国外英文文学系列Ethan Brand
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
BARTRAM the lime-burner, a rough, heavy-looking man, begrimed with charcoal, sat watching his kiln, at nightfall, while his little son played at building hous with the scattered fragments of marble, when, on the hill-side below them, they heard a roar of laughter, not mirthful, but slow, and even solemn, like a wind shaking the boughs of the forest.人力黄包车
"Father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving his play, and pressing betwixt his father's knees.我的拿手好戏
"O, some drunken man, I suppo," answered the lime-burner; "some merry fellow from the bar-room in the village, who dared not laugh loud enough within doors, lest he should blow the roof of the hou off. So here he is, shaking his jolly sides at the foot of Gray-lock."
"But, father," said the child, more nsitive than the obtu, middle-aged clown, "he does not laugh like a man that is glad. So the noi frightens me!"
"Don't be a fool, child!" cried his father, gruffly. "You will never make a man, I do believe; there is too much of your mother in you. I have known the rustling of a leaf startle you. Hark! Here comes the merry
fellow, now. You shall e that there is no harm in him."
Bartram and his little son, while they were talking thus, sat watching the same lime-kiln that had been the scene of Ethan Brand's solitary and meditative life, before he began his arch for the Unpardonable Sin. Many years, as we have en, had now elapd, since that portentous night when the IDEA was first developed. The kiln, however, on the mountain-side, stood unimpaired, and was in nothing changed since he had thrown his dark thoughts into the inten glow of its furnace, and melted them, as it were, into the one thought that took posssion of his life. It was a rude, round, tower-like structure, about twenty feet high, heavily built of rough stones, and with a hillock of earth heaped about the larger part of its circumference; so that the blocks and fragments of marble might be drawn by cart-loads, and thrown in at the top. There was an opening at the bottom of the tower, like an oven-mouth, but large enough to admit a man in a stooping posture, and provided with a massive iron door. With the smoke and jets of flame issuing from the chinks and crevices of this door, which emed to give admittance into the hill-side, it rembled nothing so much as the private entrance to the infernal regions, which the shepherds of the Delectable Mountains were accustomed to show to pilgrims.
There are many such lime-kilns in that tract of country, for the purpo of burning the white marble w
hich compos a large part of the substance of the hills. Some of them, built years ago, and long derted, with weeds growing in the vacant round of the interior, which is open to the sky, and grass and wild-flowers rooting themlves into the chinks of the stones, look already like relics of antiquity, and may yet be overspread with the lichens of centuries to come. Others, where the lime-burner still feeds his daily and nightlong fire, afford points of interest to the wanderer among the hills, who ats himlf on a log of wood or a fragment of marble, to hold a chat with the solitary man. It is a lonesome, and, when the character is inclined to thought, may be an intenly thoughtful occupation; as it proved in the ca of Ethan Brand, who had mud to such strange purpo, in days gone by, while the fire in this very kiln was burning.
公司借款协议The man who now watched the fire was of a different order, and troubled himlf with no thoughts save the very few that were requisite to his business. At frequent intervals, he flung back the clashing weight of the iron door, and, turning his face from the insufferable glare, thrust in huge logs of oak, or stirred the immen brands with a long pole. Within the furnace were en the curling and riotous flames, and the burning marble, almost molten with the intensity of heat; while without, the reflection of the fire quivered on the dark intricacy of the surrounding forest, and showed in the foreground a bright and ruddy little picture of the hut, the spring beside its door, the athletic and coal-
begrimed figure of the lime-burner, and the half-frightened child, shrinking into the protection of his father's shadow. And when again the iron door was clod, then reappeared the tender light of the half-full moon, which vainly strove to trace out the indistinct shapes of the neighboring mountains; and, in the upper sky, there was a flitting congregation of clouds, still faintly tinged with the rosy sunt, though thus far down into the valley the sunshine had vanished long and long ago.
The little boy now crept still clor to his father, as footsteps were heard ascending the hill-side, and a human form thrust aside the bushes that clustered beneath the trees.
"Halloo! who is it?" cried the lime-burner, vexed at his son's timidity, yet half infected by it. "Come forward, and show yourlf, like a man, or I'll fling this chunk of marble at your head!"
"You offer me a rough welcome," said a gloomy voice, as the unknown man drew nigh. "Yet I neither claim nor desire a kinder one, even at my own fireside."
To obtain a distincter view, Bartram threw open the iron door of the kiln, whence immediately issued a gush of fierce light, that smote full upon the stranger's face and figure. To a careless eye there appeared nothing very remarkable in his aspect, which
二年级家长会发言稿was that of a man in a coar, brown, country-made suit of clothes, tall and thin, with the staff and heavy shoes of a wayfarer. As he advanced, he fixed his eyes--which were very bright--intently upon the brightness of the furnace, as if he beheld, or expected to behold, some object worthy of note within it.
"Good evening, stranger," said the lime-burner; "whence come you, so late in the day?"
"I come from my arch," answered the wayfarer; "for, at last, it is finished."
"Drunk!--or crazy!" muttered Bartram to himlf. "I shall have trouble with the fellow. The sooner I drive him away, the better."
离职感谢The little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to his father, and begged him to shut the door of the kiln, so that there might not be so much light; for that there was something in the man's face which he was afraid to look at, yet could not look away from. And, indeed, even the lime-burner's dull and torpid n began to be impresd by an indescribable something in that thin, rugged, thoughtful visage, with the grizzled hair hanging wildly about it, and tho deeply-sunken eyes, which gleamed like fires within the entrance of a mysterious cavern. But, as he clod the door, the stranger turned towards him, and spoke in a quiet, familiar way, that made Bartram feel as if he were a sane and nsible ma
n, after all.
"Your task draws to an end, I e," said he. "This marble has already been burning three days. A few hours more will convert the stone to lime."
世界历史故事"Why, who are you?" exclaimed the lime-burner. "You em as well acquainted with my business as I am mylf."
腹带"And well I may be," said the stranger; "for I followed the same craft many a long
year, and here, too, on this very spot. But you are a newcomer in the parts. Did you never hear of Ethan Brand?"
"The man that went in arch of the Unpardonable Sin?" asked Bartram, with a laugh.
"The same," answered the stranger. "He has found what he sought, and therefore he comes back again."
"What! then you are Ethan Brand himlf?" cried the lime-burner, in amazement. "I am a newcomer here, as you say, and they call it eighteen years since you left the foot of Gray-lock. But, I can tell yo
u, the good folks still talk about Ethan Brand, in the village yonder, and what a strange errand took him away from his lime-kiln. Well, and so you have found the Unpardonable Sin?"
"Even so!" said the stranger, calmly.
"If the question is a fair one," proceeded Bartram, "where might it be?"
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Ethan Brand laid his finger on his own heart.
"Here!" replied he.
And then, without mirth in his countenance, but as if moved by an involuntary recognition of the infinite absurdity of eking throughout the world for what was the clost of all things to himlf, and looking into every heart, save his own, for what was hidden in no other breast, he broke into a laugh of scorn. It was the same slow, heavy laugh, that had almost appalled the lime-burner when it heralded the wayfarer's approach.
