Дом о семи шпилях - [62]

Мы садимся за стол со свежими силами и мыслями.
Hepzibah's small and ancient table, supported on its slender and graceful legs, and covered with a cloth of the richest damask, looked worthy to be the scene and center of one of the cheerfullest of parties. The vapour of the broiled fish arose like incense from the shrine of a barbarian idol, while the fragrance of the Mocha might have gratified the nostrils of a tutelary Lar, or whatever power has scope over a modern breakfast table. Phoebe's Indian cakes were the sweetest offering of all-in their hue befitting the rustic altars of the innocent and golden age-or, so brightly yellow were they, resembling some of the bread which was changed to glistening gold, when Midas tried to eat it. The butter must not be forgotten-butter which Phoebe herself had churned, in her own rural home, and brought it to her cousin as a propitiatory gift-smelling of clover-blossoms, and diffusing the charm of pastoral scenery through the dark-panelled parlour. All this, with the quaint gorgeousness of the old China cups and saucers, and the crested spoons, and a silver cream-jug (Hepzibah's only other article of plate, and shaped like the rudest porringer), set out a board at which the stateliest of old Colonel Pyncheon's guests need not have scorned to take his place. But the Puritan's face scowled down out of the picture, as if nothing on the table pleased his appetite.	Так и старинный столик Гепзибы, покрытый роскошной скатертью, достоин был являться центром самого веселого кружка.
By way of contributing what grace she could, Phoebe gathered some roses and a few other flowers, possessing either scent or beauty, and arranged them in a glass pitcher, which, having long long ago lost its handle, was so much the fitter for a flower-vase.	Фиби отправилась в сад, собрала красивый букет роз и поставила его в небольшую стеклянную кружку, которая давно потеряла свою ручку и потому могла заменять собой вазу.

The early sunshine-as fresh as that which peeped into Eve's bower, while she and Adam sat at breakfast there-came twinkling through the branches of the pear tree, and fell quite across the table. All was now ready. There were chairs and plates for three. A chair and plate for Hepzibah-the same for Phoebe-but what other guest did her cousin look for?	Утреннее солнце, столь же свежее и улыбающееся, как и то, лучи которого проникали в цветущее жилище первых людей, пробиваясь сквозь ветви груши, освещало стол, на котором было приготовлено три прибора: один для Гепзибы, другой для Фиби... но для кого же третий?
Throughout this preparation, there had been a constant tremor in Hepzibah's frame; an agitation so powerful that Phoebe could see the quivering of her gaunt shadow, as thrown by the firelight on the kitchen wall, or by the sunshine on the parlour floor. Its manifestations were so various, and agreed so little with one another, that the girl knew not what to make of it. Sometimes it seemed an ecstasy of delight and happiness. At such moments Hepzibah would fling out her arms, and enfold Phoebe in them, and kiss her cheek as tenderly as ever her mother had; she appeared to do so by an inevitable impulse, and as if her bosom were oppressed with tenderness, of which she must needs pour out a little, in order to gain breathing room. The next moment, without any visible cause for the change, her unwonted joy shrank back, appalled as it were, and clothed itself in mourning; or it ran and hid itself, so to speak, in the dungeon of her heart, where it had long lain chained while a cold, spectral sorrow took the place of the imprisoned joy, that was afraid to be enfranchised-a sorrow as black as that was bright. She often broke into a little, nervous, hysteric laugh, more touching than any tears could be; and forthwith, as if to try which was the most touching, a gust of tears would follow; or perhaps the laughter and tears came both at once, and surrounded our poor Hepzibah, in a moral sense, with a kind of pale, dim rainbow. Towards Phoebe, as we have said, she was affectionate-far tenderer than ever before, in their brief acquaintance, except for that one kiss on the preceding night-yet with a continually recurring pettishness and irritability.	Г епзиба, бросив последний хозяйственный взгляд на стол, взяла Фиби за руку.
She would speak sharply to her; then, throwing aside all the starched reserve of her ordinary manner, ask pardon, and the next instant renew the just-forgiven injury. At last, when their mutual labor was all finished, she took Phoebe's hand in her own trembling one.	Она вспомнила, как сурова и раздражительна была во время приготовления этого таинственного завтрака, и решила, по-видимому, искупить свою вину.
"Bear with me, my dear child," she cried; "for truly my heart is full to the brim!	- Не суди меня за мое беспокойство и нетерпеливость, милое дитя мое, - сказала она.
Bear with me; for I love you, Phoebe, though I speak so roughly! Think nothing of it, dearest child! By and by, I shall be kind, and only kind!"