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قراءة كتاب The Stronger Influence
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
out of his easy acquiescence in things. He was flotsam on the sea of life—waste matter drifting aimlessly, to be finally ejected and flung, spent and useless, on the shore. Dust which returns to the dust, for which God in His inscrutable reason finds some use which eludes man’s understanding.
Esmé Lester walked along the quiet road and thought of the man she had left seated alone on the stoep, the man whom she believed to be ill. And the man sat on and waited for her return and wondered about her with an interest which equalled her interest in him. She was just a girl, a bright, sweet, wholesome young thing, who had happened along as the other guests at the sanatorium had happened along, and who would vanish again as they vanished, leaving him seated there still to watch further arrivals and departures as he had done for many weeks, as he would probably do for many months. He had never seen any one until this girl came who had held his attention even momentarily. She stood out from these others, some one apart and distinctive. It was not merely that she was pretty; many pretty women came there, but they did not interest him. There was something vivid and arresting about her, some elusive quality which caught his fancy, and which he could not define. He thought she looked sympathetic.
When Esmé returned an hour later he was still seated on the stoep. She saw his figure against the lighted doorway at his back: to all appearance he had not moved his position since she had passed him on setting forth. But the last of the daylight had departed, and the night was dark; there was no moon and the starlight was obscured by a mist of thin clouds which trailed across the sky. She could not see his face clearly. But as she stepped up to the stoep the light from the passage illumined her features and revealed her fully to the man’s gaze. He watched her covertly from under his brows, saw the startled look in her eyes as they caught the artificial light, their curious bewildered blink as the warm glow fell on her face.
Her look of blank surprise amused him. It was like the look of a child which steps abruptly into the light out of darkness and finds perplexity in the sudden change.
She passed him and went inside; and it seemed to him that the light glowed more dimly, that the night grew darker when she disappeared. He rose and went into the bar and remained there, as was his nightly custom, until the bar closed, when he went to bed.
Book One—Chapter Three.
The daylight woke Esmé early. The sunbeams found their way through the open window and flashed upon her face and startled her from sleep. She had not drawn her blind overnight; and she lay still for a while and looked at the golden riot without, resting comfortably, with a feeling of lazy contentment and intense ease of mind and body. The sweet freshness of the air poured over her in health-giving breaths. The beauty of the day, the brilliance of the sunshine called her to go out into it and enjoy the morning in its early freshness.
She rose and dressed and opening her window wider, put her foot over the sill and dropped down on to the grass.
The heavy dew silvered the ground and sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. She felt exhilarated, surprisingly happy and glad to be alive. No one seemed to be abroad at that hour except herself. The hotel presented the appearance of a house in which the inmates are all asleep. She went through the garden, past the low hedge, and out into the road. The road, too, looked deserted. She had the world to herself. A sense of freedom gripped her. She was not conscious of feeling lonely; the sunshine was companionable, and the novelty of everything held her attention and kept her interest on the alert.
The daylight disclosed all which the night had hidden from her when she travelled the same road on the previous evening. It had appeared then a land of shadows, of velvety dark under a purple sky; the shadows had rolled back, and the scene revealed wide stretches of veld, with here and there a clump of trees or low bushes to break the sameness of the view. The veld glowed with an intensity of colour that strove with a sort of hard defiance against the golden light of the sun. The sense of space, of solitude, was bewildering in this vast picture of sun-drenched open country, where no sound disturbed the silence save the muffled tread of her own footsteps in the powdery dust of the road.
She broke into a little song as she walked briskly forward, but checked the song almost instantly because the sound of her own voice struck intrusively on the surrounding quiet: the note of a bird would have sounded intrusive even here, where the silence of forgetfulness seemed to have fallen upon the land.
A tiny breath of wind came sighing across the veld; the girl lifted her face to meet it, and her eyes smiled. This was the cradle of the wind; here it had its source upon the mountain. She loved the wind as she loved the sunlight; she loved the warmth and the crudely brilliant colour, the untempered heat of this land of eternal sunshine, of vast spaces, and fierce and splendid life. She loved, too, the dark-skinned people of the country; loved them for their happy dispositions and the childlike simplicity of their natures.
Further along the road a Kaffir woman passed her with a tiny black baby slung in a shawl, native fashion, on her back. Esmé stopped to admire the baby, and touched its soft dark skin with her finger. The native woman and the English girl spoke in tongues incomprehensible to one another; but the language of baby worship is universal; and the Kaffir mother smiled appreciatively, pleased at the notice taken of her babe. She went on her way with the light of the sun in her eyes, which met its fierceness as the eyes of the animals meet the sun, unblinking and without inconvenience. Esmé looked after her and admired her free graceful walk, the upright poise of her head. The people who live in the sun show a superb indifference to its power.
With the disappearance of the native woman a sudden feeling of loneliness came over her, stayed with her, despite the brightness of the day and the sense of returning health which came to her in the wonderful lightness and purity of the air. She walked a little further, to where a curve in the road brought her to a belt of trees which threw a pleasing shade across the path. She halted in the shade and looked about her with inquiring gaze.
It was very beautiful here, and restful, and the air was fragrant with the pungent scent of the mimosa blossoms. She gathered a branch of the flowers and thrust some of them in her belt. Looking upward at the road she had travelled she saw that the descent was greater than she had imagined; the return would necessitate a steady climb.
She rested for a while, leaning against one of the trees, idly watching the play of sunlight through the branches. The shadows of the trees lay along the road in grotesque shapes. The brooding stillness of the day, the brightness and the warmth, were soothing: but the feeling of loneliness deepened; there was something a little awe-inspiring in the general hush. And then, with an abruptness that startled her, a sound struck upon her ears, a sound that was not loud but which was curiously audible in the silence. It was the sound of footsteps crunching upon the road. The figure of a man appeared round the bend and came on quickly, his footstep beating in measured muffled rhythm in the dust. He was quite close to her before he saw her; when he caught sight of her he hesitated for a second; it looked as though he contemplated beating a retreat. Then, coming apparently