La case de l'oncle Tom
A book de Harriet Beecher Stowe.
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CHAPITRE PREMIER.
VOLUME I
Où le lecteur fait connaissance avec un homme vraiment humain.
CHAPTER I In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity
Vers le soir d' une froide journée de février, deux gentlemen étaient assis devant une bouteille vide, dans une salle à manger confortablement meublée de la ville de P..., dans le Kentucky. Pas de domestiques autour d' eux: les siéges étaient fort rapprochés, et les deux gentlemen semblaient discuter quelque question d' un vif intérêt.
Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two gentlemen were sitting alone over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in the town of P——, in Kentucky. There were no servants present, and the gentlemen, with chairs closely approaching, seemed to be discussing some subject with great earnestness.
C' est par politesse que nous avons employé jusqu' ici le mot de _gentlemen_[1 ]. Un de ces deux hommes, quand on l' examinait avec attention, ne paraissait pas mériter cette qualification: il n' avait vraiment pas la mine d' un gentleman. Il était court et épais; ses traits étaient grossiers et communs; son air à la fois prétentieux et insolent révélait l' homme d' une condition inférieure voulant se pousser dans le monde et faire sa route en jouant des coudes. Il avait une mise exagérée: gilet brillant et de toutes couleurs, cravate bleue semée de points jaunes, et noeud pimpant, tout à fait en harmonie avec l' aspect du personnage. Ses mains, courtes et larges, étaient surabondamment ornées d' anneaux. Il portait une massive chaîne de montre en or, avec une grappe de breloques gigantesques; il avait l' habitude, dans l' ardeur de la conversation, de les faire sonner et retentir avec des marques de vive satisfaction. Sa conversation était un défi audacieux jeté sans cesse à la grammaire de Muray; il avait soin de temps en temps de la munir de termes assez profanes, que notre vif désir d' être exact ne nous permet cependant point de rapporter.
For convenience sake, we have said, hitherto, two _gentlemen_. One of the parties, however, when critically examined, did not seem, strictly speaking, to come under the species. He was a short, thick-set man, with coarse, commonplace features, and that swaggering air of pretension which marks a low man who is trying to elbow his way upward in the world. He was much over-dressed, in a gaudy vest of many colors, a blue neckerchief, bedropped gayly with yellow spots, and arranged with a flaunting tie, quite in keeping with the general air of the man. His hands, large and coarse, were plentifully bedecked with rings; and he wore a heavy gold watch-chain, with a bundle of seals of portentous size, and a great variety of colors, attached to it,—which, in the ardor of conversation, he was in the habit of flourishing and jingling with evident satisfaction. His conversation was in free and easy defiance of Murray’s Grammar,[1] and was garnished at convenient intervals with various profane expressions, which not even the desire to be graphic in our account shall induce us to transcribe.
[1] English Grammar (1795), by Lindley Murray (1745-1826), the most authoritative American grammarian of his day.
His companion, Mr. Shelby, had the appearance of a gentleman; and the arrangements of the house, and the general air of the housekeeping, indicated easy, and even opulent circumstances. As we before stated, the two were in the midst of an earnest conversation.
“That is the way I should arrange the matter,” said Mr. Shelby.
“I can’t make trade that way—I positively can’t, Mr. Shelby,” said the other, holding up a glass of wine between his eye and the light.
“Why, the fact is, Haley, Tom is an uncommon fellow; he is certainly worth that sum anywhere,—steady, honest, capable, manages my whole farm like a clock.”
“You mean honest, as niggers go,” said Haley, helping himself to a glass of brandy.
-- Non, je veux dire réellement honnête, rangé, sensible et pieux. Il doit sa religion à une mission ambulante[2 ], qui passait il y a quatre ans par ici; je crois sa religion vraie. Je lui ai confié depuis tout ce que j' ai, argent, maison, chevaux; je le laisse aller et venir dans le pays; toujours et partout je l' ai trouvé exact et fidèle.
“No; I mean, really, Tom is a good, steady, sensible, pious fellow. He got religion at a camp-meeting, four years ago; and I believe he really _did_ get it. I’ve trusted him, since then, with everything I have,—money, house, horses,—and let him come and go round the country; and I always found him true and square in everything.”
-- Il y a des gens, fit Haley avec un geste naïf, qui ne croient pas que les nègres soient véritablement religieux; pour moi, je le crois: dans un des derniers lots que j' ai eus à Orléans, je suis tombé sur un individu--une bonne rencontre--si doux, si paisible ! c' était un plaisir de l' entendre prier. Il m' a rapporté une somme assez ronde.... Je l' achetai bon marché d' un homme qui était obligé de vendre; j' ai réalisé avec lui six cents[3 ]. Oui, j' estime que la religion est une bonne chose dans un nègre, quand l' article n' est pas falsifié....
“Some folks don’t believe there is pious niggers Shelby,” said Haley, with a candid flourish of his hand, “but _I do_. I had a fellow, now, in this yer last lot I took to Orleans—‘t was as good as a meetin, now, really, to hear that critter pray; and he was quite gentle and quiet like. He fetched me a good sum, too, for I bought him cheap of a man that was ’bliged to sell out; so I realized six hundred on him. Yes, I consider religion a valeyable thing in a nigger, when it’s the genuine article, and no mistake.”
[ 3 ] _Six cents dollars._ Quand les Américains ne nomment pas leur monnaie, ils sous-entendent le dollar. Le dollar est le sesterce américain. (_Note du traducteur._ )
-- Eh bien ! reprit l' autre, Tom est vraiment l' article non falsifié. Dernièrement je l' ai envoyé à Cincinnati, seul, pour faire mes affaires et me rapporter cinq cents dollars. « Tom, lui dis -je, j' ai confiance en vous, parce que vous êtes chrétien.... Je sais que vous ne me volerez pas. » Tom revint; j' en étais sûr.... Quelques misérables lui dirent: « Tom ! pourquoi ne fuis -tu pas ?... Va au Canada !... -- Ah ! je ne puis pas, répondit -il.... Mon maître a eu confiance en moi ! » -- On m' a redit ça ! Je suis fâché de me séparer de Tom, je dois l' avouer.... Allons ! ce sera la balance de notre compte, Haley.... Ce sera cela.... si vous avez un peu de conscience.
“Well, Tom’s got the real article, if ever a fellow had,” rejoined the other. “Why, last fall, I let him go to Cincinnati alone, to do business for me, and bring home five hundred dollars. ‘Tom,’ says I to him, ‘I trust you, because I think you’re a Christian—I know you wouldn’t cheat.’ Tom comes back, sure enough; I knew he would. Some low fellows, they say, said to him—Tom, why don’t you make tracks for Canada?’ ’Ah, master trusted me, and I couldn’t,’—they told me about it. I am sorry to part with Tom, I must say. You ought to let him cover the whole balance of the debt; and you would, Haley, if you had any conscience.”
-- J' ai autant de conscience qu' un homme d' affaires puisse en avoir pour jurer dessus, dit le marchand en manière de plaisanterie, et je suis prêt à faire tout ce qui est raisonnable pour obliger mes amis.... mais les temps sont durs, vraiment trop durs. » ~~~ Le marchand poussa quelques soupirs de componction,... et se versa une nouvelle rasade d' eau-de-vie.
“Well, I’ve got just as much conscience as any man in business can afford to keep,—just a little, you know, to swear by, as ’t were,” said the trader, jocularly; “and, then, I’m ready to do anything in reason to ’blige friends; but this yer, you see, is a leetle too hard on a fellow—a leetle too hard.” The trader sighed contemplatively, and poured out some more brandy.
“Well, then, Haley, how will you trade?” said Mr. Shelby, after an uneasy interval of silence.
“Well, haven’t you a boy or gal that you could throw in with Tom?”
“Hum!—none that I could well spare; to tell the truth, it’s only hard necessity makes me willing to sell at all. I don’t like parting with any of my hands, that’s a fact.”
A ce moment la porte s' ouvrit, et un enfant quarteron, de quatre ou cinq ans, entra dans la salle. Il était remarquablement beau et d' une physionomie charmante. Sa chevelure noire, fine comme un duvet de soie, pendait en boucles brillantes autour d' un visage arrondi et tout creusé de fossettes; deux grands yeux noirs, pleins de douceur et de feu, dardaient le regard à travers de longs cils épais. Il regarda curieusement dans l' appartement. Il portait une belle robe de tartan jaune et écarlate, faite avec soin et ajustée de façon à mettre en saillie tous les caractères particuliers de sa beauté de mulâtre; ajoutez à cela un certain air d' assurance comique, mêlée de grâce familière, qui montrait assez que c' était là le favori très-gâté de son maître.
Here the door opened, and a small quadroon boy, between four and five years of age, entered the room. There was something in his appearance remarkably beautiful and engaging. His black hair, fine as floss silk, hung in glossy curls about his round, dimpled face, while a pair of large dark eyes, full of fire and softness, looked out from beneath the rich, long lashes, as he peered curiously into the apartment. A gay robe of scarlet and yellow plaid, carefully made and neatly fitted, set off to advantage the dark and rich style of his beauty; and a certain comic air of assurance, blended with bashfulness, showed that he had been not unused to being petted and noticed by his master.
“Hulloa, Jim Crow!” said Mr. Shelby, whistling, and snapping a bunch of raisins towards him, “pick that up, now!”
The child scampered, with all his little strength, after the prize, while his master laughed.
“Come here, Jim Crow,” said he. The child came up, and the master patted the curly head, and chucked him under the chin.
« Maintenant, Jim, montre à ce gentleman comme tu sais danser et chanter.... » L' enfant commença une de ces chansons grotesques et sauvages, assez communes chez les nègres. Sa voix était claire et d' un timbre sonore. Il accompagnait son chant de mouvements vraiment comiques, de ses mains, de ses pieds, de tout son corps. Tous ces mouvements se mesuraient exactement au rhythme de la chanson.
“Now, Jim, show this gentleman how you can dance and sing.” The boy commenced one of those wild, grotesque songs common among the negroes, in a rich, clear voice, accompanying his singing with many comic evolutions of the hands, feet, and whole body, all in perfect time to the music.
“Bravo!” said Haley, throwing him a quarter of an orange.
-- Maintenant, Jim, marche comme le vieux père Cudjox, quand il a son rhumatisme. »
“Now, Jim, walk like old Uncle Cudjoe, when he has the rheumatism,” said his master.
A l' instant les membres flexibles de l' enfant se déjetèrent et se déformèrent. Une bosse s' éleva entre ses épaules, et, le bâton de son maître à la main, mimant la vieillesse douloureuse sur son visage d' enfant, il boita par la chambre, en trébuchant de droite à gauche comme un octogénaire.
Instantly the flexible limbs of the child assumed the appearance of deformity and distortion, as, with his back humped up, and his master’s stick in his hand, he hobbled about the room, his childish face drawn into a doleful pucker, and spitting from right to left, in imitation of an old man.
Les deux hommes riaient aux éclats.
Both gentlemen laughed uproariously.
“Now, Jim,” said his master, “show us how old Elder Robbins leads the psalm.” The boy drew his chubby face down to a formidable length, and commenced toning a psalm tune through his nose, with imperturbable gravity.
“Hurrah! bravo! what a young ’un!” said Haley; “that chap’s a case, I’ll promise. Tell you what,” said he, suddenly clapping his hand on Mr. Shelby’s shoulder, “fling in that chap, and I’ll settle the business—I will. Come, now, if that ain’t doing the thing up about the rightest!”
At this moment, the door was pushed gently open, and a young quadroon woman, apparently about twenty-five, entered the room.
C' était le même oeil, noir et brillant, un oeil aux longs cils. C' était la même abondance de cheveux noirs et soyeux.... On voyait courir le sang sous sa peau brune, qui prit une teinte plus foncée quand elle aperçut le regard de l' étranger fixé sur elle avec une sorte d' admiration hardie, qui ne prenait pas même la peine de se cacher. Sa mise, d' une irréprochable propreté, laissait ressortir toute la beauté de sa taille élégante. Elle avait la main délicate; ses pieds étroits et ses fines chevilles ne pouvaient échapper à l' investigation rapide du marchand, habitué à parcourir d' un seul regard tous les attraits d' une femme.
There needed only a glance from the child to her, to identify her as its mother. There was the same rich, full, dark eye, with its long lashes; the same ripples of silky black hair. The brown of her complexion gave way on the cheek to a perceptible flush, which deepened as she saw the gaze of the strange man fixed upon her in bold and undisguised admiration. Her dress was of the neatest possible fit, and set off to advantage her finely moulded shape;—a delicately formed hand and a trim foot and ankle were items of appearance that did not escape the quick eye of the trader, well used to run up at a glance the points of a fine female article.
“Well, Eliza?” said her master, as she stopped and looked hesitatingly at him.
“I was looking for Harry, please, sir;” and the boy bounded toward her, showing his spoils, which he had gathered in the skirt of his robe.
“Well, take him away then,” said Mr. Shelby; and hastily she withdrew, carrying the child on her arm.
“By Jupiter,” said the trader, turning to him in admiration, “there’s an article, now! You might make your fortune on that ar gal in Orleans, any day. I’ve seen over a thousand, in my day, paid down for gals not a bit handsomer.”
“I don’t want to make my fortune on her,” said Mr. Shelby, dryly; and, seeking to turn the conversation, he uncorked a bottle of fresh wine, and asked his companion’s opinion of it.
“Capital, sir,—first chop!” said the trader; then turning, and slapping his hand familiarly on Shelby’s shoulder, he added— ~~~ “Come, how will you trade about the gal?—what shall I say for her—what’ll you take?”
“Mr. Haley, she is not to be sold,” said Shelby. “My wife would not part with her for her weight in gold.”
“Ay, ay! women always say such things, cause they ha’nt no sort of calculation. Just show ’em how many watches, feathers, and trinkets, one’s weight in gold would buy, and that alters the case, _I_ reckon.”
“I tell you, Haley, this must not be spoken of; I say no, and I mean no,” said Shelby, decidedly.
“Well, you’ll let me have the boy, though,” said the trader; “you must own I’ve come down pretty handsomely for him.”
“What on earth can you want with the child?” said Shelby.
-- Eh mais, j' ai un ami qui s' occupe de cette branche de commerce. Il a besoin de beaux enfants qu' il achète pour les revendre. Ce sont des articles de fantaisie: les riches y mettent le prix. Dans les grandes maisons, on veut un beau garçon pour ouvrir la porte, pour servir, pour attendre. Ils rapportent une bonne somme. Ce petit diable, musicien et comédien, fera tout à fait l' affaire.
“Why, I’ve got a friend that’s going into this yer branch of the business—wants to buy up handsome boys to raise for the market. Fancy articles entirely—sell for waiters, and so on, to rich ’uns, that can pay for handsome ’uns. It sets off one of yer great places—a real handsome boy to open door, wait, and tend. They fetch a good sum; and this little devil is such a comical, musical concern, he’s just the article!’
“I would rather not sell him,” said Mr. Shelby, thoughtfully; “the fact is, sir, I’m a humane man, and I hate to take the boy from his mother, sir.”
-- En vérité ! Oui.... le cri de la nature.... je vous comprends: il y a des moments où les femmes sont très-fâcheuses.... j' ai toujours détesté leurs cris, leurs lamentations.... c' est tout à fait déplaisant.... mais je m' y prends généralement de manière à les éviter, monsieur: faites disparaître la fille un jour.... ou une semaine, et l' affaire se fera tranquillement. Ce sera fini avant qu' elle revienne.... Votre femme peut lui donner des boucles d' oreilles, une robe neuve ou quelque autre bagatelle pour en avoir raison.
“O, you do?—La! yes—something of that ar natur. I understand, perfectly. It is mighty onpleasant getting on with women, sometimes, I al’ays hates these yer screechin,’ screamin’ times. They are _mighty_ onpleasant; but, as I manages business, I generally avoids ’em, sir. Now, what if you get the girl off for a day, or a week, or so; then the thing’s done quietly,—all over before she comes home. Your wife might get her some ear-rings, or a new gown, or some such truck, to make up with her.”
-- Que Dieu vous écoute donc !
“I’m afraid not.”
-- Ces créatures ne sont pas comme la chair blanche, vous savez bien; on leur remonte le moral en les dirigeant bien. On dit maintenant, continua Haley en prenant un air candide et un ton confidentiel, que ce genre de commerce endurcit le coeur; mais je n' ai jamais trouvé cela. Le fait est que je ne voudrais pas faire ce que font certaines gens. J' en ai vu qui arrachaient violemment un enfant des bras de sa mère pour le vendre.... elle cependant, la pauvre femme, criait comme une folle.... C' est là un bien mauvais système.... il détériore la marchandise, et parfois la rend complétement impropre à son usage.... J' ai connu jadis, à la Nouvelle-Orléans, une fille véritablement belle, qui fut complétement perdue par suite de tels traitements.... L' individu qui l' achetait n' avait que faire de son enfant.... Quand son sang était un peu excité, c' était une vraie femme de race: elle tenait son enfant dans ses bras.... elle marchait.... elle parlait.... c' était terrible à voir ! Rien que d' y penser, cela me fait courir le sang tout froid dans les veines. Ils lui arrachèrent donc son enfant et la garrottèrent.... Elle devint folle furieuse et mourut dans la semaine.... Perte nette de mille dollars, et cela par manque de prudence.... et voilà ! Il vaut toujours mieux être humain, monsieur; c' est ce que m' apprend mon expérience. »
“Lor bless ye, yes! These critters ain’t like white folks, you know; they gets over things, only manage right. Now, they say,” said Haley, assuming a candid and confidential air, “that this kind o’ trade is hardening to the feelings; but I never found it so. Fact is, I never could do things up the way some fellers manage the business. I’ve seen ’em as would pull a woman’s child out of her arms, and set him up to sell, and she screechin’ like mad all the time;—very bad policy—damages the article—makes ’em quite unfit for service sometimes. I knew a real handsome gal once, in Orleans, as was entirely ruined by this sort o’ handling. The fellow that was trading for her didn’t want her baby; and she was one of your real high sort, when her blood was up. I tell you, she squeezed up her child in her arms, and talked, and went on real awful. It kinder makes my blood run cold to think of ’t; and when they carried off the child, and locked her up, she jest went ravin’ mad, and died in a week. Clear waste, sir, of a thousand dollars, just for want of management,—there’s where ’t is. It’s always best to do the humane thing, sir; that’s been _my_ experience.” And the trader leaned back in his chair, and folded his arm, with an air of virtuous decision, apparently considering himself a second Wilberforce.
Le marchand se renversa dans son fauteuil et croisa ses bras avec tous les signes d' une vertu inébranlable, se considérant sans doute comme un second Villeberforce.... Le sujet intéressait au plus haut degré l' honorable gentleman; car, pendant que M. Shelby, tout pensif, enlevait la peau d' une orange, Haley reprit avec une modestie convenable, mais comme s' il eût été poussé par la force de la vérité:
The subject appeared to interest the gentleman deeply; for while Mr. Shelby was thoughtfully peeling an orange, Haley broke out afresh, with becoming diffidence, but as if actually driven by the force of truth to say a few words more.
« Je ne pense pas qu' un homme doive se louer lui-même; mais je le dis, parce que c' est la vérité.... je crois que je passe pour avoir les plus beaux troupeaux de nègres qu' on ait amenés ici.... du moins on le dit.... Ils sont en bon état, gras, bien portants, et j' en perds aussi peu que quelque négociant que ce soit. Je le dois à ma manière d' agir, monsieur. L' humanité, monsieur, je puis le dire, est la base de ma conduite ! »
“It don’t look well, now, for a feller to be praisin’ himself; but I say it jest because it’s the truth. I believe I’m reckoned to bring in about the finest droves of niggers that is brought in,—at least, I’ve been told so; if I have once, I reckon I have a hundred times,—all in good case,—fat and likely, and I lose as few as any man in the business. And I lays it all to my management, sir; and humanity, sir, I may say, is the great pillar of _my_ management.”
Mr. Shelby did not know what to say, and so he said, “Indeed!”
“Now, I’ve been laughed at for my notions, sir, and I’ve been talked to. They an’t pop’lar, and they an’t common; but I stuck to ’em, sir; I’ve stuck to ’em, and realized well on ’em; yes, sir, they have paid their passage, I may say,” and the trader laughed at his joke.
Et le marchand se mit à rire de sa plaisanterie. ~~~ Il y avait quelque chose de si piquant et de si original dans ces démonstrations d' humanité, que M. Shelby lui-même ne put s' empêcher de rire.... Peut-être riez -vous aussi, cher lecteur; mais vous savez que l' humanité revêt chaque jour d' étranges et nouvelles formes, et qu' il n' y aura pas de fin aux stupidités de la race humaine.... en paroles et en actions.
There was something so piquant and original in these elucidations of humanity, that Mr. Shelby could not help laughing in company. Perhaps you laugh too, dear reader; but you know humanity comes out in a variety of strange forms now-a-days, and there is no end to the odd things that humane people will say and do.
Le rire de M. Shelby encouragea le marchand à continuer.
Mr. Shelby’s laugh encouraged the trader to proceed.
« C' est étrange, en vérité; mais je n' ai pas pu fourrer cela dans la tête des gens. Il y avait, voyez -vous, Tom Liker, mon ancien associé chez les Natchez: c' était un habile garçon; seulement, avec les nègres, ce Tom était un vrai diable. Il fallait que chez lui ce fût un principe, car je n' ai pas connu un plus tendre coeur parmi ceux qui mangent le pain du bon Dieu. J' avais l' habitude de lui dire:--Eh bien, Tom, quand ces filles sont tristes et qu' elles pleurent, quelle est donc cette façon de leur donner des coups de poing ou de les frapper sur la tête ? C' est ridicule, et cela ne fait jamais bien. Leurs cris ne font pas de mal, lui disais -je encore: c' est la nature ! et, si la nature n' est pas satisfaite d' un côté, elle le sera de l' autre. De plus, Tom, lui disais -je encore, vous détériorez ces filles; elles tombent malades et quelquefois deviennent laides, particulièrement les jaunes: c' est le diable pour les faire revenir.... Ne pouvez -vous donc les amadouer.... leur parler doucement ? Comptez là-dessus, Tom ! un peu d' humanité fait plus de profit que vos brutalités et vos coups de poing; on en recueille la récompense. Comptez -y, Tom ! -- Tom ne put parvenir à gagner cela sur lui; il me gâta tant de marchandise que je fus obligé de rompre avec lui, quoique ce fût un bien bon coeur et une main habile en affaires.
“It’s strange, now, but I never could beat this into people’s heads. Now, there was Tom Loker, my old partner, down in Natchez; he was a clever fellow, Tom was, only the very devil with niggers,—on principle ’t was, you see, for a better hearted feller never broke bread; ’t was his _system_, sir. I used to talk to Tom. ‘Why, Tom,’ I used to say, ‘when your gals takes on and cry, what’s the use o’ crackin on’ ’em over the head, and knockin’ on ’em round? It’s ridiculous,’ says I, ‘and don’t do no sort o’ good. Why, I don’t see no harm in their cryin’,’ says I; ’it’s natur,’ says I, ‘and if natur can’t blow off one way, it will another. Besides, Tom,’ says I, ‘it jest spiles your gals; they get sickly, and down in the mouth; and sometimes they gets ugly,—particular yallow gals do,—and it’s the devil and all gettin’ on ’em broke in. Now,’ says I, ‘why can’t you kinder coax ’em up, and speak ’em fair? Depend on it, Tom, a little humanity, thrown in along, goes a heap further than all your jawin’ and crackin’; and it pays better,’ says I, ‘depend on ’t.’ But Tom couldn’t get the hang on ’t; and he spiled so many for me, that I had to break off with him, though he was a good-hearted fellow, and as fair a business hand as is goin’.”
“And do you find your ways of managing do the business better than Tom’s?” said Mr. Shelby.
-- Oui, monsieur, je puis le dire. Toutes les fois que cela m' est possible, j' évite les désagréments. Si je veux vendre un enfant, j' éloigne la mère, et, vous le savez: loin des yeux, loin du coeur. Quand c' est fait, quand il n' y a plus moyen, elles en prennent leur parti. Ce n' est pas comme les blancs, qui sont élevés dans la pensée de garder leurs enfants, leur femme et tout. Un nègre qui a été dressé convenablement ne s' attend à rien de pareil, et tout devient ainsi très-facile.
“Why, yes, sir, I may say so. You see, when I any ways can, I takes a leetle care about the onpleasant parts, like selling young uns and that,—get the gals out of the way—out of sight, out of mind, you know,—and when it’s clean done, and can’t be helped, they naturally gets used to it. ’Tan’t, you know, as if it was white folks, that’s brought up in the way of ’spectin’ to keep their children and wives, and all that. Niggers, you know, that’s fetched up properly, ha’n’t no kind of ’spectations of no kind; so all these things comes easier.”
“I’m afraid mine are not properly brought up, then,” said Mr. Shelby.
-- Cela se peut. Vous autres, gens du Kentucky, vous gâtez vos nègres, vous les traitez bien. Ce n' est pas de la véritable tendresse, après tout. Voilà un noir ! eh bien, il est fait pour rouler dans le monde, pour être vendu à Tom, à Dick, et Dieu sait à qui ! Il n' est pas bon de lui donner des idées, des espérances, pour qu' il se trouve ensuite exposé à des misères, à des duretés qui lui sembleront plus pénibles.... J' ose dire qu' il vaudrait mieux pour vos nègres d' être traités comme ceux de toutes les plantations. Vous savez, monsieur Shelby, que chaque homme pense toujours avoir raison; je pense donc que j' agis comme il faut agir avec les nègres.
“S’pose not; you Kentucky folks spile your niggers. You mean well by ’em, but ’tan’t no real kindness, arter all. Now, a nigger, you see, what’s got to be hacked and tumbled round the world, and sold to Tom, and Dick, and the Lord knows who, ’tan’t no kindness to be givin’ on him notions and expectations, and bringin’ on him up too well, for the rough and tumble comes all the harder on him arter. Now, I venture to say, your niggers would be quite chop-fallen in a place where some of your plantation niggers would be singing and whooping like all possessed. Every man, you know, Mr. Shelby, naturally thinks well of his own ways; and I think I treat niggers just about as well as it’s ever worth while to treat ’em.”
“It’s a happy thing to be satisfied,” said Mr. Shelby, with a slight shrug, and some perceptible feelings of a disagreeable nature.
“Well,” said Haley, after they had both silently picked their nuts for a season, “what do you say?”
-- Je vais y réfléchir et en parler avec ma femme, dit M. Shelby. Cependant, Haley, si vous voulez que cette affaire soit menée avec la discrétion dont vous parlez, ne laissez rien transpirer dans le voisinage; le bruit s' en répandrait parmi les miens, et je vous déclare qu' il ne serait pas facile alors de les calmer.
“I’ll think the matter over, and talk with my wife,” said Mr. Shelby. “Meantime, Haley, if you want the matter carried on in the quiet way you speak of, you’d best not let your business in this neighborhood be known. It will get out among my boys, and it will not be a particularly quiet business getting away any of my fellows, if they know it, I’ll promise you.”
“O! certainly, by all means, mum! of course. But I’ll tell you. I’m in a devil of a hurry, and shall want to know, as soon as possible, what I may depend on,” said he, rising and putting on his overcoat.
“Well, call up this evening, between six and seven, and you shall have my answer,” said Mr. Shelby, and the trader bowed himself out of the apartment.
Le marchand salua et sortit. ~~~ « Dire que je ne puis pas le jeter du haut en bas de l' escalier ! pensa M. Shelby quand il vit la porte bien fermée. Quelle impudente effronterie !... Il connaît ses avantages. Ah ! si on m' eût dit qu' un jour j' aurais été obligé de vendre Tom à un de ces damnés marchands, j' aurais répondu: « Votre serviteur est -il un chien pour en agir ainsi ?.... » Et maintenant cela doit être... je le vois.... Et l' enfant d' Élisa ! Je vais avoir maille à partir avec ma femme à ce sujet -là.... et pour Tom aussi.... Oh ! les dettes ! les dettes ! Le drôle sait ses avantages.... il en profite. »
“I’d like to have been able to kick the fellow down the steps,” said he to himself, as he saw the door fairly closed, “with his impudent assurance; but he knows how much he has me at advantage. If anybody had ever said to me that I should sell Tom down south to one of those rascally traders, I should have said, ’Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?’ And now it must come, for aught I see. And Eliza’s child, too! I know that I shall have some fuss with wife about that; and, for that matter, about Tom, too. So much for being in debt,—heigho! The fellow sees his advantage, and means to push it.”
C' est peut-être dans l' État de Kentucky que l' esclavage se montre sous sa forme la plus douce. La prédominance générale, de l' agriculture, paisible et régulière, ne donne pas lieu à ces fiévreuses ardeurs du travail forcé que la nécessité des affaires impose aux contrées du sud; dans le Kentucky, la condition de l' esclave est plus en harmonie avec ce que réclament la santé et la raison. Le maître, content d' un profit modéré, n' est pas poussé à ces exigences impitoyables qui forcent la main à cette faible nature humaine partout où l' espoir d' un gain rapide est jeté dans la balance sans autre contre-poids que l' intérêt du faible et de l' opprimé.
Perhaps the mildest form of the system of slavery is to be seen in the State of Kentucky. The general prevalence of agricultural pursuits of a quiet and gradual nature, not requiring those periodic seasons of hurry and pressure that are called for in the business of more southern districts, makes the task of the negro a more healthful and reasonable one; while the master, content with a more gradual style of acquisition, has not those temptations to hardheartedness which always overcome frail human nature when the prospect of sudden and rapid gain is weighed in the balance, with no heavier counterpoise than the interests of the helpless and unprotected.
Oui, si l' on parcourt certaines habitations du Kentucky, si l' on voit l' indulgence humaine de certains maîtres, l' affection sincère de quelques esclaves, on peut être tenté de se reporter par ses rêves aux poétiques légendes des moeurs patriarcales; mais toute la scène est dominée par une ombre gigantesque et terrible, l' ombre de la loi ! Tant que la loi considérera les esclaves comme des choses appartenant à un maître, tant que la ruine, l' imprudence ou le malheur d' un possesseur bienveillant pourra contraindre ces infortunés à échanger une vie abritée sous l' indulgence et la protection contre une misère et un travail sans espérance, il n' y aura rien de beau, rien d' avouable dans l' administration la mieux réglée de l' esclavage.
Whoever visits some estates there, and witnesses the good-humored indulgence of some masters and mistresses, and the affectionate loyalty of some slaves, might be tempted to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend of a patriarchal institution, and all that; but over and above the scene there broods a portentous shadow—the shadow of _law_. So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and living affections, only as so many _things_ belonging to a master,—so long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil,—so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best regulated administration of slavery.
M. Shelby était une bonne pâte d' homme, une facile et tendre nature, porté à l' indulgence envers tous ceux qui l' entouraient. Il ne négligeait rien de ce qui pouvait contribuer à la santé et au bien-être des nègres de sa possession. Mais il s' était jeté dans des spéculations aveugles... il était engagé pour des sommes considérables. Ses billets étaient entre les mains de Haley.. Voilà qui explique la conversation précédemment rapportée.
Mr. Shelby was a fair average kind of man, good-natured and kindly, and disposed to easy indulgence of those around him, and there had never been a lack of anything which might contribute to the physical comfort of the negroes on his estate. He had, however, speculated largely and quite loosely; had involved himself deeply, and his notes to a large amount had come into the hands of Haley; and this small piece of information is the key to the preceding conversation.
Élisa, en approchant de la porte, en avait assez entendu pour comprendre qu' un marchand faisait des offres pour quelque esclave.
Now, it had so happened that, in approaching the door, Eliza had caught enough of the conversation to know that a trader was making offers to her master for somebody.
She would gladly have stopped at the door to listen, as she came out; but her mistress just then calling, she was obliged to hasten away.
Still she thought she heard the trader make an offer for her boy;—could she be mistaken? Her heart swelled and throbbed, and she involuntarily strained him so tight that the little fellow looked up into her face in astonishment.
“Eliza, girl, what ails you today?” said her mistress, when Eliza had upset the wash-pitcher, knocked down the workstand, and finally was abstractedly offering her mistress a long nightgown in place of the silk dress she had ordered her to bring from the wardrobe.
Eliza started. “O, missis!” she said, raising her eyes; then, bursting into tears, she sat down in a chair, and began sobbing.
-- Eh bien ! Élisa, mon enfant... mais qu' avez -vous donc ?
“Why, Eliza child, what ails you?” said her mistress.
“O! missis, missis,” said Eliza, “there’s been a trader talking with master in the parlor! I heard him.”
-- Eh bien ! folle ! quand cela serait ?
“Well, silly child, suppose there has.”
“O, missis, _do_ you suppose mas’r would sell my Harry?” And the poor creature threw herself into a chair, and sobbed convulsively.
« Eh non ! sotte créature; vous savez bien que votre maître ne fait pas d' affaires avec les marchands du sud, et qu' il n' a pas l' habitude de vendre ses esclaves tant qu' ils se conduisent bien... Et puis, folle que vous êtes, qui voudrait donc acheter votre Henri, et pour quoi faire ? pensez -vous que l' univers ait pour lui les mêmes yeux que vous ? Allons, sèche tes larmes, accroche ma robe et coiffe -moi... tu sais, ces belles tresses par derrière, comme on t' a montré l' autre jour... et n' écoute plus jamais aux portes.
