登陆注册
15475700000024

第24章 IV(2)

Her hereditary reverence made her afraid to judge the character of the original so harshly as a perception of the truth compelled her to do. But still she gazed, because the face of the picture enabled her--at least, she fancied so--to read more accurately, and to a greater depth, the face which she had just seen in the street.

"This is the very man!" murmured she to herself. "Let Jaffrey Pyncheon smile as he will, there is that look beneath! Put on him a skull-cap, and a band, and a black cloak, and a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other,--then let Jaffrey smile as he might,--nobody would doubt that it was the old Pyncheon come again. He has proved himself the very man to build up a new house!

Perhaps, too, to draw down a new curse!"

Thus did Hepzibah bewilder herself with these fantasies of the old time. She had dwelt too much alone,--too long in the Pyncheon House, --until her very brain was impregnated with the dry-rot of its timbers.

She needed a walk along the noonday street to keep her sane.

By the spell of contrast, another portrait rose up before her, painted with more daring flattery than any artist would have ventured upon, but yet so delicately touched that the likeness remained perfect. Malbone's miniature, though from the same original, was far inferior to Hepzibah's air-drawn picture, at which affection and sorrowful remembrance wrought together.

Soft, mildly, and cheerfully contemplative, with full, red lips, just on the verge of a smile, which the eyes seemed to herald by a gentle kindling-up of their orbs! Feminine traits, moulded inseparably with those of the other sex! The miniature, likewise, had this last peculiarity; so that you inevitably thought of the original as resembling his mother, and she a lovely and lovable woman, with perhaps some beautiful infirmity of character, that made it all the pleasanter to know and easier to love her.

"Yes," thought Hepzibah, with grief of which it was only the more tolerable portion that welled up from her heart to her eyelids, "they persecuted his mother in him! He never was a Pyncheon!"But here the shop-bell rang; it was like a sound from a remote distance,--so far had Hepzibah descended into the sepulchral depths of her reminiscences. On entering the shop, she found an old man there, a humble resident of Pyncheon Street, and whom, for a great many years past, she had suffered to be a kind of familiar of the house. He was an immemorial personage, who seemed always to have had a white head and wrinkles, and never to have possessed but a single tooth, and that a half-decayed one, in the front of the upper jaw. Well advanced as Hepzibah was, she could not remember when Uncle Venner, as the neighborhood called him, had not gone up and down the street, stooping a little and drawing his feet heavily over the gravel or pavement.

But still there was something tough and vigorous about him, that not only kept him in daily breath, but enabled him to fill a place which would else have been vacant in the apparently crowded world. To go of errands with his slow and shuffling gait, which made you doubt how he ever was to arrive anywhere; to saw a small household's foot or two of firewood, or knock to pieces an old barrel, or split up a pine board for kindling-stuff; in summer, to dig the few yards of garden ground appertaining to a low-rented tenement, and share the produce of his labor at the halves; in winter, to shovel away the snow from the sidewalk, or open paths to the woodshed, or along the clothes-line; such were some of the essential offices which Uncle Venner performed among at least a score of families.

Within that circle, he claimed the same sort of privilege, and probably felt as much warmth of interest, as a clergyman does in the range of his parishioners. Not that he laid claim to the tithe pig; but, as an analogous mode of reverence, he went his rounds, every morning, to gather up the crumbs of the table and overflowings of the dinner-pot, as food for a pig of his own.

In his younger days--for, after all, there was a dim tradition that he had been, not young, but younger--Uncle Venner was commonly regarded as rather deficient, than otherwise, in his wits. In truth he had virtually pleaded guilty to the charge, by scarcely aiming at such success as other men seek, and by taking only that humble and modest part in the intercourse of life which belongs to the alleged deficiency. But now, in his extreme old age,--whether it were that his long and hard experience had actually brightened him, or that his decaying judgment rendered him less capable of fairly measuring himself,--the venerable man made pretensions to no little wisdom, and really enjoyed the credit of it. There was likewise, at times, a vein of something like poetry in him; it was the moss or wall-flower of his mind in its small dilapidation, and gave a charm to what might have been vulgar and commonplace in his earlier and middle life. Hepzibah had a regard for him, because his name was ancient in the town and had formerly been respectable. It was a still better reason for awarding him a species of familiar reverence that Uncle Venner was himself the most ancient existence, whether of man or thing, in Pyncheon Street, except the House of the Seven Gables, and perhaps the elm that overshadowed it.

