双语·灼人的秘密 纷扰的晦暝

When at length he stood alone on the platform at Baden, watched the signal lights, and realized that night was upon him, his more hopeful and cheery mood petered out, and he felt an immense desolation descending upon him. While daylight lasted he had been surrounded by human beings; there were all manner of interesting things a small boy could do, sit on a bench and watch the passers-by, wander along streets looking into shop windows. But what was going to happen when everyone withdrew behind closed doors, when they retired to bed, went to sleep, while he, feeling guilty of wrong-doing, slunk about the empty streets, unwontedly alone and forsaken? He must seek shelter at once, not a minute to waste; of that he was profoundly convinced.

Without casting a look to right or to left he made a bee-line towards his grandmother’s villa. It lay back from the road in a garden sheltered by shrubberies and covered with ivy and other creepers. It peeped out white within its framework of green, a friendly, old-fashioned abode. Edgar looked over the hedge, feeling almost like a stranger. Nothing stirred, no lights shone from the windows; Grannie and her guests were probably sitting over their coffee on the lawn to the rear.

He already had his hand on the bell-pull, when an alarming thought entered his mind. So far his resolve to ask his dear Grannie for shelter had seemed quite natural to him. But suddenly he had a doubt. What excuse could he furnish for his unexpected arrival? How was he to answer her inevitable questions? He saw in fancy the old lady’s look of surprise when he told her that he had run away from his mother. Besides, he would have to confess having hit his mother, and the enormity of this crime weighed heavily upon him. A door banged. He started violently, and panic seized him. Suppose someone came out and caught him loitering! He scampered off, hardly knowing where his legs were taking him.

Arrived at the town-park gates, he came to a stop. Here it was very dark, and no one was to be seen. Perhaps he could find a vacant seat, sit down quietly, and think over the situation undisturbed. He slunk along a deserted alley-way. The trees looked ghostly in the dim light of the lamps, but farther on, up a little hill which he climbed, everything lay in darkness, the mist-laden gloom of a spring night. A solitary couple or two sat absorbed. He passed quickly by, for he wanted to be alone. But no solitude was to be found. Whispers could be heard coming from the shadowy depths of trees and bushes, borne upon the wind, mingling with the rustle of leaves and grass-blades; stealthy footsteps sounded along the paths, a sigh, a low laugh, mysterious, voluptuous. Did these murmurs come from human beings or from the beasts? Nature seemed wrapped in sleep, and yet all things were astir. A ferment of living matter was at work disquieting in the extreme to a highly-strung child. Could It all be part of the springtime?

Never had he felt smaller and more impotent, as he huddled upon a bench and tried to think out what he should do, and how explain his flight. But he found it impossible to concentrate his thoughts. In spite of his best endeavours, his ears were always pricked to catch the sound of those mysterious voices issuing from the gloom. The darkness was terrible and perplexing? yet how enigmatically beautiful! This rustling and soughing, this whirring and allurement, did it emanate from animals or from men? Or was it merely the breeze among the boughs? Edgar listened. Yes it was the wind shaking the leaves....No, it came from that couple over there, held in a tight embrace. Man and woman. They had strolled hither from the glare of the town, in order to be alone in the darkness. What were they up to? If he could only find an answer to that question he would find peace, and his tortured mind would be at rest. Two people, but so closely pressed together as to form but a single shadow-just as it had been with his mother and the baron...So the fateful secret clung to this place too? Footsteps drew nearer, a soft gurgle of laughter could be heard. Supposing this approaching couple should catch sight of him? He cowered farther back into the darkness. But they did not see him. They passed quietly by, wrapped in one another’s embrace. Edgar was beginning to breathe freely once more when they stopped, pressing their faces together, and a sigh of content escaped from the woman’s mouth. The man spoke a few rapid words. Edgar felt horribly frightened, and at the same time he thrilled with an unknown pleasure. A minute later the gravel crunched beneath their feet; the pair were swallowed up in the shadows. .

Edgar’s pulses beat furiously, and a sense of solitude gripped him. He longed to hear the sound of a friendly voice; to feel an affectionate hug; to see a lighted and familiar room, people he knew and loved. The uncanny darkness of the night had sunk into his very marrow. He would burst if he did not shake himself free.

Home! Home! A warm and lighted room! Persons he knew! All would be well, then. Nothing bad could happen if he were once with his own people. They might scold him or even beat him, he did not care so long as he had no more to dwell in darkness and solitude.

Hardly knowing what he did he ran on and on, till again he found himself in front of Grandma's house, with his hand ready to pull the bell. Through the curtain of greenery, he saw that the windows were alight;in imagination he pictured the familiar rooms, and their occupants. This proximity was a pleasure; and if he still hesitated to ring, it was merely to revel in his happiness, in the knowledge that he was near to those he loved and who loved him.

A shrill voice behind him brought him back to earth.

“Master Edgar, why, here you are at last!”

It was his Grannie’s housemaid who had come out for an airing. She ran up to the boy and gave him a hearty embrace. The doors, magically, swung open, the dogs dashed down the drive to bark a welcome, people were coming from the house with candles and lanterns, voices of mingled alarm and delight sounded in his ears, a friendly tumult of noises, shapes of persons he knew....His grandmother, who hugged him tight, and behind her—could he be dreaming?—his mother. Abashed, trembling, on the verge of tears, the boy stood stockstill, not knowing which way to turn or what to do. Was he frightened? Or was he happy?