Eugene Aram Complete - Бульвер-Литтон Эдвард Джордж 9 стр.

Well, Walter, said he, I feel, for the first time in these ten years, I have a right to scold you. What on earth could make you so inhospitable to your uncles guest? You eyed the poor student, as if you wished him among the books of Alexandria!

I would he were burnt with them! answered Walter, sharply. He seems to have added the black art to his other accomplishments, and bewitched my fair cousins here into a forgetfulness of all but himself.

Not me! said Ellinor eagerly, and looking up.

No, not you, thats true enough; you are too just, too kind;it is a pity that Madeline is not more like you.

My dear Walter, said Madeline, what is the matter? You accuse me of what? being attentive to a man whom it is impossible to hear without attention!

There! cried Walter passionately; you confess it; and so for a stranger,a cold, vain, pedantic egotist, you can shut your ears and heart to those who have known and loved you all your life; andand

Vain! interrupted Madeline, unheeding the latter part of Walters address.

Pedantic! repeated her father.

Yes! I say vain, pedantic! cried Walter, working himself into a passion. What on earth but the love of display could make him monopolize the whole conversation?What but pedantry could make him bring out those anecdotes and allusions, and descriptions, or whatever you call them, respecting every old wall or stupid plant in the country?

I never thought you guilty of meanness before, said Lester gravely.

Meanness!

Yes! for is it not mean to be jealous of superior acquirements, instead of admiring them?

What has been the use of those acquirements? Has he benefited mankind by them? Shew me the poetthe historianthe orator, and I will yield to none of you; no, not to Madeline herself in homage of their genius: but the mere creature of booksthe dry and sterile collector of other mens learningnono. What should I admire in such a machine of literature, except a waste of perseverance?And Madeline calls him handsome too!

At this sudden turn from declamation to reproach, Lester laughed outright; and his nephew, in high anger, rose and left the room.

Who could have thought Walter so foolish? said Madeline.

Nay, observed Ellinor gently, it is the folly of a kind heart, after all. He feels sore at our seeming to prefer anotherI mean anothers conversationto his!

Lester turned round in his chair, and regarded with a serious look, the faces of both sisters.

My dear Ellinor, said he, when he had finished his survey, you are a kind girlcome and kiss me!

CHAPTER VI.

THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE STUDENT.A SUMMER SCENEARAMS

CONVERSATION WITH WALTER, AND SUBSEQUENT COLLOQUY WITH

HIMSELF

Several days elapsed before the family of the manor-house encountered Aram again. The old woman came once or twice to present the inquiries of her master as to Miss Lesters accident; but Aram himself did not appear. This want to interest certainly offended Madeline, although she still drew upon herself Walters displeasure, by disputing and resenting the unfavourable strictures on the scholar, in which that young gentleman delighted to indulge. By degrees, however, as the days passed without maturing the acquaintance which Walter had disapproved, the youth relaxed in his attacks, and seemed to yield to the remonstrances of his uncle. Lester had, indeed, conceived an especial inclination towards the recluse. Any man of reflection, who has lived for some time alone, and who suddenly meets with one who calls forth in him, and without labour or contradiction, the thoughts which have sprung up in his solitude, scarcely felt in their growth, will comprehend the new zest, the awakening, as it were, of the mind, which Lester found in the conversation of Eugene Aram. His solitary walk (for his nephew had the separate pursuits of youth) appeared to him more dull than before; and he longed to renew an intercourse which had given to the monotony of his life both variety and relief. He called twice upon Aram, but the student was, or affected to be, from home; and an invitation he sent him, though couched in friendly terms, was, but with great semblance of kindness, refused.

See, Walter, said Lester, disconcerted, as he finished reading the refusalsee what your rudeness has effected. I am quite convinced that Aram (evidently a man of susceptible as well as retired mind) observed the coldness of your manner towards him, and that thus you have deprived me of the only society which, in this country of boors and savages, gave me any gratification.

Walter replied apologetically, but his uncle turned away with a greater appearance of anger than his placid features were wont to exhibit; and Walter, cursing the innocent cause of his uncles displeasure towards him, took up his fishing-rod and went out alone, in no happy or exhilarated mood.

