登陆注册
15453300000052

第52章 XXII.(3)

He said he thought that sort of man was all the more mischievous on account of his sincerity. He instanced a Russian whom a friend of his knew in Berlin, a man of rank like this fellow: he got to brooding upon the condition of working people and that kind of thing, till he renounced his title and fortune and went to work in an iron foundry.

Mr. Ewins also spoke critically of Mrs. Milray. He had met her in Egypt; but you soon exhausted the interest of that kind of woman. He professed a great concern that Clementina should see Florence in just the right way, and he offered his services in showing her the place.

The Russian came the next day, and almost daily after that, in the interest with which Clementina's novel difference from other American girls seemed to inspire him. His imagination had transmuted her simple Yankee facts into something appreciable to a Slav of his temperament.

He conceived of her as the daughter of a peasant, whose beauty had charmed the widow of a rich citizen, and who was to inherit the wealth of her adoptive mother. He imagined that the adoption had taken place at a much earlier period than the time when Clementina's visit to Mrs. Lander actually began, and that all which could he done had been done to efface her real character by indulgence and luxury.

His curiosity concerning her childhood, her home, her father and mother, her brothers and sisters, and his misunderstanding of everything she told him, amused her. But she liked him, and she tried to give him some notion of the things he wished so much to know. It always ended in a dissatisfaction, more or less vehement, with the outcome of American conditions as he conceived them.

"But you," he urged one day, "you who are a daughter of the fields and woods, why should you forsake that pure life, and come to waste yourself here?"

"Why, don't you think it's very nice in Florence?" she asked, with eyes of innocent interest.

"Nice! Nice! Do we live for what is nice? Is it enough that you have what you Americans call a nice time?"

Clementina reflected. "I wasn't doing much of anything at home, and I thought I might as well come with Mrs. Lander, if she wanted me so much."

She thought in a certain way, that he was meddling with what was not his affair, but she believed that he was sincere in his zeal for the ideal life he wished her to lead, and there were some things she had heard about him that made her pity and respect him; his self-exile and his renunciation of home and country for his principles, whatever they were; she did not understand exactly. She would not have liked never being able to go back to Middlemount, or to be cut off from all her friends as this poor young Nihilist was, and she said, now, "I didn't expect that it was going to be anything but a visit, and I always supposed we should go back in the spring; but now Mrs. Lander is beginning to think she won't be well enough till fall."

"And why need you stay with her?"

"Because she's not very well," answered Clementina, and she smiled, a little triumphantly as well as tolerantly.

"She could hire nurses and doctors, all she wants with her money."

"I don't believe it would be the same thing, exactly, and what should I do if I went back?"

"Do? Teach ! Uplift the lives about you."

"But you say it is better for people to live simply, and not read and think so much."

"Then labor in the fields with them."

Clementina laughed outright. "I guess if anyone saw me wo'king in the fields they would think I was a disgrace to the neighbahood."

Belsky gave her a stupified glare through his spectacles. "I cannot undertand you Americans."

"Well, you must come ova to America, then, Mr. Belsky"--he had asked her not to call him by his title--"and then you would."

"No, I could not endure the disappointment. You have the great opportunity of the earth. You could be equal and just, and simple and kind. There is nothing to hinder you. But all you try to do is to get more and more money."

"Now, that isn't faia, Mr. Belsky, and you know it."

Well, then, you joke, joke--always joke. Like that Mr. Hinkle. He wants to make money with his patent of a gleaner, that will take the last grain of wheat from the poor, and he wants to joke--joke!'

Clementina said, "I won't let you say that about Mr. Hinkle. You don't know him, or you wouldn't. If he jokes, why shouldn't he?"

Belsky made a gesture of rejection. "Oh, you are an American, too."

