The Wandering Jew (Vol.1-11). Эжен Сю
Читать онлайн книгу.
and suspended it from the spring-catch of the curtainless window, using the skirts to stop up as closely as possible the two openings made by the breaking of the panes.
"Thanks, Dagobert, how good you are! We were very uneasy at not seeing you."
"Yes, you were absent longer than usual. But what is the matter with you?" added Rose, only just then perceiving that his countenance was disturbed and pallid, for he was still under the painful influence of the brawl with Morok; "how pale you are!"
"Me, my pets?—Oh, nothing."
"Yes, I assure you, your countenance is quite changed. Rose is right."
"I tell you there is nothing the matter," answered the soldier, not without some embarrassment, for he was little used to deceive; till, finding an excellent excuse for his emotion, he added: "If I do look at all uncomfortable, it is your fright that has made me so, for indeed it was my fault."
"Your fault!"
"Yes; for if I had not lost so much time at supper, I should have been here when the window was broken, and have spared you the fright."
"Anyhow, you are here now, and we think no more of it."
"Why don't you sit down?"
"I will, my children, for we have to talk together," said Dagobert, as he drew a chair close to the head of the bed.
"Now tell me, are you quite awake?" he added, trying to smile in order to reassure them. "Are those large eyes properly open?"
"Look, Dagobert!" cried the two girls, smiling in their turn, and opening their blue eyes to the utmost extent.
"Well, well," said the soldier, "they are yet far enough, from shutting; besides, it is only nine o'clock."
"We also have something to tell, Dagobert," resumed Rose, after exchanging glances with her sister.
"Indeed!"
"A secret to tell you."
"A secret?"
"Yes, to be sure."
"Ah, and a very great secret!" added Rose, quite seriously.
"A secret which concerns us both," resumed Blanche.
"Faith! I should think so. What concerns the one always concerns the other. Are you not always, as the saying goes, 'two faces under one hood?'"
"Truly, how can it be otherwise, when you put our heads under the great hood of your pelisse?" said Rose, laughing.
"There they are again, mocking-birds! One never has the last word with them. Come, ladies, your secret, since a secret there is."
"Speak, sister," said Rose.
"No, miss, it is for you to speak. You are to-day on duty, as eldest, and such an important thing as telling a secret like that you talk of belongs of right to the elder sister. Come, I am listening to you," added the soldier, as he forced a smile, the better to conceal from the maidens how much he still felt the unpunished affronts of the brute tamer.
It was Rose (who, as Dagobert said, was doing duty as eldest) that spoke for herself and for her sister.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SECRET.
"First of all, good Dagobert," said Rose, in a gracefully caressing manner, "as we are going to tell our secret—you must promise not to scold us."
"You will not scold your darlings, will you?" added Blanche, in a no less coaxing voice.
"Granted!" replied Dagobert gravely; "particularly as I should not well know how to set about it—but why should I scold you."
"Because we ought perhaps to have told you sooner what we are going to tell you."
"Listen, my children," said Dagobert sententiously, after reflecting a moment on this case of conscience; "one of two things must be. Either you were right, or else you were wrong, to hide this from me. If you were right, very well; if you were wrong, it is done: so let's say no more about it. Go on—I am all attention."
Completely reassured by this luminous decision, Rose resumed, while she exchanged a smile with her sister.
"Only think, Dagobert; for two successive nights we have had a visitor."
"A visitor!" cried the soldier, drawing himself up suddenly in his chair.
"Yes, a charming visitor—he is so very fair."
"Fair—the devil!" cried Dagobert, with a start.
"Yes, fair—and with blue eyes," added Blanche.
"Blue eyes—blue devils!" and Dagobert again bounded on his seat.
"Yes, blue eyes—as long as that," resumed Rose, placing the tip of one forefinger about the middle of the other.
"Zounds! they might be as long as that," said the veteran, indicating the whole length of his term from the elbow, "they might be as long as that, and it would have nothing to do with it. Fair, and with blue eyes. Pray what may this mean, young ladies?" and Dagobert rose from his seat with a severe and painfully unquiet look.
"There now, Dagobert, you have begun to scold us already."
"Just at the very commencement," added Blanche.
"Commencement!—what, is there to be a sequel? a finish?"
"A finish? we hope not," said Rose, laughing like mad.
"All we ask is, that it should last forever," added Blanche, sharing in the hilarity of her sister.
Dagobert looked gravely from one to the other of the two maidens, as if trying to guess this enigma; but when he saw their sweet, innocent faces gracefully animated by a frank, ingenuous laugh, he reflected that they would not be so gay if they had any serious matter for self-reproach, and he felt pleased at seeing them so merry in the midst of their precarious position.
"Laugh on, my children!" he said. "I like so much to see you laugh."
Then, thinking that was not precisely the way in which he ought to treat the singular confession of the young girls, he added in a gruff voice: "Yes, I like to see you laugh—but not when you receive fair visitors with blue eyes, young ladies!—Come, acknowledge that I'm an old fool to listen to such nonsense—you are only making game of me."
"Nay, what we tell you is quite true."
"You know we never tell stories," added Rose.
"They are right—they never fib," said the soldier, in renewed perplexity.
"But how the devil is such a visit possible? I sleep before your door—Spoil-sport sleeps under your window—and all the blue eyes and fair locks in the world must come in by one of those two ways—and, if they had tried it, the dog and I, who have both of us quick ears, would have received their visits after our fashion. But come, children! pray, speak to the purpose. Explain yourselves!"
The two sisters, who saw, by the expression of Dagobert's countenance, that he felt really uneasy, determined no longer to trifle with his kindness. They exchanged a glance, and Rose, taking in her little hand the coarse, broad palm of the veteran, said to him: "Come, do not plague yourself! We will tell you all about the visits of our friend, Gabriel."
"There you are again!—He has a name, then?"
"Certainly, he has a name. It is Gabriel."
"Is it not a pretty name, Dagobert? Oh, you will see and love, as we do, our beautiful Gabriel!"
"I'll love your beautiful Gabriel, will I?" said the veteran, shaking his head—"Love your beautiful Gabriel?—that's as it may be. I must first know—" Then, interrupting himself, he added: "It is queer. That reminds me of something."
"Of