte cosa tan absurda, a la vez que rechaza otras muchas más dignas de crédito ! |
| "I do believe it," said the artist seriously; "not as a superstition, however, but as proved by unquestionable facts, and as exemplifying a theory. Now, see: under those seven gables, at which we now look up,--and which old Colonel Pyncheon meant to be the house of his descendants, in prosperity and happiness, down to an epoch far beyond the present,--under that roof, through a portion of three centuries, there has been perpetual remorse of conscience, a constantly defeated hope, strife amongst kindred, various misery, a strange form of death, dark suspicion, unspeakable disgrace,--all, or most of which calamity I have the means of tracing to the old Puritan′s inordinate desire to plant and endow a family. To plant a family ! This idea is at the bottom of most of the wrong and mischief which men do. The truth is, that, once in every half-century, at longest, a family should be merged into the great, obscure mass of humanity, and forget all about its ancestors. Human blood, in order to keep its freshness, should run in hidden streams, as the water of an aqueduct is conveyed in subterranean pipes. In the family existence of these Pyncheons, for instance,--forgive me Phoebe, but I cannot think of you as one of them,--in their brief New England pedigree, there has been time enough to infect them all with one kind of lunacy or another." | -Lo creo -explicó el artista con toda seriedad- no como una superstición, sino como un caso demostrado por hechos indiscutibles, como un caso que sirve de ejemplo a una teoría. Fíjese usted... bajo esos siete tejados que estamos mirando y que el coronel Pyncheon deseaba que fueran el hogar de sus descendientes, prósperos y felices, bajo ese techo, durante un tiempo que abarca parte de tres siglos, ha habido perpetuo remordimiento de conciencia, esperanzas frustradas, disputas entre parientes, miserias, obscuras sospechas, muertes extrañas, desgracias inexplicables... Y todas esas calamidades pueden achacarse al afán del viejo coronel por fundar una familia poderosa. Esta idea se halla en el fondo de casi todos los daños que causan los hombres. La verdad es que en medio siglo, una familia debiera sumergirse en la obscura masa de la humanidad y olvidar por completo a sus antepasados. La sangre humana, para conservarse sana, debe correr por cauces ocultos, igual que el agua de un acueducto es conducida por tuberías subterráneas. En la existencia de esos Pyncheon, por ejemplo... Perdóneme, Phoebe, pero yo no puedo pensar en usted como en uno de ellos: en su breve genealogía en Nueva Inglaterra ha sobrado tiempo para infectarles a todos con una u otra clase de demencia. |
| "You speak very unceremoniously of my kindred," said Phoebe, debating with herself whether she ought to take offence. | -Habla usted con muy pocas ceremonias de mis parientes -atajó Phoebe, dudando de si debía ofenderse o no. |
| "I speak true thoughts to a true mind !" answered Holgrave, with a vehemence which Phoebe had not before witnessed in him. "The truth is as I say ! Furthermore, the original perpetrator and father of this mischief appears to have perpetuated himself, and still walks the street,--at least, his very image, in mind and body,--with the fairest prospect of transmitting to posterity as rich and as wretched an inheritance as he has received ! Do you remember the daguerreotype, and its resemblance to the old portrait ?" | -Expongo la verdad -contestó Holgrave con una vehemencia que Phoebe jamás le había notado hasta entonces-. Más aún: el perpetuador y padre de esas injusticias o fechorías parece haberse perpetuado y todavía pasea por las calles... por lo menos su propia imagen en cuerpo y alma... con el lindo proyecto de transmitir a sus descendientes la misma herencia maldita que él recibió ¿Recuerda usted mi retrato y su parecido con el cuadro del salón ? |
| "How strangely in earnest you are !" exclaimed Phoebe, looking at him with surprise and perplexity; half alarmed and partly inclined to laugh. "You talk of the lunacy of the Pyncheons; is it contagious ?" | -¡Con qué vehemencia más extraña habla usted ! -exclamó Phoebe, mirándole sorprendida y perpleja, medio alarmada y en parte inclinada a reír-. Se ha referido a la demencia de los Pyncheon... Dígame, ¿es contagiosa ? |
| "I understand you !" said the artist, coloring and laughing. "I believe I am a little mad. This subject has taken hold of my mind with the strangest tenacity of clutch since I have lodged in yonder old gable. As one method of throwing it off, I have put an incident of the Pyncheon family history, with which I happen to be acquainted, into the form of a legend, and mean to publish it in a magazine." | -¡Ya la entiendo ! -rió el artista sonrojándose-. Yo también creo que estoy algo loco. Este tema de los Pyncheon se ha apoderado de mi espíritu desde que vivo en la vieja buhardilla de esta casa. Para ver si me libraba de ella, ríe escrito, bajo la forma de la leyenda, el relato de uno de los incidentes de la historia de la familia Pyncheon. Quizá lo publique en una revista. |
| "Do you write for the magazines ?" inquired Phoebe. | -¿Escribe usted para las revistas ? -preguntó Phoebe. |
| "Is it possible you did not know it ?" cried Holgrave. "Well, such is literary fame ! Yes. Miss Phoebe Pyncheon, among the multitude of my marvellous gifts I have that of writing stories; and my name has figured, I can assure you, on the covers of Graham and Godey, making as respectable an appearance, for aught I could see, as any of the canonized bead-roll with which it was associated. In the humorous line, I am thought to have a very pretty way with me; and as for pathos, I am as provocative of tears as an onion. But shall I read you my story ?" | -¿Es posible que no lo sepa usted ? -exclamó Holgrave-. ¡Lo que es la gloria literaria ! Sí, miss Phoebe Pyncheon. Entre mis múltiples y maravillosas dotes está la de escribir historias, y puedo asegurarle que mi nombre ha figurado en las cubiertas de las revistas Graham y Godey. Me han asegurado que puedo ser un buen humorista, y en cuanto a sentimentalismo, hago derramar más lágrimas que una cebolla... ¿Quiere que le lea mi relato ? |
| "Yes, if it is not very long," said Phoebe,--and added laughingly,--"nor very dull." | Sí..., si no es muy largo-dijo Phoebe. Añadió riendo-, y si no es muy soso. |
| As this latter point was one which the daguerreotypist could not decide for himself, he forthwith produced his roll of manuscript, and, while the late sunbeams gilded the seven gables, began to read. | Como este último punto no podía garantizarlo. Holgrave se limitó a ir a buscar su manuscrito y cuando los postreros rayos del sol comenzaban a dorar los siete tejados inició la lectura. |