00:04
英語聞き流し10分間名作リスニング、英語テキストとMP3ダウンロード、その他の物語は、ホームページよりご利用いただけます。
88thpp.com 88thpp.com
He wants the lad, said Boz Koges. Good dog. Gooddog. I will go over to the lad the first thing atday dawn.
For no one but Patruski knew that Nello had leftthe hut, and no one but Patruski divine that Nellohad gone to face starvation and misery alone.
The mill kitchen was very warm, great logs crackled and flamed on the hearth, neighbors came infor a glass of wine and a slice of the fat goosebaking for supper.
Alois, gleeful and sure of her playmate back onthe morrow, abounded and sang and tossed back heryellow hair.
Boz Koges, in the fullness of his heart, smiled onher through moistened eyes, and spoke of the wayin which he would befriend her favorite companion.
The housemother sat with calm, contented face atthe spinning wheel, the cuckoo in the clock chirped mirthful hours.
Amidst it all Patruski was bidden with a thousandwords of welcome to tarry there a cherished guest.
But neither peace nor plenty could allure himwhere Nello was not.
When the supper smoked on the board, and thevoices were loudest and gladdest, and the ChristChild brought choicest gifts to Alois, Patruski,watching always in occasion, lighted out when thedoor was unlatched by a careless newcomer, and asswiftly as his weak and tired limbs would bear himsped over the snow and the bitter, black night.
He had only one thought, to follow Nello.
A human friend might have paused for the pleasantmeal, the cheery warmth, the cozy slumber, butthat was not the friendship of Patruski.
He remembered a bygone time, when an old man and alittle child had found him sick unto death in thewayside ditch.
Snow had fallen freshly all the evening long, itwas now nearly ten, the trail of the boy'sfootsteps was almost obliterated.
It took Patruski long to discover any scent.
When at last he found it, it was lost againquickly, and lost and recovered, and again lostand again recovered, a hundred times or more.
The night was very wild.
The lamps under the wayside crosses were blownout, the roads were sheets of ice, the impenetrable darkness hid every trace of habitations, therewas no living thing abroad.
All the cattle were housed, and in all the hutsand homesteads men and women rejoiced and feasted.
There was only Patruski out in the cruel cold, oldand famished and full of pain, but with thestrength and the patience of a great love tosustain him in his search.
The trail of Nella's steps, feigned and obscure asit was under the new snow, went straightly alongthe accustomed tracks into Antwerp.
It was past midnight when Patruski traced it overthe boundaries of the town and into the narrow,tortuous, gloomy streets.
It was all quite dark in the town, save where somelight gleamed ruddily through the crevices ofhouse shutters, or some group went homeward withlanterns chanting drinking songs.
The streets were all white with ice, the highwalls and roofs loomed black against them.
03:00
There was scarce a sound save the riot of thewinds down the passages as they tossed the creaking signs and shook the tall lamp-irons.
So many passers-by had trodden through and throughthe snow, so many diverse paths had crossed and re-crossed each other, that the dog had a hard taskto retain any hold on the track he followed.
But he kept on his way, though the cold piercedhim to the bone, and the jagged ice cut his feet,and the hunger in his body gnawed like a rat'steeth.
He kept on his way, a poor gaunt, shivering thing,and by long patience traced the steps he lovedinto the very heart of the burg and up to thesteps of the great cathedral.
He has gone to the things that he loved, thoughtPatruski, he could not understand, but he was fullof sorrow and of pity for the art passion that tohim was so incomprehensible and yet so sacred.
The portals of the cathedral were unclosed afterthe midnight mass.
Some heedlessness in the custodians, too eager togo home and feast or sleep, or too drowsy to knowwhether they turned the keys aright, had left oneof the doors unlocked.
By that accident the footfalls Patruski sought hadpassed through into the building, leaving thewhite marks of snow upon the dark stone floor.
By that slender white thread, frozen as it fell,he was guided through the intense silence, throughthe immensity of the vaulted space, guidedstraight to the gates of the chancel, and,stretched there upon the stones, he found Nello.
He crept up and touched the face of the boy.
Didst thou dream that I should be faithless andforsake thee?
I, a dog? said that mute caress.
The lad raised himself with a low cry and claspedhim close.
Let us lie down and die together, he murmured.