It was waxing towards evean hour especially lovely in the month of June, and not without reason favoured by the angler. Walter sauntered across the rich and fragrant fields, and came soon into a sheltered valley, through which the brooklet wound its shadowy way. Along the margin the grass sprung up long and matted, and profuse with a thousand weeds and flowersthe children of the teeming June. Here the ivy-leaved bell-flower, and not far from it the common enchanters night-shade, the silver weed, and the water-aven; and by the hedges that now and then neared the water, the guelder-rose, and the white briony, overrunning the thicket with its emerald leaves and luxuriant flowers. And here and there, silvering the bushes, the elder offered its snowy tribute to the summer. All the insect youth were abroad, with their bright wings and glancing motion; and from the lower depths of the bushes the blackbird darted across, or higher and unseen the first cuckoo of the eve began its continuous and mellow note. All this cheeriness and gloss of life, which enamour us with the few bright days of the English summer, make the poetry in an anglers life, and convert every idler at heart into a moralist, and not a gloomy one, for the time.

Softened by the quiet beauty and voluptuousness around him, Walters thoughts assumed a more gentle dye, and he broke out into the old lines:

Sweet day, so soft, so calm, so bright; The bridal of the earth and sky, as he dipped his line into the current, and drew it across the shadowy hollows beneath the bank. The river-gods were not, however, in a favourable mood, and after waiting in vain for some time, in a spot in which he was usually successful, he proceeded slowly along the margin of the brooklet, crushing the reeds at every step, into that fresh and delicious odour, which furnished Bacon with one of his most beautiful comparisons.

He thought, as he proceeded, that beneath a tree that overhung the waters in the narrowest part of their channel, he heard a voice, and as he approached he recognised it as Arams; a curve in the stream brought him close by the spot, and he saw the student half reclined beneath the tree, and muttering, but at broken intervals, to himself.

The words were so scattered, that Walter did not trace their clue; but involuntarily he stopped short, within a few feet of the soliloquist: and Aram, suddenly turning round, beheld him. A fierce and abrupt change broke over the scholars countenance; his cheek grew now pale, now flushed; and his brows knit over his flashing and dark eyes with an intent anger, that was the more withering, from its contrast to the usual calmness of his features. Walter drew back, but Aram stalking directly up to him, gazed into his face, as if he would read his very soul.

What! eaves-dropping? said he, with a ghastly smile. You overheard me, did you? Well, well, what said I?what said I? Then pausing, and noting that Walter did not reply, he stamped his foot violently, and grinding his teeth, repeated in a smothered tone Boy! what said I?

Mr. Aram, said Walter, you forget yourself; I am not one to play the listener, more especially to the learned ravings of a man who can conceal nothing I care to know. Accident brought me hither.

What! surelysurely I spoke aloud, did I not?did I not?

You did, but so incoherently and indistinctly, that I did not profit by your indiscretion. I cannot plagiarise, I assure you, from any scholastic designs you might have been giving vent to.

Aram looked on him for a moment, and then breathing heavily, turned away.

Pardon me, he said; I am a poor half-crazed man; much study has unnerved me; I should never live but with my own thoughts; forgive me, Sir, I pray you.

Touched by the sudden contrition of Arams manner, Walter forgot, not only his present displeasure, but his general dislike; he stretched forth his hand to the Student, and hastened to assure him of his ready forgiveness. Aram sighed deeply as he pressed the young mans hand, and Walter saw, with surprise and emotion, that his eyes were filled with tears.

