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102 pages

English

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. The door of the editorial room of the "Excelsior Magazine" began to creak painfully under the hesitating pressure of an uncertain and unfamiliar hand. This continued until with a start of irritation the editor faced directly about, throwing his leg over the arm of his chair with a certain youthful dexterity. With one hand gripping its back, the other still grasping a proof-slip, and his pencil in his mouth, he stared at the intruder.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819943846
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS
By Bret Harte
A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS
CHAPTER I
“Come in, ” said the editor.
The door of the editorial room of the “ExcelsiorMagazine” began to creak painfully under the hesitating pressure ofan uncertain and unfamiliar hand. This continued until with a startof irritation the editor faced directly about, throwing his legover the arm of his chair with a certain youthful dexterity. Withone hand gripping its back, the other still grasping a proof-slip,and his pencil in his mouth, he stared at the intruder.
The stranger, despite his hesitating entrance, didnot seem in the least disconcerted. He was a tall man, looking eventaller by reason of the long formless overcoat he wore, known as a“duster, ” and by a long straight beard that depended from hischin, which he combed with two reflective fingers as hecontemplated the editor. The red dust which still lay in thecreases of his garment and in the curves of his soft felt hat, andleft a dusty circle like a precipitated halo around his feet,proclaimed him, if not a countryman, a recent inland importation bycoach. “Busy? ” he said, in a grave but pleasant voice. “I kinwait. Don't mind ME. Go on. ”
The editor indicated a chair with his disengagedhand and plunged again into his proof-slips. The stranger surveyedthe scant furniture and appointments of the office with a look ofgrave curiosity, and then, taking a chair, fixed an earnest,penetrating gaze on the editor's profile. The editor felt it, and,without looking up, said—
“Well, go on. ”
“But you're busy. I kin wait. ”
“I shall not be less busy this morning. I canlisten. ”
“I want you to give me the name of a certain personwho writes in your magazine. ”
The editor's eye glanced at the second right-handdrawer of his desk. It did not contain the names of hiscontributors, but what in the traditions of his office was acceptedas an equivalent, — a revolver. He had never yet presented eitherto an inquirer. But he laid aside his proofs, and, with a slightdarkening of his youthful, discontented face, said, “What do youwant to know for? ”
The question was so evidently unexpected that thestranger's face colored slightly, and he hesitated. The editormeanwhile, without taking his eyes from the man, mentally ran overthe contents of the last magazine. They had been of a singularlypeaceful character. There seemed to be nothing to justify homicideon his part or the stranger's. Yet there was no knowing, and hisquestioner's bucolic appearance by no means precluded an assault.Indeed, it had been a legend of the office that a predecessor hadsuffered vicariously from a geological hammer covertly introducedinto a scientific controversy by an irate professor.
“As we make ourselves responsible for the conduct ofthe magazine, ” continued the young editor, with mature severity,“we do not give up the names of our contributors. If you do notagree with their opinions”—
“But I DO, ” said the stranger, with his formercomposure, “and I reckon that's why I want to know who wrote thoseverses called 'Underbrush, ' signed 'White Violet, ' in your lastnumber. They're pow'ful pretty. ”
The editor flushed slightly, and glancedinstinctively around for any unexpected witness of his ludicrousmistake. The fear of ridicule was uppermost in his mind, and he wasmore relieved at his mistake not being overheard than at itsgroundlessness.
“The verses ARE pretty, ” he said, recoveringhimself, with a critical air, “and I am glad you like them. Buteven then, you know, I could not give you the lady's name withouther permission. I will write to her and ask it, if you like. ”
The actual fact was that the verses had been sent tohim anonymously from a remote village in the Coast Range, — theaddress being the post-office and the signature initials.
The stranger looked disturbed. “Then she ain't abouthere anywhere? ” he said, with a vague gesture. “She don't belongto the office? ”
The young editor beamed with tolerant superiority:“No, I am sorry to say. ”
“I should like to have got to see her and kinderasked her a few questions, ” continued the stranger, with the samereflective seriousness. “You see, it wasn't just the rhymin' o'them verses, — and they kinder sing themselves to ye, don't they? —it wasn't the chyce o' words, — and I reckon they allus hit theidee in the centre shot every time, — it wasn't the idees and moralshe sort o' drew out o' what she was tellin', — but it was thestraight thing itself, — the truth! ”
“The truth? ” repeated the editor.
“Yes, sir. I've bin there. I've seen all that she'sseen in the brush— the little flicks and checkers o' light andshadder down in the brown dust that you wonder how it ever gotthrough the dark of the woods, and that allus seems to slip awaylike a snake or a lizard if you grope. I've heard all that she'sheard there— the creepin', the sighin', and the whisperin' throughthe bracken and the ground-vines of all that lives there. ”
“You seem to be a poet yourself, ” said the editor,with a patronizing smile.