Men have no need of us, and we are all alone.
In answer, Patruski crept closer yet, and laid hishead upon the young boy's breast.
The great tears stood in his brown, sad eyes, notfor himself, for himself he was happy.
They lay close together in the piercing cold.
The blasts that blew over the Flemish dykes fromthe northern seas were like waves of ice, whichfroze every living thing they touched.
The interior of the immense vault of stone inwhich they were was even more bitterly chill thanthe snow-covered plains without.
Now and then a bat moved in the shadows, now andthen a gleam of light came on the ranks of carvenfigures.
Under the rubens they lay together quite still,and soothed almost into a dreaming slumber by thenumbing narcotic of the cold.
Together they dreamed of the old glad days whenthey had chased each other through the floweringgrasses of the summer meadows,
or sat hidden in the tall bulrushes by the water'sside, watching the boats go seaward in the sun.
Suddenly through the darkness a great white radiance streamed through the vastness of the aisles,
the moon, that was at her height, had brokenthrough the clouds, the snow had ceased to fall,
the light reflected from the snow without wasclear as the light of dawn.
It fell through the arches full upon the twopictures above, from which the boy on his entrancehad flung back the veil,
the elevation and the descent of the cross werefor one instant visible.
Nello rose to his feet and stretched his arms tothem, the tears of a passionate ecstasy glistenedon the paleness of his face.
I have seen them at last, he cried aloud.
Oh God, it is enough!
His limbs failed under him, and he sank upon hisknees, still gazing upward at the majesty that headored.
06:01
For a few brief moments the light illumined thedivine visions that had been denied to him solong,
light clear and sweet and strong as though itstreamed from the throne of heaven.
Then suddenly it passed away, once more a greatdarkness covered the face of Christ.
The arms of the boy drew close again the body ofthe dog.
We shall see his face, there, he murmured, and hewill not part us, I think.
On the morrow, by the chancel of the cathedral,the people of Antwerp found them both.
They were both dead, the cold of the night hadfrozen into stillness alike the young life and theold.
When the Christmas morning broke and the priestscame to the temple, they saw them lying thus onthe stones together.
Above the veils were drawn back from the greatvisions of Rubens,
and the fresh rays of the sunrise touched the thorn-crowned head of the Christ.
As the day grew on there came an old, hard-featured man who wept as women weep.
I was cruel to the lad, he muttered, and now Iwould have made a man's, yea, to the half of mysubstance,
and he should have been to me as a son.
There came also, as the day grew apace, a painterwho had fame in the world,
and who was liberal of hand and of spirit.
I seek one who should have had the prize yesterdayhad worth won, he said to the people,
a boy of rare promise and genius.
An old woodcutter on a fallen tree at eventide,that was all his theme.
But there was greatness for the future in it.
I would fain find him, and take him with me andteach him art.
And a little child with curling fair hair, sobbingbitterly as she clung to her father's arm,
cried aloud, O, Nello, come! we have all ready forthee.
The Christ-child's hands are full of gifts, andthe old piper will play for us,
and the mother says thou shalt stay by the hearthand burn nuts with us all the Noel week long,
yes, even to the feast of the kings.
And Patrusky will be so happy.
O, Nello, wake and come!
But the young pale face, turned upward to thelight of the great rubens with a smile upon itsmouth,
answered them all, it is too late.
For the sweet, sonorous bells went ringing throughthe frost,
and the sunlight shone upon the plains of snow,
and the populace trooped gay and glad through thestreets,
but Nello and Patrusky no more asked charity attheir hands.
All they needed now and for it gave unbidden.
Death had been more pitiful to them than longerlife would have been.
It had taken the one in the loyalty of love, andthe other in the innocence of faith,
from a world which for love has no recompense andfor faith no fulfillment.
All their lives they had been together, and intheir deaths they were not divided,
for when they were found the arms of the boy werefolded too closely around the dog to be severedwithout violence,
and the people of their little village, contriteand ashamed,
implored a special grace for them, and, makingthem one grave,
laid them to rest there side by side, forever.
英語聞き流し10分間 名作リスニング
英語テキストとMP3ダウンロード
その他の物語はホームページよりご利用いただけます。
88thpp.com
88thpp.com
09:16
83thpp.com