“Sell him! No, you foolish girl! You know your master never deals with those southern traders, and never means to sell any of his servants, as long as they behave well. Why, you silly child, who do you think would want to buy your Harry? Do you think all the world are set on him as you are, you goosie? Come, cheer up, and hook my dress. There now, put my back hair up in that pretty braid you learnt the other day, and don’t go listening at doors any more.”
--Non, madame..., mais vous, vous ne consentirez pas à... à ce que...
“Well, but, missis, _you_ never would give your consent—to—to—”
-- Quelle folie... ! eh non, je ne consentirais pas... Pourquoi revenir là-dessus ? j' aimerais autant voir vendre un de mes enfants, à moi ! Mais, en vérité, Élisa, vous devenez un peu bien orgueilleuse aussi de ce petit bonhomme... On ne peut pas mettre le nez dans la maison que vous ne pensiez que ce soit pour l' acheter. »
“Nonsense, child! to be sure, I shouldn’t. What do you talk so for? I would as soon have one of my own children sold. But really, Eliza, you are getting altogether too proud of that little fellow. A man can’t put his nose into the door, but you think he must be coming to buy him.”
Reassured by her mistress’ confident tone, Eliza proceeded nimbly and adroitly with her toilet, laughing at her own fears, as she proceeded.
Mme Shelby était une femme supérieure, comme sentiment et comme intelligence; à cette grandeur d' âme naturelle, à cette élévation d' esprit, qui souvent est le caractère distinctif des femmes du Kentucky, elle joignait des principes d' une haute moralité et des sentiments religieux qui la guidaient, avec autant de fermeté que d' habileté, dans toutes les circonstances pratiques de sa vie. Son mari, qui ne faisait profession d' aucune religion plus particulièrement, avait la plus grande déférence pour la religion de sa femme. Il tenait à son opinion; il lui laissait donner librement carrière à sa bienveillance dans tout ce qui regardait l' amélioration, l' instruction et le bien-être des esclaves; quant à lui, il ne s' en mêlait pas directement. Sans croire très-fermement à la réversibilité des mérites des saints, il laissait assez voir qu' à son avis sa femme était bonne et vertueuse pour deux, et qu' il espérait gagner le ciel avec le surplus de ses vertus: ceci le dispensait de toute prétention personnelle.
Mrs. Shelby was a woman of high class, both intellectually and morally. To that natural magnanimity and generosity of mind which one often marks as characteristic of the women of Kentucky, she added high moral and religious sensibility and principle, carried out with great energy and ability into practical results. Her husband, who made no professions to any particular religious character, nevertheless reverenced and respected the consistency of hers, and stood, perhaps, a little in awe of her opinion. Certain it was that he gave her unlimited scope in all her benevolent efforts for the comfort, instruction, and improvement of her servants, though he never took any decided part in them himself. In fact, if not exactly a believer in the doctrine of the efficiency of the extra good works of saints, he really seemed somehow or other to fancy that his wife had piety and benevolence enough for two—to indulge a shadowy expectation of getting into heaven through her superabundance of qualities to which he made no particular pretension.
The heaviest load on his mind, after his conversation with the trader, lay in the foreseen necessity of breaking to his wife the arrangement contemplated,—meeting the importunities and opposition which he knew he should have reason to encounter.
Mrs. Shelby, being entirely ignorant of her husband’s embarrassments, and knowing only the general kindliness of his temper, had been quite sincere in the entire incredulity with which she had met Eliza’s suspicions. In fact, she dismissed the matter from her mind, without a second thought; and being occupied in preparations for an evening visit, it passed out of her thoughts entirely.
CHAPITRE II. ~~~ La mère.
CHAPTER II The Mother
Eliza had been brought up by her mistress, from girlhood, as a petted and indulged favorite.
Ceux qui ont voyagé dans l' Amérique du sud ont pu remarquer l' élégance raffinée, la douceur de voix et de manières qui semblent être le don particulier de certaines mulâtresses. Ces grâces naturelles des quarteronnes sont souvent unies à une beauté vraiment éblouissante, et presque toujours rehaussées par des agréments personnels. Élisa telle que nous l' avons peinte n' est point un tableau de fantaisie: c' est un portrait; nous avons vu l' original dans le Kentucky. Défendue par l' affection protectrice de sa maîtresse, Élisa avait atteint la jeunesse sans être exposée à ces tentations qui font de la beauté un héritage si fatal à l' esclave. Elle avait été mariée à un jeune homme de sa condition, habile et beau, vivant sur une possession voisine. Il s' appelait Georges Harris.
The traveller in the south must often have remarked that peculiar air of refinement, that softness of voice and manner, which seems in many cases to be a particular gift to the quadroon and mulatto women. These natural graces in the quadroon are often united with beauty of the most dazzling kind, and in almost every case with a personal appearance prepossessing and agreeable. Eliza, such as we have described her, is not a fancy sketch, but taken from remembrance, as we saw her, years ago, in Kentucky. Safe under the protecting care of her mistress, Eliza had reached maturity without those temptations which make beauty so fatal an inheritance to a slave. She had been married to a bright and talented young mulatto man, who was a slave on a neighboring estate, and bore the name of George Harris.
Ce jeune homme avait été loué par son maître pour travailler dans une fabrique de sacs. Son adresse et son savoir lui avaient valu la première place. Il avait inventé une machine à tiller le chanvre. Eu égard à l' éducation et à la position sociale de l' inventeur, on peut dire qu' il avait déployé autant de génie mécanique que Whitney dans sa machine à coton.
This young man had been hired out by his master to work in a bagging factory, where his adroitness and ingenuity caused him to be considered the first hand in the place. He had invented a machine for the cleaning of the hemp, which, considering the education and circumstances of the inventor, displayed quite as much mechanical genius as Whitney’s cotton-gin.[1]
Georges était bien de sa personne et d' aimables manières; c' était le favori de tous à la fabrique. Cependant, comme cet esclave, aux yeux de la loi, n' était pas un homme, mais une chose, toutes ces qualités supérieures étaient soumises au contrôle tyrannique d' un maître vulgaire, aux idées étroites. Le bruit de l' invention alla jusqu' à lui: il se rendit à la fabrique pour voir ce qu' avait fait cette chose intelligente; il fut reçu avec enthousiasme par le directeur, qui le félicita d' avoir un esclave d' un tel mérite.
[2] A machine of this description was really the invention of a young colored man in Kentucky. [Mrs. Stowe’s note.] ~~~ He was possessed of a handsome person and pleasing manners, and was a general favorite in the factory. Nevertheless, as this young man was in the eye of the law not a man, but a thing, all these superior qualifications were subject to the control of a vulgar, narrow-minded, tyrannical master. This same gentleman, having heard of the fame of George’s invention, took a ride over to the factory, to see what this intelligent chattel had been about. He was received with great enthusiasm by the employer, who congratulated him on possessing so valuable a slave.
Georges lui fit les honneurs de la fabrique, lui montra sa machine, et, un peu exalté par les éloges, parla si bien, se montra si grand, parut si beau, que son maître commença d' éprouver le sentiment pénible de son infériorité. Quel besoin avait donc son esclave de parcourir le pays, d' inventer des machines et de lever la tête parmi les gentlemen ? Il fallait y mettre ordre..., il fallait le ramener chez lui, le mettre à creuser et à bêcher la terre.... on verrait alors s' il serait aussi superbe ! Le fabricant et tous les ouvriers furent donc grandement étonnés d' entendre cet homme demander le compte de Georges, qu' il voulait, disait -il, reprendre immédiatement.
He was waited upon over the factory, shown the machinery by George, who, in high spirits, talked so fluently, held himself so erect, looked so handsome and manly, that his master began to feel an uneasy consciousness of inferiority. What business had his slave to be marching round the country, inventing machines, and holding up his head among gentlemen? He’d soon put a stop to it. He’d take him back, and put him to hoeing and digging, and “see if he’d step about so smart.” Accordingly, the manufacturer and all hands concerned were astounded when he suddenly demanded George’s wages, and announced his intention of taking him home.
“But, Mr. Harris,” remonstrated the manufacturer, “isn’t this rather sudden?”
“What if it is?—isn’t the man _mine_?”
-- Nous consentirons volontiers à élever le prix.
“We would be willing, sir, to increase the rate of compensation.”
“No object at all, sir. I don’t need to hire any of my hands out, unless I’ve a mind to.”
-- Mais, monsieur, il semble tout particulièrement propre aux fonctions....
“But, sir, he seems peculiarly adapted to this business.”
“Dare say he may be; never was much adapted to anything that I set him about, I’ll be bound.”
“But only think of his inventing this machine,” interposed one of the workmen, rather unluckily.
“O yes! a machine for saving work, is it? He’d invent that, I’ll be bound; let a nigger alone for that, any time. They are all labor-saving machines themselves, every one of ’em. No, he shall tramp!”
Georges était resté comme anéanti en entendant son arrêt ainsi prononcé par une autorité qu' il savait irrésistible. Il croisa les bras et se mordit les lèvres; mais la colère brûlait son sein comme un volcan, faisant couler dans ses veines des torrents de laves enflammées; sa respiration était brève, et ses grands yeux noirs avaient l' éclat des charbons ardents. Il eût sans doute éclaté dans quelque emportement fatal, si l' excellent directeur ne lui eût dit à voix basse en lui touchant le bras:
George had stood like one transfixed, at hearing his doom thus suddenly pronounced by a power that he knew was irresistible. He folded his arms, tightly pressed in his lips, but a whole volcano of bitter feelings burned in his bosom, and sent streams of fire through his veins. He breathed short, and his large dark eyes flashed like live coals; and he might have broken out into some dangerous ebullition, had not the kindly manufacturer touched him on the arm, and said, in a low tone,
“Give way, George; go with him for the present. We’ll try to help you, yet.”
The tyrant observed the whisper, and conjectured its import, though he could not hear what was said; and he inwardly strengthened himself in his determination to keep the power he possessed over his victim.
Georges fut ramené à l' habitation et employé aux plus grossiers travaux de la ferme. Il put sans doute s' abstenir de toute parole irrespectueuse; mais l' oeil rempli d' éclairs, mais le front sombre et troublé, n' est -ce point là un langage aussi, un langage auquel on ne saurait imposer silence ? Signe trop visible qu' on ne peut faire de l' homme une chose !
George was taken home, and put to the meanest drudgery of the farm. He had been able to repress every disrespectful word; but the flashing eye, the gloomy and troubled brow, were part of a natural language that could not be repressed,—indubitable signs, which showed too plainly that the man could not become a thing.
C' était pendant l' heureuse période de son travail à la fabrique que Georges avait vu Élisa et qu' il l' avait épousée: pendant cette période, jouissant de la confiance et de la faveur de son chef, il avait pleine liberté d' aller et de venir à sa guise. Ce mariage avait reçu la haute approbation de Mme Shelby, qui, comme toutes les femmes, aimait assez à s' occuper de mariage: elle était heureuse de marier sa belle favorite avec un homme de sa classe, qui lui convenait d'ailleurs de toute façon. Ils furent donc unis dans le grand salon de Mme Shelby, qui voulut elle-même orner de fleurs d' oranger les beaux cheveux de la fiancée et la parer du voile nuptial. Jamais ce voile ne couvrit une tête plus charmante. Rien ne manqua: ni les gants blancs, ni les gâteaux, ni le vin; on accourait pour louer la beauté de la jeune fille et la grâce et la libéralité de sa maîtresse. ~~~ Pendant une ou deux années, Élisa vit son mari assez fréquemment; rien n' interrompit leur bonheur que la perte de deux enfants en bas âge, auxquels elle était passionnément attachée: elle mit une telle vivacité dans sa douleur qu' elle s' attira les douces remontrances de sa maîtresse, qui voulait, avec une sollicitude toute maternelle, contenir ses sentiments naturellement passionnés dans les limites de la raison et de la religion.
It was during the happy period of his employment in the factory that George had seen and married his wife. During that period,—being much trusted and favored by his employer,—he had free liberty to come and go at discretion. The marriage was highly approved of by Mrs. Shelby, who, with a little womanly complacency in match-making, felt pleased to unite her handsome favorite with one of her own class who seemed in every way suited to her; and so they were married in her mistress’ great parlor, and her mistress herself adorned the bride’s beautiful hair with orange-blossoms, and threw over it the bridal veil, which certainly could scarce have rested on a fairer head; and there was no lack of white gloves, and cake and wine,—of admiring guests to praise the bride’s beauty, and her mistress’ indulgence and liberality. For a year or two Eliza saw her husband frequently, and there was nothing to interrupt their happiness, except the loss of two infant children, to whom she was passionately attached, and whom she mourned with a grief so intense as to call for gentle remonstrance from her mistress, who sought, with maternal anxiety, to direct her naturally passionate feelings within the bounds of reason and religion.
Cependant, après la naissance du petit Henri, elle s' était peu à peu calmée et apaisée; tous ces liens saignants de l' affection, tous ces nerfs frémissants s' enlacèrent à cette petite vie et retrouvèrent leur puissance et leur force. Élisa fut donc une heureuse femme jusqu' au jour où son mari fut violemment arraché de la fabrique et ramené sous le joug de fer de son possesseur légal.
After the birth of little Harry, however, she had gradually become tranquillized and settled; and every bleeding tie and throbbing nerve, once more entwined with that little life, seemed to become sound and healthful, and Eliza was a happy woman up to the time that her husband was rudely torn from his kind employer, and brought under the iron sway of his legal owner.
The manufacturer, true to his word, visited Mr. Harris a week or two after George had been taken away, when, as he hoped, the heat of the occasion had passed away, and tried every possible inducement to lead him to restore him to his former employment.
“You needn’t trouble yourself to talk any longer,” said he, doggedly; “I know my own business, sir.”
“I did not presume to interfere with it, sir. I only thought that you might think it for your interest to let your man to us on the terms proposed.”
“O, I understand the matter well enough. I saw your winking and whispering, the day I took him out of the factory; but you don’t come it over me that way. It’s a free country, sir; the man’s _mine_, and I do what I please with him,—that’s it!”
And so fell George’s last hope;—nothing before him but a life of toil and drudgery, rendered more bitter by every little smarting vexation and indignity which tyrannical ingenuity could devise.
A very humane jurist once said, The worst use you can put a man to is to hang him. No; there is another use that a man can be put to that is WORSE!
CHAPITRE III. ~~~ Époux et père.
CHAPTER III The Husband and Father
Mrs. Shelby had gone on her visit, and Eliza stood in the verandah, rather dejectedly looking after the retreating carriage, when a hand was laid on her shoulder. She turned, and a bright smile lighted up her fine eyes.
“George, is it you? How you frightened me! Well; I am so glad you ’s come! Missis is gone to spend the afternoon; so come into my little room, and we’ll have the time all to ourselves.”
Saying this, she drew him into a neat little apartment opening on the verandah, where she generally sat at her sewing, within call of her mistress.
« Oh ! je suis bien heureuse.... Mais pourquoi ne souris -tu pas ? Regarde Henri: comme il grandit !... » Cependant l' enfant jetait sur son père des regards furtifs à travers les boucles de ses cheveux épars, et se cramponnait aux jupes de sa mère. ~~~ « N' est -il pas beau ? dit Élisa en relevant les longues boucles et en l' embrassant.
“How glad I am!—why don’t you smile?—and look at Harry—how he grows.” The boy stood shyly regarding his father through his curls, holding close to the skirts of his mother’s dress. “Isn’t he beautiful?” said Eliza, lifting his long curls and kissing him.
“I wish he’d never been born!” said George, bitterly. “I wish I’d never been born myself!”
Surprise et effrayée, Élisa s' assit, appuya sa tête sur l' épaule de son mari et fondit en larmes.
Surprised and frightened, Eliza sat down, leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder, and burst into tears.
“There now, Eliza, it’s too bad for me to make you feel so, poor girl!” said he, fondly; “it’s too bad: O, how I wish you never had seen me—you might have been happy!”
“George! George! how can you talk so? What dreadful thing has happened, or is going to happen? I’m sure we’ve been very happy, till lately.”
“So we have, dear,” said George. Then drawing his child on his knee, he gazed intently on his glorious dark eyes, and passed his hands through his long curls.
“Just like you, Eliza; and you are the handsomest woman I ever saw, and the best one I ever wish to see; but, oh, I wish I’d never seen you, nor you me!”
-- O Georges ! comment pouvez -vous ?....
“O, George, how can you!”
-- Oui, Élisa, tout est misère, misère, misère ! Ma vie est misérable comme celle du ver de terre.... La vie, la vie me dévore. Je suis un pauvre esclave, perdu, abandonné.... Je vous entraîne dans ma chute.... voilà tout ! Pourquoi essayons -nous de faire quelque chose, d' apprendre quelque chose, d' être quelque chose ? A quoi bon la vie ?... Je voudrais être mort !
“Yes, Eliza, it’s all misery, misery, misery! My life is bitter as wormwood; the very life is burning out of me. I’m a poor, miserable, forlorn drudge; I shall only drag you down with me, that’s all. What’s the use of our trying to do anything, trying to know anything, trying to be anything? What’s the use of living? I wish I was dead!”
“O, now, dear George, that is really wicked! I know how you feel about losing your place in the factory, and you have a hard master; but pray be patient, and perhaps something—”
-- Patience ! s' écria -t-il en l' interrompant.... N' ai -je pas eu de la patience ? ai -je dit un seul mot quand il est venu et qu' il m' a enlevé, sans motif, de cette maison, où tous étaient bons pour moi ? Je lui abandonnais tout le profit de mon travail, et tous disaient que je travaillais bien.
“Patient!” said he, interrupting her; “haven’t I been patient? Did I say a word when he came and took me away, for no earthly reason, from the place where everybody was kind to me? I’d paid him truly every cent of my earnings,—and they all say I worked well.”
“Well, it _is_ dreadful,” said Eliza; “but, after all, he is your master, you know.”
-- Mon maître ! Eh ! qui l' a fait mon maître ? c' est à quoi je pense.... Je suis un homme aussi bien que lui; et je vaux mieux que lui ! Je connais mieux le travail que lui, et les affaires mieux que lui. Je lis mieux que lui, j' écris mieux, et j' ai appris tout moi-même sans lui en devoir de gré.... J' ai appris malgré lui; et maintenant quel droit a -t-il de faire de moi une bête de somme, de m' arracher à un travail que je fais bien, que je fais mieux que lui, pour me faire faire la besogne d' une brute ? Je sais ce qu' il veut.... il veut m' abattre, m' humilier.... c' est pour cela qu' il m' emploie aux oeuvres les plus basses et les plus pénibles.
“My master! and who made him my master? That’s what I think of—what right has he to me? I’m a man as much as he is. I’m a better man than he is. I know more about business than he does; I am a better manager than he is; I can read better than he can; I can write a better hand,—and I’ve learned it all myself, and no thanks to him,—I’ve learned it in spite of him; and now what right has he to make a dray-horse of me?—to take me from things I can do, and do better than he can, and put me to work that any horse can do? He tries to do it; he says he’ll bring me down and humble me, and he puts me to just the hardest, meanest and dirtiest work, on purpose!”
“O, George! George! you frighten me! Why, I never heard you talk so; I’m afraid you’ll do something dreadful. I don’t wonder at your feelings, at all; but oh, do be careful—do, do—for my sake—for Harry’s!”
-- J' ai été prudent et j' ai été patient, mais de jour en jour le mal empire; la chair et le sang ne peuvent en supporter davantage. Chaque occasion qu' il peut saisir de me tourmenter et de m' insulter.... il la saisit. Je croyais qu' il me serait possible de bien travailler, et de vivre en paix, et d' avoir un peu de temps pour lire et m' instruire en dehors des heures du travail.... Non ! plus je puis porter, plus il me charge !.... il affirme que, bien que je ne dise rien, il voit que j' ai le diable au corps, et qu' il veut le faire sortir.... Eh bien ! oui, un de ces jours ce diable sortira, mais d' une façon qui ne lui plaira pas, ou je serais bien trompé....
“I have been careful, and I have been patient, but it’s growing worse and worse; flesh and blood can’t bear it any longer;—every chance he can get to insult and torment me, he takes. I thought I could do my work well, and keep on quiet, and have some time to read and learn out of work hours; but the more he sees I can do, the more he loads on. He says that though I don’t say anything, he sees I’ve got the devil in me, and he means to bring it out; and one of these days it will come out in a way that he won’t like, or I’m mistaken!”
“O dear! what shall we do?” said Eliza, mournfully.
-- Pas plus tard qu' hier, dit Georges, j' étais occupé à charger des pierres sur une charrette; le jeune maître, M. Tom, était là, faisant claquer son fouet si près du cheval qu' il effrayait la pauvre bête. Je le priai de cesser aussi poliment que je pus, il n' en fit rien: je renouvelai ma demande; il se tourna vers moi et se mit à me frapper moi-même. Je lui saisis la main; il poussa des cris perçants, me donna des coups de pied et courut à son père, à qui il dit que je le battais. Celui -ci devint furieux, dit qu' il voulait m' apprendre à connaître mon maître; il m' attacha à un arbre, coupa des baguettes, et dit au jeune monsieur qu' il pouvait me frapper jusqu' à ce qu' il fût fatigué. Il le fit.... Et moi, je ne l' en ferais pas ressouvenir un jour ! » ~~~ Le front de l' esclave s' assombrit. Une flamme passa dans ses yeux; sa femme trembla.... ~~~ « Qui a fait cet homme mon maître ? murmurait -il encore; voilà ce que je veux savoir !
“It was only yesterday,” said George, “as I was busy loading stones into a cart, that young Mas’r Tom stood there, slashing his whip so near the horse that the creature was frightened. I asked him to stop, as pleasant as I could,—he just kept right on. I begged him again, and then he turned on me, and began striking me. I held his hand, and then he screamed and kicked and ran to his father, and told him that I was fighting him. He came in a rage, and said he’d teach me who was my master; and he tied me to a tree, and cut switches for young master, and told him that he might whip me till he was tired;—and he did do it! If I don’t make him remember it, some time!” and the brow of the young man grew dark, and his eyes burned with an expression that made his young wife tremble. “Who made this man my master? That’s what I want to know!” he said.
“Well,” said Eliza, mournfully, “I always thought that I must obey my master and mistress, or I couldn’t be a Christian.”
-- Vous pouvez avoir raison en ce qui vous concerne: ils vous ont élevée comme leur enfant, nourrie, habillée, bien traitée, instruite; cela leur donne des droits. Mais moi, coups de pied, coups de poing, insultes et jurons.... abandon parfois.... c' était mon meilleur lot.... voilà ce que je leur dois ! J' ai payé mon entretien au centuple.... mais je ne veux plus souffrir.... non ! je ne veux plus.... » Et il ferma le poing, en fronçant le sourcil d' un air terrible.
“There is some sense in it, in your case; they have brought you up like a child, fed you, clothed you, indulged you, and taught you, so that you have a good education; that is some reason why they should claim you. But I have been kicked and cuffed and sworn at, and at the best only let alone; and what do I owe? I’ve paid for all my keeping a hundred times over. I _won’t_ bear it. No, I _won’t_!” he said, clenching his hand with a fierce frown.
Eliza trembled, and was silent. She had never seen her husband in this mood before; and her gentle system of ethics seemed to bend like a reed in the surges of such passions.
« Vous savez, reprit Georges, ce petit chien, Carlo, que vous m' avez donné ? C' était toute ma joie: la nuit, il dormait avec moi; le jour, il me suivait partout: il me regardait avec tendresse, comme s' il eût compris ce que je souffrais.... L' autre jour, je le nourrissais de quelques restes, ramassés pour lui à la porte de la cuisine. Le maître nous vit et dit que je nourrissais un chien à ses dépens.... qu' il ne pouvait souffrir que chaque nègre eût ainsi son chien, et il m' ordonna de lui attacher une pierre au cou et de le jeter dans l' étang.
“You know poor little Carlo, that you gave me,” added George; “the creature has been about all the comfort that I’ve had. He has slept with me nights, and followed me around days, and kind o’ looked at me as if he understood how I felt. Well, the other day I was just feeding him with a few old scraps I picked up by the kitchen door, and Mas’r came along, and said I was feeding him up at his expense, and that he couldn’t afford to have every nigger keeping his dog, and ordered me to tie a stone to his neck and throw him in the pond.”
“O, George, you didn’t do it!”
-- Moi ? non ! mais lui l' a fait ! Lui et Tom assommèrent à coups de pierres la pauvre bête qui se noyait.... Carlo me regardait tristement, s' étonnant que je ne vinsse pas le sauver.... J' eus le fouet pour n' avoir pas obéi.... Qu' importe ? mon maître saura que je ne suis pas de ceux que le fouet assouplit.... Mon jour viendra.... qu' on y prenne garde !
“Do it? not I!—but he did. Mas’r and Tom pelted the poor drowning creature with stones. Poor thing! he looked at me so mournful, as if he wondered why I didn’t save him. I had to take a flogging because I wouldn’t do it myself. I don’t care. Mas’r will find out that I’m one that whipping won’t tame. My day will come yet, if he don’t look out.”
“What are you going to do? O, George, don’t do anything wicked; if you only trust in God, and try to do right, he’ll deliver you.”
“I an’t a Christian like you, Eliza; my heart’s full of bitterness; I can’t trust in God. Why does he let things be so?”
“O, George, we must have faith. Mistress says that when all things go wrong to us, we must believe that God is doing the very best.”
-- C' est aisé à dire à des gens qui sont assis sur des sofas et voiturés dans leurs équipages. Qu' ils soient à ma place, et je gage qu' ils changeront de discours.... Oh ! je voudrais être bon.... mais mon coeur brûle, rien ne peut l' éteindre.... Vous -même vous ne pourriez pas.... si je disais tout.... car vous ne savez pas encore toute la vérité !
“That’s easy to say for people that are sitting on their sofas and riding in their carriages; but let ’em be where I am, I guess it would come some harder. I wish I could be good; but my heart burns, and can’t be reconciled, anyhow. You couldn’t in my place,—you can’t now, if I tell you all I’ve got to say. You don’t know the whole yet.”
“What can be coming now?”
-- Écoutez ! dernièrement le maître a dit qu' il avait eu grand tort de me laisser marier hors de sa maison; qu' il déteste M. Shelby et les siens, parce qu' ils sont orgueilleux et qu' ils portent la tête plus haut que lui. Il dit que vous me donnez des idées d' orgueil, qu' il ne me laissera plus venir ici, mais que je prendrai une autre femme et m' établirai chez lui. Il se contenta d'abord d' insinuer et de murmurer cela tout bas; mais hier il me dit que j' aurais à prendre Mina dans ma cabane, ou qu' il me vendrait de l' autre côté de la rivière.
“Well, lately Mas’r has been saying that he was a fool to let me marry off the place; that he hates Mr. Shelby and all his tribe, because they are proud, and hold their heads up above him, and that I’ve got proud notions from you; and he says he won’t let me come here any more, and that I shall take a wife and settle down on his place. At first he only scolded and grumbled these things; but yesterday he told me that I should take Mina for a wife, and settle down in a cabin with her, or he would sell me down river.”
“Why—but you were married to _me_, by the minister, as much as if you’d been a white man!” said Eliza, simply.
-- Eh ! ne savez -vous pas qu' une esclave ne peut pas être mariée ? Il n' y a pas de loi là-dessus dans ce pays. Je ne puis vous garder comme femme s' il veut que nous nous séparions.... et voilà pourquoi je voudrais ne vous avoir jamais vue ! voilà pourquoi je voudrais ne pas être né.... Ce serait meilleur pour tous deux, meilleur pour ce pauvre enfant qu' attend un pareil sort....
“Don’t you know a slave can’t be married? There is no law in this country for that; I can’t hold you for my wife, if he chooses to part us. That’s why I wish I’d never seen you,—why I wish I’d never been born; it would have been better for us both,—it would have been better for this poor child if he had never been born. All this may happen to him yet!”
-- Oh ! notre maître à nous est si bon !
“O, but master is so kind!”
“Yes, but who knows?—he may die—and then he may be sold to nobody knows who. What pleasure is it that he is handsome, and smart, and bright? I tell you, Eliza, that a sword will pierce through your soul for every good and pleasant thing your child is or has; it will make him worth too much for you to keep.”
Ces paroles mordaient cruellement le coeur d' Élisa. Le fantôme du marchand d' esclaves passa devant ses yeux.... Comme si elle eût reçu le coup de la mort, elle pâlit, le souffle lui manqua.... Elle jeta un coup d' oeil vers le vestibule où l' enfant s' était retiré pendant cette grave et triste conversation. Le bambin cependant, superbe comme un triomphateur, se promenait à cheval.... sur la canne de M. Shelby. Élisa aurait bien voulu confier ses craintes à son mari, mais elle n' osa.
The words smote heavily on Eliza’s heart; the vision of the trader came before her eyes, and, as if some one had struck her a deadly blow, she turned pale and gasped for breath. She looked nervously out on the verandah, where the boy, tired of the grave conversation, had retired, and where he was riding triumphantly up and down on Mr. Shelby’s walking-stick. She would have spoken to tell her husband her fears, but checked herself.
“No, no,—he has enough to bear, poor fellow!” she thought. “No, I won’t tell him; besides, it an’t true; Missis never deceives us.”
“So, Eliza, my girl,” said the husband, mournfully, “bear up, now; and good-by, for I’m going.”
“Going, George! Going where?”
“To Canada,” said he, straightening himself up; “and when I’m there, I’ll buy you; that’s all the hope that’s left us. You have a kind master, that won’t refuse to sell you. I’ll buy you and the boy;—God helping me, I will!”
-- Oh malheur ! Et si vous étiez pris ?
“O, dreadful! if you should be taken?”
“I won’t be taken, Eliza; I’ll _die_ first! I’ll be free, or I’ll die!”
--Vous ne vous tuerez pas vous-même?
“You won’t kill yourself!”
“No need of that. They will kill me, fast enough; they never will get me down the river alive!”
“O, George, for my sake, do be careful! Don’t do anything wicked; don’t lay hands on yourself, or anybody else! You are tempted too much—too much; but don’t—go you must—but go carefully, prudently; pray God to help you.”
-- Oui, oui, Élisa; mais écoutez mon plan. Mon maître s' est mis dans la tête de m' envoyer de ce côté avec une note pour M. Symner, qui demeure à un mille plus loin. Il s' attend que je viendrai ici pour conter mes peines. Il se réjouit de penser que j' apporterai quelque ennui chez les Shelby. Cependant je m' en retourne tout résigné, comme si c' était chose terminée. J' ai quelques préparatifs à faire. On m' aidera, et dans huit jours je serai au nombre de ceux qui manquent à l' appel. Priez pour moi, Élisa; peut-être le bon Dieu vous écoutera -t-il, vous !
“Well, then, Eliza, hear my plan. Mas’r took it into his head to send me right by here, with a note to Mr. Symmes, that lives a mile past. I believe he expected I should come here to tell you what I have. It would please him, if he thought it would aggravate ’Shelby’s folks,’ as he calls ’em. I’m going home quite resigned, you understand, as if all was over. I’ve got some preparations made,—and there are those that will help me; and, in the course of a week or so, I shall be among the missing, some day. Pray for me, Eliza; perhaps the good Lord will hear _you_.”
“O, pray yourself, George, and go trusting in him; then you won’t do anything wicked.”
“Well, now, _good-by_,” said George, holding Eliza’s hands, and gazing into her eyes, without moving. They stood silent; then there were last words, and sobs, and bitter weeping,—such parting as those may make whose hope to meet again is as the spider’s web,—and the husband and wife were parted.
CHAPITRE IV. ~~~ Une soirée dans la case de l'oncle Tom.
CHAPTER IV An Evening in Uncle Tom’s Cabin
La case de l' oncle Tom était une petite construction faite de troncs d' arbres, attenant à la _maison_, comme le nègre appelle par excellence l' habitation de son maître. Devant la case, un morceau de jardin, où, chaque été, les framboises, les fraises et d' autres fruits, mêlés aux légumes, prospéraient sous l' effort d' une culture soigneuse. Toute la façade était couverte par un large bégonia écarlate et un rosier multiflore: leurs rameaux confondus, se nouant et s' enlaçant, laissaient à peine entrevoir çà et là quelques traces des grossiers matériaux du petit édifice. La famille brillante et variée des plantes annuelles, les chrysanthèmes, les pétunias, trouvaient aussi une petite place pour étaler leurs splendeurs, qui faisaient les délices et l' orgueil de la tante Chloé.
The cabin of Uncle Tom was a small log building, close adjoining to “the house,” as the negro _par excellence_ designates his master’s dwelling. In front it had a neat garden-patch, where, every summer, strawberries, raspberries, and a variety of fruits and vegetables, flourished under careful tending. The whole front of it was covered by a large scarlet bignonia and a native multiflora rose, which, entwisting and interlacing, left scarce a vestige of the rough logs to be seen. Here, also, in summer, various brilliant annuals, such as marigolds, petunias, four-o’clocks, found an indulgent corner in which to unfold their splendors, and were the delight and pride of Aunt Chloe’s heart.
