Turn and look back on the second cross

上記の広告は、30日以上更新がないブログに表示されています。
新たに記事を投稿することで、広告を消すことができます。  

テラスや花壇、他の遊具などを置き、そこには、多くの子供達の笑う姿があった。
徐々に、多くの子供達が集まりはじめ、笑顔の耐えない診療所として、評判も良くなっていった。
真理は、集まる子供達を暖かく包み込むように、宝物を見つけたように大切にした。

叔父夫婦は、誕生日ではないのに行事など、事あるごとにプレゼントを贈った。
真理の笑顔や喜びのため、あらゆる環境を作り、真理の為だけに全てを与えた。
７才になった真理には個性的でモラルもあり、患者や看護婦に可愛がられた。
真理を養女として向かい入れてからは、診療所での待ち時間も診療されてるような気分になるという。
「小さな天使さん」と呼ばれ、真理の笑顔はまさに「リトルエンジェル」そのままであった。
皆、心を癒され、不思議な魅力を感じていた。

真理は、何も教える事なく、礼儀作法をわきまえていた。
診療所に来る誰にでも、包み込むように暖かく接していく。
まるで向き合う相手の事を知り尽くしたかのような、叔父はそう思い神父にも伝えていた。
待合室では、真理がいる時は、不思議な魅力に吸い込まれていくように、患者、看護師、事務員、皆が笑顔になった。叔父夫婦は、美咲の状況も常に、神父から聞いていた。

叔父夫婦は「これでいいのだろうか」と思っていたが、それは、真理の成長と共に、徐々にその思いは薄らいでいく。叔父夫婦にとっての真理は我

が子、美咲への気持ちは、徐々に遠ざかっていく。
真理の笑顔は、叔父夫婦の心を魅了し潤していくのだ。目に映る真理は、現実には成長しているといえるが、真理の人間的成長は、真理の中に有る備わっている能力の成長を遅らせる事になる。
本当の真理の姿は誰も知る事の出来ないものであった、海と湖の水脈で繋がっている妹の美咲の存在が関わっていたからだ。

真理と美咲は、離れていても同じ能力で誰にも悟られないように、神父は何かを感じていたが、それが何か知るよしもなかった。真理の表面的な笑顔は、まさに天使だ、誰もが癒される天使。
しかし、心の中にある能力に、気づく事が遅れるようになっていく。
その遅れが成長と共に、真理の苦しみを増大させ、苦痛を伴う事になるとは、誰も知る事はなかった。  

The arrangement of the guests at the dinner-table that evening suited all concerned. Phil sat at the right of the host, with Lucia directly opposite, where her face was before him all the while. Marge sat at the right of the hostess, where he could closely observe the young man from the country, and, not less important, Tramlay’s manner toward the younger guest. He could also note the effect of the young man and his ways upon Mrs. Tramlay; for did he not know how to translate every expression of her face? It was his own fault if he did not, for he had been one of her suitors nearly a quarter of a century before, and the lady had never ceased to be mildly grateful for this compliment, and to repose as much confidence in him as a loyal wife might without harm grant an acquaintance who never had been offensive.

That Mrs. Tramlay wanted Lucia to become Mrs. Marge was one of these confidences,—not spoken, but none the less distinctly understood,—and it had taken all of Marge’s adroitness to maintain his position with the family, since Lucia’s “coming out,” to avoid being brought to propose. Several years earlier he had fully intended to make{63} Lucia his own when she should reach marriageable age, and many and acceptable had been the attentions by which he had endeavored to secure the first place in the girl’s regard.

But somehow as his prospects gradually yet distinctly brightened, the profits of the iron trade as gradually and distinctly waned; Marge was not in the iron trade himself, but Lucia’s father was, and bachelors at forty-five generally expect something with a bride besides a father’s blessing. What the girl’s father thought of him Marge had never taken time to wonder; for if he was satisfactory to his fastidious self, how could he be otherwise to a plodding family man? His social position was good; his name had never been part of a scandal; he had no debts; he never borrowed money; and, although a club man, no one had ever seen him drunk, or heard of his being fond of actresses. If all this did not make a man not merely irreproachable, but highly desirable as a son-in-law, what did parents expect?