This patriarch now presented himself before Hepzibah, clad in an old blue coat, which had a fashionable air, and must have accrued to him from the cast-off wardrobe of some dashing clerk. As for his trousers, they were of tow-cloth, very short in the legs, and bagging down strangely in the rear, but yet having a suitableness to his figure which his other garment entirely lacked. His hat had relation to no other part of his dress, and but very little to the head that wore it. Thus Uncle Venner was a miscellaneous old gentleman, partly himself, but, in good measure, somebody else; patched together, too, of different epochs; an epitome of times and fashions.

"So, you have really begun trade," said he,--" really begun trade!

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 归心之旅

    归心之旅

    匆匆岁月的流逝,你的心还在吗?历历在目的经历,伤感了多少曾经的单纯,往事早已不堪回首,却怎能回归本心!爱恨情仇的交替,演绎着一段刻骨铭心的传说,主人公无父无母,孤苦伶仃,他一个人如何能在这复杂的世界上存活,让我们来见证他的成长历程。最后他能在归心之旅中找到自己的归属吗?让我们拭目以待。
  • 甜蜜之恋:爱上小青梅

    甜蜜之恋:爱上小青梅

    她们与他们是青梅竹马,她们与他们的信任坚不可摧,可她们与他们却一次又一次错过对方,是因为爱的太深,还是根本不爱?请到本书一探究竟!“我不爱你!”“那你干嘛哭!”“你管的着吗?夜冷辰!你滚”
  • 快传之女主回归记

    快传之女主回归记

    小说世界崩溃女主都走向了失败道路,而千寻因一场事故,来到女主回归系统开始了她......后半生的.....额......事业生涯。
  • 六界之阑苏扣

    六界之阑苏扣

    现在,我可以想想当年你总说我太固执,因为你觉得我从不相信其他人付子卿,你可曾想过你在我心里不是其他人你害我受尽凌辱,你害他魂飞魄散,我不会放过你。如果我执剑而来,轻袍如雪,你会不会对我动心。
  • 永世玄灵

    永世玄灵

    流落街头孩子,兵分四道,倒霉成为帝国壮丁。伐木圣乐森林遇上永王,力寻梅兰竹菊笑天下。岁寒三姐妹与雪王,一起守候着永世不变容颜。天帝玄,风沙雪漠录,也不过是三千年故事儿!
  • 妖王冷妃

    妖王冷妃

    她是叛相之女,却因爱留在深宫中卑微屈辱的活着,当异世的灵魂奇迹般占领了她已死去的身体,再醒来时一把匕首狠辣的架在了原本心爱男人的脖子上再不是当初卑微浮弱的样子,再不是当初羞怯爱慕的样子,再不是当初纯净天真的样子,女子的眼里冰霜满天,是漠视一切的孤傲,她,是现代让人闻风丧胆的金牌杀手——夜长生。
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 直播超能力

    直播超能力

    愚蠢的人类啊,你们以为魔法什么的都是幻想么?是时候告诉你们什么是真正的魔法了!——某网络写手(虽然它自称为某魔法文明的神)好好好,我知道所谓的魔法确实是很科学的东西了,但是能不能先把这月的钱给我结了?——莫毅,也就是一直在喊着求推荐求打赏求推荐的那个。(本书以科学的方式写给具有超能力天赋的小朋友,前提是你有天赋——Moi魔裔)
  • 每个孩子都是“第一名”

    每个孩子都是“第一名”

    本书介绍了如何培养孩子的学习能力、思维习惯和良好的心态,如伺发现孩子的优势、激发孩子的灵性、开启孩子的潜能,让孩子成为不同凡响的“第一名”。
  • 暗夜冷蔷薇:国民初恋有点坏

    暗夜冷蔷薇:国民初恋有点坏

    第一次相见,她阴差阳错地被人作为礼物送给他,他,夺去她的第一次。第二次相见,她化身黎家大小姐,成为他的同学。他抓她,拿着手枪对准她,“黎恩雅,本少爷喜欢你,接受我就饶了你。”她答曰:“辰少如果没事的话,就不要拿玩具仿真枪吓人了。”他命令她,让她去给班上所有人买咖啡,“黎恩雅,你去买咖啡,本少爷要摩卡,其他人一律白咖啡!”她微笑着应下,回头对Water说:“麻烦你在摩卡了里加一勺辣椒,我们少爷喜欢这么喝。”“黎恩雅,本少爷突然发现你适合一个职业。”“什么?”“我的,未婚妻啊。”