Cependant entrons dans la case. ~~~ Le souper des maîtres était terminé, et la tante Chloé, premier cordon bleu de l' habitation, après en avoir surveillé les dispositions, laissant aux officiers de bouche d' un ordre inférieur le soin de nettoyer les plats, allait dans son petit domaine préparer le souper de son vieux mari. C' est bien elle qu' on a pu voir auprès du feu, suivant d' un oeil inquiet la friture qui chante dans la poêle, ou soulevant d' une main légère le couvercle des casseroles, d' où s' échappe un fumet qui annonce quelque chose de bon. Sa figure est noire, ronde et brillante; on dirait qu' elle a été frottée de blanc d' oeuf comme sa théière étincelante. Sa face dodue rayonne d' aise et de contentement sous le turban coquet. On y découvre cette nuance de satisfaction intime qui convient à la première cuisinière du voisinage. Telle était la réputation justement méritée de la tante Chloé.
Let us enter the dwelling. The evening meal at the house is over, and Aunt Chloe, who presided over its preparation as head cook, has left to inferior officers in the kitchen the business of clearing away and washing dishes, and come out into her own snug territories, to “get her ole man’s supper”; therefore, doubt not that it is her you see by the fire, presiding with anxious interest over certain frizzling items in a stew-pan, and anon with grave consideration lifting the cover of a bake-kettle, from whence steam forth indubitable intimations of “something good.” A round, black, shining face is hers, so glossy as to suggest the idea that she might have been washed over with white of eggs, like one of her own tea rusks. Her whole plump countenance beams with satisfaction and contentment from under her well-starched checked turban, bearing on it, however, if we must confess it, a little of that tinge of self-consciousness which becomes the first cook of the neighborhood, as Aunt Chloe was universally held and acknowledged to be.
Pour une cuisinière, c' était une cuisinière.... et jusqu' au fond de l' âme ! Pas un poulet, pas un dindon, pas un canard de la basse-cour qui ne devînt grave en la voyant s' approcher; elle les faisait réfléchir à leurs fins dernières. Elle-même réfléchissait sans cesse au moyen de les rôtir, de les farcir ou de les bouillir; ce qui était bien propre à inspirer une certaine terreur à des volailles intelligentes. Ses gâteaux, qu' elle variait à l' infini, restaient un impénétrable mystère pour ceux qui n' étaient pas versés comme elle dans les arcanes de la pratique; dans son honnête orgueil, elle riait à se donner un point de côté, quand elle racontait les inutiles efforts de ses rivales pour atteindre à cette hauteur.
A cook she certainly was, in the very bone and centre of her soul. Not a chicken or turkey or duck in the barn-yard but looked grave when they saw her approaching, and seemed evidently to be reflecting on their latter end; and certain it was that she was always meditating on trussing, stuffing and roasting, to a degree that was calculated to inspire terror in any reflecting fowl living. Her corn-cake, in all its varieties of hoe-cake, dodgers, muffins, and other species too numerous to mention, was a sublime mystery to all less practised compounders; and she would shake her fat sides with honest pride and merriment, as she would narrate the fruitless efforts that one and another of her compeers had made to attain to her elevation.
L' arrivée d' une nombreuse compagnie à l' habitation, l' arrangement d' un dîner ou d' un souper de gala, surexcitaient les facultés de son esprit. Rien n' était plus agréable à sa vue qu' une rangée de malles sous le vestibule; elle prévoyait, avec les arrivants, l' occasion de nouveaux efforts et de nouveaux triomphes.
The arrival of company at the house, the arranging of dinners and suppers “in style,” awoke all the energies of her soul; and no sight was more welcome to her than a pile of travelling trunks launched on the verandah, for then she foresaw fresh efforts and fresh triumphs.
A ce moment de notre récit, la tante Chloé inspectait sa tourtière. Abandonnons -la à cette intéressante occupation, et achevons la peinture du cottage.
Just at present, however, Aunt Chloe is looking into the bake-pan; in which congenial operation we shall leave her till we finish our picture of the cottage.
Le lit était dans un coin, recouvert d' une courte-pointe blanche comme neige; à côté du lit, un morceau de tapis assez large: c' était là que se tenait habituellement la tante Chloé. Le tapis, le lit et toute cette partie de l' habitation étaient l' objet de la plus haute considération. On les protégeait contre les dévastations et le maraudage des jeunes drôles. Ce coin était le salon de la case. Dans l' autre coin, il y avait également un lit, mais à moindre prétention; celui -là, il était évident que l' on s' en servait. ~~~ Le dessus de la cheminée était décoré d' images enluminées, dont le sujet était emprunté à l' Écriture sainte, et d' un portrait du général Washington, dessiné et colorié de façon à causer quelque étonnement au héros, s' il se fût jamais rencontré avec son image.
In one corner of it stood a bed, covered neatly with a snowy spread; and by the side of it was a piece of carpeting, of some considerable size. On this piece of carpeting Aunt Chloe took her stand, as being decidedly in the upper walks of life; and it and the bed by which it lay, and the whole corner, in fact, were treated with distinguished consideration, and made, so far as possible, sacred from the marauding inroads and desecrations of little folks. In fact, that corner was the _drawing-room_ of the establishment. In the other corner was a bed of much humbler pretensions, and evidently designed for _use_. The wall over the fireplace was adorned with some very brilliant scriptural prints, and a portrait of General Washington, drawn and colored in a manner which would certainly have astonished that hero, if ever he happened to meet with its like.
Dans ce coin, sur un banc grossier, deux enfants à têtes de laine, aux yeux noirs et brillants, aux joues rebondies et luisantes, étaient occupés à surveiller les premières tentatives de marche d' un nourrisson.... Ces tentatives se bornaient du reste à se dresser sur les pieds, à se balancer un moment d' une jambe sur l' autre, puis à tomber. Chaque chute était accueillie par des applaudissements: on eût dit quelque miracle accompli.
On a rough bench in the corner, a couple of woolly-headed boys, with glistening black eyes and fat shining cheeks, were busy in superintending the first walking operations of the baby, which, as is usually the case, consisted in getting up on its feet, balancing a moment, and then tumbling down,—each successive failure being violently cheered, as something decidedly clever.
Une table, dont les membres n' étaient pas complétement exempts de rhumatismes, était dressée devant le feu et couverte d' une nappe. On voyait déjà les verres et la vaisselle, d' un modèle assez recherché. On reconnaissait tous les symptômes qui signalent l' approche d' un festin. ~~~ A cette table était assis l' oncle Tom, le plus vaillant travailleur de M. Shelby. Tom étant le héros de notre histoire, nous devons le daguerréotyper pour nos lecteurs. C' était un homme puissant et bien bâti: large poitrine, membres vigoureux, teint d' ébène luisant; un visage dont tous les traits, purement africains, étaient caractérisés par une expression de bon sens grave et recueilli, uni à la tendresse et à la bonté. Il y avait dans tout son air de la dignité et du respect de soi -même, mêlé à je ne sais quelle simplicité humble et confiante.
A table, somewhat rheumatic in its limbs, was drawn out in front of the fire, and covered with a cloth, displaying cups and saucers of a decidedly brilliant pattern, with other symptoms of an approaching meal. At this table was seated Uncle Tom, Mr. Shelby’s best hand, who, as he is to be the hero of our story, we must daguerreotype for our readers. He was a large, broad-chested, powerfully-made man, of a full glossy black, and a face whose truly African features were characterized by an expression of grave and steady good sense, united with much kindliness and benevolence. There was something about his whole air self-respecting and dignified, yet united with a confiding and humble simplicity.
Il était alors très-laborieusement occupé: une ardoise était placée devant lui, et il s' efforçait, avec un soin plein de lenteur, de tracer quelques lettres. Il était surveillé dans cette opération par le jeune monsieur Georges, vif et pétulant garçon de treize ans, qui s' élevait en ce moment à toute la dignité de sa position d' instituteur:
He was very busily intent at this moment on a slate lying before him, on which he was carefully and slowly endeavoring to accomplish a copy of some letters, in which operation he was overlooked by young Mas’r George, a smart, bright boy of thirteen, who appeared fully to realize the dignity of his position as instructor.
“Not that way, Uncle Tom,—not that way,” said he, briskly, as Uncle Tom laboriously brought up the tail of his _g_ the wrong side out; “that makes a _q_, you see.”
-- En vérité ! » dit l' oncle Tom en regardant avec un air de respect et d' admiration les _q_ et les _g_ sans nombre que son jeune instituteur semait sur l' ardoise pour son édification. ~~~ Il prit alors le crayon dans ses gros doigts pesants et recommença patiemment.
“La sakes, now, does it?” said Uncle Tom, looking with a respectful, admiring air, as his young teacher flourishingly scrawled _q_’s and _g_’s innumerable for his edification; and then, taking the pencil in his big, heavy fingers, he patiently recommenced.
“How easy white folks al’us does things!” said Aunt Chloe, pausing while she was greasing a griddle with a scrap of bacon on her fork, and regarding young Master George with pride. “The way he can write, now! and read, too! and then to come out here evenings and read his lessons to us,—it’s mighty interestin’!”
“But, Aunt Chloe, I’m getting mighty hungry,” said George. “Isn’t that cake in the skillet almost done?”
-- Bientôt, monsieur Georges, dit Chloé en soulevant le couvercle... bientôt. Oh ! le brun magnifique ! Elle est vraiment d' un brun superbe ! Ah ! il n' y a que moi pour cela. Madame permit l' autre jour à Sally d' essayer.... pour apprendre, disait -elle. Ah ! madame, lui disais -je, ça me fend le coeur de voir ainsi gâter les bonnes choses. Le gâteau ne monta que d' un côté.... et plus ferme que ma savate... Ah ! fi ! »
“Mose done, Mas’r George,” said Aunt Chloe, lifting the lid and peeping in,—“browning beautiful—a real lovely brown. Ah! let me alone for dat. Missis let Sally try to make some cake, t’ other day, jes to _larn_ her, she said. ‘O, go way, Missis,’ said I; ‘it really hurts my feelin’s, now, to see good vittles spilt dat ar way! Cake ris all to one side—no shape at all; no more than my shoe; go way!’”
Et, après cette dernière expression de mépris pour la maladresse de Sally, la tante Chloé enleva le couvercle et servit un gâteau parfaitement réussi, dont aucun praticien de la ville n' eût eu certes à rougir. Cette opération délicate une fois menée à bien, Chloé s' occupa activement de la partie plus substantielle du souper.
And with this final expression of contempt for Sally’s greenness, Aunt Chloe whipped the cover off the bake-kettle, and disclosed to view a neatly-baked pound-cake, of which no city confectioner need to have been ashamed. This being evidently the central point of the entertainment, Aunt Chloe began now to bustle about earnestly in the supper department.
“Here you, Mose and Pete! get out de way, you niggers! Get away, Polly, honey,—mammy’ll give her baby some fin, by and by. Now, Mas’r George, you jest take off dem books, and set down now with my old man, and I’ll take up de sausages, and have de first griddle full of cakes on your plates in less dan no time.”
“They wanted me to come to supper in the house,” said George; “but I knew what was what too well for that, Aunt Chloe.”
“So you did—so you did, honey,” said Aunt Chloe, heaping the smoking batter-cakes on his plate; “you know’d your old aunty’d keep the best for you. O, let you alone for dat! Go way!” And, with that, aunty gave George a nudge with her finger, designed to be immensely facetious, and turned again to her griddle with great briskness.
“Now for the cake,” said Mas’r George, when the activity of the griddle department had somewhat subsided; and, with that, the youngster flourished a large knife over the article in question.
Et il brandit un immense couteau sur l' objet en question. ~~~ « Oh ciel ! monsieur Georges, dit Chloé vivement en lui saisissant le bras, pas avec ce grand et lourd couteau; laissez -le bien vite, vous écraseriez le gâteau. J' ai là un vieux petit couteau très-fin, que je garde depuis longtemps pour cette occasion.... Allez maintenant.... voyez ! léger comme une plume. A présent, mangez.... rien ne vous arrête.
“La bless you, Mas’r George!” said Aunt Chloe, with earnestness, catching his arm, “you wouldn’t be for cuttin’ it wid dat ar great heavy knife! Smash all down—spile all de pretty rise of it. Here, I’ve got a thin old knife, I keeps sharp a purpose. Dar now, see! comes apart light as a feather! Now eat away—you won’t get anything to beat dat ar.”
“Tom Lincon says,” said George, speaking with his mouth full, “that their Jinny is a better cook than you.”
-- Lincoln ne sait ce qu' il dit, reprit Chloé avec un souverain mépris.... Il ne faut pas comparer les Lincoln aux Shelby.... ils ont leur petit mérite pour les choses ordinaires; mais s' il s' agit d' avoir un peu de.... de style !... plus rien !... Mettre M. Lincoln à côté de M. Shelby !... Oh ! Dieu ! et Mme Lincoln, peut -elle figurer dans un salon à côté de ma maîtresse.... si belle, si brillante ? Allons ! ne me parlez plus de ces Lincoln. » Et Chloé hocha la tête comme une femme qui a la conscience de ce qu' elle sait.
“Dem Lincons an’t much count, no way!” said Aunt Chloe, contemptuously; “I mean, set along side _our_ folks. They ’s ’spectable folks enough in a kinder plain way; but, as to gettin’ up anything in style, they don’t begin to have a notion on ’t. Set Mas’r Lincon, now, alongside Mas’r Shelby! Good Lor! and Missis Lincon,—can she kinder sweep it into a room like my missis,—so kinder splendid, yer know! O, go way! don’t tell me nothin’ of dem Lincons!”—and Aunt Chloe tossed her head as one who hoped she did know something of the world.
“Well, though, I’ve heard you say,” said George, “that Jinny was a pretty fair cook.”
-- Oui, je l' ai dit, et je puis le répéter.... bonne, mais vulgaire, commune.... propre à faire la cuisine de tous les jours; mais l' _extra_, monsieur, l' _extra_ !... elle n' y atteint pas.... Elle fait bien une galette de maïs.... et c' est tout.... Je sais qu' elle s' essaye aux pâtés.... mais la croûte.... elle manque les croûtes ! Elle n' arrivera jamais à cette pâtisserie molle et fondante qui s' élève et se gonfle comme un soufflet.... non, jamais ! Quand miss Mary se maria.... Jenny me montra les gâteaux de mariage.... Jenny et moi nous sommes bonnes amies, vous savez: je ne dis rien.... Mais allez, monsieur Georges, je ne fermerais pas l' oeil d' une semaine si j' avais fait des pâtés pareils.... Ce n' était rien qui vaille....
“So I did,” said Aunt Chloe,—“I may say dat. Good, plain, common cookin’, Jinny’ll do;—make a good pone o’ bread,—bile her taters _far_,—her corn cakes isn’t extra, not extra now, Jinny’s corn cakes isn’t, but then they’s far,—but, Lor, come to de higher branches, and what _can_ she do? Why, she makes pies—sartin she does; but what kinder crust? Can she make your real flecky paste, as melts in your mouth, and lies all up like a puff? Now, I went over thar when Miss Mary was gwine to be married, and Jinny she jest showed me de weddin’ pies. Jinny and I is good friends, ye know. I never said nothin’; but go ’long, Mas’r George! Why, I shouldn’t sleep a wink for a week, if I had a batch of pies like dem ar. Why, dey wan’t no ’count ’t all.”
“I suppose Jinny thought they were ever so nice,” said George.
-- Eh ! sans doute, elle les montrait comme une innocente. Vous voyez, c' est bien cela ! Jenny ne sait pas ! C' est une famille de rien.... Elle ne peut pas savoir, cette fille; ce n' est pas sa faute. Ah ! monsieur Georges, vous ignorez la moitié des avantages et priviléges de votre famille. » ~~~ Ici Chloé soupira et roula des yeux attendris.
“Thought so!—didn’t she? Thar she was, showing em, as innocent—ye see, it’s jest here, Jinny _don’t know_. Lor, the family an’t nothing! She can’t be spected to know! ’Ta’nt no fault o’ hem. Ah, Mas’r George, you doesn’t know half ’your privileges in yer family and bringin’ up!” Here Aunt Chloe sighed, and rolled up her eyes with emotion.
“I’m sure, Aunt Chloe, I understand my pie and pudding privileges,” said George. “Ask Tom Lincon if I don’t crow over him, every time I meet him.”
Chloé se renversa dans sa chaise: l' esprit de son jeune maître excita en elle des accès de gaieté retentissante. Elle rit, elle rit jusqu' à ce que les larmes couvrissent ses joues noires et brillantes..... Cependant elle pinçait le jeune homme, et lui donnait même quelques coups de poing, en disant qu' il était son bourreau et qu' il la tuerait un de ces jours; et, entre chacune de ces prédictions funèbres, les éclats de rire sonores recommençaient de plus belle. Georges commença à croire qu' il avait trop d' esprit.... que c' était un danger, et qu' il devait prendre garde à ce que ses conversations fussent moins meurtrières.
Aunt Chloe sat back in her chair, and indulged in a hearty guffaw of laughter, at this witticism of young Mas’r’s, laughing till the tears rolled down her black, shining cheeks, and varying the exercise with playfully slapping and poking Mas’r Georgey, and telling him to go way, and that he was a case—that he was fit to kill her, and that he sartin would kill her, one of these days; and, between each of these sanguinary predictions, going off into a laugh, each longer and stronger than the other, till George really began to think that he was a very dangerously witty fellow, and that it became him to be careful how he talked “as funny as he could.”
“And so ye telled Tom, did ye? O, Lor! what young uns will be up ter! Ye crowed over Tom? O, Lor! Mas’r George, if ye wouldn’t make a hornbug laugh!”
“Yes,” said George, “I says to him, ‘Tom, you ought to see some of Aunt Chloe’s pies; they’re the right sort,’ says I.”
-- Eh bien ! non, il ne faut pas ! dit Chloé; car l' idée de la malheureuse condition de Tom Lincoln fit une soudaine et vive impression sur son coeur bienveillant. Vous devriez plutôt l' inviter à venir dîner ici de temps en temps, monsieur Georges, ajouta-telle; ce serait tout à fait bien de votre part. Vous savez, monsieur Georges, qu' il ne faut se croire au-dessus de personne à cause de ses priviléges.... Nos priviléges, voyez -vous, nous les avons reçus.... il faut toujours se rappeler cela. » ~~~ Et Chloé redevint tout à fait sérieuse.
“Pity, now, Tom couldn’t,” said Aunt Chloe, on whose benevolent heart the idea of Tom’s benighted condition seemed to make a strong impression. “Ye oughter just ask him here to dinner, some o’ these times, Mas’r George,” she added; “it would look quite pretty of ye. Ye know, Mas’r George, ye oughtenter feel ’bove nobody, on ’count yer privileges, ’cause all our privileges is gi’n to us; we ought al’ays to ’member that,” said Aunt Chloe, looking quite serious.
“Well, I mean to ask Tom here, some day next week,” said George; “and you do your prettiest, Aunt Chloe, and we’ll make him stare. Won’t we make him eat so he won’t get over it for a fortnight?”
-- C' est cela ! c' est cela ! s' écria Chloé toute ravie.... Vous verrez ! Seigneur Dieu ! pensez à quelques-uns de nos dîners.... Vous rappelez -vous ce pâté de volaille, quand vous reçûtes le général Knox ? Moi et madame, nous nous disputâmes pour la croûte. Je ne sais ce qu' ont parfois les dames; mais c' est au moment où vous avez la plus lourde responsabilité sur la tête qu' elles viennent se mêler de vos affaires. Madame voulait me montrer comment je devais m' y prendre. A la fin, je me fâchai presque.... je lui dis: « Madame, regardez vos belles mains blanches et vos longs doigts, et toutes ces bagues étincelantes comme nos lis blancs avec leurs perles de rosée.... Regardez maintenant mes larges mains noires.... ne voyez -vous pas que Dieu a voulu nous créer, moi, pour faire la croûte du pâté, vous, pour rester dans votre salon ?... » Oui, monsieur Georges, j' étais sur le point de me fâcher....
“Yes, yes—sartin,” said Aunt Chloe, delighted; “you’ll see. Lor! to think of some of our dinners! Yer mind dat ar great chicken pie I made when we guv de dinner to General Knox? I and Missis, we come pretty near quarrelling about dat ar crust. What does get into ladies sometimes, I don’t know; but, sometimes, when a body has de heaviest kind o’ ’sponsibility on ’em, as ye may say, and is all kinder _”seris’_ and taken up, dey takes dat ar time to be hangin’ round and kinder interferin’! Now, Missis, she wanted me to do dis way, and she wanted me to do dat way; and, finally, I got kinder sarcy, and, says I, ’Now, Missis, do jist look at dem beautiful white hands o’ yourn with long fingers, and all a sparkling with rings, like my white lilies when de dew ’s on ’em; and look at my great black stumpin hands. Now, don’t ye think dat de Lord must have meant _me_ to make de pie-crust, and you to stay in de parlor? Dar! I was jist so sarcy, Mas’r George.”
-- Et que dit ma mère ?
“And what did mother say?” said George.
-- Elle fixa sur moi ses grands yeux, ses beaux grands yeux, et elle dit: « Bien, mère Chloé, je crois que vous avez raison.... » Et elle rentra dans le salon. Elle aurait dû me donner un coup de poing sur la tête, pour mon insolence. Mais chacun à sa place.... je ne puis rien faire quand il y a des dames dans la cuisine.
“Say?—why, she kinder larfed in her eyes—dem great handsome eyes o’ hern; and, says she, ‘Well, Aunt Chloe, I think you are about in the right on ’t,’ says she; and she went off in de parlor. She oughter cracked me over de head for bein’ so sarcy; but dar’s whar ’t is—I can’t do nothin’ with ladies in de kitchen!”
“Well, you made out well with that dinner,—I remember everybody said so,” said George.
-- N' est -ce pas ?... Moi, j' étais dans la salle à manger.... je vis le général passer trois fois son assiette pour retourner au pâté.... Il disait: « Vous avez là, madame Shelby, une cuisinière vraiment distinguée.... » Dieu ! je me sentais gonfler d' orgueil ! Le général sait quelle cuisinière je suis, reprit Chloé en se rengorgeant.... un bien bel homme, le général; il descend d' une des premières familles de l' ancienne Virginie.... il s' y connaît aussi bien que moi, le général. Voyez -vous, monsieur Georges, il y a plusieurs points à noter dans un pâté.... tout le monde ne s' en doute pas.... mais le général le sait, lui, je m' en suis aperçue aux remarques qu' il a faites.... il connaît le pâté ! »
“Didn’t I? And wan’t I behind de dinin’-room door dat bery day? and didn’t I see de General pass his plate three times for some more dat bery pie?—and, says he, ‘You must have an uncommon cook, Mrs. Shelby.’ Lor! I was fit to split myself. ~~~ “And de Gineral, he knows what cookin’ is,” said Aunt Chloe, drawing herself up with an air. “Bery nice man, de Gineral! He comes of one of de bery _fustest_ families in Old Virginny! He knows what’s what, now, as well as I do—de Gineral. Ye see, there’s _pints_ in all pies, Mas’r George; but tan’t everybody knows what they is, or as orter be. But the Gineral, he knows; I knew by his ’marks he made. Yes, he knows what de pints is!”
Cependant, M. Georges en était arrivé à ce point où un enfant même peut en venir (dans des circonstances exceptionnelles ), de ne pouvoir avaler un morceau de plus. Il eut alors le temps de regarder toutes ces têtes de laine et tous ces yeux brillants qui le contemplaient d' un air famélique, d' un angle à l' autre de l' appartement.
By this time, Master George had arrived at that pass to which even a boy can come (under uncommon circumstances, when he really could not eat another morsel), and, therefore, he was at leisure to notice the pile of woolly heads and glistening eyes which were regarding their operations hungrily from the opposite corner.
“Here, you Mose, Pete,” he said, breaking off liberal bits, and throwing it at them; “you want some, don’t you? Come, Aunt Chloe, bake them some cakes.”
Georges et Tom se placèrent sur un siége confortable, au coin de la cheminée, tandis que Chloé, après avoir fait encore une pile de galette, prit le _baby_[4 ] sur ses genoux, le faisant manger, mangeant elle-même, et distribuant les morceaux à Pierre et à Moïse, qui dévoraient en se roulant sous la table, criant, se pinçant et tirant les pieds de leur petite soeur. » ~~~ [ 4 ] Très-jeune enfant.
And George and Tom moved to a comfortable seat in the chimney-corner, while Aunte Chloe, after baking a goodly pile of cakes, took her baby on her lap, and began alternately filling its mouth and her own, and distributing to Mose and Pete, who seemed rather to prefer eating theirs as they rolled about on the floor under the table, tickling each other, and occasionally pulling the baby’s toes.
« Plus loin ! disait la mère en allongeant de temps en temps un coup de pied sous la table en manière d' avertissement, quand le mouvement devenait trop importun.... Ne pouvez -vous vous tenir décemment, quand les blancs viennent vous voir ? Allez -vous finir ? Non ! eh bien ! je vais faire sauter un bouton quand M. Georges sera parti ! »
“O! go long, will ye?” said the mother, giving now and then a kick, in a kind of general way, under the table, when the movement became too obstreperous. “Can’t ye be decent when white folks comes to see ye? Stop dat ar, now, will ye? Better mind yerselves, or I’ll take ye down a button-hole lower, when Mas’r George is gone!”
What meaning was couched under this terrible threat, it is difficult to say; but certain it is that its awful indistinctness seemed to produce very little impression on the young sinners addressed.
« Ils se sont tellement chatouillés, dit Tom, que maintenant ils ne peuvent plus se tenir tranquilles. »
“La, now!” said Uncle Tom, “they are so full of tickle all the while, they can’t behave theirselves.”
A ce moment, les enfants sortirent de dessous la table, et, les mains et le visage pleins de mélasse, commencèrent à embrasser vigoureusement la petite fille.
Here the boys emerged from under the table, and, with hands and faces well plastered with molasses, began a vigorous kissing of the baby.
« Voulez -vous bien vous en aller ? dit la mère, en repoussant les têtes crépues.... Comme vous voici faits !... Cela ne partira jamais ! Courez vous laver à la fontaine. » Et à ses exhortations elle ajouta une tape qui retentit formidablement, mais qui n' excita autre chose que le rire des enfants qui tombèrent l' un sur l' autre en sortant, avec des éclats de rire joyeux et frais.
“Get along wid ye!” said the mother, pushing away their woolly heads. “Ye’ll all stick together, and never get clar, if ye do dat fashion. Go long to de spring and wash yerselves!” she said, seconding her exhortations by a slap, which resounded very formidably, but which seemed only to knock out so much more laugh from the young ones, as they tumbled precipitately over each other out of doors, where they fairly screamed with merriment.
« A -t-on jamais vu d' aussi méchants garnements ? » dit Chloé avec une certaine satisfaction maternelle. Elle atteignit une vieille serviette destinée à cet effet; elle prit un peu d' eau dans une théière fêlée, et débarbouilla les mains et le visage du baby. Elle les frotta jusqu' à les faire reluire, puis elle mit l' enfant sur les genoux de Tom, et fit disparaître les traces du souper. Cependant le marmot tirait le nez, égratignait le visage de Tom et passait dans les cheveux de son père ses petites mains potelées. Ce dernier exercice semblait surtout lui causer une joie particulière.
“Did ye ever see such aggravating young uns?” said Aunt Chloe, rather complacently, as, producing an old towel, kept for such emergencies, she poured a little water out of the cracked tea-pot on it, and began rubbing off the molasses from the baby’s face and hands; and, having polished her till she shone, she set her down in Tom’s lap, while she busied herself in clearing away supper. The baby employed the intervals in pulling Tom’s nose, scratching his face, and burying her fat hands in his woolly hair, which last operation seemed to afford her special content.
« N' est -ce point là un bijou d' enfant ? » dit Tom en l' écartant un peu de lui pour mieux la voir; et se levant, il l' assit sur sa large épaule et commença de gesticuler et de danser avec elle, tandis que Georges secouait autour d' elle son mouchoir de poche, et que Moïse et Peter cabriolaient comme de jeunes ours. Chloé déclara enfin que tout ce bruit lui fendait la tête; mais, comme cette plainte énergique se faisait entendre plusieurs fois par jour dans la case, elle ne réprima point la gaieté pétulante de nos amis: les jeux, les danses et les cris continuèrent, jusqu' à ce que chacun tombât d' épuisement.
“Aint she a peart young un?” said Tom, holding her from him to take a full-length view; then, getting up, he set her on his broad shoulder, and began capering and dancing with her, while Mas’r George snapped at her with his pocket-handkerchief, and Mose and Pete, now returned again, roared after her like bears, till Aunt Chloe declared that they “fairly took her head off” with their noise. As, according to her own statement, this surgical operation was a matter of daily occurrence in the cabin, the declaration no whit abated the merriment, till every one had roared and tumbled and danced themselves down to a state of composure.
“Well, now, I hopes you’re done,” said Aunt Chloe, who had been busy in pulling out a rude box of a trundle-bed; “and now, you Mose and you Pete, get into thar; for we’s goin’ to have the meetin’.”
“O mother, we don’t wanter. We wants to sit up to meetin’,—meetin’s is so curis. We likes ’em.”
-- Allons ! mère Chloé, accordez -leur cela. Qu' ils soient du meeting ! » dit Georges en repoussant les lits grossiers.
“La, Aunt Chloe, shove it under, and let ’em sit up,” said Mas’r George, decisively, giving a push to the rude machine.
Aunt Chloe, having thus saved appearances, seemed highly delighted to push the thing under, saying, as she did so, “Well, mebbe ’t will do ’em some good.”
The house now resolved itself into a committee of the whole, to consider the accommodations and arrangements for the meeting.
“What we’s to do for cheers, now, _I_ declar I don’t know,” said Aunt Chloe. As the meeting had been held at Uncle Tom’s weekly, for an indefinite length of time, without any more “cheers,” there seemed some encouragement to hope that a way would be discovered at present.
“Old Uncle Peter sung both de legs out of dat oldest cheer, last week,” suggested Mose.
“You go long! I’ll boun’ you pulled ’em out; some o’ your shines,” said Aunt Chloe.
“Well, it’ll stand, if it only keeps jam up agin de wall!” said Mose.
“Den Uncle Peter mus’n’t sit in it, cause he al’ays hitches when he gets a singing. He hitched pretty nigh across de room, t’ other night,” said Pete.
“Good Lor! get him in it, then,” said Mose, “and den he’d begin, ‘Come saints—and sinners, hear me tell,’ and den down he’d go,”—and Mose imitated precisely the nasal tones of the old man, tumbling on the floor, to illustrate the supposed catastrophe.
“Come now, be decent, can’t ye?” said Aunt Chloe; “an’t yer shamed?”
Mas’r George, however, joined the offender in the laugh, and declared decidedly that Mose was a “buster.” So the maternal admonition seemed rather to fail of effect.
“Well, ole man,” said Aunt Chloe, “you’ll have to tote in them ar bar’ls.”
“Mother’s bar’ls is like dat ar widder’s, Mas’r George was reading ’bout, in de good book,—dey never fails,” said Mose, aside to Peter.
“I’m sure one on ’em caved in last week,” said Pete, “and let ’em all down in de middle of de singin’; dat ar was failin’, warnt it?”
During this aside between Mose and Pete, two empty casks had been rolled into the cabin, and being secured from rolling, by stones on each side, boards were laid across them, which arrangement, together with the turning down of certain tubs and pails, and the disposing of the rickety chairs, at last completed the preparation.
“Mas’r George is such a beautiful reader, now, I know he’ll stay to read for us,” said Aunt Chloe; “‘pears like ’t will be so much more interestin’.”
George very readily consented, for your boy is always ready for anything that makes him of importance.
La chambre fut bientôt remplie d' une compagnie bigarrée, depuis la vieille tête grise du patriarche de quatre-vingts ans jusqu' au jeune garçon et à la jeune fille de quinze. On échangea d'abord quelques innocents commérages sur différents sujets.... « Où la mère Sally avait -elle eu son nouveau mouchoir rouge ?... Madame allait donner à Lisa sa robe de mousseline à pois.... Monsieur devait acheter un cheval de trois ans, qui allait ajouter à la gloire de la maison.... » Quelques-uns des fidèles appartenaient à des habitations du voisinage, et on leur permettait de se réunir chez Tom; ils apportaient leur quote-part de cancans sur ce qui se faisait ou se disait dans l' habitation: c' était le même _libre échange_ que dans les cercles d' un monde plus élevé.
The room was soon filled with a motley assemblage, from the old gray-headed patriarch of eighty, to the young girl and lad of fifteen. A little harmless gossip ensued on various themes, such as where old Aunt Sally got her new red headkerchief, and how “Missis was a going to give Lizzy that spotted muslin gown, when she’d got her new berage made up;” and how Mas’r Shelby was thinking of buying a new sorrel colt, that was going to prove an addition to the glories of the place. A few of the worshippers belonged to families hard by, who had got permission to attend, and who brought in various choice scraps of information, about the sayings and doings at the house and on the place, which circulated as freely as the same sort of small change does in higher circles.