She had not grown less American, certainly, since she had left home; even the little conformities to Europe that she practiced were traits of Americanism. Clementina was not becoming sophisticated, but perhaps she was becoming more conventionalized. The knowledge of good and evil in things that had all seemed indifferently good to her once, had crept upon her, and she distinguished in her actions. She sinned as little as any young lady in Florence against the superstitions of society; but though she would not now have done a skirt-dance before a shipful of people, she did not afflict herself about her past errors. She put on the world, but she wore it simply and in most matters unconsciously. Some things were imparted to her without her asking or wishing, and merely in virtue of her youth and impressionability. She took them from her environment without knowing it, and in this way she was coming by an English manner and an English tone; she was only the less American for being rather English without trying, when other Americans tried so hard. In the region of harsh nasals, Clementina had never spoken through her nose, and she was now as unaffected in these alien inflections as in the tender cooings which used to rouse the misgivings of her brother Jim. When she was with English people she employed them involuntarily, and when she was with Americans she measurably lost them, so that after half an hour with Mr. Hinkle, she had scarcely a trace of them, and with Mrs. Lander she always spoke with her native accent.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 四季恋爱:女神们的甜蜜恋爱

    四季恋爱:女神们的甜蜜恋爱

    夏安诺是一位温柔的女孩,她在一所普通学校上学。后来以成绩被一所叫梦幻皇家学院录取。她以为在哪可以向以前那所学校一样各做各的事,可是却不一样,一个叫冷韩轩的瘾起注意力,他霸道,邪恶.又冷。一点也不向他想象的那样温柔.体贴,她没想到后来会跟他在一起。后来在他和朋友的的帮助下她也知道了她自己是.......
  • 华丽公主的逆袭

    华丽公主的逆袭

    一个是先天性左眼失明的全国第一杀手,15年前仇家追杀,父母双亡,可她万万没想到如今你养父居然就是当年的杀父仇人,而如今她又奉养父的命令去暗杀全国第一富卞氏集团的少爷,却又不小心坠入爱情海;一个是先天性右耳失聪的全国第一富卞氏集团少爷本是高傲、霸道,却因为她而改变。他们最后是在一起还是分开??
  • 韩星娱

    韩星娱

    直接看文吧,各位,么么哒!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • 巫蛊王妃

    巫蛊王妃

    蔑我族规?金蚕蛊伺候!毁我圣物?三尸蛊走着!要下毒害我?我百毒不侵,还能反噬一口!可是那个沉默寡言的男子,却不怕死地觊觎我的清白?那他完蛋了,我蛊毒浸身,说不定还会情蛊发作……··女主版本:三岁那年的她永远不会懂,与少年的惊鸿一瞥,却是一切阴谋的开始……·**建了个书友群:594509170~
  • 秦岭剑帝

    秦岭剑帝

    落星大陆,万族林立,无数种族,割据一方。直至来自地球,刚获‘武神’称谓的秦一,被未知极光带临这方无尽大陆,自此,人族的崛起的齿轮开始缓缓转动。
  • 少年与君

    少年与君

    这是一个悲伤的故事,没有言情的情爱温柔,没有玄幻的奇幻修仙,这个故事中每个人都是主角,而我们的时雨只是儿时无助又无惧的影子罢了,谨以此书纪念我们终将逝去的青春,这本书的题材是我的一个梦,做过很多次的梦,一个我都不知道结果的梦…
  • 女人对爱狠一点

    女人对爱狠一点

    本书收录了《薄荷的N种表情》、《傻瓜,你还欠我一个拥抱》、《在你手心缠绕的秘密》等恋爱故事,并在每个故事后面附有恋爱心理指导。
  • 彻夜,辗转

    彻夜,辗转

    这城市夜晚的风很大吹走坦荡与浮夸不停的印出那些旧伤疤的过往
  • 寒冰道心

    寒冰道心

    因爱而伤的风吟意外的穿越到了一个修仙文明的世界,他发誓不再为情所困,我就是寒冷的男神,我就是万众倾倒的存在,但我绝不为爱所惑,我的心犹如我的道心布满寒冰,世间情爱与我何干,我心早已冰封,茫茫天道奈我何,我自修寒冰道心!
  • 意想不到的女孩

    意想不到的女孩

    怡婧一个如冰的女孩,看似平凡,却让人琢磨不透;她的身份也让人琢磨不透。莫海出身豪门,英俊潇洒,有很多女孩追求他。与怡婧同一个班,由于跟怡婧走得近,使怡婧的高中生活变得坎坷......怡婧这个看似平凡的女孩,却拥有异想不到的身份,最后她竟是....