The Little Lady of the Big House / Маленькая хозяйка большого дома. Книга для чтения на английском языке

And thus so well-keyed was he, that he expressed clearly his key. He had no flare for anything. He was that rare individual, normal, average, balanced, all-around.

When Mr. Davidson, in the presence of his fellow guardians, stated his pleasure in that Dick had shown no wildness since he had settled down, Dick replied:

“Oh, I can hold myself when I want to.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Slocum gravely. “It’s the finest thing in the world that you sowed your wild oats early[113] and learned control.”

Dick looked at him curiously.

“Why, that boyish adventure doesn’t count,” he said. “That wasn’t wildness. I haven’t gone wild yet. But watch me when I start. Do you know Kipling’s ‘Song of Diego Valdez’[114]? Let me quote you a bit of it. You see, Diego Valdez, like me, had good fortune. He rose so fast to be High Admiral of Spain that he found no time to take the pleasure he had merely tasted. He was lusty and husky, but he had no time, being too busy rising[115]. But always, he thought, he fooled himself with the thought, that his lustiness and huskiness would last, and, after he became High Admiral he could then have his pleasure. Always he remembered:

‘– comrades —
Old playmates on new seas —
When as we traded orpiment
Among the savages —
A thousand leagues to south’ard
And thirty years removed —
They knew not noble Valdez,
But me they knew and loved.
‘Then they that found good liquor
They drank it not alone,
And they that found fair plunder,
They told us every one,
Behind our chosen islands
Or secret shoals between,
When, walty from far voyage,
We gathered to careen.
‘There burned our breaming-fagots,
All pale along the shore:
There rose our worn pavilions —
A sail above an oar:
As flashed each yearning anchor
Through mellow seas afire,
So swift our careless captains
Rowed each to his desire.
‘Where lay our loosened harness?
Where turned our naked feet?
Whose tavern mid the palm-trees?
What quenchings of what heat?
Oh fountain in the desert!
Oh cistern in the waste!
Oh bread we ate in secret!
Oh cup we spilled in haste!
‘The youth new-taught of longing,
The widow curbed and wan —
The good wife proud at season,
And the maid aware of man;
All souls, unslaked, consuming,
Defrauded in delays,
Desire not more than quittance
Than I those forfeit days!’

“Oh, get him, get him, you three oldsters, as I’ve got him! Get what he saws next:

‘I dreamed to wait my pleasure,
Unchanged my spring would bide:
Wherefore, to wait my pleasure,
I put my spring aside,
Till, first in face of Fortune,
And last in mazed disdain,
I made Diego Valdez
High Admiral of Spain!

“Listen to me, guardians!” Dick cried on, his face a flame of passion. “Don’t forget for one moment that I am anything but unslaked, consuming[116]. I am. I burn. But I hold myself. Don’t think I am a dead one because I am a darn nice, meritorious boy at college. I am young. I am alive. I am all lusty and husky. But I make no mistake. I hold myself. I don’t start out now to blow up on the first lap. I am just getting ready. I am going to have my time.[117] I am not going to spill my cup in haste. And in the end I am not going to lament as Diego Valdez did:

‘There walks no wind ’neath heaven
Nor wave that shall restore
The old careening riot
And the clamorous, crowded shore —
The fountain in the desert,
The cistern in the waste,
The bread we ate in secret,
The cup we spilled in haste.’