Au bout d' un instant les chants commencèrent, à la satisfaction très-évidente des assistants. Le désagrément des intonations nasales ne pouvait détruire complétement l' effet de ces voix naturellement belles, chantant cette musique à la fois ardente et sauvage.... Les paroles étaient les hymnes ordinaires et bien connues que l' on entend dans tous les temples, ou bien elles étaient empruntées aux missions ambulantes, et elles avaient je ne sais quel caractère étrange où l' on pressentait l' infini.
After a while the singing commenced, to the evident delight of all present. Not even all the disadvantage of nasal intonation could prevent the effect of the naturally fine voices, in airs at once wild and spirited. The words were sometimes the well-known and common hymns sung in the churches about, and sometimes of a wilder, more indefinite character, picked up at camp-meetings.
The chorus of one of them, which ran as follows, was sung with great energy and unction:
“Die on the field of battle, Die on the field of battle, Glory in my soul.”
Another special favorite had oft repeated the words—
“O, I’m going to glory,—won’t you come along with me? Don’t you see the angels beck’ning, and a calling me away? Don’t you see the golden city and the everlasting day?”
Il y en avait beaucoup d' autres encore qui faisaient sans cesse allusion aux rives du Jourdain, aux champs de Chanaan et à la nouvelle Jérusalem. L' esprit du nègre, impressionnable et mobile, s' attache toujours aux hymnes qui lui présentent de saisissantes images.... Tout en chantant, les uns riaient, les autres pleuraient, quelques-uns frappaient dans leurs mains ou bien ils se les serraient les uns aux autres, comme s' ils eussent heureusement atteint l' autre rive du fleuve.
There were others, which made incessant mention of “Jordan’s banks,” and “Canaan’s fields,” and the “New Jerusalem;” for the negro mind, impassioned and imaginative, always attaches itself to hymns and expressions of a vivid and pictorial nature; and, as they sung, some laughed, and some cried, and some clapped hands, or shook hands rejoicingly with each other, as if they had fairly gained the other side of the river.
Diverses exhortations, des exemples que l' on rapportait, alternaient avec les chants. Une vieille femme à tête grise, qui ne travaillait plus depuis longtemps, mais que l' on révérait comme la chronique du temps passé, se leva et s' appuyant sur son bâton: ~~~ « Bien, mes enfants, dit -elle, bien ! Je suis heureuse de vous voir et de vous entendre une fois de plus.... Je ne sais pas quand j' irai à la gloire.... Mais je suis prête, mes enfants, mon petit paquet est fait, j' ai mis mon chapeau: j' attends que la voiture passe et m' emporte chez moi. Il me semble, la nuit, que j' entends le bruit des roues et que je regarde à la porte.... Et maintenant, mes enfants, soyez toujours prêts aussi.... je vous le dis à tous ! » ~~~ Et frappant fortement la terre de son bâton: ~~~ « C' est une grande chose, cette gloire, dit -elle, une grande chose, enfants ! Et vous ne faites rien pour elle.... c' est étonnant ! » ~~~ La vieille femme se rassit: ses larmes coulèrent par torrents, elle paraissait hors d' elle -même.... Toute l' assistance répétait:
Various exhortations, or relations of experience, followed, and intermingled with the singing. One old gray-headed woman, long past work, but much revered as a sort of chronicle of the past, rose, and leaning on her staff, said—“Well, chil’en! Well, I’m mighty glad to hear ye all and see ye all once more, ’cause I don’t know when I’ll be gone to glory; but I’ve done got ready, chil’en; ’pears like I’d got my little bundle all tied up, and my bonnet on, jest a waitin’ for the stage to come along and take me home; sometimes, in the night, I think I hear the wheels a rattlin’, and I’m lookin’ out all the time; now, you jest be ready too, for I tell ye all, chil’en,” she said striking her staff hard on the floor, “dat ar _glory_ is a mighty thing! It’s a mighty thing, chil’en,—you don’no nothing about it,—it’s _wonderful_.” And the old creature sat down, with streaming tears, as wholly overcome, while the whole circle struck up—
O Chanaan ! terre de Chanaan; Nous irons tous vers Chanaan !...
“O Canaan, bright Canaan I’m bound for the land of Canaan.”
Mas’r George, by request, read the last chapters of Revelation, often interrupted by such exclamations as “The _sakes_ now!” “Only hear that!” “Jest think on ’t!” “Is all that a comin’ sure enough?”
[ 5 ] La Bible. ~~~ Georges, qui avait beaucoup de facilité et que sa mère avait soigneusement instruit de sa religion, se sentant l' objet de l' attention générale, y mettait du sien de temps en temps, avec une gravité et un sérieux louable. Il était admiré par les jeunes et béni par les vieux. On répétait de tous côtés qu' un ministre ne pourrait pas mieux faire, et que c' était réellement merveilleux.
George, who was a bright boy, and well trained in religious things by his mother, finding himself an object of general admiration, threw in expositions of his own, from time to time, with a commendable seriousness and gravity, for which he was admired by the young and blessed by the old; and it was agreed, on all hands, that “a minister couldn’t lay it off better than he did; that ’t was reely ’mazin’!”
Pour tout ce qui touchait à la religion, Tom, dans le voisinage, passait pour une sorte de patriarche. Le côté moral dominait en lui: il avait en même temps plus de largeur et d' élévation d' esprit qu' on n' en rencontre parmi ses compagnons; il était l' objet d' un grand respect: il était parmi eux comme un ministre. Le style simple, cordial, sincère de ses exhortations, aurait édifié des personnes d' une plus haute éducation. Mais c' était dans la prière qu' il excellait. Rien ne pouvait surpasser la simplicité touchante, l' entraînement juvénile de cette prière, enrichie du langage de l' Écriture, qu' il s' était en quelque sorte assimilée et qui tombait de ses lèvres sans qu' il en eût conscience. « Il priait juste ! » disait un vieux nègre dans son pieux langage, et sa prière avait toujours un tel effet sur les sentiments de l' assistance, qu' elle courait souvent le risque d' être étouffée sous les répons abondants qui s' échappaient de toutes parts autour de lui.
Uncle Tom was a sort of patriarch in religious matters, in the neighborhood. Having, naturally, an organization in which the _morale_ was strongly predominant, together with a greater breadth and cultivation of mind than obtained among his companions, he was looked up to with great respect, as a sort of minister among them; and the simple, hearty, sincere style of his exhortations might have edified even better educated persons. But it was in prayer that he especially excelled. Nothing could exceed the touching simplicity, the childlike earnestness, of his prayer, enriched with the language of Scripture, which seemed so entirely to have wrought itself into his being, as to have become a part of himself, and to drop from his lips unconsciously; in the language of a pious old negro, he “prayed right up.” And so much did his prayer always work on the devotional feelings of his audiences, that there seemed often a danger that it would be lost altogether in the abundance of the responses which broke out everywhere around him.
While this scene was passing in the cabin of the man, one quite otherwise passed in the halls of the master.
The trader and Mr. Shelby were seated together in the dining room afore-named, at a table covered with papers and writing utensils. ~~~ Mr. Shelby was busy in counting some bundles of bills, which, as they were counted, he pushed over to the trader, who counted them likewise.
“All fair,” said the trader; “and now for signing these yer.”
M. Shelby prit vivement les billets de vente et signa, comme un homme pressé de finir une besogne ennuyeuse; puis il tendit au marchand l' acte signé et de l' argent. Haley tira d' une vieille valise un parchemin qu' il présenta à M. Shelby après l' avoir un moment examiné. Celui -ci s' en empara avec un empressement qu' il ne put dissimuler.
Mr. Shelby hastily drew the bills of sale towards him, and signed them, like a man that hurries over some disagreeable business, and then pushed them over with the money. Haley produced, from a well-worn valise, a parchment, which, after looking over it a moment, he handed to Mr. Shelby, who took it with a gesture of suppressed eagerness.
“Wal, now, the thing’s _done_!” said the trader, getting up.
“It’s _done_!” said Mr. Shelby, in a musing tone; and, fetching a long breath, he repeated, _“It’s done!”_
“Yer don’t seem to feel much pleased with it, ’pears to me,” said the trader.
“Haley,” said Mr. Shelby, “I hope you’ll remember that you promised, on your honor, you wouldn’t sell Tom, without knowing what sort of hands he’s going into.”
“Why, you’ve just done it sir,” said the trader.
“Circumstances, you well know, _obliged_ me,” said Shelby, haughtily.
“Wal, you know, they may ’blige _me_, too,” said the trader. “Howsomever, I’ll do the very best I can in gettin’ Tom a good berth; as to my treatin’ on him bad, you needn’t be a grain afeard. If there’s anything that I thank the Lord for, it is that I’m never noways cruel.”
Le marchand avait trop bien expliqué tout d'abord comment il entendait l' _humanité_ pour rassurer beaucoup M. Shelby par ses protestations. Mais, comme dans les circonstances actuelles il ne pouvait exiger rien de plus, il le laissa partir sans observation, et il alluma un cigare pour se distraire.
After the expositions which the trader had previously given of his humane principles, Mr. Shelby did not feel particularly reassured by these declarations; but, as they were the best comfort the case admitted of, he allowed the trader to depart in silence, and betook himself to a solitary cigar.
CHAPTER V Showing the Feelings of Living Property on Changing Owners
M. et Mme Shelby s' étaient retirés dans leur appartement pour la nuit. ~~~ Le mari s' était étendu dans un fauteuil confortable: il parcourait quelques lettres arrivées par la poste de l' après-dîner; la femme était debout devant son miroir, déroulant les boucles et dénouant les tresses de ses cheveux, élégant ouvrage d' Élisa. Mme Shelby, remarquant la pâleur et l' oeil hagard d' Élisa, l' avait dispensée de son service pour ce soir -là; l' occupation du moment lui rappela la conversation du matin, et se tournant vers son mari, elle lui dit avec assez d' insouciance:
Mr. and Mrs. Shelby had retired to their apartment for the night. He was lounging in a large easy-chair, looking over some letters that had come in the afternoon mail, and she was standing before her mirror, brushing out the complicated braids and curls in which Eliza had arranged her hair; for, noticing her pale cheeks and haggard eyes, she had excused her attendance that night, and ordered her to bed. The employment, naturally enough, suggested her conversation with the girl in the morning; and turning to her husband, she said, carelessly,
“By the by, Arthur, who was that low-bred fellow that you lugged in to our dinner-table today?”
-- Il s' appelle Haley, dit Shelby en se retournant sur son siége comme un homme mal à l' aise; et il tint ses yeux fixés sur la lettre.
“Haley is his name,” said Shelby, turning himself rather uneasily in his chair, and continuing with his eyes fixed on a letter.
“Haley! Who is he, and what may be his business here, pray?”
“Well, he’s a man that I transacted some business with, last time I was at Natchez,” said Mr. Shelby.
“And he presumed on it to make himself quite at home, and call and dine here, ay?”
“Why, I invited him; I had some accounts with him,” said Shelby.
-- C' est un marchand d' esclaves ? poursuivit Mme Shelby, qui observait un certain embarras dans les façons de son mari.
“Is he a negro-trader?” said Mrs. Shelby, noticing a certain embarrassment in her husband’s manner.
“Why, my dear, what put that into your head?” said Shelby, looking up.
“Nothing,—only Eliza came in here, after dinner, in a great worry, crying and taking on, and said you were talking with a trader, and that she heard him make an offer for her boy—the ridiculous little goose!”
“She did, hey?” said Mr. Shelby, returning to his paper, which he seemed for a few moments quite intent upon, not perceiving that he was holding it bottom upwards. ~~~ “It will have to come out,” said he, mentally; “as well now as ever.”
-- J' ai dit à Élisa, reprit Mme Shelby, tout en continuant d' arranger ses cheveux, qu' elle était vraiment bien folle de s' affliger ainsi, que vous ne traitez jamais avec des gens de cette sorte.... et puis, que je savais que vous ne voulez vendre aucun de vos esclaves.... et ce pauvre enfant moins que tout autre.
“I told Eliza,” said Mrs. Shelby, as she continued brushing her hair, “that she was a little fool for her pains, and that you never had anything to do with that sort of persons. Of course, I knew you never meant to sell any of our people,—least of all, to such a fellow.”
“Well, Emily,” said her husband, “so I have always felt and said; but the fact is that my business lies so that I cannot get on without. I shall have to sell some of my hands.”
“To that creature? Impossible! Mr. Shelby, you cannot be serious.”
“I’m sorry to say that I am,” said Mr. Shelby. “I’ve agreed to sell Tom.”
-- Quoi ! notre Tom.... cette bonne et fidèle créature, votre fidèle esclave depuis son enfance.... Oh ! monsieur Shelby ! Et vous lui aviez promis sa liberté.... vous et moi nous lui en avons parlé maintes fois.... Ah ! maintenant, je puis tout croire.... je puis croire maintenant que vous vendrez le petit Henri.... l' unique enfant de la pauvre Élisa.... » ~~~ Mme Shelby prononça ces mots d' un ton qui tenait le milieu entre la douleur et l' indignation.
“What! our Tom?—that good, faithful creature!—been your faithful servant from a boy! O, Mr. Shelby!—and you have promised him his freedom, too,—you and I have spoken to him a hundred times of it. Well, I can believe anything now,—I can believe _now_ that you could sell little Harry, poor Eliza’s only child!” said Mrs. Shelby, in a tone between grief and indignation.
“Well, since you must know all, it is so. I have agreed to sell Tom and Harry both; and I don’t know why I am to be rated, as if I were a monster, for doing what every one does every day.”
“But why, of all others, choose these?” said Mrs. Shelby. “Why sell them, of all on the place, if you must sell at all?”
“Because they will bring the highest sum of any,—that’s why. I could choose another, if you say so. The fellow made me a high bid on Eliza, if that would suit you any better,” said Mr. Shelby.
-- Le misérable ! s' écria Mme Shelby.
“The wretch!” said Mrs. Shelby, vehemently.
“Well, I didn’t listen to it, a moment,—out of regard to your feelings, I wouldn’t;—so give me some credit.”
-- Mon ami, dit Mme Shelby en se remettant, pardonnez -moi. J' ai été vive. Vous m' avez surprise. Je n' étais pas préparée à cela. Mais certainement vous me permettrez d' intercéder pour ces pauvres créatures. Tom est un nègre; mais c' est un noble coeur, et un homme fidèle. Je suis sûre, monsieur Shelby, qu' au besoin il donnerait sa vie pour vous....
“My dear,” said Mrs. Shelby, recollecting herself, “forgive me. I have been hasty. I was surprised, and entirely unprepared for this;—but surely you will allow me to intercede for these poor creatures. Tom is a noble-hearted, faithful fellow, if he is black. I do believe, Mr. Shelby, that if he were put to it, he would lay down his life for you.”
“I know it,—I dare say;—but what’s the use of all this?—I can’t help myself.”
-- Pourquoi ne pas faire un sacrifice d' argent ? Allez ! j' en supporterai ma part bien volontiers. Oh ! monsieur Shelby ! j' ai essayé.... je me suis efforcée, comme une femme chrétienne, d' accomplir mon devoir envers ces pauvres créatures, si simples, si malheureuses. J' en ai eu soin.... je les ai instruites, je les ai veillées. Il y a des années que je connais leurs modestes joies et leurs humbles soucis.... Comment pourrai -je élever ma tête au milieu d' eux, si pour un misérable gain nous vendons ce digne et excellent Tom ? si nous lui arrachons en un instant tout ce que nous lui avons appris à aimer et à respecter ?... Oui ! je leur ai appris les devoirs de la famille, de père et d' enfant, de mari et de femme: comment supporter la pensée de leur montrer maintenant qu' il n' y a pas de liens, de relations, si sacrées qu' elles soient, que nous ne soyons prêts à briser pour de l' argent ? J' ai souvent parlé avec Élisa de son enfant et de ses devoirs envers lui comme mère chrétienne. Je lui ai dit qu' elle devait le surveiller, prier pour lui, l' élever en chrétien.... et maintenant.... que puis -je dire, si vous le lui arrachez pour le vendre, corps et âme, à un profane, à un homme sans principes ?... et cela pour épargner un peu d' argent ! Et je lui ai dit qu' une âme valait mieux que toutes les richesses du monde.... Pourra -t-elle me croire en voyant vendre son enfant ? Le vendre, hélas ! pour la ruine de son corps et de son âme.
“Why not make a pecuniary sacrifice? I’m willing to bear my part of the inconvenience. O, Mr. Shelby, I have tried—tried most faithfully, as a Christian woman should—to do my duty to these poor, simple, dependent creatures. I have cared for them, instructed them, watched over them, and know all their little cares and joys, for years; and how can I ever hold up my head again among them, if, for the sake of a little paltry gain, we sell such a faithful, excellent, confiding creature as poor Tom, and tear from him in a moment all we have taught him to love and value? I have taught them the duties of the family, of parent and child, and husband and wife; and how can I bear to have this open acknowledgment that we care for no tie, no duty, no relation, however sacred, compared with money? I have talked with Eliza about her boy—her duty to him as a Christian mother, to watch over him, pray for him, and bring him up in a Christian way; and now what can I say, if you tear him away, and sell him, soul and body, to a profane, unprincipled man, just to save a little money? I have told her that one soul is worth more than all the money in the world; and how will she believe me when she sees us turn round and sell her child?—sell him, perhaps, to certain ruin of body and soul!”
-- Je suis bien fâché, Émilie, que vous le preniez si vivement. Oui, en vérité; je respecte vos sentiments, quoique je ne puisse pas prétendre les partager entièrement. Mais, je vous le dis maintenant solennellement, tout est inutile.... c' est le seul moyen de me sauver.... Je ne voulais pas vous le dire, Émilie.... mais voyez -vous, s' il faut parler net.... ou vendre ces deux -là, ou vendre tout ! Ils doivent partir, ou tous partiront ! Haley possède une hypothèque sur moi.... si je ne la purge pas avec lui, elle emportera tout.... J' ai économisé, j' ai gratté sur tout, j' ai emprunté, j' ai fait tout, excepté mendier.... et je n' ai pu arriver à la balance de mon compte sans le prix de ces deux -là.... J' ai dû les abandonner. Haley avait un caprice pour l' enfant, il a voulu terminer l' affaire de cette façon et non d' une autre.... j' étais en son pouvoir; j' ai dû obéir.... Eussiez -vous mieux aimé les voir tous vendus ? »
“I’m sorry you feel so about it,—indeed I am,” said Mr. Shelby; “and I respect your feelings, too, though I don’t pretend to share them to their full extent; but I tell you now, solemnly, it’s of no use—I can’t help myself. I didn’t mean to tell you this Emily; but, in plain words, there is no choice between selling these two and selling everything. Either they must go, or _all_ must. Haley has come into possession of a mortgage, which, if I don’t clear off with him directly, will take everything before it. I’ve raked, and scraped, and borrowed, and all but begged,—and the price of these two was needed to make up the balance, and I had to give them up. Haley fancied the child; he agreed to settle the matter that way, and no other. I was in his power, and _had_ to do it. If you feel so to have them sold, would it be any better to have _all_ sold?”
Mrs. Shelby stood like one stricken. Finally, turning to her toilet, she rested her face in her hands, and gave a sort of groan.
« C' est la malédiction de Dieu sur l' esclavage.... Amère, amère et maudite chose ! Malédiction sur le maître ! malédiction sur l' esclave !... J' étais folle de penser que je pouvais faire quelque chose de bon avec ce mal mortel.... c' est un péché que d' avoir un esclave avec des lois comme les nôtres. Je l' ai toujours pensé; je le pensais quand j' étais jeune fille, je le pense encore plus depuis l' église[6 ]. Mais j' avais aussi pensé à dorer l' esclavage; j' espérais, à force de soins et de bonté, faire aux miens l' esclavage plus doux que la liberté même.... folle que j' étais ! ~~~ [ 6 ] Depuis le mariage.
“This is God’s curse on slavery!—a bitter, bitter, most accursed thing!—a curse to the master and a curse to the slave! I was a fool to think I could make anything good out of such a deadly evil. It is a sin to hold a slave under laws like ours,—I always felt it was,—I always thought so when I was a girl,—I thought so still more after I joined the church; but I thought I could gild it over,—I thought, by kindness, and care, and instruction, I could make the condition of mine better than freedom—fool that I was!”
-- Ma femme, vous devenez tout à fait abolitionniste.... mais tout à fait.
“Why, wife, you are getting to be an abolitionist, quite.”
“Abolitionist! if they knew all I know about slavery, they _might_ talk! We don’t need them to tell us; you know I never thought that slavery was right—never felt willing to own slaves.”
“Well, therein you differ from many wise and pious men,” said Mr. Shelby. “You remember Mr. B.‘s sermon, the other Sunday?”
-- Je n' ai pas besoin d' écouter de tels sermons, et je désire n' entendre plus jamais M. B.... dans notre église. Les ministres ne peuvent pas empêcher le mal; ils ne peuvent pas le guérir beaucoup plus que nous-mêmes. Mais le justifier ! cela m' a toujours paru une monstruosité, et je suis sûre que vous -même vous n' êtes point édifié de ce sermon.
“I don’t want to hear such sermons; I never wish to hear Mr. B. in our church again. Ministers can’t help the evil, perhaps,—can’t cure it, any more than we can,—but defend it!—it always went against my common sense. And I think you didn’t think much of that sermon, either.”
-- Mon Dieu ! j' avoue que parfois ces ministres poussent les choses plus loin que nous ne le ferions nous-mêmes, nous autres, pauvres pécheurs.... Nous, qui vivons dans le monde, nous sommes forcés, dans bien des cas, de franchir les strictes limites du juste; mais nous n' aimons pas que les femmes et les prêtres nous imitent, et même nous dépassent, dans tout ce qui regarde les moeurs ou la charité. C' est un fait. Maintenant, ma chère, j' espère que vous voyez la nécessité de la chose et que vous conviendrez que j' ai agi aussi bien que les circonstances me le permettaient.
“Well,” said Shelby, “I must say these ministers sometimes carry matters further than we poor sinners would exactly dare to do. We men of the world must wink pretty hard at various things, and get used to a deal that isn’t the exact thing. But we don’t quite fancy, when women and ministers come out broad and square, and go beyond us in matters of either modesty or morals, that’s a fact. But now, my dear, I trust you see the necessity of the thing, and you see that I have done the very best that circumstances would allow.”
-- Oui, oui, sans doute, dit Mme Shelby en tournant sa montre en or entre ses doigts fiévreux et distraits. Je n' ai aucun bijou de prix, ajouta -t-elle d' un air pensif; mais cette montre ne vaut -elle pas quelque chose ?... Elle a coûté cher... Pour sauver l' enfant d' Élisa, je sacrifierais tout ce que j' ai.
“O yes, yes!” said Mrs. Shelby, hurriedly and abstractedly fingering her gold watch,—“I haven’t any jewelry of any amount,” she added, thoughtfully; “but would not this watch do something?—it was an expensive one, when it was bought. If I could only at least save Eliza’s child, I would sacrifice anything I have.”
-- Je suis désolé, Émilie, vraiment désolé que cela vous tienne si fort au coeur.... mais cela ne servirait à rien. La chose est faite. Les billets de vente sont signés. Ils sont entre les mains de Haley. Rendez grâce à Dieu que le mal ne soit pas pire. Haley pouvait nous ruiner tous, et le voilà désarmé.... Si vous connaissiez comme moi quel homme c' est.... vous verriez que nous l' avons échappé belle.
“I’m sorry, very sorry, Emily,” said Mr. Shelby, “I’m sorry this takes hold of you so; but it will do no good. The fact is, Emily, the thing’s done; the bills of sale are already signed, and in Haley’s hands; and you must be thankful it is no worse. That man has had it in his power to ruin us all,—and now he is fairly off. If you knew the man as I do, you’d think that we had had a narrow escape.”
-- Il est donc bien dur ?
“Is he so hard, then?”
-- Eh ! mon Dieu ! ce n' est pas précisément un homme cruel, mais c' est un homme de sac et de valise, un homme qui ne vit que pour le trafic et le lucre; froid, inflexible, inexorable comme la mort et le tombeau. Il vendrait sa propre mère, s' il en trouvait bon prix.... sans pour cela souhaiter aucun mal à la pauvre vieille.
“Why, not a cruel man, exactly, but a man of leather,—a man alive to nothing but trade and profit,—cool, and unhesitating, and unrelenting, as death and the grave. He’d sell his own mother at a good percentage—not wishing the old woman any harm, either.”
“And this wretch owns that good, faithful Tom, and Eliza’s child!”
-- Oui, ma chère. Le fait est que cela m' est bien pénible.... Je ne veux pas y penser. Haley viendra demain matin pour faire ses dispositions et prendre possession. Je vais donner ordre que mon cheval soit prêt de très-bonne heure; je sortirai. Je ne pourrais pas voir Tom, non je ne pourrais pas. Vous devriez arranger une promenade quelque part et emmener Élisa. Il ne faut pas que cela se passe devant elle.
“Well, my dear, the fact is that this goes rather hard with me; it’s a thing I hate to think of. Haley wants to drive matters, and take possession tomorrow. I’m going to get out my horse bright and early, and be off. I can’t see Tom, that’s a fact; and you had better arrange a drive somewhere, and carry Eliza off. Let the thing be done when she is out of sight.”
-- Non, non, s' écria Mme Shelby; je ne veux en aucune façon être aide ou complice de ces cruautés; j' irai voir ce vieux Tom; je l' assisterai dans son malheur; ils verront du moins que leur maîtresse souffre avec eux et pour eux. Quant à Élisa, je n' ose pas y penser. Que Dieu nous pardonne ! Mais qu' avons -nous fait pour en être réduits à cette cruelle nécessité ? »
“No, no,” said Mrs. Shelby; “I’ll be in no sense accomplice or help in this cruel business. I’ll go and see poor old Tom, God help him, in his distress! They shall see, at any rate, that their mistress can feel for and with them. As to Eliza, I dare not think about it. The Lord forgive us! What have we done, that this cruel necessity should come on us?”
Cette conversation était écoutée par une personne dont M. et Mme Shelby étaient loin de soupçonner la présence.
There was one listener to this conversation whom Mr. and Mrs. Shelby little suspected.
Communicating with their apartment was a large closet, opening by a door into the outer passage. When Mrs. Shelby had dismissed Eliza for the night, her feverish and excited mind had suggested the idea of this closet; and she had hidden herself there, and, with her ear pressed close against the crack of the door, had lost not a word of the conversation.
Quand les deux voix se furent éteintes dans le silence, elle se retira d' un pied furtif, pâle, frémissante, les traits contractés, les lèvres serrées.... Elle ne ressemblait plus en rien à la douce et timide créature qu' elle avait été jusque -là. Elle se glissa avec précaution dans le corridor, s' arrêta un moment à la porte de sa maîtresse, leva les mains, comme pour un silencieux appel à Dieu, puis tourna sur elle-même et rentra dans sa chambre. C' était un appartement calme et coquet, au même étage que celui de sa maîtresse. Voici la fenêtre, égayée, pleine de soleil, où elle s' asseyait pour coudre en chantant; voici l' étagère pour ses livres; voici, tout près d' eux, mille petits objets de fantaisie; voici les présents des fêtes de Noël et la modeste garde-robe, suspendue dans le cabinet ou rangée dans les tiroirs.... En un mot, c' était là sa demeure, et, après tout, une demeure où elle avait été bien heureuse ! Sur le lit était couché l' enfant endormi. Ses longues boucles tombaient négligemment autour de son visage insoucieux encore, de sa bouche rose entr'ouverte; ses petites mains potelées étaient jetées sur la couverture, et sur toute sa face un sourire se répandait comme un rayon de soleil.
When the voices died into silence, she rose and crept stealthily away. Pale, shivering, with rigid features and compressed lips, she looked an entirely altered being from the soft and timid creature she had been hitherto. She moved cautiously along the entry, paused one moment at her mistress’ door, and raised her hands in mute appeal to Heaven, and then turned and glided into her own room. It was a quiet, neat apartment, on the same floor with her mistress. There was a pleasant sunny window, where she had often sat singing at her sewing; there a little case of books, and various little fancy articles, ranged by them, the gifts of Christmas holidays; there was her simple wardrobe in the closet and in the drawers:—here was, in short, her home; and, on the whole, a happy one it had been to her. But there, on the bed, lay her slumbering boy, his long curls falling negligently around his unconscious face, his rosy mouth half open, his little fat hands thrown out over the bedclothes, and a smile spread like a sunbeam over his whole face.
“Poor boy! poor fellow!” said Eliza; “they have sold you! but your mother will save you yet!”
No tear dropped over that pillow; in such straits as these, the heart has no tears to give,—it drops only blood, bleeding itself away in silence. She took a piece of paper and a pencil, and wrote, hastily,
« Ah ! madame ! chère madame ! ne me prenez pas pour une ingrate; ne pensez pas de mal de moi.... d' aucune sorte. J' ai entendu ce que vous avez dit cette nuit, vous et monsieur. Je vous quitte pour sauver mon enfant. Vous ne me blâmerez pas. Dieu vous bénisse et vous récompense pour votre bonté. »
“O, Missis! dear Missis! don’t think me ungrateful,—don’t think hard of me, any way,—I heard all you and master said tonight. I am going to try to save my boy—you will not blame me! God bless and reward you for all your kindness!”
Elle plia rapidement sa lettre et y mit l' adresse; elle alla ensuite vers un tiroir, fit un petit paquet de hardes pour son enfant et l' attacha solidement autour d' elle avec un mouchoir; puis, car une mère pense à tout, même dans les angoisses de cet instant, elle eut soin de joindre au paquet un ou deux de ses jouets favoris; elle réserva un perroquet enluminé de vives couleurs pour le distraire quand il faudrait l' éveiller. Elle eut assez de peine à faire lever le petit dormeur; enfin, après quelques efforts, il secoua le sommeil et se mit à jouer avec son oiseau pendant que sa mère mettait son châle et son chapeau.
Hastily folding and directing this, she went to a drawer and made up a little package of clothing for her boy, which she tied with a handkerchief firmly round her waist; and, so fond is a mother’s remembrance, that, even in the terrors of that hour, she did not forget to put in the little package one or two of his favorite toys, reserving a gayly painted parrot to amuse him, when she should be called on to awaken him. It was some trouble to arouse the little sleeper; but, after some effort, he sat up, and was playing with his bird, while his mother was putting on her bonnet and shawl.
“Where are you going, mother?” said he, as she drew near the bed, with his little coat and cap.
His mother drew near, and looked so earnestly into his eyes, that he at once divined that something unusual was the matter.
« Chut ! Henri; il ne faut pas parler si haut, ou l' on nous entendra. Un méchant homme allait venir pour prendre le petit Henri à sa maman et l' emmener bien loin, dans un endroit où il fait noir;... mais maman ne veut pas le quitter, Henri. Elle va mettre la veste et le chapeau à son petit garçon et s' échapper avec lui pour que le méchant homme ne puisse pas le prendre. »
“Hush, Harry,” she said; “mustn’t speak loud, or they will hear us. A wicked man was coming to take little Harry away from his mother, and carry him ’way off in the dark; but mother won’t let him—she’s going to put on her little boy’s cap and coat, and run off with him, so the ugly man can’t catch him.”
Saying these words, she had tied and buttoned on the child’s simple outfit, and, taking him in her arms, she whispered to him to be very still; and, opening a door in her room which led into the outer verandah, she glided noiselessly out.
C' était une nuit étincelante, froide, étoilée; la mère jeta le châle sur son enfant qui, parfaitement calme, quoique sous l' empire d' une vague terreur, se suspendit à son cou. Le vieux Bruno, grand chien de Terre-Neuve, qui dormait au bout de la véranda, se leva à son approche avec un sourd grognement. Elle l' appela doucement par son nom, et l' animal, qui avait joué cent fois avec elle, remua la queue, déjà disposé à la suivre, tout en se demandant, dans sa simple cervelle de chien, ce que pouvait signifier cette indiscrète promenade de minuit. La chose lui paraissait inconvenante; il sentit ses idées se troubler; il ne savait plus quel parti prendre. La jeune femme passa, le chien s' arrêta; il regardait alternativement la maison et l' esclave. Enfin, comme rassuré par quelque réflexion intime, il s' élança sur les traces de la fugitive. ~~~ Au bout de quelques minutes, on arriva à la case de l' oncle Tom. Élisa frappa légèrement aux carreaux.
It was a sparkling, frosty, starlight night, and the mother wrapped the shawl close round her child, as, perfectly quiet with vague terror, he clung round her neck. ~~~ Old Bruno, a great Newfoundland, who slept at the end of the porch, rose, with a low growl, as she came near. She gently spoke his name, and the animal, an old pet and playmate of hers, instantly, wagging his tail, prepared to follow her, though apparently revolving much, in this simple dog’s head, what such an indiscreet midnight promenade might mean. Some dim ideas of imprudence or impropriety in the measure seemed to embarrass him considerably; for he often stopped, as Eliza glided forward, and looked wistfully, first at her and then at the house, and then, as if reassured by reflection, he pattered along after her again. A few minutes brought them to the window of Uncle Tom’s cottage, and Eliza stopping, tapped lightly on the window-pane.
The prayer-meeting at Uncle Tom’s had, in the order of hymn-singing, been protracted to a very late hour; and, as Uncle Tom had indulged himself in a few lengthy solos afterwards, the consequence was, that, although it was now between twelve and one o’clock, he and his worthy helpmeet were not yet asleep.