The arrangement of seats at the table suited Lucia also. She knew her mother’s matrimonial intentions regarding her. She was not in love with Marge, but girls in her set did not think it good form to be very fond of men whom they probably would have to marry. If, however, Marge meant business, she wished he would be more attentive to it. She felt that she was missing a great deal of pleasure for lack of proper escort.

Twice in the course of the last season Marge had taken her and her mother to the opera; Lucia adored opera,—that is, she liked to look about the house, and see who was with who, and how the prima donna dressed, and to have gentlemen{64} call at her box between acts,—but two operas were merely sips at a cup she longed to drain, and only once had she been able to persuade her father to mitigate the privation. If apparent interest in Phil at table could have any effect upon Marge’s languid purpose, the provoking fellow should not lack stimulus. To have to devote herself for a whole hour to one young man, in the long hair and country garb which regained their awkwardness in her mind’s eye when her father announced that Phil was coming to dinner, seemed a hard task; but when the young man made his appearance Lucia was so agreeably surprised that what had seemed a task at once became by anticipation a positive pleasure.  

Alexander Hulings couldn't afford a month or more at the Mineral Spring; and he had said so with the sharpness that was one of the annoying symptoms of his condition. He had had several letters, though, throughout a number of years, from James Claypole, a cousin of his mother, asking him out to Tubal Cain, the iron forge which barely kept Claypole alive; and he might manage that—if it were not for Hallie Flower. There the conversation had come to an inevitable
.


He had been engaged to her from the day when, together, they had, with a pretense of formality, opened his office in Eastlake. He had determined not to marry until neo skin lab derma21 he made a thousand dollars in a year; and, as year after year slipped by without his accumulating that amount, their engagement had come to resemble the unemotional contact of a union without sex. Lately Hallie had seemed almost content with duties in her parental home and the three evenings weekly that Alexander spent with her in the formal propriety of a front room.

His own feelings defied analysis; but it seemed to him that, frankly surveyed, even his love for Hallie Flower had been swallowed up in the tide of irritability rising about him. He felt no active sorrow at the knowledge that he was about to relinquish all claim upon her; his pride stirred resentfully; the evening promised to be uncomfortable—but that was all.

The room swam about him in a manner that had grown hatefully neo skin lab derma21
familiar; he swayed in his chair; and his hands were at once numb with cold and wet with perspiration. A sinking fear fastened on him, an inchoate dread that he fought bitterly. It wasn't death from which Alexander Hulings shuddered, but a crawling sensation that turned his knees to dust. He was a slight man, with narrow shoulders and close-swinging arms, but as rigidly erect as an iron bar; his mentality was like that too, and he particularly detested the variety of nerves that had settled on him.

A form blocked the doorway, accentuating the dusk that had swiftly gathered in the office, and Veneada entered. His neckcloth was, as always, carelessly folded, and his collar hid in rolls of fat; a cloak was thrown back from a wide girth, and he wore an incongruous pair of buff linen trousers.  

A discouraged, dishevelled human figure crossed a narrow woodland to the west of a chain of hills, thence made his way slowly down to a sun-baked valley or depression, many miles in extent. The valley was rough, broken, repellent to the eye. For the most part unverdant, it ran in a northeasterly direction—bleak, uninviting, monotonous—here and there rutted with long gray drifts of silt and sand.

No trail of any sort traversed that sinister, malevolent wild. Except for an occasional poplar or charred, broken stump of spruce or jack-pine, there were few landmarks to relieve the discouraging prospect. However, at one end of the valley, scintillating like a silver coin in the bright rays of the sun, the traveller discerned a small lake, fringed with green.


Still hours high, the sun struck its bright rays across the land: a glare of white in the somnolent valley, a sheen of mirrored brilliance where it radiated over the placid, blue waters of the lake. A deep hush had fallen over the earth. Below the wide, azure arch of the sky feathered voyagers of the air coasted silently to unknown haunts, apparently the only living things in the dead gray world around them.

The figure hurried on. The sight of the cabin had acted as a slight spur to his jaded body. He pushed forward steadily until he had made his way over the narrow strip of green and up the path to the house. He knocked listlessly at the door, then stood silently, as might a criminal awaiting the heavy hand of the law.