“I'm a lumberman, up in Mendocino, ” returned thestranger, with sublime naivete. “Got a mill there. You see,sightin' standin' timber and selectin' from the gen'ral show of thetrees in the ground and the lay of roots hez sorter made me takenotice. ” He paused. “Then, ” he added, somewhat despondingly, “youdon't know who she is? ”
“No, ” said the editor, reflectively; “not even ifit is really a WOMAN who writes. ”
“Eh? ”
“Well, you see, 'White Violet' may as well be thenom de plume of a man as of a woman, especially if adopted for thepurpose of mystification. The handwriting, I remember, WAS moreboyish than feminine. ”
“No, ” returned the stranger doggedly, “it wasn't noMAN. There's ideas and words there that only come from a woman:baby-talk to the birds, you know, and a kind of fearsome keer ofbugs and creepin' things that don't come to a man who wears bootsand trousers. Well, ” he added, with a return to his previous airof resigned disappointment, “I suppose you don't even know whatshe's like? ”
“No, ” responded the editor, cheerfully. Then,following an idea suggested by the odd mingling of sentiment andshrewd perception in the man before him, he added: “Probably not atall like anything you imagine. She may be a mother with three orfour children; or an old maid who keeps a boarding-house; or awrinkled school-mistress; or a chit of a school-girl. I've had somefair verses from a red-haired girl of fourteen at the Seminary, ”he concluded with professional coolness.
The stranger regarded him with the naive wonder ofan inexperienced man. Having paid this tribute to his superiorknowledge, he regained his previous air of grave perception. “Ireckon she ain't none of them. But I'm keepin' you from your work.Good-by. My name's Bowers— Jim Bowers, of Mendocino. If you're upmy way, give me a call. And if you do write to this yer 'WhiteViolet, ' and she's willin', send me her address. ”
He shook the editor's hand warmly— even in itsliteral significance of imparting a good deal of his own earnestcaloric to the editor's fingers— and left the room. His footfallechoed along the passage and died out, and with it, I fear, allimpression of his visit from the editor's mind, as he plunged againinto the silent task before him.
Presently he was conscious of a melodious hummingand a light leisurely step at the entrance of the hall. Theycontinued on in an easy harmony and unaffected as the passage of abird. Both were pleasant and both familiar to the editor. Theybelonged to Jack Hamlin, by vocation a gambler, by taste amusician, on his way from his apartments on the upper floor, wherehe had just risen, to drop into his friend's editorial room andglance over the exchanges, as was his habit before breakfast.
The door opened lightly. The editor was conscious ofa faint odor of scented soap, a sensation of freshness andcleanliness, the impression of a soft hand like a woman's on hisshoulder and, like a woman's, momentarily and playfully caressing,the passage of a graceful shadow across his desk, and the nextmoment Jack Hamlin was ostentatiously dusting a chair with an opennewspaper preparatory to sitting down.
“You ought to ship that office-boy of yours, if hecan't keep things cleaner, ” he said, suspending his melody to eyegrimly the dust which Mr. Bowers had shaken from his departingfeet.
The editor did not look up until he had finishedrevising a difficult paragraph. By that time Mr. Hamlin hadcomfortably settled himself on a cane sofa, and, possibly out ofdeference to his surroundings, had subdued his song to a peculiarlylow, soft, and heartbreaking whistle as he unfolded a newspaper.Clean and faultless in his appearance, he had the rare gift ofbeing able to get up at two in the afternoon with much of the dewyfreshness and all of the moral superiority of an early riser.
“You ought to have been here just now, Jack, ” saidthe editor.
“Not a row, old man, eh? ” inquired Jack, with afaint accession of interest.
“No, ” said the editor, smiling. Then he related theincidents of the previous interview, with a certain humorousexaggeration which was part of his nature. But Jack did notsmile.
“You ought to have booted him out of the ranch onsight, ” he said. “What right had he to come here prying into alady's affairs? — at least a lady as far as HE knows. Of courseshe's some old blowzy with frumpled hair trying to rope in agreenhorn with a string of words and phrases, ” concluded Jack,carelessly, who had an equally cynical distrust of the sex and ofliterature.
“That's about what I told him, ” said theeditor.
“That's just what you SHOULDN'T have told him, ”returned Jack. “You ought to have stuck up for that woman as ifshe'd been your own mother. Lord! you fellows don't know how to runa magazine. You ought to let ME sit on that chair and tackle yourcustomers. ”
“What would you have done, Jack? ” asked the editor,much amused to find that his hitherto invincible her