Donde Rachel desaprueba la adopción de un extraño, sería
“tonto y riesgoso”. Marilla explica sus razones. Rachel abandona Green Gables
con la idea de hacer conocer la noticia, “causará sensación” . Matthew, después
de atravesar el camino que lo separa a la estación, llega y no encuentra a
ningún “niño”.
Vocabulario: New Brunswick
Mrs. Rachel
prided herself on always speaking her mind; she proceeded to speak it now,
having adjusted her mental attitude to this amazing piece of news.
"Well,
Marilla, I'll just tell you plain that I think you're doing a mighty foolish
thing—a risky thing, that's what. You don't know what you're getting. You're
bringing a strange child into your house and home and you don't know a single
thing about him nor what his disposition is like nor what sort of parents he
had nor how he's likely to turn out. Why, it was only last week I read in the
paper how a man and his wife up west of the Island took a boy out of an orphan
asylum and he set fire to the house at night—set it ON PURPOSE, Marilla—and
nearly burnt them to a crisp in their beds. And I know another case where an
adopted boy used to suck the eggs—they couldn't break him of it. If you had
asked my advice in the matter—which you didn't do, Marilla—I'd have said for
mercy's sake not to think of such a thing, that's what."
This Job's
comforting seemed neither to offend nor to alarm Marilla. She knitted steadily
on.
"I don't
deny there's something in what you say, Rachel. I've had some doubts myself.
But Matthew was terrible set on it. I could see that, so I gave in. It's so
seldom Matthew sets his mind on anything that when he does I always feel it's
my duty to give in. And as for the risk, there's risks in pretty near
everything a body does in this world. There's risks in people's having children
of their own if it comes to that—they don't always turn out well. And then Nova
Scotia is right close to the Island. It isn't as if we were getting him from
England or the States. He can't be much different from ourselves."
"Well, I
hope it will turn out all right," said Mrs. Rachel in a tone that plainly
indicated her painful doubts. "Only don't say I didn't warn you if he
burns Green Gables down or puts strychnine in the well—I heard of a case over
in New Brunswick
where an orphan asylum child did that and the whole family died in fearful
agonies. Only, it was a girl in that instance."
"Well,
we're not getting a girl," said Marilla, as if poisoning wells were a
purely feminine accomplishment and not to be dreaded in the case of a boy.
"I'd never dream of taking a girl to bring up. I wonder at Mrs. Alexander
Spencer for doing it. But there, SHE wouldn't hesitate from adopting a whole
orphan asylum if she took it into her head."
Mrs. Rachel
would have liked to stay until Matthew came home with his imported orphan. But
reflecting that it would be a good two hours at least before his arrival she
concluded to go up the road to Robert Bell's and tell the news. It would certainly
make a sensation second to none, and Mrs. Rachel dearly loved to make a
sensation. So she took herself away, somewhat to Marilla's relief, for the
latter felt her doubts and fears reviving under the influence of Mrs. Rachel's
pessimism.
"Well, of
all things that ever were or will be!" ejaculated Mrs. Rachel when she was
safely out in the lane. "It does really seem as if I must be dreaming.
Well, I'm sorry for that poor young one and no mistake. Matthew and Marilla
don't know anything about children and they'll expect him to be wiser and
steadier that his own grandfather, if so be's he ever had a grandfather, which
is doubtful. It seems strange to think of a child at Green Gables somehow;
there's never been one there, for Matthew and Marilla were grown up when the
new house was built—if they ever WERE children, which is hard to believe when
one looks at them. I wouldn't be in that orphan's shoes for anything. My, but I
pity him, that's what."
So said Mrs.
Rachel to the wild rose bushes out of the fulness of her heart; but if she
could have seen the child who was waiting patiently at the Bright River station
at that very moment her pity would have been still deeper and more profound.
Matthew Cuthbert
and the sorrel mare jogged comfortably over the eight miles to Bright River. It
was a pretty road, running along between comfortable farmsteads, with now and
again a bit of balsamy fir wood to drive through or a empty where wild plums
hung out their filmy bloom. The air was sweet with the breath of many apple orchards
and the meadows sloped away in the distance to horizon mists of pearl and
purple; while
"The little birds sang as if it were
The one day of summer in all the
year."
Matthew enjoyed
the drive after his own fashion, except during the moments when he met women
and had to nod to them—for in Prince Edward island you are supposed to nod to everybody
you meet on the road whether you know them or not.
Matthew feared
all women except Marilla and Mrs. Rachel; he had an uncomfortable feeling that
the mysterious creatures were secretly laughing at him. He may have been quite
right in thinking so, for he was an odd-looking personage, with an graceless
figure and long iron-gray hair that touched his stooping shoulders, and a full,
soft brown beard which he had worn ever since he was twenty. In fact, he had
looked at twenty very much as he looked at sixty, lacking a little of the
grayness.
When he reached
Bright River there was no sign of any train; he thought he was too early, so he
tied his horse in the yard of the small Bright River hotel and went over to the
station house. The long platform was almost deserted; the only living creature
in sight being a girl who was sitting on a pile of wood at the extreme end.
Matthew, barely noting that it WAS a girl, moved past her as quickly as
possible without looking at her. Had he looked he could hardly have failed to
notice the tense rigidity and expectation of her attitude and expression. She
was sitting there waiting for something or somebody and, since sitting and
waiting was the only thing to do just then, she sat and waited with all her
might and main. (inglés más fácil)
Vocabulario
New Brunswick: una de las tres provincias marítimas
de Canadá y la única que es constitucionalmente bilingüe (inglés y francés).
Fredericton es la capital y Saint John es la ciudad más poblada. Llamada así
por la ciudad del norte de Alemania Braunschweig.
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