Маленькая хозяйка большого дома / The Little Lady Of The Big House

The woman obeyed. The next moment, as the stallion balanced out horizontally in obedience to her shiftage of weight, she had slipped back to the shoulders.

“Who … who is it?” Graham queried.

“Paula—Mrs. Forrest.”

“My breath is quite taken away[23 - my breath is quite taken away – у меня дух захватило],” Graham said. “Do your people do such things frequently?”

“First time she ever did that,” Forrest replied.

“Risked the horse’s neck and legs as well as her own,” was Graham’s comment.

“Thirty-five thousand dollars’ worth of neck and legs,” Dick smiled. “That was the price the breeders offered me for the horse last. But Paula never has accidents. That’s her luck. We’ve been married ten or a dozen years now, and, do you know, sometimes it seems to me I don’t know her at all, and that nobody knows her, and that she doesn’t know herself.”

3

The lunch-time came. Graham took his part in the conversation on breeds and breeding, but the delicate white of Paula on the back of a great horse was before his eyes the entire time.

All the guests drifted into the long dining room. Dick Forrest arrived and precipitated cocktails. And Graham impatiently waited the appearance of the woman who had worried his eyes since noon.

She entered. Graham’s lips gasped apart, and remained apart, his eyes ravished with the beauty and surprise. Here was no a child-woman or boy-girl on a stallion, but a grand lady[24 - grand lady – светская женщина].

As she crossed the floor, Graham saw two women: one, the grand lady, the mistress of the Big House; other, the lovely equestrienne beneath the dull-blue, golden-trimmed gown.

She was upon them, among them, and Graham’s hand held hers in the formal introduction. At table, across the corner from her, it was his hostess that mostly filled his eyes and his mind.

It was a company Graham had ever sat down to dinner with. The sheep-buyer, and the correspondent, men, women, and girls, fourteen in total. Graham could not remember their names. They were full of spirits, laughter, and the latest jokes.

“I see right now,” Graham told Paula, “your place is the caravanserai; I can’t even try to remember names and people.”

“I don’t blame you,” she laughed. “But these are neighbors. They visit us in any time. Mrs. Watson[25 - Mrs. Watson – миссис Ватсон], there, next to Dick, is of the old land-aristocracy. That is her grandfather, and that pretty dark-eyed girl is her daughter …”

And while Paula was describing guests, Graham heard scarce half she said, so occupied was he in trying to understand of her. The pride. That was it! It was in her eye, in the poise of her head, in the curling tendrils of her hair, in her sensitive nostrils, in the mobile lips, in the angle of the rounded chin, in her hands, small, muscular and veined. Pride it was, in every muscle, nerve, and quiver of her—conscious, sentient, stinging pride.

She might be joyous and natural, boy and woman, fun and frolic; but always the pride was there, vibrant, tense, intrinsic. She was a woman, frank, outspoken, straight-looking, plastic, democratic; but she was not a toy.

“Our philosophers can’t fight tonight,” Paula said to Graham.

“Philosophers?” he questioned back. “Who and what are they? I don’t understand.”

“They—” Paula hesitated. “They live here. They call themselves the jungle-birds[26 - jungle-birds – лесные птицы]. They have a camp in the woods a couple of miles away, where they read and talk. It’s great fun for Dick, and, besides, it saves him time. He’s a dreadfully hard worker, you know.”

“I understand that they … that Dick takes care of them?” Graham asked.

As she answered, he was occupied with her long, brown lashes. Perforce, he lifted his gaze to her eyebrows. When she smiled she smiled all of herself, generously, joyously.

“Yes,” she was saying. “They have nothing to worry about. Dick is most generous, and he encourages the idleness of men like them. For example, Terrence McFane[27 - Terrence McFane – Терренс МакФейн] is an epicurean anarchist[28 - epicurean anarchist – анархист-эпикуреец], if you know what that means. He will not hurt a flea. He has a pet cat I gave him, and he carefully picks her fleas, not injuring them, stores them in a box, and sets them free in the forest. And the one with a beard—Aaron Hancock[29 - Aaron Hancock – Аарон Ханкок]. Like Terrence, he doesn’t work. He says that there have always been peasants and fools who like to work. That’s why he wears a beard. To shave, he thinks, is unnecessary work, and, therefore, immoral. Dick had found him in Paris, and assured him: if you ever come back to America, you will have food and shelter. So here he is.”