“Good Lord! what’s that?” said Aunt Chloe, starting up and hastily drawing the curtain. “My sakes alive, if it an’t Lizy! Get on your clothes, old man, quick!—there’s old Bruno, too, a pawin round; what on airth! I’m gwine to open the door.”
And suiting the action to the word, the door flew open, and the light of the tallow candle, which Tom had hastily lighted, fell on the haggard face and dark, wild eyes of the fugitive.
“Lord bless you!—I’m skeered to look at ye, Lizy! Are ye tuck sick, or what’s come over ye?”
“I’m running away—Uncle Tom and Aunt Chloe—carrying off my child—Master sold him!”
[Illustration: Eliza comes to tell Uncle Tom that he is sold, and that she is running away to save her child.]
“Sold him?” echoed both, lifting up their hands in dismay.
-- Oui, vendu, lui ! reprit Élisa d' une voix ferme. Cette nuit je m' étais glissée dans le cabinet de ma maîtresse; j' ai entendu monsieur dire à madame qu' il avait vendu mon Henri... et vous aussi, Tom ! vendus tous deux à un marchand d' esclaves.... Monsieur va sortir ce matin, et l' homme doit venir aujourd'hui même pour prendre livraison de sa marchandise. »
“Yes, sold him!” said Eliza, firmly; “I crept into the closet by Mistress’ door tonight, and I heard Master tell Missis that he had sold my Harry, and you, Uncle Tom, both, to a trader; and that he was going off this morning on his horse, and that the man was to take possession today.”
Tom had stood, during this speech, with his hands raised, and his eyes dilated, like a man in a dream. Slowly and gradually, as its meaning came over him, he collapsed, rather than seated himself, on his old chair, and sunk his head down upon his knees.
“The good Lord have pity on us!” said Aunt Chloe. “O! it don’t seem as if it was true! What has he done, that Mas’r should sell _him_?”
-- Ce n' est pas cela,... il n' a rien fait,... et monsieur ne voudrait pas le vendre. Madame,... oh ! elle est toujours bonne; je l' ai entendue prier et supplier pour nous; mais il lui disait que tout était inutile, qu' il était _dans la dette_ de cet homme, que cet homme avait pouvoir sur lui,... et que s' il ne s' acquittait pas maintenant, il finirait par être obligé de vendre plus tard l' habitation et les gens,... et de partir lui-même. Oui, je lui ai entendu dire qu' il était obligé de vendre ces deux -là ou de vendre tous les autres.... L' homme est impitoyable.... Monsieur disait qu' il était bien fâché; mais madame ! Oh ! si vous l' aviez entendue ! Si ce n' est pas une chrétienne et un ange, c' est qu' il n' y en a pas !... Je suis une misérable de la quitter ainsi, mais je n' y pouvais pas tenir;... elle-même elle disait qu' une âme valait plus que le monde. Eh bien ! cet enfant a une âme; si je le laisse enlever, que deviendra cette âme ? Ce que je fais doit être bien.... Si ce n' est pas bien, que le Seigneur me pardonne, car je ne peux pas ne pas le faire.
“He hasn’t done anything,—it isn’t for that. Master don’t want to sell, and Missis she’s always good. I heard her plead and beg for us; but he told her ’t was no use; that he was in this man’s debt, and that this man had got the power over him; and that if he didn’t pay him off clear, it would end in his having to sell the place and all the people, and move off. Yes, I heard him say there was no choice between selling these two and selling all, the man was driving him so hard. Master said he was sorry; but oh, Missis—you ought to have heard her talk! If she an’t a Christian and an angel, there never was one. I’m a wicked girl to leave her so; but, then, I can’t help it. She said, herself, one soul was worth more than the world; and this boy has a soul, and if I let him be carried off, who knows what’ll become of it? It must be right: but, if it an’t right, the Lord forgive me, for I can’t help doing it!”
-- Eh bien, pauvre vieux homme, dit Chloé, pourquoi ne t' en vas -tu pas aussi ? Veux -tu attendre qu' on te porte de l' autre côté de la rivière, où l' on fait mourir les nègres de fatigue et de faim ? J' aimerais mieux mourir mille fois que d' aller là, moi ! Allons, il est temps... partez avec Lisa... Vous avez une passe pour aller et venir en tout temps.... Allons, remuez -vous; je fais votre paquet. »
“Well, old man!” said Aunt Chloe, “why don’t you go, too? Will you wait to be toted down river, where they kill niggers with hard work and starving? I’d a heap rather die than go there, any day! There’s time for ye,—be off with Lizy,—you’ve got a pass to come and go any time. Come, bustle up, and I’ll get your things together.”
Tom slowly raised his head, and looked sorrowfully but quietly around, and said,
« Non, je ne partirai point; qu' Élisa parte ! elle fait bien. Ce n' est pas moi qui dirai le contraire. La nature veut qu' elle parte. Mais vous avez entendu ce qu' elle a dit: je dois être vendu, ou tout ici, choses et gens, va être ruiné. Je pense que je puis supporter cela autant que qui que ce soit.... Et quelque chose comme un soupir et un sanglot souleva sa vaste poitrine, qui tressaillit convulsivement.... Le maître, ajouta -t-il, m' a toujours trouvé à ma place,... il m' y trouvera toujours.... Je n' ai jamais manqué à ma foi, je ne me suis jamais servi de la passe contrairement à ma parole: je ne commencerai point: il vaut mieux que je parte seul que de causer la perte de la maison et la vente de tous. Le maître ne doit pas être blâmé, Chloé, il prendra soin de vous et de ces pauvres.... »
“No, no—I an’t going. Let Eliza go—it’s her right! I wouldn’t be the one to say no—‘tan’t in _natur_ for her to stay; but you heard what she said! If I must be sold, or all the people on the place, and everything go to rack, why, let me be sold. I s’pose I can bar it as well as any on ’em,” he added, while something like a sob and a sigh shook his broad, rough chest convulsively. “Mas’r always found me on the spot—he always will. I never have broke trust, nor used my pass no ways contrary to my word, and I never will. It’s better for me alone to go, than to break up the place and sell all. Mas’r an’t to blame, Chloe, and he’ll take care of you and the poor—”
A ces mots, il se tourna vers le lit grossier où l' on voyait paraître les petites têtes crépues, et ses sanglots éclatèrent... Il s' appuya sur le dossier de sa chaise et se couvrit le visage de ses larges mains. Des sanglots profonds, bruyants, impétueux, ébranlèrent jusqu' au siége, et de grandes larmes, glissant entre ses doigts, tombèrent sur le sol. Lecteur ! telles seraient les larmes que vous verseriez sur le cercueil de votre premier-né ! telles étaient, madame, les larmes que vous avez répandues en entendant les cris de votre enfant qui mourait ! Lecteur, vous êtes un homme, et lui aussi était un homme ! Madame, vous portez de la soie et des bijoux; mais, dans ces grandes détresses de la vie, dans ces terribles épreuves, nous n' avons pour nous tous qu' une même douleur !........................
Here he turned to the rough trundle bed full of little woolly heads, and broke fairly down. He leaned over the back of the chair, and covered his face with his large hands. Sobs, heavy, hoarse and loud, shook the chair, and great tears fell through his fingers on the floor; just such tears, sir, as you dropped into the coffin where lay your first-born son; such tears, woman, as you shed when you heard the cries of your dying babe. For, sir, he was a man,—and you are but another man. And, woman, though dressed in silk and jewels, you are but a woman, and, in life’s great straits and mighty griefs, ye feel but one sorrow!
« Et puis, dit Élisa, qui se tenait toujours auprès de la porte, j' ai vu mon mari cette après-midi.... Je ne me doutais pas alors de ce qui allait arriver. Ils l' ont poussé à bout, et il m' a dit aujourd'hui qu' il avait aussi l' intention de s' enfuir. Tâchez de lui donner de mes nouvelles; dites -lui comment et pourquoi je suis partie; dites -lui que je vais essayer de gagner le Canada; portez -lui tout mon amour, et si je ne le revois pas, dites -lui.... » ~~~ Elle se retourna vers la muraille, leur déroba un instant son visage, puis elle reprit d' une voix brève:
“And now,” said Eliza, as she stood in the door, “I saw my husband only this afternoon, and I little knew then what was to come. They have pushed him to the very last standing place, and he told me, today, that he was going to run away. Do try, if you can, to get word to him. Tell him how I went, and why I went; and tell him I’m going to try and find Canada. You must give my love to him, and tell him, if I never see him again,” she turned away, and stood with her back to them for a moment, and then added, in a husky voice, “tell him to be as good as he can, and try and meet me in the kingdom of heaven.”
“Call Bruno in there,” she added. “Shut the door on him, poor beast! He mustn’t go with me!”
A few last words and tears, a few simple adieus and blessings, and clasping her wondering and affrighted child in her arms, she glided noiselessly away.
CHAPITRE VI. ~~~ Découverte.
CHAPTER VI Discovery
Après leur longue discussion, M. et Mme Shelby ne s' endormirent pas tout d'abord. Aussi le lendemain se réveillèrent -ils plus tard que de coutume.
Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, after their protracted discussion of the night before, did not readily sink to repose, and, in consequence, slept somewhat later than usual, the ensuing morning.
“I wonder what keeps Eliza,” said Mrs. Shelby, after giving her bell repeated pulls, to no purpose.
Mr. Shelby was standing before his dressing-glass, sharpening his razor; and just then the door opened, and a colored boy entered, with his shaving-water.
“Andy,” said his mistress, “step to Eliza’s door, and tell her I have rung for her three times. Poor thing!” she added, to herself, with a sigh.
Andy soon returned, with eyes very wide in astonishment.
“Lor, Missis! Lizy’s drawers is all open, and her things all lying every which way; and I believe she’s just done clared out!”
The truth flashed upon Mr. Shelby and his wife at the same moment. He exclaimed,
“Then she suspected it, and she’s off!”
“The Lord be thanked!” said Mrs. Shelby. “I trust she is.”
“Wife, you talk like a fool! Really, it will be something pretty awkward for me, if she is. Haley saw that I hesitated about selling this child, and he’ll think I connived at it, to get him out of the way. It touches my honor!” And Mr. Shelby left the room hastily.
Une seule personne eût pu donner quelques éclaircissements, et cette personne se taisait: c' était la cuisinière en chef, Chloé. Silencieuse, un nuage de tristesse couvrant sa face naguère encore si joyeuse, elle préparait les gâteaux du déjeuner, comme si elle n' eût rien vu, rien entendu de ce qui se passait autour d' elle.
There was great running and ejaculating, and opening and shutting of doors, and appearance of faces in all shades of color in different places, for about a quarter of an hour. One person only, who might have shed some light on the matter, was entirely silent, and that was the head cook, Aunt Chloe. Silently, and with a heavy cloud settled down over her once joyous face, she proceeded making out her breakfast biscuits, as if she heard and saw nothing of the excitement around her.
Very soon, about a dozen young imps were roosting, like so many crows, on the verandah railings, each one determined to be the first one to apprize the strange Mas’r of his ill luck.
“He’ll be rael mad, I’ll be bound,” said Andy.
“_Won’t_ he swar!” said little black Jake.
-- Oui, il jure, faisait à son tour Mandy Tête-de-laine. Je l' ai entendu hier à dîner; j' ai entendu tout, je m' étais fourré dans le cabinet où madame met la vaisselle... j' ai entendu ! » ~~~ Amanda, qui jamais de sa vie n' avait compris un mot à une conversation, se donna un petit air d' intelligence supérieure, en marchant fièrement au milieu de ses compagnons. Amanda n' oubliait de dire qu' une seule chose, c' est que blottie dans ce cabinet, au milieu de la vaisselle, elle n' avait fait qu' y dormir.
“Yes, for he _does_ swar,” said woolly-headed Mandy. “I hearn him yesterday, at dinner. I hearn all about it then, ’cause I got into the closet where Missis keeps the great jugs, and I hearn every word.” And Mandy, who had never in her life thought of the meaning of a word she had heard, more than a black cat, now took airs of superior wisdom, and strutted about, forgetting to state that, though actually coiled up among the jugs at the time specified, she had been fast asleep all the time.
Haley apparut enfin botté, éperonné... De tout côté, on lui jeta au nez la mauvaise nouvelle. ~~~ Les jeunes drôles ne furent pas désappointés dans leur attente: il jura, il jura avec une abondance et une facilité de paroles qui les réjouissaient fort; ils avaient soin cependant de se baisser et de se reculer de façon à être toujours hors de la portée de son fouet. Ils roulèrent bientôt les uns sur les autres, avec d' immenses éclats de rire, se débattant sur le gazon flétri de la cour, gesticulant, criant et hurlant.
When, at last, Haley appeared, booted and spurred, he was saluted with the bad tidings on every hand. The young imps on the verandah were not disappointed in their hope of hearing him “swar,” which he did with a fluency and fervency which delighted them all amazingly, as they ducked and dodged hither and thither, to be out of the reach of his riding-whip; and, all whooping off together, they tumbled, in a pile of immeasurable giggle, on the withered turf under the verandah, where they kicked up their heels and shouted to their full satisfaction.
« Oh ! les petits démons ! si je les tenais, murmura Haley entre ses dents.
“If I had the little devils!” muttered Haley, between his teeth.
“But you ha’nt got ’em, though!” said Andy, with a triumphant flourish, and making a string of indescribable mouths at the unfortunate trader’s back, when he was fairly beyond hearing.
“I say now, Shelby, this yer ’s a most extro’rnary business!” said Haley, as he abruptly entered the parlor. “It seems that gal ’s off, with her young un.”
“Mr. Haley, Mrs. Shelby is present,” said Mr. Shelby.
“I beg pardon, ma’am,” said Haley, bowing slightly, with a still lowering brow; “but still I say, as I said before, this yer’s a sing’lar report. Is it true, sir?”
-- Monsieur, répondit Shelby, si vous voulez conférer avec moi, gardez un peu la tenue d' un gentleman. André, prenez le chapeau et le fouet de M. Haley.... Asseyez -vous, monsieur.... Oui, monsieur, j' ai le regret de vous dire que cette jeune femme, qui a entendu ou soupçonné ce qui l' intéressait.... a enlevé son fils et est partie la nuit dernière.
“Sir,” said Mr. Shelby, “if you wish to communicate with me, you must observe something of the decorum of a gentleman. Andy, take Mr. Haley’s hat and riding-whip. Take a seat, sir. Yes, sir; I regret to say that the young woman, excited by overhearing, or having reported to her, something of this business, has taken her child in the night, and made off.”
“I did expect fair dealing in this matter, I confess,” said Haley.
“Well, sir,” said Mr. Shelby, turning sharply round upon him, “what am I to understand by that remark? If any man calls my honor in question, I have but one answer for him.”
The trader cowered at this, and in a somewhat lower tone said that “it was plaguy hard on a fellow, that had made a fair bargain, to be gulled that way.”
-- Monsieur, dit Shelby, si je ne comprenais que vous avez quelque sujet de désappointement, je n' aurais pas toléré la grossièreté de votre entrée dans mon salon ce matin, et j' ajoute, puisque l' explication semble nécessaire, que je ne tolérerai pas la plus légère insinuation de votre part: on ne suspecte pas ma loyauté, monsieur ! Je me crois cependant obligé à vous donner aide et protection. Prenez mes gens et mes chevaux, et tâchez de retrouver ce qui est à vous. En un mot, Haley, continua -t-il en quittant tout d' un coup ce ton de dignité froide pour revenir à sa franche cordialité, ce que vous avez de mieux à faire, c' est de reprendre votre belle humeur.... et de déjeuner.... Nous aviserons après. »
“Mr. Haley,” said Mr. Shelby, “if I did not think you had some cause for disappointment, I should not have borne from you the rude and unceremonious style of your entrance into my parlor this morning. I say thus much, however, since appearances call for it, that I shall allow of no insinuations cast upon me, as if I were at all partner to any unfairness in this matter. Moreover, I shall feel bound to give you every assistance, in the use of horses, servants, &c., in the recovery of your property. So, in short, Haley,” said he, suddenly dropping from the tone of dignified coolness to his ordinary one of easy frankness, “the best way for you is to keep good-natured and eat some breakfast, and we will then see what is to be done.”
Mrs. Shelby now rose, and said her engagements would prevent her being at the breakfast-table that morning; and, deputing a very respectable mulatto woman to attend to the gentlemen’s coffee at the side-board, she left the room.
“Old lady don’t like your humble servant, over and above,” said Haley, with an uneasy effort to be very familiar.
“I am not accustomed to hear my wife spoken of with such freedom,” said Mr. Shelby, dryly.
“Beg pardon; of course, only a joke, you know,” said Haley, forcing a laugh.
“Some jokes are less agreeable than others,” rejoined Shelby.
“Devilish free, now I’ve signed those papers, cuss him!” muttered Haley to himself; “quite grand, since yesterday!”
Jamais la chute d' un premier ministre, après une intrigue de cour, ne produisit une plus violente tempête d' émotions que la nouvelle de ce qui venait d' arriver à l' oncle Tom. On ne parlait pas d' autre chose. Dans la case comme aux champs, on discutait les résultats probables de l' événement. La fuite d' Élisa, étant le premier exemple d' un événement de cette nature chez M. Shelby, augmentait encore l' agitation et le trouble de tous.
Never did fall of any prime minister at court occasion wider surges of sensation than the report of Tom’s fate among his compeers on the place. It was the topic in every mouth, everywhere; and nothing was done in the house or in the field, but to discuss its probable results. Eliza’s flight—an unprecedented event on the place—was also a great accessory in stimulating the general excitement.
Le noir Samuel (on l' appelait noir parce que son teint était de trois nuances plus foncé que celui des autres fils de la côte d' ébène ), le noir Samuel déroulait en lui-même toutes les phases de l' affaire: il en étudiait la portée, il en calculait l' influence sur son propre bien-être, avec une puissance d' intuition et une netteté de regard qui eussent fait honneur à un politique blanc de Washington.
Black Sam, as he was commonly called, from his being about three shades blacker than any other son of ebony on the place, was revolving the matter profoundly in all its phases and bearings, with a comprehensiveness of vision and a strict lookout to his own personal well-being, that would have done credit to any white patriot in Washington.
« C' est un mauvais vent que celui qui ne souffle nulle part, se dit Samuel sentencieusement. Un mauvais vent ! c' est un fait. » Il rehaussa son pantalon qui menaçait de tomber, remplaçant adroitement par un petit clou un bouton nécessaire.... et absent. Cet effort de génie mécanique sembla le ravir.
“It’s an ill wind dat blow nowhar,—dat ar a fact,” said Sam, sententiously, giving an additional hoist to his pantaloons, and adroitly substituting a long nail in place of a missing suspender-button, with which effort of mechanical genius he seemed highly delighted.
« Oui, c' est un mauvais vent que celui qui ne souffle nulle part, répéta -t-il encore. Maintenant, voilà Tom bas... cela va faire monter un nègre à sa place. Et pourquoi pas moi, ce nègre ? Pourquoi pas Sam ? C' est une idée ! Comme Tom ! à cheval ! Aller à cheval ! partout, dans la campagne.... belles bottes cirées... bottes noires !... Une passe dans ma poche.... Moi, grand monsieur ! Pourquoi pas ? Oui, pourquoi pas Sam ? Je voudrais bien savoir la raison !...
“Yes, it’s an ill wind blows nowhar,” he repeated. “Now, dar, Tom’s down—wal, course der’s room for some nigger to be up—and why not dis nigger?—dat’s de idee. Tom, a ridin’ round de country—boots blacked—pass in his pocket—all grand as Cuffee—but who he? Now, why shouldn’t Sam?—dat’s what I want to know.”
-- Ohé, Samuel ! ohé, Sam ! m' sieu a besoin de vous pour seller Bell et Jerry, dit André en interrompant le soliloque de Samuel.
“Halloo, Sam—O Sam! Mas’r wants you to cotch Bill and Jerry,” said Andy, cutting short Sam’s soliloquy.
-- Ah ! et pourquoi faire, petit ?
“High! what’s afoot now, young un?”
“Why, you don’t know, I s’pose, that Lizy’s cut stick, and clared out, with her young un?”
“You teach your granny!” said Sam, with infinite contempt; “knowed it a heap sight sooner than you did; this nigger an’t so green, now!”
“Well, anyhow, Mas’r wants Bill and Jerry geared right up; and you and I ’s to go with Mas’r Haley, to look arter her.”
“Good, now! dat’s de time o’ day!” said Sam. “It’s Sam dat’s called for in dese yer times. He’s de nigger. See if I don’t cotch her, now; Mas’r’ll see what Sam can do!”
“Ah! but, Sam,” said Andy, “you’d better think twice; for Missis don’t want her cotched, and she’ll be in yer wool.”
“High!” said Sam, opening his eyes. “How you know dat?”
-- Moi -même, ce matin, en allant porter l' eau pour la barbe dans la chambre de monsieur, je l' ai entendue; elle m' a envoyé voir pourquoi Lisa ne venait pas l' habiller, et, quand je lui ai dit qu' elle était partie, elle a dit: « Dieu soit béni ! » et monsieur a été comme fou; et il lui a répondu: « Vous ne savez ce que vous dites ! » Mais elle le ramènera, allez ! je sais bien comment cela se passe.... il vaut mieux être du côté de madame; c' est moi qui vous le dis ! »
“Heard her say so, my own self, dis blessed mornin’, when I bring in Mas’r’s shaving-water. She sent me to see why Lizy didn’t come to dress her; and when I telled her she was off, she jest ris up, and ses she, ‘The Lord be praised;’ and Mas’r, he seemed rael mad, and ses he, ‘Wife, you talk like a fool.’ But Lor! she’ll bring him to! I knows well enough how that’ll be,—it’s allers best to stand Missis’ side the fence, now I tell yer.”
Le noir Samuel gratta sa tête crépue, qui ne renfermait pas sans doute une profonde sagesse, mais qui contenait beaucoup de cette chose particulière qu' on souhaite aux hommes politiques de tous les pays et sous tous les régimes, et qui consiste à savoir de quel côté le pain est beurré.... Samuel se mit donc à réfléchir, en remontant encore une fois son pantalon: c' était le procédé dont il se servait habituellement pour faciliter les opérations de son cerveau.
Black Sam, upon this, scratched his woolly pate, which, if it did not contain very profound wisdom, still contained a great deal of a particular species much in demand among politicians of all complexions and countries, and vulgarly denominated “knowing which side the bread is buttered;” so, stopping with grave consideration, he again gave a hitch to his pantaloons, which was his regularly organized method of assisting his mental perplexities.
“Der an’t no saying’—never—‘bout no kind o’ thing in _dis_ yer world,” he said, at last. Sam spoke like a philosopher, emphasizing _this_—as if he had had a large experience in different sorts of worlds, and therefore had come to his conclusions advisedly.
“Now, sartin I’d a said that Missis would a scoured the varsal world after Lizy,” added Sam, thoughtfully.
“So she would,” said Andy; “but can’t ye see through a ladder, ye black nigger? Missis don’t want dis yer Mas’r Haley to get Lizy’s boy; dat’s de go!”
“High!” said Sam, with an indescribable intonation, known only to those who have heard it among the negroes.
“And I’ll tell yer more ’n all,” said Andy; “I specs you’d better be making tracks for dem hosses,—mighty sudden, too,—-for I hearn Missis ’quirin’ arter yer,—so you’ve stood foolin’ long enough.”
Sam, upon this, began to bestir himself in real earnest, and after a while appeared, bearing down gloriously towards the house, with Bill and Jerry in a full canter, and adroitly throwing himself off before they had any idea of stopping, he brought them up alongside of the horse-post like a tornado. Haley’s horse, which was a skittish young colt, winced, and bounced, and pulled hard at his halter.
“Ho, ho!” said Sam, “skeery, ar ye?” and his black visage lighted up with a curious, mischievous gleam. “I’ll fix ye now!” said he.
Un large frêne ombrageait la cour: de petites faînes, triangulaires et tranchantes, jonchaient le sol. Samuel en prit une, s' approcha du poulain, le flatta, le gratta, comme s' il eût voulu l' adoucir et le calmer; et, sous prétexte d' ajuster la selle, il glissa fort adroitement en dessous la petite faîne, de telle façon que le moindre poids posé sur la selle dût exciter la sensibilité nerveuse de l' animal, sans laisser la moindre trace de blessure ou d' égratignure.
There was a large beech-tree overshadowing the place, and the small, sharp, triangular beech-nuts lay scattered thickly on the ground. With one of these in his fingers, Sam approached the colt, stroked and patted, and seemed apparently busy in soothing his agitation. On pretence of adjusting the saddle, he adroitly slipped under it the sharp little nut, in such a manner that the least weight brought upon the saddle would annoy the nervous sensibilities of the animal, without leaving any perceptible graze or wound.
“Dar!” he said, rolling his eyes with an approving grin; “me fix ’em!”
At this moment Mrs. Shelby appeared on the balcony, beckoning to him. Sam approached with as good a determination to pay court as did ever suitor after a vacant place at St. James’ or Washington.
“Why have you been loitering so, Sam? I sent Andy to tell you to hurry.”
“Lord bless you, Missis!” said Sam, “horses won’t be cotched all in a minit; they’d done clared out way down to the south pasture, and the Lord knows whar!”
“Sam, how often must I tell you not to say ‘Lord bless you, and the Lord knows,’ and such things? It’s wicked.”
-- Dieu vous bénisse, madame ! Je ne l' oublierai pas.... je ne recommencerai point.
“O, Lord bless my soul! I done forgot, Missis! I won’t say nothing of de sort no more.”
-- Eh mais, Samuel, vous avez déjà recommencé !
“Why, Sam, you just _have_ said it again.”
“Did I? O, Lord! I mean—I didn’t go fur to say it.”
“You must be _careful_, Sam.”
-- Donnez -moi le temps de me reconnaître, madame.... vous verrez.... je ferai attention.
“Just let me get my breath, Missis, and I’ll start fair. I’ll be bery careful.”
“Well, Sam, you are to go with Mr. Haley, to show him the road, and help him. Be careful of the horses, Sam; you know Jerry was a little lame last week; _don’t ride them too fast_.”
Mme Shelby prononça ces derniers mots à voix basse et avec une certaine intonation.
Mrs. Shelby spoke the last words with a low voice, and strong emphasis.
« Pour cela, rapportez -vous en à ce nègre, dit Samuel, en tournant deux yeux pleins de commentaires.... Dieu sait ! Ah ! je ne voulais pas le dire, reprit -il avec un tel luxe de démonstrations craintives, qu' en dépit d' elle -même sa maîtresse ne put s' empêcher de rire. Oui, madame, j' aurai soin des chevaux.
“Let dis child alone for dat!” said Sam, rolling up his eyes with a volume of meaning. “Lord knows! High! Didn’t say dat!” said he, suddenly catching his breath, with a ludicrous flourish of apprehension, which made his mistress laugh, spite of herself. “Yes, Missis, I’ll look out for de hosses!”
-- Maintenant, André, dit Samuel en retournant à son poste sous le hêtre, je ne serais pas du tout surpris quand le cheval du monsieur se mettrait à danser un peu au moment où il montera en selle. Vous savez, André, les bêtes ont quelquefois de ces idées -là; et, en guise d' avertissement, il donna à son camarade un coup de poing dans les côtes. ~~~ -- High ! fit André avec le signe d' un homme qui a compris tout à coup.
“Now, Andy,” said Sam, returning to his stand under the beech-trees, “you see I wouldn’t be ’t all surprised if dat ar gen’lman’s crittur should gib a fling, by and by, when he comes to be a gettin’ up. You know, Andy, critturs _will_ do such things;” and therewith Sam poked Andy in the side, in a highly suggestive manner.
“High!” said Andy, with an air of instant appreciation.
“Yes, you see, Andy, Missis wants to make time,—dat ar’s clar to der most or’nary ’bserver. I jis make a little for her. Now, you see, get all dese yer hosses loose, caperin’ permiscus round dis yer lot and down to de wood dar, and I spec Mas’r won’t be off in a hurry.”
André fit une grimace.
Andy grinned.
« Vous voyez, André, vous voyez, dit Samuel; s' il arrivait quelque chose au cheval de M. Haley, nous quitterions nos montures et nous irions à lui pour le secourir. Oui, nous lui porterions secours; oh ! oui. » ~~~ Samuel et André branlèrent leurs têtes noires d' une épaule à l' autre et se livrèrent à un rire inextinguible, dont ils tempéraient toutefois les éclats; puis ils firent claquer leurs doigts, et trépignèrent avec une sorte de ravissement.
“Yer see,” said Sam, “yer see, Andy, if any such thing should happen as that Mas’r Haley’s horse _should_ begin to act contrary, and cut up, you and I jist lets go of our’n to help him, and _we’ll help him_—oh yes!” And Sam and Andy laid their heads back on their shoulders, and broke into a low, immoderate laugh, snapping their fingers and flourishing their heels with exquisite delight.
Haley apparut sur le perron. Quelques tasses d' excellent café l' avaient un peu adouci. Il était d' assez bonne humeur: il s' avança en souriant et en causant; les deux nègres saisirent certaines feuilles de palmier, qu' ils avaient l' habitude d' appeler leurs chapeaux, et s' élancèrent vers les chevaux pour être prêts « à aider le m' sieu. »
Les feuilles du chapeau de Samuel n' avaient plus, sur les bords, aucune prétention possible à la tresse. Elles retombaient de tous côtés, éparses et roides; ce qui lui donnait un air de révolte et d' indépendance superbe. On eût dit un chef de tribu.
At this instant, Haley appeared on the verandah. Somewhat mollified by certain cups of very good coffee, he came out smiling and talking, in tolerably restored humor. Sam and Andy, clawing for certain fragmentary palm-leaves, which they were in the habit of considering as hats, flew to the horseposts, to be ready to “help Mas’r.”
Sam’s palm-leaf had been ingeniously disentangled from all pretensions to braid, as respects its brim; and the slivers starting apart, and standing upright, gave it a blazing air of freedom and defiance, quite equal to that of any Fejee chief; while the whole brim of Andy’s being departed bodily, he rapped the crown on his head with a dexterous thump, and looked about well pleased, as if to say, “Who says I haven’t got a hat?”
“Well, boys,” said Haley, “look alive now; we must lose no time.”
“Not a bit of him, Mas’r!” said Sam, putting Haley’s rein in his hand, and holding his stirrup, while Andy was untying the other two horses.
Au moment où Haley toucha la selle, le fougueux animal bondit du sol, par un élan soudain, et jeta son maître à quelques pas de là sur le gazon sec et doux, qui amortit la chute. ~~~ Samuel s' élança aux rênes avec un geste frénétique, mais il ne réussit qu' à fourrer son bizarre chapeau de palmier dans les yeux de l' animal: la vue de cet étrange objet ne pouvait guère contribuer à calmer ses nerfs; aussi il échappa violemment des mains de Samuel renversé, fit entendre deux ou trois hennissements de mépris, et, après quelques ruades vigoureusement détachées, s' élança au bout de la prairie, suivi bientôt de Bell et de Jerry, qu' André n' avait pas manqué de lâcher, hâtant encore leur fuite par ses terribles exclamations. ~~~ Il s' ensuivit une indescriptible scène de désordre. Andy et Sam criaient et couraient; les chiens aboyaient; Mike, Moïse, Amanda, Fanny, et tous les autres petits échantillons de la race nègre qui se trouvaient dans l' habitation, s' élancèrent dans toutes les directions, poussant des hurlements, frappant dans leurs mains et se démenant avec la plus fâcheuse bonne volonté et le zèle le plus compromettant du monde.
The instant Haley touched the saddle, the mettlesome creature bounded from the earth with a sudden spring, that threw his master sprawling, some feet off, on the soft, dry turf. Sam, with frantic ejaculations, made a dive at the reins, but only succeeded in brushing the blazing palm-leaf afore-named into the horse’s eyes, which by no means tended to allay the confusion of his nerves. So, with great vehemence, he overturned Sam, and, giving two or three contemptuous snorts, flourished his heels vigorously in the air, and was soon prancing away towards the lower end of the lawn, followed by Bill and Jerry, whom Andy had not failed to let loose, according to contract, speeding them off with various direful ejaculations. And now ensued a miscellaneous scene of confusion. Sam and Andy ran and shouted,—dogs barked here and there,—and Mike, Mose, Mandy, Fanny, and all the smaller specimens on the place, both male and female, raced, clapped hands, whooped, and shouted, with outrageous officiousness and untiring zeal.
Le cheval de Haley, vif et plein d' ardeur, parut entrer dans l' intention des auteurs de cette petite scène avec le plus grand plaisir. Il avait pour carrière une prairie d' un quart de lieue, descendant de chaque côté vers un petit bois: il se laissait donc volontiers approcher; quand il se voyait à portée de la main, il repartait avec une ruade et un hennissement, comme une méchante bête qu' il était, puis il s' enfonçait bien loin dans quelque allée du bois. Samuel n' avait garde de l' arrêter avant le moment qu' il jugerait convenable. Il se donnait une peine vraiment héroïque. Pareil au glaive de Richard Coeur-de-Lion, qui brillait toujours au front de la bataille et au plus épais de la mêlée, le chapeau de palmier de Samuel se montrait toujours là où il y avait le plus petit danger de reprendre le cheval. Il n' en criait pas moins à pleins poumons: « Là ! ici ! prenez ! prenez -le ! » de telle façon cependant qu' il augmentait à chaque fois le désordre et la confusion.
