The Wapshot Chronicle полностью

Side by side the old men returned through the garden and Leander said good-by to Grimes in front of the central building. Then he went down the driveway, obliged to struggle to give the impression that he was not hurried. He was relieved when he got outside the gates. It was a long time before the bus came along and when one did appear he shouted, “Hello there. Stop stop, stop for me.”

He could not help Grimes; he could not, he realized when the bus approached St. Botolphs and he saw a sign, VISIT THE S.S. TOPAZE, THE ONLY FLOATING GIFT SHOPPE IN NEW ENGLAND, help himself. He hoped that the tea party would be over but when he approached the farm he found many cars parked on the lawn and the sides of the driveway. He swung wide around the house and went in at the back door and up the stairs to his room. It was late then and from his window he could see the Topaze—the twinkling of candles—and hear the voices of ladies drinking tea. The sight made him feel that he was being made ridiculous; that a public spectacle was being made of his mistakes and his misfortunes. He remembered his father then with tenderness and fear as if he had dreaded, all along, some end like Aaron’s. He guessed the ladies would talk about him and he only had to listen at the window to hear. “He drove her onto Gull Rock in broad daylight,” Mrs. Gates said as she went down the path to the wharf. “Theophilus thinks he was drunk.”

What a tender thing, then, is a man. How, for all his crotch-hitching and swagger, a whisper can turn his soul into a cinder. The taste of alum in the rind of a grape, the smell of the sea, the heat of the spring sun, berries bitter and sweet, a grain of sand in his teeth—all of that which he meant by life seemed taken away from him. Where were the serene twilights of his old age? He would have liked to pluck out his eyes. Watching the candlelight on his ship—he had brought her home through gales and tempests—he felt ghostly and emasculated. Then he went to his bureau drawer and took from under the dried rose and the wreath of hair his loaded pistol. He went to the window. The fires of the day were burning out like a conflagration in some industrial city and above the barn cupola he saw the evening star, as sweet and round as a human tear. He fired his pistol out of the window and then fell down on the floor.

He had underestimated the noise of teacups and ladies’ voices and no one on the Topaze heard the shot—only Lulu, who was in the kitchen, getting some hot water. She climbed the back stairs and hurried down the hall to his room and screamed when she opened the door. When he heard her voice Leander got to his knees. “Oh, Lulu, Lulu, you weren’t the one I wanted to hurt. I didn’t mean you. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Are you all right, Leander? Are you hurt?”

“I’m foolish,” Leander said.

“Oh, poor Leander,” Lulu said, helping him to his feet. “Poor soul. I told her she shouldn’t have done it. I told her in the kitchen many times that it would hurt your feelings, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“I only want to be esteemed,” Leander said.

“Poor soul,” Lulu said. “You poor soul.”

“You won’t tell anyone what you saw,” Leander said.

“No.”

“You promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Swear that you won’t tell anyone what you saw.”

“I swear.”

“Swear on the Bible. Let me find the Bible. Where’s my Bible? Where’s my old Bible?” Then he searched the room wildly, lifting up and putting down books and papers and throwing open drawers and looking into book shelves and chests, but he couldn’t find the Bible. There was a little American flag stuck into the mirror above his bureau and he took this and held it out to Lulu. “Swear on the flag, Lulu, swear on the American flag that you won’t tell anyone what you saw.”

“I swear.”

“I only want to be esteemed.”

Although the administration of Island 93 was half military and half civilian, the military, having charge of transportation, communication and provisions, often dominated the civilian administrators. So Coverly was called to the military communications office one early evening and handed a copy of a cable that had been sent by Lulu Breckenridge. YOUR FATHER IS DYING. “Sorry, fellow,” the officer said. “You can go to communications but I don’t think they’ll do anything for you. You’re signed up for nine months.” Coverly dropped the cable into the wastebasket and walked out of the office.