[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

3
Spring grew slowly into summer. I no longer needed a cloak on the long afternoon rides, and the
daisies in the meadows grew up to Greatheart s knees. I finished rereading the Iliad and started the
Odyssey^ I still loved Homer, but Cicero, whom I read in a spirit of penance, I liked no better than I had
several years ago. I read the Bacchae and Medea over and over again so many times that I knew them
by heart. I also found my way back to the great library at the end of the hall of paintings, and read the
Browning that the Beast had recommended. On the whole I liked the poems, even if they were a little
obscure in places. Emboldened, I tried
The Ad-ventures of Sherlock Holmes, but I had to give that up in a few pages, because I could
make nothing of it. Then quite by accident, or at least it seemed so, I discovered a long shelf of wonderful
stories and verses by a Sir Walter Scott; and I read a book called The Once and Future King twice,
although I still liked Malory better. I stayed away from the hall of paintings. The castle, as usual, ordered
itself to the convenience of my comings and goings, and the library was now regularly to be found down
one short corridor and up a flight of stairs from my room.
After that day when I introduced the Beast and Great-heart to each other, the Beast occasionally
joined us on our morning walks. At first Greatheart was uneasy, although he gave me no more trouble;
but after a few weeks Greatheart was nearly as comfortable as I was in the Beast s company. I let the
big horse wander free, without halter or rope, as I had done at home; and I noticed that he kept me
between himself and the Beast, and the Beast never offered to touch him.
Sometimes too the Beast would find me in the library, where I was sitting on my feet in a huge wing
chair reading The Bride of Lammermoor or The Ring and the Book. Once he found me smiling
foolishly over  How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, and asked me to read it aloud. I
hesitated. I was sitting by the window, where my favourite chair had obligingly arranged itself, my elbow
on the ivy-edged stone sill. The Beast turned away from me long enough to call a chair up to him, which
was joined a moment later by a footstool with four ivory legs, bowed like the forelegs of a bulldog. He
sat down and looked at me expectantly, There didn t seem to be any opportunity for nervousness on my
part, so I put my hesitations aside and read it,  Now it s your turn, I said, and passed the book to him.
He held it as if it were a butterfly for a moment, then leaned back and began to turn the pages with
dexterity, I noticed and then made me laugh with his sly reading of  Soliloquy in the Spanish Cloister. I
didn t realize it at the time, but that was the beginning of a tradition; most days after that we took turns
reading to each other. Once after several weeks of a daily chapter of Bleak House, he did not come one
day, and I missed him sadly. I scolded him for his neglect when I saw him at sunset that evening. He
looked pleased and said,  Very well. I shan t miss again.
This brief exchange made me think, whether I would or no, I wondered that we didn t tire of each
other s company; perhaps even more I wondered that I sought his. We saw each other several hours of
every day; yet I at least always looked forwards to the next meeting, and his visits never seemed long.
Part of it, I supposed, was that we were each other s only alternative to solitude; but I could admit that
this wasn t all. I tried not to wonder too much, and to be grateful. This idyll was not at all what I had
imagined during that last month at home with a red rose keeping secret silent watch over the parlour.
There were only two flaws in my enjoyment of this new life. The worst was my longing for home, for
the sight of my family; and I found that the only way I could control this sorrow was not to think of them
at all, which was almost as painful as the loss itself. The other was that every evening after supper, when I
stood up from the long table in the dining hall and prepared to go upstairs to my room, the Beast asked:
 Beauty, will you marry me? Every evening, I answered,  No, and left the room at once. The first few
weeks I looked over my shoulder as I hastened upstairs, fearing that he would be angry, and would
follow me to put his question more forcefully. But he never did. The weeks passed, and with them my
fear, which was replaced by friendship and even a timid affection. I came to dread that nightly question
for quite a different reason. I did not like to refuse him the only thing he ever asked of me. My  No grew
no less certain, but I said it quietly and walked upstairs feeling as if I had just done something shameful.
We had such good times together, and yet they always came to this, at every day s final parting. I knew I
was fond of him, but the thought of marrying him remained horrible. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]