Haley’s horse, which was a white one, and very fleet and spirited, appeared to enter into the spirit of the scene with great gusto; and having for his coursing ground a lawn of nearly half a mile in extent, gently sloping down on every side into indefinite woodland, he appeared to take infinite delight in seeing how near he could allow his pursuers to approach him, and then, when within a hand’s breadth, whisk off with a start and a snort, like a mischievous beast as he was and career far down into some alley of the wood-lot. Nothing was further from Sam’s mind than to have any one of the troop taken until such season as should seem to him most befitting,—and the exertions that he made were certainly most heroic. Like the sword of Coeur De Lion, which always blazed in the front and thickest of the battle, Sam’s palm-leaf was to be seen everywhere when there was the least danger that a horse could be caught; there he would bear down full tilt, shouting, “Now for it! cotch him! cotch him!” in a way that would set everything to indiscriminate rout in a moment.
Haley ran up and down, and cursed and swore and stamped miscellaneously. Mr. Shelby in vain tried to shout directions from the balcony, and Mrs. Shelby from her chamber window alternately laughed and wondered,—not without some inkling of what lay at the bottom of all this confusion.
Enfin, vers deux heures, Samuel apparut, triomphant, monté sur Jerry, tenant en main la bride du cheval de Haley, ruisselant de sueur, mais l' oeil ardent, les naseaux dilatés et laissant voir que son ardeur et sa fougue n' étaient pas encore domptées.
At last, about twelve o’clock, Sam appeared triumphant, mounted on Jerry, with Haley’s horse by his side, reeking with sweat, but with flashing eyes and dilated nostrils, showing that the spirit of freedom had not yet entirely subsided.
“He’s cotched!” he exclaimed, triumphantly. “If ’t hadn’t been for me, they might a bust themselves, all on ’em; but I cotched him!”
“You!” growled Haley, in no amiable mood. “If it hadn’t been for you, this never would have happened.”
“Lord bless us, Mas’r,” said Sam, in a tone of the deepest concern, “and me that has been racin’ and chasin’ till the sweat jest pours off me!”
“Well, well!” said Haley, “you’ve lost me near three hours, with your cursed nonsense. Now let’s be off, and have no more fooling.”
-- Ah ! monsieur, s' écria piteusement Samuel, vous voulez donc nous tuer net, bêtes et gens ! nous n' en pouvons mais, et les chevaux sont sur les dents... M' sieu restera bien jusqu' après dîner.... Il faut que le cheval de m' sieu soit bouchonné; voyez dans quel état il s' est mis.... Jerry boite.... et puis, je ne pense pas que madame veuille vous laisser partir ainsi. Dieu vous bénisse, monsieur ! nous n' avons rien à perdre pour attendre. Lisa n' a jamais été une bonne marcheuse. »
“Why, Mas’r,” said Sam, in a deprecating tone, “I believe you mean to kill us all clar, horses and all. Here we are all just ready to drop down, and the critters all in a reek of sweat. Why, Mas’r won’t think of startin’ on now till arter dinner. Mas’r’s hoss wants rubben down; see how he splashed hisself; and Jerry limps too; don’t think Missis would be willin’ to have us start dis yer way, no how. Lord bless you, Mas’r, we can ketch up, if we do stop. Lizy never was no great of a walker.”
Mrs. Shelby, who, greatly to her amusement, had overheard this conversation from the verandah, now resolved to do her part. She came forward, and, courteously expressing her concern for Haley’s accident, pressed him to stay to dinner, saying that the cook should bring it on the table immediately.
Thus, all things considered, Haley, with rather an equivocal grace, proceeded to the parlor, while Sam, rolling his eyes after him with unutterable meaning, proceeded gravely with the horses to the stable-yard.
« L' avez -vous vu, André ? l' avez -vous vu ? s' écria -t-il, dès qu' il fut hors de la voix et qu' il eut attaché ses chevaux. O Dieu ! si ce n' était pas aussi amusant qu' au meeting de le voir danser, trépigner et jurer après nous.... l' avez -vous entendu ?... Jure, vieux drôle ! me disais -je à moi-même; jure ! Tu veux ton cheval ! Attends que je l' attrape !... Dieu ! André, il me semble que je le vois encore ! » ~~~ Et les deux nègres, s' appuyant contre le mur, s' en donnèrent à coeur joie.
“Did yer see him, Andy? _did_ yer see him?” said Sam, when he had got fairly beyond the shelter of the barn, and fastened the horse to a post. “O, Lor, if it warn’t as good as a meetin’, now, to see him a dancin’ and kickin’ and swarin’ at us. Didn’t I hear him? Swar away, ole fellow (says I to myself ); will yer have yer hoss now, or wait till you cotch him? (says I). Lor, Andy, I think I can see him now.” And Sam and Andy leaned up against the barn and laughed to their hearts’ content.
“Yer oughter seen how mad he looked, when I brought the hoss up. Lord, he’d a killed me, if he durs’ to; and there I was a standin’ as innercent and as humble.”
“Lor, I seed you,” said Andy; “an’t you an old hoss, Sam?”
“Rather specks I am,” said Sam; “did yer see Missis up stars at the winder? I seed her laughin’.”
“I’m sure, I was racin’ so, I didn’t see nothing,” said Andy.
-- Remarquez, dit Samuel tout en lavant le poney, remarquez, André, comme j' ai l' habitude de l' observation; c' est bien important dans la vie, André ! Cultivez l' observation pendant que vous êtes jeune. Levez donc le pied de derrière. Voyez -vous, l' observation, c' est ce qui fait la différence entre un nègre et un nègre. N' ai -je pas vu de quel côté soufflait le vent, ce matin ? N' ai -je pas compris ce que madame voulait, quoiqu' elle ne le dît pas ?... C' est de l' observation, André ! Je pense que vous appellerez cela une faculté ! Les facultés diffèrent suivant les natures; mais l' éducation y est aussi pour beaucoup, André !
“Well, yer see,” said Sam, proceeding gravely to wash down Haley’s pony, “I ’se ’quired what yer may call a habit _o’ bobservation_, Andy. It’s a very ’portant habit, Andy; and I ’commend yer to be cultivatin’ it, now yer young. Hist up that hind foot, Andy. Yer see, Andy, it’s _bobservation_ makes all de difference in niggers. Didn’t I see which way the wind blew dis yer mornin’? Didn’t I see what Missis wanted, though she never let on? Dat ar’s bobservation, Andy. I ’spects it’s what you may call a faculty. Faculties is different in different peoples, but cultivation of ’em goes a great way.”
“I guess if I hadn’t helped your bobservation dis mornin’, yer wouldn’t have seen your way so smart,” said Andy.
-- André, vous êtes un enfant qui promettez beaucoup; cela ne fait pas un doute. J' ai bonne opinion de vous, et je n' ai pas honte de vous emprunter une idée. Il ne faut mépriser personne, André. Les plus malins peuvent quelquefois se tromper. Mais rentrons.... Je gage qu' aujourd'hui madame nous donnera quelque bon morceau. »
“Andy,” said Sam, “you’s a promisin’ child, der an’t no manner o’ doubt. I thinks lots of yer, Andy; and I don’t feel no ways ashamed to take idees from you. We oughtenter overlook nobody, Andy, cause the smartest on us gets tripped up sometimes. And so, Andy, let’s go up to the house now. I’ll be boun’ Missis’ll give us an uncommon good bite, dis yer time.”
CHAPITRE VII. ~~~ Les angoisses d'une mère.
CHAPTER VII The Mother’s Struggle
Jamais une créature humaine ne se sentit plus malheureuse et plus abandonnée qu' Élisa, au moment où elle s' éloigna de la case de l' oncle Tom. Les souffrances et les dangers de son mari, le danger de son enfant, tout cela se mêlait dans son âme avec le sentiment confus et douloureux de tous les périls qu' elle -même allait courir en quittant cette maison, la seule qu' elle eût jamais connue, en quittant une maîtresse qu' elle avait toujours aimée et respectée. N' allait -elle pas quitter aussi tous ces objets familiers qui nous attachent, le lieu où elle avait grandi, les arbres dont l' ombre avait abrité ses jeux, les bosquets où elle s' était promenée, le soir des jours heureux, à côté de son jeune époux ? Tous ces objets, qu' elle apercevait à la lueur froide et brillante des étoiles, semblaient prendre une voix pour lui adresser des reproches et lui demander où elle pourrait aller en les quittant.
It is impossible to conceive of a human creature more wholly desolate and forlorn than Eliza, when she turned her footsteps from Uncle Tom’s cabin. ~~~ Her husband’s suffering and dangers, and the danger of her child, all blended in her mind, with a confused and stunning sense of the risk she was running, in leaving the only home she had ever known, and cutting loose from the protection of a friend whom she loved and revered. Then there was the parting from every familiar object,—the place where she had grown up, the trees under which she had played, the groves where she had walked many an evening in happier days, by the side of her young husband,—everything, as it lay in the clear, frosty starlight, seemed to speak reproachfully to her, and ask her whither could she go from a home like that?
Mais, plus puissant que tout le reste, l' amour maternel la rendait folle de terreur en lui faisant pressentir l' approche de quelque danger terrible. L' enfant était assez grand pour marcher à côté d' elle; dans toute autre circonstance, elle se fût contentée de le conduire par la main: mais alors la seule pensée de ne plus le serrer dans ses bras la faisait tressaillir; et, tout en hâtant sa marche, elle le pressait contre sa poitrine avec une étreinte convulsive.
But stronger than all was maternal love, wrought into a paroxysm of frenzy by the near approach of a fearful danger. Her boy was old enough to have walked by her side, and, in an indifferent case, she would only have led him by the hand; but now the bare thought of putting him out of her arms made her shudder, and she strained him to her bosom with a convulsive grasp, as she went rapidly forward.
La terre gelée craquait sous ses pas: elle tremblait au bruit; le frôlement d' une feuille, une ombre balancée lui faisaient refluer le sang au coeur et précipitaient sa marche. Elle s' étonnait de la force qu' elle trouvait en elle. Son enfant lui semblait léger comme une plume. Chaque terreur nouvelle augmentait encore cette force surnaturelle qui l' emportait. Souvent quelque prière s' élançait de ses lèvres pâles et montait jusqu' à l' ami qui est là-haut: « Seigneur, sauvez -moi ! mon Dieu, ayez pitié de moi ! »
The frosty ground creaked beneath her feet, and she trembled at the sound; every quaking leaf and fluttering shadow sent the blood backward to her heart, and quickened her footsteps. She wondered within herself at the strength that seemed to be come upon her; for she felt the weight of her boy as if it had been a feather, and every flutter of fear seemed to increase the supernatural power that bore her on, while from her pale lips burst forth, in frequent ejaculations, the prayer to a Friend above—“Lord, help! Lord, save me!”
O mère qui me lisez, si c' était votre Henri à vous qu' on dût vous enlever demain matin, si vous eussiez vu l' homme, le brutal marchand, si vous eussiez appris que l' acte de vente est signé et remis.... si vous n' aviez plus que de minuit au matin pour vous sauver.... et le sauver.... quelle serait la rapidité de votre fuite, combien de milles pourriez -vous faire dans ces quelques heures.... le cher fardeau à votre sein, sa petite tête endormie sur votre épaule, ses deux petits bras confiants noués autour de votre cou ? ~~~ Car l' enfant dormait.
If it were _your_ Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning,—if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o’clock till morning to make good your escape,—how fast could _you_ walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom,—the little sleepy head on your shoulder,—the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?
D'abord, l' effroi, l' étrangeté des circonstances le tinrent éveillé; mais la mère réprimait si énergiquement chaque parole, chaque souffle, l' assurant que, s' il voulait seulement être tranquille, elle le sauverait, qu' il se serra paisiblement contre elle en lui disant seulement, quand il sentait venir le sommeil:
For the child slept. At first, the novelty and alarm kept him waking; but his mother so hurriedly repressed every breath or sound, and so assured him that if he were only still she would certainly save him, that he clung quietly round her neck, only asking, as he found himself sinking to sleep,
“Mother, I don’t need to keep awake, do I?”
--Non, cher ange, dors si tu veux.
“No, my darling; sleep, if you want to.”
“But, mother, if I do get asleep, you won’t let him get me?”
“No! so may God help me!” said his mother, with a paler cheek, and a brighter light in her large dark eyes.
« Vous êtes sûre, mais bien sûre ?
“You’re _sure_, an’t you, mother?”
-- Oui, bien sûre ! » reprit la mère d' une voix qui l' effraya elle-même, car elle lui sembla venir d' un esprit intérieur qui n' était point elle. ~~~ L' enfant laissa tomber sa tête fatiguée et s' endormit.... Le contact de ces petits bras chauds, cette respiration qui passait sur son cou, donnaient aux mouvements de la mère comme une ardeur enflammée. Chaque tressaillement de l' enfant endormi faisait passer dans ses membres comme un courant électrique. Sublime domination de l' esprit sur le corps, qui rend insensibles les chairs et les nerfs, et qui trempe les muscles comme de l' acier, pour que la faiblesse devienne de la force ! Les limites de la ferme, le bosquet, le bois, tout cela passait comme des fantômes.... Et elle marchait, marchait toujours, sans s' arrêter, sans reprendre haleine.... Les premières lueurs du jour la trouvèrent sur le grand chemin, à plusieurs milles de l' habitation.
“Yes, _sure_!” said the mother, in a voice that startled herself; for it seemed to her to come from a spirit within, that was no part of her; and the boy dropped his little weary head on her shoulder, and was soon asleep. How the touch of those warm arms, the gentle breathings that came in her neck, seemed to add fire and spirit to her movements! It seemed to her as if strength poured into her in electric streams, from every gentle touch and movement of the sleeping, confiding child. Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body, that, for a time, can make flesh and nerve impregnable, and string the sinews like steel, so that the weak become so mighty. ~~~ The boundaries of the farm, the grove, the wood-lot, passed by her dizzily, as she walked on; and still she went, leaving one familiar object after another, slacking not, pausing not, till reddening daylight found her many a long mile from all traces of any familiar objects upon the open highway.
Souvent, avec sa maîtresse, elle était allée visiter quelques amis dans le voisinage jusqu' au village de T., tout près de l' Ohio: elle connaissait parfaitement ce chemin. Mais aller plus loin, passer le fleuve, c' était pour elle le commencement de l' inconnu. Elle ne pouvait plus désormais espérer qu' en Dieu.
She had often been, with her mistress, to visit some connections, in the little village of T——, not far from the Ohio river, and knew the road well. To go thither, to escape across the Ohio river, were the first hurried outlines of her plan of escape; beyond that, she could only hope in God.
Quand les chevaux et les voitures commencèrent à circuler sur la grande route, elle comprit, avec cette intuition rapide que nous avons toujours dans nos moments d' excitation morale, et qui semble une sorte d' inspiration, elle comprit que sa marche égarée et sa physionomie inquiète allaient attirer sur elle l' attention soupçonneuse des passants. Elle posa donc l' enfant à terre, répara sa toilette, ajusta sa coiffure, et mesura sa marche de façon à sauver du moins les apparences. Elle avait fait provision de pommes et de gâteaux. Les pommes lui servirent à hâter la marche de l' enfant; elle les faisait rouler à quelques pas devant lui: l' enfant courait après de toutes ses forces. Cette ruse, souvent répétée, lui fit gagner quelques milles.
When horses and vehicles began to move along the highway, with that alert perception peculiar to a state of excitement, and which seems to be a sort of inspiration, she became aware that her headlong pace and distracted air might bring on her remark and suspicion. She therefore put the boy on the ground, and, adjusting her dress and bonnet, she walked on at as rapid a pace as she thought consistent with the preservation of appearances. In her little bundle she had provided a store of cakes and apples, which she used as expedients for quickening the speed of the child, rolling the apple some yards before them, when the boy would run with all his might after it; and this ruse, often repeated, carried them over many a half-mile.
Ils arrivèrent bientôt près d' un épais taillis, qu' un ruisseau limpide traversait avec un frais murmure. L' enfant avait faim et soif: il commençait à se plaindre. Tous deux franchirent la haie. Ils s' assirent derrière un quartier de rocher qui les dérobait à la vue; elle le fit déjeuner. L' enfant remarqua en pleurant qu' elle ne mangeait pas: il lui passa un bras autour du cou et voulut lui glisser un morceau de gâteau dans la bouche....
After a while, they came to a thick patch of woodland, through which murmured a clear brook. As the child complained of hunger and thirst, she climbed over the fence with him; and, sitting down behind a large rock which concealed them from the road, she gave him a breakfast out of her little package. The boy wondered and grieved that she could not eat; and when, putting his arms round her neck, he tried to wedge some of his cake into her mouth, it seemed to her that the rising in her throat would choke her.
“No, no, Harry darling! mother can’t eat till you are safe! We must go on—on—till we come to the river!” And she hurried again into the road, and again constrained herself to walk regularly and composedly forward.
Et elle se précipita sur la route.... puis elle reprit une marche régulière et calme. ~~~ Elle avait dépassé de plusieurs milles les endroits où elle était personnellement connue. Si le hasard voulait qu' elle rencontrât quelque connaissance, elle se disait que la bonté très-notoire de la famille écarterait bien loin toute idée d' évasion. Et puis, elle était si blanche qu' il fallait un oeil attentif et exercé pour reconnaître le sang mêlé; son enfant était aussi blanc qu' elle; c' était une chance de plus de passer inaperçue.
She was many miles past any neighborhood where she was personally known. If she should chance to meet any who knew her, she reflected that the well-known kindness of the family would be of itself a blind to suspicion, as making it an unlikely supposition that she could be a fugitive. As she was also so white as not to be known as of colored lineage, without a critical survey, and her child was white also, it was much easier for her to pass on unsuspected.
On this presumption, she stopped at noon at a neat farmhouse, to rest herself, and buy some dinner for her child and self; for, as the danger decreased with the distance, the supernatural tension of the nervous system lessened, and she found herself both weary and hungry.
The good woman, kindly and gossipping, seemed rather pleased than otherwise with having somebody come in to talk with; and accepted, without examination, Eliza’s statement, that she “was going on a little piece, to spend a week with her friends,”—all which she hoped in her heart might prove strictly true.
An hour before sunset, she entered the village of T——, by the Ohio river, weary and foot-sore, but still strong in heart. Her first glance was at the river, which lay, like Jordan, between her and the Canaan of liberty on the other side.
On était au commencement du printemps; la rivière, gonflée et mugissante, charriait des monceaux de glace avec ses eaux tumultueuses. Grâce à la forme particulière du rivage, qui, dans cette partie du Kentucky, s' avance comme un promontoire au milieu des eaux, d' énormes quantités de glace avaient été retenues au passage. Elles s' entassaient en piles énormes qui formaient comme un radeau irrégulier et gigantesque, interrompant la communication des deux rives.
It was now early spring, and the river was swollen and turbulent; great cakes of floating ice were swinging heavily to and fro in the turbid waters. Owing to the peculiar form of the shore on the Kentucky side, the land bending far out into the water, the ice had been lodged and detained in great quantities, and the narrow channel which swept round the bend was full of ice, piled one cake over another, thus forming a temporary barrier to the descending ice, which lodged, and formed a great, undulating raft, filling up the whole river, and extending almost to the Kentucky shore.
Eliza stood, for a moment, contemplating this unfavorable aspect of things, which she saw at once must prevent the usual ferry-boat from running, and then turned into a small public house on the bank, to make a few inquiries.
The hostess, who was busy in various fizzing and stewing operations over the fire, preparatory to the evening meal, stopped, with a fork in her hand, as Eliza’s sweet and plaintive voice arrested her.
« Qu' est -ce donc ?
“What is it?” she said.
“Isn’t there any ferry or boat, that takes people over to B——, now?” she said.
-- Non vraiment. Les bateaux ne marchent plus. »
“No, indeed!” said the woman; “the boats has stopped running.”
La douleur et l' abattement d' Élisa frappèrent cette femme.
Eliza’s look of dismay and disappointment struck the woman, and she said, inquiringly,
“May be you’re wanting to get over?—anybody sick? Ye seem mighty anxious?”
“I’ve got a child that’s very dangerous,” said Eliza. “I never heard of it till last night, and I’ve walked quite a piece today, in hopes to get to the ferry.”
“Well, now, that’s onlucky,” said the woman, whose motherly sympathies were much aroused; “I’m re’lly consarned for ye. Solomon!” she called, from the window, towards a small back building. A man, in leather apron and very dirty hands, appeared at the door.
“I say, Sol,” said the woman, “is that ar man going to tote them bar’ls over tonight?”
“He said he should try, if ’t was any way prudent,” said the man.
“There’s a man a piece down here, that’s going over with some truck this evening, if he durs’ to; he’ll be in here to supper tonight, so you’d better set down and wait. That’s a sweet little fellow,” added the woman, offering him a cake.
But the child, wholly exhausted, cried with weariness.
“Poor fellow! he isn’t used to walking, and I’ve hurried him on so,” said Eliza.
-- Faites -le entrer dans cette chambre, » dit l' hôtesse en ouvrant un petit cabinet où il y avait un lit confortable. Élisa y plaça le pauvre enfant et tint ses petites mains dans les siennes jusqu' à ce qu' il fût endormi. Pour elle, il n' y avait plus de repos. La pensée de ses persécuteurs, comme un feu dévorant, brûlait la moelle de ses os. Elle jetait des regards pleins de larmes sur les flots gonflés et terribles qui coulaient entre elle et la liberté.
“Well, take him into this room,” said the woman, opening into a small bed-room, where stood a comfortable bed. Eliza laid the weary boy upon it, and held his hands in hers till he was fast asleep. For her there was no rest. As a fire in her bones, the thought of the pursuer urged her on; and she gazed with longing eyes on the sullen, surging waters that lay between her and liberty.
Mais quittons l' infortunée pour un instant, et voyons ce que deviennent ceux qui la poursuivent.
Here we must take our leave of her for the present, to follow the course of her pursuers.
Mme Shelby avait dit, il est vrai, que le dîner serait immédiatement servi; on vit bientôt, ce qui s' est vu souvent, qu' il faut être deux pour faire un marché. Quoique les ordres eussent été donnés en présence d' Haley et transmis à la mère Chloé par au moins une demi-douzaine d' alertes messagers, cette haute dignitaire, pour toute réponse, grommela quelques mots inintelligibles, en hochant sa vieille tête, et elle continua son opération avec une lenteur inaccoutumée.
Though Mrs. Shelby had promised that the dinner should be hurried on table, yet it was soon seen, as the thing has often been seen before, that it required more than one to make a bargain. So, although the order was fairly given out in Haley’s hearing, and carried to Aunt Chloe by at least half a dozen juvenile messengers, that dignitary only gave certain very gruff snorts, and tosses of her head, and went on with every operation in an unusually leisurely and circumstantial manner.
Toute la maison semblait instinctivement deviner que madame n' était en aucune façon affligée de ce retard: on ne saurait croire combien d' accidents retardèrent le cours ordinaire des choses. Un marmiton maladroit renversa la sauce: il fallut refaire la sauce. Chloé y mit un soin désespérant et une précision compassée; elle répondait à toutes les exhortations « qu' elle ne se permettrait pas de servir une sauce tournée pour plaire à des gens qui voulaient rattraper quelqu'un. » Un enfant tomba avec l' eau qu' il portait: il fallut retourner à la fontaine. Un autre renversa le beurre. De temps en temps on arrivait, en ricanant, dire à la cuisine que M. Haley paraissait très-mal à son aise, qu' il ne pouvait rester sur son siége, et qu' il allait en trépignant de la fenêtre à la porte.
For some singular reason, an impression seemed to reign among the servants generally that Missis would not be particularly disobliged by delay; and it was wonderful what a number of counter accidents occurred constantly, to retard the course of things. One luckless wight contrived to upset the gravy; and then gravy had to be got up _de novo_, with due care and formality, Aunt Chloe watching and stirring with dogged precision, answering shortly, to all suggestions of haste, that she “warn’t a going to have raw gravy on the table, to help nobody’s catchings.” One tumbled down with the water, and had to go to the spring for more; and another precipitated the butter into the path of events; and there was from time to time giggling news brought into the kitchen that “Mas’r Haley was mighty oneasy, and that he couldn’t sit in his cheer no ways, but was a walkin’ and stalkin’ to the winders and through the porch.”
“Sarves him right!” said Aunt Chloe, indignantly. “He’ll get wus nor oneasy, one of these days, if he don’t mend his ways. _His_ master’ll be sending for him, and then see how he’ll look!”
“He’ll go to torment, and no mistake,” said little Jake.
-- Il le mérite bien, dit Chloé d' un air revêche. Il a brisé bien des coeurs... Je vous le dis à tous, reprit -elle en élevant sa fourchette, comme M. Georges l' a lu dans la _Rêvélation_, les âmes crient au pied de l' autel, elles crient au Seigneur et demandent vengeance.... et un jour le Seigneur les entendra. Oui, il les entendra ! »
“He desarves it!” said Aunt Chloe, grimly; “he’s broke a many, many, many hearts,—I tell ye all!” she said, stopping, with a fork uplifted in her hands; “it’s like what Mas’r George reads in Ravelations,—souls a callin’ under the altar! and a callin’ on the Lord for vengeance on sich!—and by and by the Lord he’ll hear ’em—so he will!”
Aunt Chloe, who was much revered in the kitchen, was listened to with open mouth; and, the dinner being now fairly sent in, the whole kitchen was at leisure to gossip with her, and to listen to her remarks.
“Sich’ll be burnt up forever, and no mistake; won’t ther?” said Andy.
“I’d be glad to see it, I’ll be boun’,” said little Jake.
-- Enfants ! » dit une voix qui les fit tous tressaillir.
“Chil’en!” said a voice, that made them all start. It was Uncle Tom, who had come in, and stood listening to the conversation at the door.
“Chil’en!” he said, “I’m afeard you don’t know what ye’re sayin’. Forever is a _dre’ful_ word, chil’en; it’s awful to think on ’t. You oughtenter wish that ar to any human crittur.”
“We wouldn’t to anybody but the soul-drivers,” said Andy; “nobody can help wishing it to them, they ’s so awful wicked.”
-- La nature elle-même, la bonne nature ne crie -t-elle point contre eux ? dit Chloé. Est -ce qu' ils n' arrachent pas l' enfant qu' on allaite au sein de sa mère... pour le vendre ?... Et les petits enfants qui pleurent et qui s' attachent à nos vêtements, est -ce qu' ils ne les arrachent point aussi de nos bras.... pour les vendre ? Ne séparent -ils point la femme du mari ? continua -t-elle en pleurant.... et n' est -ce pas les tuer tous deux ? Et cependant, que ressentent -ils ? quelle pitié ? est -ce que cela les empêche de boire, de fumer et de prendre toutes leurs aises ? Si le diable ne les emporte pas, à quoi donc le diable est -il bon ? » Et, couvrant son visage de son tablier, Chloé laissa éclater ses sanglots.
“Don’t natur herself kinder cry out on ’em?” said Aunt Chloe. “Don’t dey tear der suckin’ baby right off his mother’s breast, and sell him, and der little children as is crying and holding on by her clothes,—don’t dey pull ’em off and sells ’em? Don’t dey tear wife and husband apart?” said Aunt Chloe, beginning to cry, “when it’s jest takin’ the very life on ’em?—and all the while does they feel one bit, don’t dey drink and smoke, and take it oncommon easy? Lor, if the devil don’t get them, what’s he good for?” And Aunt Chloe covered her face with her checked apron, and began to sob in good earnest.
Mais alors Tom, à son tour: ~~~ « Priez pour ceux qui vous persécutent, dit le _bon livre_ !
“Pray for them that ’spitefully use you, the good book says,” says Tom.
“Pray for ’em!” said Aunt Chloe; “Lor, it’s too tough! I can’t pray for ’em.”
-- Oui, Chloé, c' est plus fort que la nature, mais la grâce du Seigneur est plus forte aussi que la nature !... Et d'ailleurs, songez dans quel état se trouve l' âme des pauvres créatures qui commettent de telles actions.... Remerciez Dieu de n' être pas comme elles, Chloé. Pour moi, j' aimerais mieux être vendu dix mille fois que d' avoir le même compte à rendre que ce pauvre homme !
“It’s natur, Chloe, and natur ’s strong,” said Tom, “but the Lord’s grace is stronger; besides, you oughter think what an awful state a poor crittur’s soul ’s in that’ll do them ar things,—you oughter thank God that you an’t _like_ him, Chloe. I’m sure I’d rather be sold, ten thousand times over, than to have all that ar poor crittur’s got to answer for.”
“So ’d I, a heap,” said Jake. “Lor, _shouldn’t_ we cotch it, Andy?”
Andy shrugged his shoulders, and gave an acquiescent whistle.
« Je suis bien aise, reprit Tom, que monsieur ne soit pas sorti ce matin, comme il le voulait. Cela me faisait plus de mal que de me voir vendu. C' était bien naturel à lui, mais bien pénible pour moi, qui le connais depuis l' enfance; j' ai vu monsieur et je commence à être réconcilié avec la volonté de Dieu. Monsieur ne pouvait se tirer d' affaire sans cela. Il a bien fait. Mais j' ai peur que les choses n' aillent encore plus mal, moi absent. On ne s' attendra pas à voir monsieur rôder et surveiller partout, comme je faisais. Les enfants ont bonne volonté.... mais c' est si léger.... voilà ce qui m' effraye ! »
“I’m glad Mas’r didn’t go off this morning, as he looked to,” said Tom; “that ar hurt me more than sellin’, it did. Mebbe it might have been natural for him, but ’t would have come desp’t hard on me, as has known him from a baby; but I’ve seen Mas’r, and I begin ter feel sort o’ reconciled to the Lord’s will now. Mas’r couldn’t help hisself; he did right, but I’m feared things will be kinder goin’ to rack, when I’m gone Mas’r can’t be spected to be a pryin’ round everywhar, as I’ve done, a keepin’ up all the ends. The boys all means well, but they ’s powerful car’less. That ar troubles me.”
The bell here rang, and Tom was summoned to the parlor.
“Tom,” said his master, kindly, “I want you to notice that I give this gentleman bonds to forfeit a thousand dollars if you are not on the spot when he wants you; he’s going today to look after his other business, and you can have the day to yourself. Go anywhere you like, boy.”
-- Merci, monsieur, dit Tom.
“Thank you, Mas’r,” said Tom.
“And mind yourself,” said the trader, “and don’t come it over your master with any o’ yer nigger tricks; for I’ll take every cent out of him, if you an’t thar. If he’d hear to me, he wouldn’t trust any on ye—slippery as eels!”
-- Monsieur, dit Tom en se tenant tout droit devant Shelby, j' avais huit ans quand la vieille maîtresse vous mit dans mes bras; vous n' aviez pas un an: « Tom, ce sera ton maître, me dit -elle: « aie bien soin de lui ! » Et maintenant, monsieur, je vous le demande, ai -je jamais manqué à mon devoir ? Vous ai -je jamais été infidèle... surtout depuis que je suis chrétien ? »
“Mas’r,” said Tom,—and he stood very straight,—“I was jist eight years old when ole Missis put you into my arms, and you wasn’t a year old. ‘Thar,’ says she, ‘Tom, that’s to be _your_ young Mas’r; take good care on him,’ says she. And now I jist ask you, Mas’r, have I ever broke word to you, or gone contrary to you, ’specially since I was a Christian?”
Mr. Shelby was fairly overcome, and the tears rose to his eyes.
“My good boy,” said he, “the Lord knows you say but the truth; and if I was able to help it, all the world shouldn’t buy you.”
“And sure as I am a Christian woman,” said Mrs. Shelby, “you shall be redeemed as soon as I can any way bring together means. Sir,” she said to Haley, “take good account of who you sell him to, and let me know.”
“Lor, yes, for that matter,” said the trader, “I may bring him up in a year, not much the wuss for wear, and trade him back.”
-- Je vous le rachèterai bon prix.
“I’ll trade with you then, and make it for your advantage,” said Mrs. Shelby.
“Of course,” said the trader, “all ’s equal with me; li’ves trade ’em up as down, so I does a good business. All I want is a livin’, you know, ma’am; that’s all any on us wants, I, s’pose.”
M. et Mme Shelby se sentaient humiliés et abaissés par l' impudente familiarité du marchand; mais tous deux sentaient aussi l' impérieuse nécessité de maîtriser leurs sentiments: plus il se montrait dur et avare, plus Mme Shelby craignait de le voir reprendre Élisa et son enfant. Elle cherchait donc à le retenir par toutes sortes de ruses féminines: c' étaient des mines, des sourires, des causeries presque intimes... tout, enfin, pour faire passer le temps insensiblement.
Mr. and Mrs. Shelby both felt annoyed and degraded by the familiar impudence of the trader, and yet both saw the absolute necessity of putting a constraint on their feelings. The more hopelessly sordid and insensible he appeared, the greater became Mrs. Shelby’s dread of his succeeding in recapturing Eliza and her child, and of course the greater her motive for detaining him by every female artifice. She therefore graciously smiled, assented, chatted familiarly, and did all she could to make time pass imperceptibly.