“And the poet?” Graham asked, admiring the smile that played upon her face.

“Oh, Theo—Theodore Malken[30 - Theodore Malken – Теодор Мэлкин], though we call him Leo. He doesn’t work, either. His relatives are dreadfully wealthy; but they disowned him and he disowned them when he was fifteen. They say he is lunatic, and he says they are merely mad. He really writes remarkable verses … when he writes. He prefers to dream and live in the jungle with Terrence and Aaron.”

“And the Hindoo[31 - the Hindoo – индус], there—who’s he?”

“That’s Dar Hyal[32 - Dar Hyal – Дар-Хиал]. He’s their guest, a revolutionist. He studied in France, Italy, Switzerland, he is a political refugee from India. Talks about a new synthetic system of philosophy, and about a rebellion against the British tyranny in India. He advocates individual terrorism. He and Aaron quarrel tremendously—that is, on philosophical matters. And now—” Paula sighed and erased the sigh with her smile—“and now, you know about everybody.”

One thing Graham noted as the dinner proceeded. The sages called Dick Forrest by his first name; but they always addressed Paula as “Mrs. Forrest,” although she called them by their first names. These people respected few things under the sun, and among such few things they recognized the certain definite aloofness in Dick Forrest’s wife.

It was the same thing, after dinner, in the big living room. Her laugh fascinated Graham. There was a fibrous thrill in it, most sweet to the ear, that differentiated it from any laugh he had ever heard.

4

“And now, Red Cloud[33 - Red Cloud – Багряное Облако], sing Mr. Graham your Acorn Song[34 - Acorn Song – «Песня про жёлудь»],” Paula commanded Dick.

Forrest shook his head somberly.

“The Acorn Song!” Ernestine called from the piano.

“Oh, do, Dick,” Paula pleaded. “Mr. Graham is the only one who hasn’t heard it.”

Dick shook his head.

“Then sing him your Goldfish Song[35 - Goldfish Song – «Песня о золотой рыбке»].”

“I’ll sing him Mountain Lad’s song[36 - Mountain Lad’s song – «Песня горца»],” Dick said, a whimsical sparkle in his eyes. He stamped his feet, pranced, tossed an imaginary mane, and cried:

“Hear me! I am Eros[37 - Eros – Эрос]! I stamp upon the hills![38 - I stamp upon the hills! – Я попираю холмы!]“

“The Acorn Song,” Paula interrupted quickly and quietly, with steel in her voice.

Dick obediently ceased his chant of Mountain Lad, but shook his head like a stubborn colt.

“I have a new song,” he said solemnly. “It is about you and me, Paula.”

Dick danced half a dozen steps, as Indians dance, slapped his thighs with his palms, and began a new chant.

“Me, I am Ai-kut[39 - Ai-kut – Ай-Кут], the first man, Ai-kut is the short for Adam, and my father and my mother were the coyote and the moon. And this is Yo-to-to-wi[40 - Yo-to-to-wi – Йо-то-то-ви], my wife. She is the first woman. Her father and her mother were the grasshopper and the ring-tailed cat. They were the best father and mother left after my father and mother. The coyote is very wise, the moon is very old. The mother of all women was a cat, a little, wise, sad-faced, shrewd ring-tailed cat.”

The song of the first man and woman was interrupted by protests from the women and acclamations from the men.

“This is Yo-to-to-wi, which is the short for Eve,” Dick chanted on. “Yo-to-to-wi is very small. But it is not her fault. The fault is with the grasshopper and the ring-tailed cat. Me, I am Ai-kut, the first man. I was the first man, and this, Adam chose Eve. Yo-to-to-wi was the one woman in all the world for me, so I chose Yo-to-to-wi.”

And Evan Graham, listening, thought, “Dick Forrest is lucky—too lucky.”

“Me, I am Ai-kut,” Dick chanted on. “This is my dew of woman. She is my honey-dew[41 - honey-dew – медвяная роса] of woman. I have lied to you. Her father and her mother were neither hopper nor cat. They were the dawn and the summer east wind of the mountains. Yo-to-to-wi is my honey-dew woman. Hear me! I am Ai-kut. Yo-to-to-wi is my quail woman, my deer-woman, my lush-woman of all soft rain and fat soil. She was born of the thin starlight and the brittle dawn-light before the sun …”

5

The guests asked Paula to play.