Ah! said Aram, gently shaking his head, it is a hard life we bookmen lead. Not for us is the bright face of noon-day or the smile of woman, the gay unbending of the heart, the neighing steed, and the shrill trump; the pride, pomp, and circumstance of life. Our enjoyments are few and calm; our labour constant; but that is it not, Sir?that is it not? the body avenges its own neglect. We grow old before our time; we wither up; the sap of youth shrinks from our veins; there is no bound in our step. We look about us with dimmed eyes, and our breath grows short and thick, and pains and coughs, and shooting aches come upon us at night; it is a bitter lifea bitter lifea joyless life. I would I had never commenced it. And yet the harsh world scowls upon us: our nerves are broken, and they wonder we are querulous; our blood curdles, and they ask why we are not gay; our brain grows dizzy and indistinct, (as with me just now,) and, shrugging their shoulders, they whisper their neighbours that we are mad. I wish I had worked at the plough, and known sleep, and loved mirthandand not been what I am.

As the Student uttered the last sentence, he bowed down his head, and a few tears stole silently down his cheek. Walter was greatly affectedit took him by surprise; nothing in Arams ordinary demeanour betrayed any facility to emotion; and he conveyed to all the idea of a man, if not proud, at least cold.

You do not suffer bodily pain, I trust? asked Walter, soothingly.

Pain does not conquer me, said Aram, slowly recovering himself. I am not melted by that which I would fain despise. Young man, I wronged youyou have forgiven me. Well, well, we will say no more on that head; it is past and pardoned. Your father has been kind to me, and I have not returned his advances; you shall tell him why. I have lived thirteen years by myself, and I have contracted strange ways and many humours not common to the worldyou have seen an example of this. Judge for yourself if I be fit for the smoothness, and confidence, and ease of social intercourse; I am not fit, I feel it! I am doomed to be alonetell your father thistell him to suffer me to live so! I am grateful for his goodnessI know his motivesbut have a certain pride of mind; I cannot bear sufferanceI loath indulgence. Nay, interrupt me not, I beseech you. Look round on Naturebehold the only company that humbles me notexcept the dead whose souls speak to us from the immortality of books. These herbs at your feet, I know their secretsI watch the mechanism of their life; the windsthey have taught me their language; the starsI have unravelled their mysteries; and these, the creatures and ministers of Godthese I offend not by my moodto them I utter my thoughts, and break forth into my dreams, without reserve and without fear. But men disturb meI have nothing to learn from themI have no wish to confide in them; they cripple the wild liberty which has become to me a second nature. What its shell is to the tortoise, solitude has become to memy protection; nay, my life!

But, said Walter, with us, at least, you would not have to dread restraint; you might come when you would; be silent or converse, according to your will.

Aram smiled faintly, but made no immediate reply.

So, you have been angling! he said, after a short pause, and as if willing to change the thread of conversation. Fie! It is a treacherous pursuit; it encourages mans worst propensitiescruelty and deceit.

I should have thought a lover of Nature would have been more indulgent to a pastime which introduces us to her most quiet retreats.

And cannot Nature alone tempt you without need of such allurements? What! that crisped and winding stream, with flowers on its very tidethe water-violet and the water-lilythese silent brakesthe cool of the gathering eveningthe still and luxuriance of the universal life around you; are not these enough of themselves to tempt you forth? if not, go toyour excuse is hypocrisy.

I am used to these scenes, replied Walter; I am weary of the thoughts they produce in me, and long for any diversion or excitement.

Ay, ay, young man! The mind is restless at your agehave a care. Perhaps you long to visit the worldto quit these obscure haunts which you are fatigued in admiring?

It may be so, said Walter, with a slight sigh. I should at least like to visit our great capital, and note the contrast; I should come back, I imagine, with a greater zest to these scenes.

Aram laughed. My friend, said he, when men have once plunged into the great sea of human toil and passion, they soon wash away all love and zest for innocent enjoyments. What once was a soft retirement, will become the most intolerable monotony; the gaming of social existencethe feverish and desperate chances of honour and wealth, upon which the men of cities set their hearts, render all pursuits less exciting, utterly insipid and dull. The brook and the angleha!ha!these are not occupations for men who have once battled with the world.

I can forego them, then, without regret; said Walter, with the sanguineness of his years. Aram looked upon him wistfully; the bright eye, the healthy cheek, and vigorous frame of the youth, suited with his desire to seek the conflict of his kind, and gave a naturalness to his ambition, which was not without interest, even to the recluse.