A deux heures, Samuel et André amenèrent les chevaux, qui semblaient plus frais et plus dispos que jamais, malgré leur escapade du matin.
At two o’clock Sam and Andy brought the horses up to the posts, apparently greatly refreshed and invigorated by the scamper of the morning.
Sam was there new oiled from dinner, with an abundance of zealous and ready officiousness. As Haley approached, he was boasting, in flourishing style, to Andy, of the evident and eminent success of the operation, now that he had “farly come to it.”
“Your master, I s’pose, don’t keep no dogs,” said Haley, thoughtfully, as he prepared to mount.
“Heaps on ’em,” said Sam, triumphantly; “thar’s Bruno—he’s a roarer! and, besides that, ’bout every nigger of us keeps a pup of some natur or uther.”
--Fi donc!»
“Poh!” said Haley,—and he said something else, too, with regard to the said dogs, at which Sam muttered,
“I don’t see no use cussin’ on ’em, no way.”
“But your master don’t keep no dogs (I pretty much know he don’t) for trackin’ out niggers.”
Sam knew exactly what he meant, but he kept on a look of earnest and desperate simplicity.
“Our dogs all smells round considable sharp. I spect they’s the kind, though they han’t never had no practice. They ’s _far_ dogs, though, at most anything, if you’d get ’em started. Here, Bruno,” he called, whistling to the lumbering Newfoundland, who came pitching tumultuously toward them.
“You go hang!” said Haley, getting up. “Come, tumble up now.”
Samuel, en montant à cheval, trouva adroitement le moyen de chatouiller André, qui partit d' un éclat de rire, à la grande indignation de Haley, qui le menaça de son fouet.
Sam tumbled up accordingly, dexterously contriving to tickle Andy as he did so, which occasioned Andy to split out into a laugh, greatly to Haley’s indignation, who made a cut at him with his riding-whip.
“I ’s ’stonished at yer, Andy,” said Sam, with awful gravity. “This yer’s a seris bisness, Andy. Yer mustn’t be a makin’ game. This yer an’t no way to help Mas’r.”
“I shall take the straight road to the river,” said Haley, decidedly, after they had come to the boundaries of the estate. “I know the way of all of ’em,—they makes tracks for the underground.”
“Sartin,” said Sam, “dat’s de idee. Mas’r Haley hits de thing right in de middle. Now, der’s two roads to de river,—de dirt road and der pike,—which Mas’r mean to take?”
Andy looked up innocently at Sam, surprised at hearing this new geographical fact, but instantly confirmed what he said, by a vehement reiteration.
“Cause,” said Sam, “I’d rather be ’clined to ’magine that Lizy ’d take de dirt road, bein’ it’s the least travelled.”
Haley, notwithstanding that he was a very old bird, and naturally inclined to be suspicious of chaff, was rather brought up by this view of the case.
“If yer warn’t both on yer such cussed liars, now!” he said, contemplatively as he pondered a moment.
The pensive, reflective tone in which this was spoken appeared to amuse Andy prodigiously, and he drew a little behind, and shook so as apparently to run a great risk of failing off his horse, while Sam’s face was immovably composed into the most doleful gravity.
“Course,” said Sam, “Mas’r can do as he’d ruther, go de straight road, if Mas’r thinks best,—it’s all one to us. Now, when I study ’pon it, I think de straight road de best, _deridedly_.”
“She would naturally go a lonesome way,” said Haley, thinking aloud, and not minding Sam’s remark.
-- On ne sait pas, reprit Samuel; les femmes sont si drôles ! elles ne font jamais rien comme on se l' imagine; c' est presque toujours le contraire: la femme est naturellement contrariante. Si vous croyez qu' elle a pris une route, il est certain que c' est l' autre qu' il faut suivre pour la trouver. Mon opinion à moi est que Lisa a pris la vieille route: aussi je pense qu' il faut suivre la nouvelle. »
“Dar an’t no sayin’,” said Sam; “gals is pecular; they never does nothin’ ye thinks they will; mose gen’lly the contrary. Gals is nat’lly made contrary; and so, if you thinks they’ve gone one road, it is sartin you’d better go t’ other, and then you’ll be sure to find ’em. Now, my private ’pinion is, Lizy took der road; so I think we’d better take de straight one.”
This profound generic view of the female sex did not seem to dispose Haley particularly to the straight road, and he announced decidedly that he should go the other, and asked Sam when they should come to it.
« Tout à l' heure, dit Samuel en clignant de l' oeil qui regardait André, tout à l' heure ! » Il ajouta gravement: « J' ai étudié la question; je crois qu' il ne faut pas prendre cette route. Je ne l' ai jamais parcourue; elle est d' une solitude désespérante, nous pourrions nous égarer.... et dans ce cas, où aller ?... Dieu le sait !
“A little piece ahead,” said Sam, giving a wink to Andy with the eye which was on Andy’s side of the head; and he added, gravely, “but I’ve studded on de matter, and I’m quite clar we ought not to go dat ar way. I nebber been over it no way. It’s despit lonesome, and we might lose our way,—whar we’d come to, de Lord only knows.”
“Nevertheless,” said Haley, “I shall go that way.”
“Now I think on ’t, I think I hearn ’em tell that dat ar road was all fenced up and down by der creek, and thar, an’t it, Andy?”
André n' était pas certain.... il n' avait pas vu.... il ne voulait pas se compromettre.
Andy wasn’t certain; he’d only “hearn tell” about that road, but never been over it. In short, he was strictly noncommittal.
Haley, habitué à tenir la balance entre des mensonges plus ou moins pesants, crut qu' elle penchait cette fois du côté de la vieille route; il s' imagina que c' était par mégarde que Samuel l' avait d'abord indiquée. Il attribua ses efforts confus pour l' en dissuader à un mensonge désespéré qui n' avait d' autre but que de sauver Élisa.
Haley, accustomed to strike the balance of probabilities between lies of greater or lesser magnitude, thought that it lay in favor of the dirt road aforesaid. The mention of the thing he thought he perceived was involuntary on Sam’s part at first, and his confused attempts to dissuade him he set down to a desperate lying on second thoughts, as being unwilling to implicate Liza.
When, therefore, Sam indicated the road, Haley plunged briskly into it, followed by Sam and Andy.
C' était vraiment une vieille route, qui avait conduit jadis à la rivière. Elle était abandonnée depuis longues années pour un nouveau tracé. La route était libre à peu près pour une heure de marche; après cela elle était coupée de haies et de métairies. Samuel le savait parfaitement bien; mais elle était depuis si longtemps fermée, qu' André l' ignorait véritablement. Il trottait donc avec un air de soumission respectueuse, murmurant et criant de temps en temps que c' était bien raboteux et bien mauvais pour le pied de Jerry.
Now, the road, in fact, was an old one, that had formerly been a thoroughfare to the river, but abandoned for many years after the laying of the new pike. It was open for about an hour’s ride, and after that it was cut across by various farms and fences. Sam knew this fact perfectly well,—indeed, the road had been so long closed up, that Andy had never heard of it. He therefore rode along with an air of dutiful submission, only groaning and vociferating occasionally that ’t was “desp’t rough, and bad for Jerry’s foot.”
“Now, I jest give yer warning,” said Haley, “I know yer; yer won’t get me to turn off this road, with all yer fussin’—so you shet up!”
“Mas’r will go his own way!” said Sam, with rueful submission, at the same time winking most portentously to Andy, whose delight was now very near the explosive point.
Samuel était d' une animation extrême; il vantait son excellente vue, il s' écriait de temps en temps: « Ah ! je vois un chapeau de femme sur la hauteur ! » Ou bien, appelant André: « N' est -ce point Lisa, là-bas, dans ce creux ? » Il choisissait pour ces exclamations les parties difficiles et rocailleuses de la route, où il était à peu près impossible de hâter le pas. Il tenait ainsi Haley dans une perpétuelle émotion.
Sam was in wonderful spirits,—professed to keep a very brisk lookout,—at one time exclaiming that he saw “a gal’s bonnet” on the top of some distant eminence, or calling to Andy “if that thar wasn’t ’Lizy’ down in the hollow;” always making these exclamations in some rough or craggy part of the road, where the sudden quickening of speed was a special inconvenience to all parties concerned, and thus keeping Haley in a state of constant commotion.
Après une heure de marche, les trois voyageurs descendirent précipitamment dans une cour qui dépendait d' une vaste ferme. On ne rencontra personne; tout le monde était aux champs; mais, comme la ferme barrait littéralement le chemin, il était évident qu' on ne pouvait aller plus loin dans cette direction.
After riding about an hour in this way, the whole party made a precipitate and tumultuous descent into a barn-yard belonging to a large farming establishment. Not a soul was in sight, all the hands being employed in the fields; but, as the barn stood conspicuously and plainly square across the road, it was evident that their journey in that direction had reached a decided finale.
“Wan’t dat ar what I telled Mas’r?” said Sam, with an air of injured innocence. “How does strange gentleman spect to know more about a country dan de natives born and raised?”
“You rascal!” said Haley, “you knew all about this.”
“Didn’t I tell yer I _knowd_, and yer wouldn’t believe me? I telled Mas’r ’t was all shet up, and fenced up, and I didn’t spect we could get through,—Andy heard me.”
Cette assertion était trop incontestablement vraie pour qu' on pût y contredire. L' infortuné marchand fut donc obligé de dissimuler de son mieux. Il cacha sa colère, et tous trois firent volte-face et se dirigèrent vers la grande route.
It was all too true to be disputed, and the unlucky man had to pocket his wrath with the best grace he was able, and all three faced to the right about, and took up their line of march for the highway.
Il résulta de tous ces retards une certaine avance pour Élisa. Il y avait trois quarts d' heure que son enfant était couché dans le cabinet de l' auberge, quand Haley et les deux esclaves y arrivèrent eux-mêmes. ~~~ Élisa était à la fenêtre; elle regardait dans une autre direction; l' oeil perçant de Samuel l' eut bientôt découverte. Haley et André étaient à quelques pas en arrière. C' était un moment critique. Samuel eût soin qu' un coup de vent enlevât son chapeau. Il poussa un cri formidable et d' une façon toute particulière. Ce cri réveilla Élisa comme en sursaut. Elle se rejeta vivement en arrière.
In consequence of all the various delays, it was about three-quarters of an hour after Eliza had laid her child to sleep in the village tavern that the party came riding into the same place. Eliza was standing by the window, looking out in another direction, when Sam’s quick eye caught a glimpse of her. Haley and Andy were two yards behind. At this crisis, Sam contrived to have his hat blown off, and uttered a loud and characteristic ejaculation, which startled her at once; she drew suddenly back; the whole train swept by the window, round to the front door.
Les trois voyageurs s' arrêtèrent en face de la porte d' entrée, tout près de cette fenêtre. ~~~ Pour Élisa, mille vies se concentraient dans cet instant suprême. Le cabinet avait une porte latérale qui s' ouvrait sur la rivière. Elle saisit son fils et franchit d' un bond quelques marches. Le marchand l' aperçut au moment où elle disparaissait derrière la rive. Il se jeta à bas de son cheval, appela à grands cris Samuel et André, et il se précipita après elle, comme le limier après le daim. Dans cet instant terrible, le pied d' Élisa touchait à peine le sol; on l' eût crue portée sur la cime des flots. Ils arrivaient derrière elle.... Alors, avec cette puissance nerveuse que Dieu ne donne qu' aux désespérés, poussant un cri sauvage, avec un bond ailé, elle s' élança du bord par-dessus le torrent mugissant et tomba sur le radeau de glace. C' était un saut désespéré, impossible, sinon au désespoir même et à la folie. Haley, Samuel et André poussèrent un cri et levèrent les mains au ciel.
A thousand lives seemed to be concentrated in that one moment to Eliza. Her room opened by a side door to the river. She caught her child, and sprang down the steps towards it. The trader caught a full glimpse of her just as she was disappearing down the bank; and throwing himself from his horse, and calling loudly on Sam and Andy, he was after her like a hound after a deer. In that dizzy moment her feet to her scarce seemed to touch the ground, and a moment brought her to the water’s edge. Right on behind they came; and, nerved with strength such as God gives only to the desperate, with one wild cry and flying leap, she vaulted sheer over the turbid current by the shore, on to the raft of ice beyond. It was a desperate leap—impossible to anything but madness and despair; and Haley, Sam, and Andy, instinctively cried out, and lifted up their hands, as she did it.
L' énorme glaçon craqua et s' abîma sous son poids.... mais elle ne s' y était point arrêtée une seconde. Cependant, poussant toujours ses cris sauvages, redoublant d' énergie avec le danger, elle sauta de glaçon en glaçon, glissant, se cramponnant, tombant, mais se relevant toujours ! Elle perd sa chaussure; ses bas sont arrachés de ses pieds; son sang marque sa route; mais elle ne voit rien, ne sent rien, jusqu' à ce qu' enfin.... obscurément.... comme dans un rêve, elle aperçoit l' autre rive, et un homme qui lui tend la main.
The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake; stumbling—leaping—slipping—springing upwards again! Her shoes are gone—her stockings cut from her feet—while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly, as in a dream, she saw the Ohio side, and a man helping her up the bank.
“Yer a brave gal, now, whoever ye ar!” said the man, with an oath.
Eliza recognized the voice and face for a man who owned a farm not far from her old home.
“O, Mr. Symmes!—save me—do save me—do hide me!” said Elia.
“Why, what’s this?” said the man. “Why, if ’tan’t Shelby’s gal!”
“My child!—this boy!—he’d sold him! There is his Mas’r,” said she, pointing to the Kentucky shore. “O, Mr. Symmes, you’ve got a little boy!”
“So I have,” said the man, as he roughly, but kindly, drew her up the steep bank. “Besides, you’re a right brave gal. I like grit, wherever I see it.”
When they had gained the top of the bank, the man paused.
« Je serais heureux de faire quelque chose pour vous, dit -il; mais je n' ai pas où vous mettre. Ce que je puis faire de mieux, c' est de vous indiquer où vous devez aller; et il lui montra une grande maison blanche, qui se trouvait isolée dans la principale rue du village. Allez là; ce sont de bonnes gens. Il n' y a aucun danger.... ils vous assisteront.... ils sont accoutumés à ces sortes de choses.
“I’d be glad to do something for ye,” said he; “but then there’s nowhar I could take ye. The best I can do is to tell ye to go _thar_,” said he, pointing to a large white house which stood by itself, off the main street of the village. “Go thar; they’re kind folks. Thar’s no kind o’ danger but they’ll help you,—they’re up to all that sort o’ thing.”
-- Dieu vous bénisse ! dit vivement Élisa.
“The Lord bless you!” said Eliza, earnestly.
“No ’casion, no ’casion in the world,” said the man. “What I’ve done’s of no ’count.”
-- Bien sûr, monsieur, vous ne le direz à personne ?
“And, oh, surely, sir, you won’t tell any one!”
“Go to thunder, gal! What do you take a feller for? In course not,” said the man. “Come, now, go along like a likely, sensible gal, as you are. You’ve arnt your liberty, and you shall have it, for all me.”
The woman folded her child to her bosom, and walked firmly and swiftly away. The man stood and looked after her.
« Shelby ne trouvera peut-être pas que ce soit là un acte de très-bon voisinage; mais que faire ? s' il attrape jamais une de mes femmes dans les mêmes circonstances, il sera le bienvenu à me rendre la pareille. Je ne pouvais pourtant pas voir cette pauvre créature courant, luttant, les chiens après elle, et essayant de se sauver.... D'ailleurs, je ne suis pas chargé de chasser et de reprendre les esclaves des autres. »
“Shelby, now, mebbe won’t think this yer the most neighborly thing in the world; but what’s a feller to do? If he catches one of my gals in the same fix, he’s welcome to pay back. Somehow I never could see no kind o’ critter a strivin’ and pantin’, and trying to clar theirselves, with the dogs arter ’em and go agin ’em. Besides, I don’t see no kind of ’casion for me to be hunter and catcher for other folks, neither.”
So spoke this poor, heathenish Kentuckian, who had not been instructed in his constitutional relations, and consequently was betrayed into acting in a sort of Christianized manner, which, if he had been better situated and more enlightened, he would not have been left to do.
Haley had stood a perfectly amazed spectator of the scene, till Eliza had disappeared up the bank, when he turned a blank, inquiring look on Sam and Andy.
« Voilà une belle affaire, dit Samuel.
“That ar was a tolable fair stroke of business,” said Sam.
-- Il faut qu' elle ait sept diables dans le corps, reprit Haley.... elle bondissait comme un chat sauvage.
“The gal ’s got seven devils in her, I believe!” said Haley. “How like a wildcat she jumped!”
“Wal, now,” said Sam, scratching his head, “I hope Mas’r’ll ’scuse us trying dat ar road. Don’t think I feel spry enough for dat ar, no way!” and Sam gave a hoarse chuckle.
-- Vous riez ! hurla le marchand.
“_You_ laugh!” said the trader, with a growl.
-- Dieu vous bénisse, m' sieu ! je ne puis pas m' en empêcher, dit Samuel, donnant un libre cours à la joie longtemps contenue de son âme. Elle était si curieuse, sautant, bondissant, franchissant la glace !... Et seulement de l' entendre.... pouf ! pan ! crac ! hop ! Dieu ! comme elle allait ! Et Samuel et André rirent tant, que les larmes leur roulaient sur les joues.
“Lord bless you, Mas’r, I couldn’t help it now,” said Sam, giving way to the long pent-up delight of his soul. “She looked so curi’s, a leapin’ and springin’—ice a crackin’—and only to hear her,—plump! ker chunk! ker splash! Spring! Lord! how she goes it!” and Sam and Andy laughed till the tears rolled down their cheeks.
-- Je vais vous faire rire d' autre sorte, » s' écria -t-il en brandissant son fouet sur leurs têtes.
“I’ll make ye laugh t’ other side yer mouths!” said the trader, laying about their heads with his riding-whip.
Ils baissèrent le cou, s' élancèrent au haut de la berge avec des hourras, et se trouvèrent en selle avant qu' il fût remonté.
Both ducked, and ran shouting up the bank, and were on their horses before he was up.
« Bonsoir, m' sieu, dit Samuel avec beaucoup de gravité; j' ai grand'peur que madame ne soit inquiète de Jerry. M. Haley ne voudrait pas nous retenir plus longtemps. Madame ne serait pas contente que nous ayons fait passer la nuit à nos bêtes sur le pont de Lisa. « Et, après avoir donné un facétieux coup de poing dans les côtes d' André, il partit à toute vitesse, suivi de ce dernier. Peu à peu leurs joyeux éclats s' éteignirent dans le vent.
“Good-evening, Mas’r!” said Sam, with much gravity. “I berry much spect Missis be anxious ’bout Jerry. Mas’r Haley won’t want us no longer. Missis wouldn’t hear of our ridin’ the critters over Lizy’s bridge tonight;” and, with a facetious poke into Andy’s ribs, he started off, followed by the latter, at full speed,—their shouts of laughter coming faintly on the wind.
CHAPITRE VIII. ~~~ Les chasseurs d'hommes.
CHAPTER VIII Eliza’s Escape
Élisa avait miraculeusement traversé le fleuve aux dernières lueurs du crépuscule. Les grises vapeurs du soir, s' élevant lentement des eaux, la dérobèrent bientôt aux yeux. Le courant grossi et les monceaux de glaces flottantes mettaient une infranchissable barrière entre elle et son persécuteur. Haley, fort désappointé, retourna à la petite auberge pour réfléchir sur le parti qu' il avait à prendre. L' hôtesse lui ouvrit la porte d' un petit salon dont le plancher était couvert d' un tapis déchiré. Quant au tapis de la table, il brillait de taches d' huile. Tout était mesquin et dépareillé: des chaises avec de hauts dossiers de bois; des figurines de plâtre aux vives enluminures décoraient la cheminée. Un banc également en bois et d' une longueur désespérante s' étendait devant l' âtre. C' est là que Haley s' assit pour méditer sur l' instabilité des espérances et du bonheur des humains.
Eliza made her desperate retreat across the river just in the dusk of twilight. The gray mist of evening, rising slowly from the river, enveloped her as she disappeared up the bank, and the swollen current and floundering masses of ice presented a hopeless barrier between her and her pursuer. Haley therefore slowly and discontentedly returned to the little tavern, to ponder further what was to be done. The woman opened to him the door of a little parlor, covered with a rag carpet, where stood a table with a very shining black oil-cloth, sundry lank, high-backed wood chairs, with some plaster images in resplendent colors on the mantel-shelf, above a very dimly-smoking grate; a long hard-wood settle extended its uneasy length by the chimney, and here Haley sat him down to meditate on the instability of human hopes and happiness in general.
« Qu' avais -je besoin de ce marmot ? se demandait -il à lui-même. Me fourrer dans un tel guêpier ! Sot que je suis ! » Et Haley, pour retrouver un peu de calme, se récita des litanies d' imprécations contre lui-même. Nous reconnaissons volontiers qu' elles étaient assez bien méritées; nous demandons seulement la permission de ne pas les rapporter ici.
“What did I want with the little cuss, now,” he said to himself, “that I should have got myself treed like a coon, as I am, this yer way?” and Haley relieved himself by repeating over a not very select litany of imprecations on himself, which, though there was the best possible reason to consider them as true, we shall, as a matter of taste, omit.
He was startled by the loud and dissonant voice of a man who was apparently dismounting at the door. He hurried to the window.
“By the land! if this yer an’t the nearest, now, to what I’ve heard folks call Providence,” said Haley. “I do b’lieve that ar’s Tom Loker.”
Haley descendit en toute hâte. ~~~ Auprès du comptoir, dans un coin de la salle, un homme se tenait debout: teint bronzé, formes athlétiques, six pieds de haut, gros en proportion. Il était habillé d' une peau de buffle, le poil tourné en dehors, ce qui lui donnait un aspect sauvage et féroce, en complète harmonie avec l' air de son visage. Sur le front, sur la face, tous les traits, toutes les saillies qui indiquent la violence brutale et emportée, avaient pris le plus vaste développement. ~~~ Que nos lecteurs s' imaginent un boule-dogue changé en homme, et se promenant en veste et en chapeau: ils auront une assez juste idée de Tom Loker. Il avait un compagnon de voyage qui, sous beaucoup de rapports, offrait avec lui le contraste le plus frappant. Il était petit et mince; il avait dans les mouvements la souplesse doucereuse du chat; ses yeux noirs et perçants semblaient toujours guetter la souris: tous ses traits anguleux visaient pourtant à la sympathie. On eût dit que son nez long et fin voulait pénétrer toute chose. Ses cheveux noirs, rares et lisses, descendaient fort bas sur son front. On devinait dans tous ses gestes une finesse cauteleuse. Le premier de ces deux hommes se versa un grand verre d' eau-de-vie et l' avala sans mot dire; l' autre, debout sur la pointe des pieds, avançant la tête de tous côtés et flairant toutes les bouteilles, demanda avec circonspection, d' une voix maigre et chevrotante, un verre de liqueur de menthe. Quand on eut versé, il prit le verre, l' examina avec une attention complaisante, comme un homme content de ce qu' il a fait et qui vient de « frapper juste sur la tête du clou; » il se disposa ensuite à savourer à petites gorgées.
Haley hastened out. Standing by the bar, in the corner of the room, was a brawny, muscular man, full six feet in height, and broad in proportion. He was dressed in a coat of buffalo-skin, made with the hair outward, which gave him a shaggy and fierce appearance, perfectly in keeping with the whole air of his physiognomy. In the head and face every organ and lineament expressive of brutal and unhesitating violence was in a state of the highest possible development. Indeed, could our readers fancy a bull-dog come unto man’s estate, and walking about in a hat and coat, they would have no unapt idea of the general style and effect of his physique. He was accompanied by a travelling companion, in many respects an exact contrast to himself. He was short and slender, lithe and catlike in his motions, and had a peering, mousing expression about his keen black eyes, with which every feature of his face seemed sharpened into sympathy; his thin, long nose, ran out as if it was eager to bore into the nature of things in general; his sleek, thin, black hair was stuck eagerly forward, and all his motions and evolutions expressed a dry, cautious acuteness. The great man poured out a big tumbler half full of raw spirits, and gulped it down without a word. The little man stood tiptoe, and putting his head first to one side and then the other, and snuffing considerately in the directions of the various bottles, ordered at last a mint julep, in a thin and quivering voice, and with an air of great circumspection. When poured out, he took it and looked at it with a sharp, complacent air, like a man who thinks he has done about the right thing, and hit the nail on the head, and proceeded to dispose of it in short and well-advised sips.
“Wal, now, who’d a thought this yer luck ’ad come to me? Why, Loker, how are ye?” said Haley, coming forward, and extending his hand to the big man.
“The devil!” was the civil reply. “What brought you here, Haley?”
The mousing man, who bore the name of Marks, instantly stopped his sipping, and, poking his head forward, looked shrewdly on the new acquaintance, as a cat sometimes looks at a moving dry leaf, or some other possible object of pursuit.
“I say, Tom, this yer’s the luckiest thing in the world. I’m in a devil of a hobble, and you must help me out.”
“Ugh? aw! like enough!” grunted his complacent acquaintance. “A body may be pretty sure of that, when _you’re_ glad to see ’em; something to be made off of ’em. What’s the blow now?”
“You’ve got a friend here?” said Haley, looking doubtfully at Marks; “partner, perhaps?”
-- Oui, c' est Marks,... avec qui j' étais aux Natchez.
“Yes, I have. Here, Marks! here’s that ar feller that I was in with in Natchez.”
“Shall be pleased with his acquaintance,” said Marks, thrusting out a long, thin hand, like a raven’s claw. “Mr. Haley, I believe?”
-- Lui -même, monsieur, dit Haley; et maintenant, messieurs, puisque nous avons le bonheur de nous rencontrer, il me semble que nous pouvons causer un peu d' affaires. Là, dans cette salle.... Allons, vieux drôle, dit -il à l' homme du comptoir, de l' eau chaude, du sucre, des cigares et beaucoup d' _aff_... [ 7 ], et nous allons jaser. »
“The same, sir,” said Haley. “And now, gentlemen, seein’ as we’ve met so happily, I think I’ll stand up to a small matter of a treat in this here parlor. So, now, old coon,” said he to the man at the bar, “get us hot water, and sugar, and cigars, and plenty of the _real stuff_ and we’ll have a blow-out.”
Behold, then, the candles lighted, the fire stimulated to the burning point in the grate, and our three worthies seated round a table, well spread with all the accessories to good fellowship enumerated before.
Haley commença le récit pathétique de ses infortunes. Loker l' écouta bouche close, l' oeil terne et morne, avec la plus profonde attention. Marks, qui préparait avec grand soin un verre de punch à son goût, s' interrompit plusieurs fois dans cette grave occupation, et vint mettre le bout de son nez jusque dans la figure d' Haley. ~~~ Il avait également suivi le récit avec un vif intérêt; la fin parut l' amuser beaucoup. Ses côtes et ses épaules s' abandonnaient à un mouvement significatif, quoique silencieux. Il pinçait ses lèvres fines avec tous les signes d' une grande jubilation intérieure.
Haley began a pathetic recital of his peculiar troubles. Loker shut up his mouth, and listened to him with gruff and surly attention. Marks, who was anxiously and with much fidgeting compounding a tumbler of punch to his own peculiar taste, occasionally looked up from his employment, and, poking his sharp nose and chin almost into Haley’s face, gave the most earnest heed to the whole narrative. The conclusion of it appeared to amuse him extremely, for he shook his shoulders and sides in silence, and perked up his thin lips with an air of great internal enjoyment.
« Ainsi vous voilà tout à fait dedans ?... Hé ! hé ! c' est très-drôle !... Hé ! hé ! hé !
“So, then, ye’r fairly sewed up, an’t ye?” he said; “he! he! he! It’s neatly done, too.”
-- Ces maudits enfants causent bien des embarras dans le commerce, reprit Haley d' un ton piteux.
“This yer young-un business makes lots of trouble in the trade,” said Haley, dolefully.
-- Si nous pouvions, dit Marks, avoir une race de femmes qui n' eussent pas souci de leurs petits, ce serait le plus grand progrès de la civilisation moderne. » ~~~ Et Marks accompagna sa plaisanterie d' un rire calme et presque sérieux.
“If we could get a breed of gals that didn’t care, now, for their young uns,” said Marks; “tell ye, I think ’t would be ’bout the greatest mod’rn improvement I knows on,”—and Marks patronized his joke by a quiet introductory sniggle.
« Vrai, dit Haley, je n' ai jamais rien pu comprendre à cela. Ces petits sont pour elles une source d' ennuis. On croirait qu' elles devraient être enchantées de s' en débarrasser.... Eh bien, non; plus le petit leur cause de mal, plus il n' est bon à rien, plus elles s' y attachent !
“Jes so,” said Haley; “I never couldn’t see into it; young uns is heaps of trouble to ’em; one would think, now, they’d be glad to get clar on ’em; but they arn’t. And the more trouble a young un is, and the more good for nothing, as a gen’l thing, the tighter they sticks to ’em.”
-- Eh ! monsieur Haley, passez -moi donc l' eau chaude ! dit Marks.... Oui, monsieur, continua -t-il, vous dites là ce que j' ai souvent pensé moi-même, ce que nous avons pensé tous. Jadis, quand j' étais dans les affaires, j' achetai une femme solide, bien tournée, fort habile; elle avait un petit bonhomme malingre, souffreteux, bossu, contrefait. Je le donnai à un homme qui pensa pouvoir gagner dessus, parce qu' il ne lui coûtait rien. Vous ne vous imaginerez jamais comment la mère prit cela ! Si vous l' eussiez vue, Dieu ! je crois vraiment qu' elle l' aimait mieux encore parce qu' il était malade et qu' il la tourmentait ! Elle se démenait, criait, pleurait, cherchait partout, comme si elle eût perdu tous ses amis. C' est vraiment étrange ! On ne connaîtra jamais les femmes !
“Wal, Mr. Haley,” said Marks, “‘est pass the hot water. Yes, sir, you say ’est what I feel and all’us have. Now, I bought a gal once, when I was in the trade,—a tight, likely wench she was, too, and quite considerable smart,—and she had a young un that was mis’able sickly; it had a crooked back, or something or other; and I jest gin ’t away to a man that thought he’d take his chance raising on ’t, being it didn’t cost nothin’;—never thought, yer know, of the gal’s takin’ on about it,—but, Lord, yer oughter seen how she went on. Why, re’lly, she did seem to me to valley the child more ’cause _”t was_ sickly and cross, and plagued her; and she warn’t making b’lieve, neither,—cried about it, she did, and lopped round, as if she’d lost every friend she had. It re’lly was droll to think on ’t. Lord, there ain’t no end to women’s notions.”
-- Pareille chose m' est arrivée, dit Haley. L' été dernier, au bas de la Rivière-Rouge, j' achetai une femme avec un enfant assez gentil: des yeux aussi brillants que les vôtres. Quand je vins à le regarder de plus près, je m' aperçus qu' il avait la cataracte. La cataracte, monsieur ! Bon ! vous voyez que je n' en pouvais tirer parti. Je ne dis rien, mais je l' échangeai contre un baril de wisky. Quand il s' agit de le prendre à la mère, ce fut une tigresse ! Nous étions encore à l' ancre: les nègres n' étaient point enchaînés; elle grimpa comme une chatte sur une balle de coton, s' empara d' un couteau, et, je vous le jure, pendant une minute elle mit tout le monde en fuite. Elle vit bien que c' était une résistance inutile: alors elle se retourna et se précipita tête devant, elle et son enfant, dans le fleuve. Elle coula et ne reparut jamais.
“Wal, jest so with me,” said Haley. “Last summer, down on Red River, I got a gal traded off on me, with a likely lookin’ child enough, and his eyes looked as bright as yourn; but, come to look, I found him stone blind. Fact—he was stone blind. Wal, ye see, I thought there warn’t no harm in my jest passing him along, and not sayin’ nothin’; and I’d got him nicely swapped off for a keg o’ whiskey; but come to get him away from the gal, she was jest like a tiger. So ’t was before we started, and I hadn’t got my gang chained up; so what should she do but ups on a cotton-bale, like a cat, ketches a knife from one of the deck hands, and, I tell ye, she made all fly for a minit, till she saw ’t wan’t no use; and she jest turns round, and pitches head first, young un and all, into the river,—went down plump, and never ris.”
“Bah!” said Tom Loker, who had listened to these stories with ill-repressed disgust,—“shif’less, both on ye! _my_ gals don’t cut up no such shines, I tell ye!”
“Indeed! how do you help it?” said Marks, briskly.
-- Comment je fais ?... Quand j' achète une femme, et qu' elle a un enfant que je dois vendre, je m' approche d' elle, je lui mets mon poing sous le nez et je lui dis: Regarde cela ! Si tu dis un mot.... je t' aplatis la figure ! Je ne veux pas entendre un mot, le commencement d' un mot ! Je lui dis encore: Votre enfant est à moi et non à vous !... Vous n' avez plus à vous en occuper. Je vais peut-être le vendre.... Tâchez de ne pas me jouer de vos tours.... ou il vaudrait mieux pour vous n' être jamais née !... Voilà, messieurs, comme je leur parle: elles voient bien qu' avec moi ce n' est point un jeu. Je les rends muettes comme des poissons.... Si l' une d' elles s' avise de crier, alors.... » ~~~ Tom Loker frappa la table de son poing lourd. Ce fut le commentaire très-explicite de sa phrase elliptique.
