The Professor / Учитель. Книга для чтения на английском языке

But my boyhood was lonely, parentless; uncheered by brother or sister; and there was no marvel that, just as I rose to youth, a sorceress, finding me lost in vague mental wanderings, with many affections and few objects, glowing aspirations and gloomy prospects, strong desires and slender hopes, should lift up her illusive lamp to me in the distance, and lure me to her vaulted home of horrors. No wonder her spells THEN had power; but NOW, when my course was widening, my prospect brightening; when my affections had found a rest; when my desires, folding wings, weary with long flight, had just alighted on the very lap of fruition, and nestled there warm, content, under the caress of a soft hand – why did hypochondria accost me now?[486]

I repulsed her as one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine coming to embitter a husband’s heart toward his young bride; in vain; she kept her sway over me for that night and the next day, and eight succeeding days. Afterwards, my spirits began slowly to recover their tone; my appetite returned, and in a fortnight I was well. I had gone about as usual all the time, and had said nothing to anybody of what I felt; but I was glad when the evil spirit departed from me, and I could again seek Frances, and sit at her side, freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon.

Chapter XXIV

One fine, frosty Sunday in November, Frances and I took a long walk; we made the tour of the city by the Boulevards; and, afterwards, Frances being a little tired, we sat down on one of those wayside seats placed under the trees, at intervals, for the accommodation of the weary[487]. Frances was telling me about Switzerland; the subject animated her; and I was just thinking that her eyes spoke full as eloquently as her tongue, when she stopped and remarked:

“Monsieur, there is a gentleman who knows you.”

I looked up; three fashionably dressed men were just then passing – Englishmen, I knew by their air and gait as well as by their features; in the tallest of the trio I at once recognized Mr. Hunsden; he was in the act of lifting his hat to Frances; afterwards, he made a grimace at me[488], and passed on.

“Who is he?”

“A person I knew in England.”

“Why did he bow to me? He does not know me.”

“Yes, he does know you, in his way.”

“How, monsieur?” (She still called me “monsieur”; I could not persuade her to adopt any more familiar term.)

“Did you not read the expression of his eyes?”

“Of his eyes? No. What did they say?”

“To you they said, ‘How do you do, Wilhelmina Crimsworth?’ To me, ‘So you have found your counterpart at last[489]; there she sits, the female of your kind!’”

“Monsieur, you could not read all that in his eyes. He was so soon gone.”

“I read that and more, Frances; I read that he will probably call on me this evening, or on some future occasion shortly; and I have no doubt he will insist on being introduced to you; shall I bring him to your rooms?”

“If you please, monsieur – I have no objection; I think, indeed, I should rather like to see him nearer; he looks so original.”

As I had anticipated, Mr. Hunsden came that evening. The first thing he said was:

“You need not begin boasting, Monsieur le Professeur; I know about your appointment to – — College, and all that; Brown has told me.” Then he intimated that he had returned from Germany but a day or two since; afterwards, he abruptly demanded whether that was Madame Pelet-Reuter with whom he had seen me on the Boulevards. I was going to utter a rather emphatic negative, but on second thoughts I checked myself, and, seeming to assent, asked what he thought of her?

“As to her, I’ll come to that directly; but first I’ve a word for you. I see you are a scoundrel; you’ve no business to be promenading about with another man’s wife. I thought you had sounder sense than to get mixed up in foreign hodge-podge of this sort[490].”

“But the lady?”

“She’s too good for you evidently; she is like you, but something better than you – no beauty, though; yet when she rose (for I looked back to see you both walk away) I thought her figure and carriage good. These foreigners understand grace. What the devil has she done with Pelet? She has not been married to him three months – he must be a spoon!”

I would not let the mistake go too far; I did not like it much.

“Pelet? How your head runs on Mons. and Madame Pelet! You are always talking about them. I wish to the gods you had wed Mdlle. Zoraïde yourself!”

“Was that young gentlewoman not Mdlle. Zoraïde?”

“No; nor Madame Zoraïde either.”

“Why did you tell a lie, then?”

“I told no lie; but you are is such a hurry. She is a pupil of mine – a Swiss girl.”

“And of course you are going to be married to her? Don’t deny that.”

“Married! I think I shall – if Fate spares us both ten weeks longer. That is my little wild strawberry, Hunsden, whose sweetness made me careless of your hot-house grapes.”