“Help it? why, I buys a gal, and if she’s got a young un to be sold, I jest walks up and puts my fist to her face, and says, ‘Look here, now, if you give me one word out of your head, I’ll smash yer face in. I won’t hear one word—not the beginning of a word.’ I says to ’em, ‘This yer young un’s mine, and not yourn, and you’ve no kind o’ business with it. I’m going to sell it, first chance; mind, you don’t cut up none o’ yer shines about it, or I’ll make ye wish ye’d never been born.’ I tell ye, they sees it an’t no play, when I gets hold. I makes ’em as whist as fishes; and if one on ’em begins and gives a yelp, why,—” and Mr. Loker brought down his fist with a thump that fully explained the hiatus.
« Voilà ce que nous pouvons appeler de l' éloquence, dit Marks en poussant Haley du coude, et en recommençant son petit ricanement. Êtes -vous original, Tom ! Eh ! eh ! eh ! vous vous faites bien comprendre des têtes de laine, vous ! Les nègres savent toujours ce que vous voulez dire.... Si vous n' êtes pas le diable, Tom, vous êtes son jumeau. J' en répondrais pour vous. »
“That ar’s what ye may call _emphasis_,” said Marks, poking Haley in the side, and going into another small giggle. “An’t Tom peculiar? he! he! I say, Tom, I s’pect you make ’em _understand_, for all niggers’ heads is woolly. They don’t never have no doubt o’ your meaning, Tom. If you an’t the devil, Tom, you ’s his twin brother, I’ll say that for ye!”
Tom received the compliment with becoming modesty, and began to look as affable as was consistent, as John Bunyan says, “with his doggish nature.”
Haley, who had been imbibing very freely of the staple of the evening, began to feel a sensible elevation and enlargement of his moral faculties,—a phenomenon not unusual with gentlemen of a serious and reflective turn, under similar circumstances.
« Eh bien, Tom, eh bien, oui ! vous êtes réellement trop dur.... Je vous l' ai toujours dit. Vous savez, Tom, nous avions coutume de parler de cela, aux Natchez, et je vous prouvais que nous réussissions aussi bien dans ce monde en traitant les nègres doucement.... et que nous avions une chance de plus d' entrer dans le royaume de là-haut, quand la poussière retourne à la poussière.... et que le ciel est tout ce qui nous reste.
“Wal, now, Tom,” he said, “ye re’lly is too bad, as I al’ays have told ye; ye know, Tom, you and I used to talk over these yer matters down in Natchez, and I used to prove to ye that we made full as much, and was as well off for this yer world, by treatin’ on ’em well, besides keepin’ a better chance for comin’ in the kingdom at last, when wust comes to wust, and thar an’t nothing else left to get, ye know.”
“Boh!” said Tom, “_don’t_ I know?—don’t make me too sick with any yer stuff,—my stomach is a leetle riled now;” and Tom drank half a glass of raw brandy.
Haley se renversa sur sa chaise, et il reprit avec des gestes éloquents: ~~~ « Je dis, je dirai, j' ai toujours dit que j' entendais faire mon commerce, _primo d' abord_, de manière à gagner de l' argent autant que qui que ce soit. Mais le commerce n' est pas tout, parce que nous avons une âme. Peu m' importe qui m' écoute. Malédiction ! Il faut que je fasse vite mes affaires, car je crois à la religion, et, un de ces jours, dès que j' aurai mon petit magot, bien comme il faut, je m' occuperai de mon âme. A quoi bon être plus cruel qu' il n' est utile ? Cela ne me semble pas d'ailleurs très-prudent....
“I say,” said Haley, and leaning back in his chair and gesturing impressively, “I’ll say this now, I al’ays meant to drive my trade so as to make money on ’t _fust and foremost_, as much as any man; but, then, trade an’t everything, and money an’t everything, ’cause we ’s all got souls. I don’t care, now, who hears me say it,—and I think a cussed sight on it,—so I may as well come out with it. I b’lieve in religion, and one of these days, when I’ve got matters tight and snug, I calculates to tend to my soul and them ar matters; and so what’s the use of doin’ any more wickedness than ’s re’lly necessary?—it don’t seem to me it’s ’t all prudent.”
-- Vous occuper de votre âme ! fit Tom avec mépris.... Il faut y voir clair pour vous en trouver une ! Épargnez -vous ce souci ! Le diable vous passerait à travers un crible, qu' il ne vous en trouverait pas. Vous avez un peu plus de soin, vous paraissez avoir un peu plus de sentiment; c' est de la ruse et de l' hypocrisie.... Vous voulez tromper le diable et sauver votre peau: je vois cela ! et la religion, que vous aurez plus tard, comme vous dites.... qui s' y laissera prendre ? Vous faites un pacte avec le diable toute votre vie.... et vous ne voulez pas payer à l' échéance.... Chansons !
“Tend to yer soul!” repeated Tom, contemptuously; “take a bright lookout to find a soul in you,—save yourself any care on that score. If the devil sifts you through a hair sieve, he won’t find one.”
-- Vous prenez mal la chose, Tom. Comment pouvez -vous plaisanter, quand ce que l' on vous en dit est dans votre intérêt ?
“Why, Tom, you’re cross,” said Haley; “why can’t ye take it pleasant, now, when a feller’s talking for your good?”
“Stop that ar jaw o’ yourn, there,” said Tom, gruffly. “I can stand most any talk o’ yourn but your pious talk,—that kills me right up. After all, what’s the odds between me and you? ’Tan’t that you care one bit more, or have a bit more feelin’—it’s clean, sheer, dog meanness, wanting to cheat the devil and save your own skin; don’t I see through it? And your ‘gettin’ religion,’ as you call it, arter all, is too p’isin mean for any crittur;—run up a bill with the devil all your life, and then sneak out when pay time comes! Bob!”
-- Allons, allons, messieurs, ce n' est pas là la question, dit Marks: chacun voit les choses à sa manière. M. Haley est un très-aimable homme, sans aucun doute; il a sa conscience à lui, c' est un fait. Quant à vous, Tom, vous avez aussi votre manière d' agir, qui est excellente. Oui, excellente, mon cher Tom. Mais les querelles, vous le savez, n' aboutissent à rien. A l' oeuvre donc, à l' oeuvre ! Voyons, monsieur Haley, vous avez besoin de nous pour reprendre cette femme ?
“Come, come, gentlemen, I say; this isn’t business,” said Marks. “There’s different ways, you know, of looking at all subjects. Mr. Haley is a very nice man, no doubt, and has his own conscience; and, Tom, you have your ways, and very good ones, too, Tom; but quarrelling, you know, won’t answer no kind of purpose. Let’s go to business. Now, Mr. Haley, what is it?—you want us to undertake to catch this yer gal?”
“The gal’s no matter of mine,—she’s Shelby’s; it’s only the boy. I was a fool for buying the monkey!”
“You’re generally a fool!” said Tom, gruffly.
-- Allons, Tom, pas de vos rebuffades aujourd'hui, dit Marks en passant sa langue sur ses lèvres. Vous voyez que M. Haley nous met sur la voie d' une bonne affaire, je le reconnais. Ainsi, soyez calme; tout cela me regarde; laissez -moi faire. Voyons, monsieur Haley, cette femme, comment est -elle ? quelle est -elle ?
“Come, now, Loker, none of your huffs,” said Marks, licking his lips; “you see, Mr. Haley ’s a puttin’ us in a way of a good job, I reckon; just hold still—these yer arrangements is my forte. This yer gal, Mr. Haley, how is she? what is she?”
-- Eh bien ! blanche et belle, bien élevée. J' en offrais huit cents ou mille dollars à Shelby. ~~~ -- Blanche et belle, bien élevée ! » reprit Marks.
“Wal! white and handsome—well brought up. I’d a gin Shelby eight hundred or a thousand, and then made well on her.”
Ses yeux perçants, son nez, sa bouche, tout s' anima rien qu' à la pensée d' une bonne affaire. ~~~ « Attention, Loker; voilà une belle perspective.... Nous allons travailler ici pour notre compte. Nous les reprenons; l' enfant, tout naturellement, revient à M. Haley; nous autres, nous emmenons la mère à Orléans pour la vendre: n' est -ce pas superbe ? »
“White and handsome—well brought up!” said Marks, his sharp eyes, nose and mouth, all alive with enterprise. “Look here, now, Loker, a beautiful opening. We’ll do a business here on our own account;—we does the catchin’; the boy, of course, goes to Mr. Haley,—we takes the gal to Orleans to speculate on. An’t it beautiful?”
Tom, whose great heavy mouth had stood ajar during this communication, now suddenly snapped it together, as a big dog closes on a piece of meat, and seemed to be digesting the idea at his leisure.
« Voyez -vous, dit Marks à Haley, en remuant son punch, voyez -vous, dans ce pays, nous avons toujours le moyen de bien nous entendre avec les tribunaux. Tom ne sait qu' agir au dehors. Moi, quand il faut jurer, j' arrive en grande tenue, bottes vernies, toilette premier choix; il semble que je suis là dans tout l' éclat de l' orgueil professionnel. Un jour, je suis M. Twickem de la Nouvelle-Orléans. Un autre jour, j' arrive à l' instant de ma plantation, sur la rivière des Perles, où je fais travailler sept cents nègres. Une autre fois, je suis un parent éloigné de Henri Clay ou de toute autre illustration du Kentucky. Chacun a ses talents. Tom est bon quand il faut se battre et assommer. C' est son caractère; mais il ne sait pas mentir. Pour mon compte, s' il y a dans le pays un homme qui sache mieux que moi faire un serment sur quelqu'un ou sur quelque chose, et mieux imaginer les particularités et circonstances.... je serais curieux de le voir. Je ne dis que cela. Je glisse comme un serpent à travers les difficultés. Je voudrais parfois que la justice y regardât de plus près; cela serait plus amusant, vous comprenez ! »
“Ye see,” said Marks to Haley, stirring his punch as he did so, “ye see, we has justices convenient at all p’ints along shore, that does up any little jobs in our line quite reasonable. Tom, he does the knockin’ down and that ar; and I come in all dressed up—shining boots—everything first chop, when the swearin’ ’s to be done. You oughter see, now,” said Marks, in a glow of professional pride, “how I can tone it off. One day, I’m Mr. Twickem, from New Orleans; ’nother day, I’m just come from my plantation on Pearl River, where I works seven hundred niggers; then, again, I come out a distant relation of Henry Clay, or some old cock in Kentuck. Talents is different, you know. Now, Tom’s roarer when there’s any thumping or fighting to be done; but at lying he an’t good, Tom an’t,—ye see it don’t come natural to him; but, Lord, if thar’s a feller in the country that can swear to anything and everything, and put in all the circumstances and flourishes with a long face, and carry ’t through better ’n I can, why, I’d like to see him, that’s all! I b’lieve my heart, I could get along and snake through, even if justices were more particular than they is. Sometimes I rather wish they was more particular; ’t would be a heap more relishin’ if they was,—more fun, yer know.”
Tom Loker, who, as we have made it appear, was a man of slow thoughts and movements, here interrupted Marks by bringing his heavy fist down on the table, so as to make all ring again, _“It’ll do!”_ he said.
“Lord bless ye, Tom, ye needn’t break all the glasses!” said Marks; “save your fist for time o’ need.”
“But, gentlemen, an’t I to come in for a share of the profits?” said Haley.
-- Et n' est -ce pas assez que nous vous rattrapions l' enfant ? répondit Tom. Qu' est -ce qu' il vous faut donc ?
“An’t it enough we catch the boy for ye?” said Loker. “What do ye want?”
“Wal,” said Haley, “if I gives you the job, it’s worth something,—say ten per cent. on the profits, expenses paid.”
-- Ah çà ! dit Loker avec un épouvantable serment et en frappant la table de son poing pesant, est -ce que je ne vous connais pas, Daniel Haley ? Croyez -vous m' enfoncer ? Pensez -vous que Marks et moi nous ayons pris le métier de chasseurs d' esclaves pour obliger des gentlemen comme vous, sans profit pour nous ? Non pas, certes ! Nous aurons la femme à nous, et vous ne direz mot; ou nous aurons la mère et l' enfant. Vous nous avez montré le gibier, il nous appartient maintenant comme à vous. Si Shelby et vous avez l' intention de nous donner la chasse, voyez où sont les perdrix de l' an passé. Si vous les trouvez.... elles ou nous.... bravo !
“Now,” said Loker, with a tremendous oath, and striking the table with his heavy fist, “don’t I know _you_, Dan Haley? Don’t you think to come it over me! Suppose Marks and I have taken up the catchin’ trade, jest to ’commodate gentlemen like you, and get nothin’ for ourselves?—Not by a long chalk! we’ll have the gal out and out, and you keep quiet, or, ye see, we’ll have both,—what’s to hinder? Han’t you show’d us the game? It’s as free to us as you, I hope. If you or Shelby wants to chase us, look where the partridges was last year; if you find them or us, you’re quite welcome.”
“O, wal, certainly, jest let it go at that,” said Haley, alarmed; “you catch the boy for the job;—you allers did trade _far_ with me, Tom, and was up to yer word.”
“Ye know that,” said Tom; “I don’t pretend none of your snivelling ways, but I won’t lie in my ’counts with the devil himself. What I ses I’ll do, I will do,—you know _that_, Dan Haley.”
“Jes so, jes so,—I said so, Tom,” said Haley; “and if you’d only promise to have the boy for me in a week, at any point you’ll name, that’s all I want.”
“But it an’t all I want, by a long jump,” said Tom. “Ye don’t think I did business with you, down in Natchez, for nothing, Haley; I’ve learned to hold an eel, when I catch him. You’ve got to fork over fifty dollars, flat down, or this child don’t start a peg. I know yer.”
“Why, when you have a job in hand that may bring a clean profit of somewhere about a thousand or sixteen hundred, why, Tom, you’re onreasonable,” said Haley.
-- Nous avons de la besogne assurée pour cinq semaines. Nous allons la quitter pour courir après votre marmot, et, si nous ne prenons pas la mère.... les femmes, c' est le diable à prendre ! qui nous indemnisera, nous ? Est -ce vous ? ~~~ -- J' en réponds. ~~~ -- Non ! non ! argent bas. Si l' affaire se fait et qu' elle rapporte, je rends les cinquante dollars. Sinon, c' est pour payer notre peine. Hum ! Marks, n' est ce pas cela ?
“Yes, and hasn’t we business booked for five weeks to come,—all we can do? And suppose we leaves all, and goes to bush-whacking round arter yer young uns, and finally doesn’t catch the gal,—and gals allers is the devil _to_ catch,—what’s then? would you pay us a cent—would you? I think I see you a doin’ it—ugh! No, no; flap down your fifty. If we get the job, and it pays, I’ll hand it back; if we don’t, it’s for our trouble,—that’s _far_, an’t it, Marks?”
-- Sans doute, sans doute, dit Marks d' un ton conciliant. Ce ne sont que des honoraires, vous voyez bien.... hi ! hi ! hi ! ! ! Nous autres gens de loi, vous savez, nous sommes très-bons, très-accommodants, très-conciliants. Vous savez. Tom vous conduira l' enfant où vous voudrez.... n' est -ce pas, Tom ?
“Certainly, certainly,” said Marks, with a conciliatory tone; “it’s only a retaining fee, you see,—he! he! he!—we lawyers, you know. Wal, we must all keep good-natured,—keep easy, yer know. Tom’ll have the boy for yer, anywhere ye’ll name; won’t ye, Tom?”
“If I find the young un, I’ll bring him on to Cincinnati, and leave him at Granny Belcher’s, on the landing,” said Loker.
Marks tira de sa poche un portefeuille tout gras; il y prit un long papier, il s' assit, et, ses yeux perçants fixés sur le papier, il commença de lire entre ses dents: « Baines, comté de Shelby, le petit Jacques, trois cents dollars, mort ou vivant; Édouard, Dick et Lucy, mari et femme, six cents dollars; Rolly et ses deux enfants, six cents dollars sur sa tête.... Voici que j' examine nos affaires pour voir si nous pouvons nous charger de celle -ci. Loker, dit -il après une pause, il faut mettre Adams et Springer aux trousses de tous ceux -ci; il y a longtemps qu' ils sont enregistrés.
Marks had got from his pocket a greasy pocket-book, and taking a long paper from thence, he sat down, and fixing his keen black eyes on it, began mumbling over its contents: “Barnes—Shelby County—boy Jim, three hundred dollars for him, dead or alive.
“Edwards—Dick and Lucy—man and wife, six hundred dollars; wench Polly and two children—six hundred for her or her head.
-- J' arrangerai cela. Il n' y a pas très-longtemps qu' il sont dans les affaires; ils doivent s' attendre à travailler à bon marché. »
“I’m jest a runnin’ over our business, to see if we can take up this yer handily. Loker,” he said, after a pause, “we must set Adams and Springer on the track of these yer; they’ve been booked some time.”
Marks continua sa lecture.
“They’ll charge too much,” said Tom.
“I’ll manage that ar; they ’s young in the business, and must spect to work cheap,” said Marks, as he continued to read. “Ther’s three on ’em easy cases, ’cause all you’ve got to do is to shoot ’em, or swear they is shot; they couldn’t, of course, charge much for that. Them other cases,” he said, folding the paper, “will bear puttin’ off a spell. So now let’s come to the particulars. Now, Mr. Haley, you saw this yer gal when she landed?”
“To be sure,—plain as I see you.”
“And a man helpin’ on her up the bank?” said Loker.
--Oui.
“To be sure, I did.”
“Most likely,” said Marks, “she’s took in somewhere; but where, ’s a question. Tom, what do you say?”
“We must cross the river tonight, no mistake,” said Tom.
“But there’s no boat about,” said Marks. “The ice is running awfully, Tom; an’t it dangerous?”
“Don’no nothing ’bout that,—only it’s got to be done,” said Tom, decidedly.
“Dear me,” said Marks, fidgeting, “it’ll be—I say,” he said, walking to the window, “it’s dark as a wolf’s mouth, and, Tom—”
“The long and short is, you’re scared, Marks; but I can’t help that,—you’ve got to go. Suppose you want to lie by a day or two, till the gal ’s been carried on the underground line up to Sandusky or so, before you start.”
“O, no; I an’t a grain afraid,” said Marks, “only—”
--Seulement quoi? reprit Tom.
“Only what?” said Tom.
“Well, about the boat. Yer see there an’t any boat.”
“I heard the woman say there was one coming along this evening, and that a man was going to cross over in it. Neck or nothing, we must go with him,” said Tom.
“I s’pose you’ve got good dogs,” said Haley.
“First rate,” said Marks. “But what’s the use? you han’t got nothin’ o’ hers to smell on.”
-- Si fait ! dit Haley triomphant. Voilà son châle que, dans sa précipitation, elle a laissé sur le lit. Voilà aussi son chapeau.
“Yes, I have,” said Haley, triumphantly. “Here’s her shawl she left on the bed in her hurry; she left her bonnet, too.”
-- Quelle chance ! dit Locker. En avant !
“That ar’s lucky,” said Loker; “fork over.”
-- Les chiens pourront l' endommager s' ils se jettent sans précaution sur elle, dit Haley.
“Though the dogs might damage the gal, if they come on her unawars,” said Haley.
“That ar’s a consideration,” said Marks. “Our dogs tore a feller half to pieces, once, down in Mobile, ’fore we could get ’em off.”
“Well, ye see, for this sort that’s to be sold for their looks, that ar won’t answer, ye see,” said Haley.
“I do see,” said Marks. “Besides, if she’s got took in, ’tan’t no go, neither. Dogs is no ’count in these yer up states where these critters gets carried; of course, ye can’t get on their track. They only does down in plantations, where niggers, when they runs, has to do their own running, and don’t get no help.”
“Well,” said Loker, who had just stepped out to the bar to make some inquiries, “they say the man’s come with the boat; so, Marks—”
Le digne Marks jeta un regard de regret sur le confortable gîte qu' il abandonnait, puis il se leva lentement pour obéir. On échangea les derniers mots qui terminaient le marché; Haley donna d' assez mauvaise grâce cinquante dollars à Tom, et le digne trio se sépara.
That worthy cast a rueful look at the comfortable quarters he was leaving, but slowly rose to obey. After exchanging a few words of further arrangement, Haley, with visible reluctance, handed over the fifty dollars to Tom, and the worthy trio separated for the night.
Si quelques-uns de nos lecteurs civilisés et chrétiens nous blâment de les avoir introduits dans une telle compagnie, qu' ils veuillent bien s' efforcer de vaincre les préjugés de leur siècle. ~~~ La chasse aux nègres, qu' on nous permette de le rappeler, est en train de s' élever à la dignité d' une profession légale et patriotique. Si le vaste terrain qui s' étend entre le Mississipi et l' océan Pacifique devient le grand marché des corps et des âmes, si l' esclavage suit la progression rapide de toute chose en ce siècle, le chasseur et le marchand d' esclaves vont prendre rang parmi l' aristocratie américaine.
If any of our refined and Christian readers object to the society into which this scene introduces them, let us beg them to begin and conquer their prejudices in time. The catching business, we beg to remind them, is rising to the dignity of a lawful and patriotic profession. If all the broad land between the Mississippi and the Pacific becomes one great market for bodies and souls, and human property retains the locomotive tendencies of this nineteenth century, the trader and catcher may yet be among our aristocracy.
Pendant que cette scène se passait à la taverne, Samuel et André, se félicitant mutuellement, regagnaient le logis.
While this scene was going on at the tavern, Sam and Andy, in a state of high felicitation, pursued their way home.
Samuel était dans un état de surexcitation extraordinaire: il exprimait son allégresse par toutes sortes de hurlements et de cris sauvages, par les grimaces et les contorsions de toute sa personne. Quelquefois il s' asseyait à l' envers, le visage tourné vers la queue de son cheval, et puis, avec une culbute et une cabriole, il se remettait en selle; prenant alors une contenance grave, il se mettait à prêcher en termes emphatiques, ou bien à faire le fou pour amuser André. Quelquefois, se battant les flancs à tour de bras, il éclatait en rires bruyants qui faisaient retentir l' écho des vieux bois. Malgré ces excentricités, il maintint les chevaux à leur plus vive allure, si bien que, entre onze heures et minuit, le bruit de leurs sabots résonna sur les petits cailloux de la cour, au pied du perron de Mme Shelby. ~~~ Mme Shelby vola à leur rencontre.
Sam was in the highest possible feather, and expressed his exultation by all sorts of supernatural howls and ejaculations, by divers odd motions and contortions of his whole system. Sometimes he would sit backward, with his face to the horse’s tail and sides, and then, with a whoop and a somerset, come right side up in his place again, and, drawing on a grave face, begin to lecture Andy in high-sounding tones for laughing and playing the fool. Anon, slapping his sides with his arms, he would burst forth in peals of laughter, that made the old woods ring as they passed. With all these evolutions, he contrived to keep the horses up to the top of their speed, until, between ten and eleven, their heels resounded on the gravel at the end of the balcony. Mrs. Shelby flew to the railings.
« Est -ce vous, Sam ? Eh bien ?
“Is that you, Sam? Where are they?”
“Mas’r Haley ’s a-restin’ at the tavern; he’s drefful fatigued, Missis.”
--Mais Élisa, Samuel?
“And Eliza, Sam?”
“Wal, she’s clar ’cross Jordan. As a body may say, in the land o’ Canaan.”
“Why, Sam, what _do_ you mean?” said Mrs. Shelby, breathless, and almost faint, as the possible meaning of these words came over her.
“Wal, Missis, de Lord he persarves his own. Lizy’s done gone over the river into ’Hio, as ’markably as if de Lord took her over in a charrit of fire and two hosses.”
Sam’s vein of piety was always uncommonly fervent in his mistress’ presence; and he made great capital of scriptural figures and images.
« Venez ici, Samuel, dit M. Shelby, qui était arrivé à son tour sur le perron; venez ici, et dites à votre maîtresse ce qu' elle veut savoir. Venez, venez, Émilie, dit -il à sa femme en passant un bras autour d' elle. Vous avez froid, vous tremblez, vous vous livrez beaucoup trop à vos impressions....
“Come up here, Sam,” said Mr. Shelby, who had followed on to the verandah, “and tell your mistress what she wants. Come, come, Emily,” said he, passing his arm round her, “you are cold and all in a shiver; you allow yourself to feel too much.”
“Feel too much! Am not I a woman,—a mother? Are we not both responsible to God for this poor girl? My God! lay not this sin to our charge.”
“What sin, Emily? You see yourself that we have only done what we were obliged to.”
“There’s an awful feeling of guilt about it, though,” said Mrs. Shelby. “I can’t reason it away.”
“Here, Andy, you nigger, be alive!” called Sam, under the verandah; “take these yer hosses to der barn; don’t ye hear Mas’r a callin’?” and Sam soon appeared, palm-leaf in hand, at the parlor door.
“Now, Sam, tell us distinctly how the matter was,” said Mr. Shelby. “Where is Eliza, if you know?”
“Wal, Mas’r, I saw her, with my own eyes, a crossin’ on the floatin’ ice. She crossed most ’markably; it wasn’t no less nor a miracle; and I saw a man help her up the ’Hio side, and then she was lost in the dusk.”
“Sam, I think this rather apocryphal,—this miracle. Crossing on floating ice isn’t so easily done,” said Mr. Shelby.
-- Sans doute, m' sieu ! personne n' aurait fait cela sans le secours de Dieu. Mais voici: c' était juste sur notre route. M. Haley, Andy et moi nous arrivons à une petite taverne auprès de la rivière. Je marchais un peu en tête (j' avais tant d' envie de reprendre Lisa, que je ne pouvais me modérer ); j' arrive auprès de la fenêtre de la taverne. Je suis sûr que c' est elle, elle est en pleine vue, les deux autres sont sur mes talons. Bon ! je perds mon chapeau. Je pousse un hurlement à réveiller les morts.... Peut-être Lisa entendit -elle; mais, quand M. Haley arriva près de la porte, elle se rejeta vivement en arrière, et puis, comme je vous dis, elle s' échappa par une porte de côté et descendit jusqu' au bord de l' eau. M. Haley la vit et cria.... Lui, moi et André, nous courûmes après. Elle alla jusqu' au fleuve. Il y avait, à partir du bord, un courant de dix pieds de large, et de l' autre côté, çà et là, comme de grandes îles, des monceaux de glace. Nous arrivons juste derrière elle, et je pensais en moi-même que nous allions la prendre, quand elle poussa un cri comme je n' en ai jamais entendu, et s' élança de l' autre côté du courant, sur la glace, et elle allait criant et sautant. La glace faisait crac, cric, psitt ! et elle, elle bondissait comme une biche. Dam ! ces sauts -là ne sont pas communs. Voilà mon opinion. »
“Easy! couldn’t nobody a done it, without de Lord. Why, now,” said Sam, “‘t was jist dis yer way. Mas’r Haley, and me, and Andy, we comes up to de little tavern by the river, and I rides a leetle ahead,—(I’s so zealous to be a cotchin’ Lizy, that I couldn’t hold in, no way),—and when I comes by the tavern winder, sure enough there she was, right in plain sight, and dey diggin’ on behind. Wal, I loses off my hat, and sings out nuff to raise the dead. Course Lizy she hars, and she dodges back, when Mas’r Haley he goes past the door; and then, I tell ye, she clared out de side door; she went down de river bank;—Mas’r Haley he seed her, and yelled out, and him, and me, and Andy, we took arter. Down she come to the river, and thar was the current running ten feet wide by the shore, and over t’ other side ice a sawin’ and a jiggling up and down, kinder as ’t were a great island. We come right behind her, and I thought my soul he’d got her sure enough,—when she gin sich a screech as I never hearn, and thar she was, clar over t’ other side of the current, on the ice, and then on she went, a screeching and a jumpin’,—the ice went crack! c’wallop! cracking! chunk! and she a boundin’ like a buck! Lord, the spring that ar gal’s got in her an’t common, I’m o’ ’pinion.”
Mrs. Shelby sat perfectly silent, pale with excitement, while Sam told his story.
“God be praised, she isn’t dead!” she said; “but where is the poor child now?”
-- Le Seigneur y pourvoira, dit Samuel en tournant de l' oeil dévotement. Comme je le disais, c' est sans doute la Providence qui fait tout, ainsi que madame nous l' a appris. Nous ne sommes que des instruments pour faire la volonté de Dieu. Sans moi, aujourd'hui Élisa eût été prise une douzaine de fois.... N' est -ce pas moi, ce matin, qui ai lâché les chevaux et qui les ai fait courir jusqu' à l' heure du dîner ? Et ce soir, n' ai -je point égaré M. Haley à cinq milles de sa route ? Autrement, il eût repris Lisa comme un chien prend un mouton. Ainsi nous sommes tous des providences !
“De Lord will pervide,” said Sam, rolling up his eyes piously. “As I’ve been a sayin’, dis yer ’s a providence and no mistake, as Missis has allers been a instructin’ on us. Thar’s allers instruments ris up to do de Lord’s will. Now, if ’t hadn’t been for me today, she’d a been took a dozen times. Warn’t it I started off de hosses, dis yer mornin’ and kept ’em chasin’ till nigh dinner time? And didn’t I car Mas’r Haley night five miles out of de road, dis evening, or else he’d a come up with Lizy as easy as a dog arter a coon. These yer ’s all providences.”
“They are a kind of providences that you’ll have to be pretty sparing of, Master Sam. I allow no such practices with gentlemen on my place,” said Mr. Shelby, with as much sternness as he could command, under the circumstances.
Il est aussi difficile de feindre la colère avec un nègre qu' avec un enfant. L' un et l' autre voient parfaitement le sentiment vrai à travers les dissimulations dont on l' entoure. Samuel ne fut en aucune façon découragé par ce ton sévère: cependant il prit un air de gravité dolente, et les deux coins de sa bouche s' abaissèrent en signe de profond repentir.
Now, there is no more use in making believe be angry with a negro than with a child; both instinctively see the true state of the case, through all attempts to affect the contrary; and Sam was in no wise disheartened by this rebuke, though he assumed an air of doleful gravity, and stood with the corners of his mouth lowered in most penitential style.
« Maître a raison, tout à fait raison; c' est mal à moi, je ne me défends pas; maître et maîtresse ne peuvent pas encourager de telles choses, je le sens bien; mais un pauvre nègre comme moi est parfois bien tenté de mal faire, surtout quand il voit agir comme M. Haley.... M. Haley n' est pas un gentleman, et un individu élevé comme moi ne peut se retenir en voyant ces choses -là !
“Mas’r quite right,—quite; it was ugly on me,—there’s no disputin’ that ar; and of course Mas’r and Missis wouldn’t encourage no such works. I’m sensible of dat ar; but a poor nigger like me ’s ’mazin’ tempted to act ugly sometimes, when fellers will cut up such shines as dat ar Mas’r Haley; he an’t no gen’l’man no way; anybody’s been raised as I’ve been can’t help a seein’ dat ar.”
“Well, Sam,” said Mrs. Shelby, “as you appear to have a proper sense of your errors, you may go now and tell Aunt Chloe she may get you some of that cold ham that was left of dinner today. You and Andy must be hungry.”
“Missis is a heap too good for us,” said Sam, making his bow with alacrity, and departing.
On s' apercevra, et nous l' avons déjà dit ailleurs, que maître Samuel avait un talent naturel qui eût pu le mener loin dans la carrière politique: c' était de voir dans toute chose le côté qui pouvait profiter à son honneur et à sa gloire. Ayant fait valoir au salon son humilité et sa piété, il enfonça son chapeau de palmier sur sa tête avec une sorte de crânerie et d' insouciance, et il se dirigea vers le royaume de la mère Chloé, dans l' intention de recueillir les suffrages de la cuisine.
It will be perceived, as has been before intimated, that Master Sam had a native talent that might, undoubtedly, have raised him to eminence in political life,—a talent of making capital out of everything that turned up, to be invested for his own especial praise and glory; and having done up his piety and humility, as he trusted, to the satisfaction of the parlor, he clapped his palm-leaf on his head, with a sort of rakish, free-and-easy air, and proceeded to the dominions of Aunt Chloe, with the intention of flourishing largely in the kitchen.
“I’ll speechify these yer niggers,” said Sam to himself, “now I’ve got a chance. Lord, I’ll reel it off to make ’em stare!”
Nous devons faire observer qu' une des plus grandes joies de Samuel avait toujours été d' accompagner son maître dans les réunions politiques de toute espèce. Caché dans les haies, perché sur les arbres, il suivait attentivement les orateurs, avec toutes les marques d' une vive satisfaction; puis, redescendant parmi les frères de sa couleur qui se trouvaient dans les mêmes lieux, il les édifiait et les charmait par ses imitations burlesques, qu' il débitait avec un entrain et une gravité imperturbables. Souvent les blancs se mêlaient au sombre auditoire; ils écoutaient l' orateur en riant et en se regardant. Samuel voyait là un juste motif de s' adresser à lui-même ses propres félicitations. ~~~ Au fond, Samuel regardait l' éloquence comme sa véritable vocation, et il ne laissait jamais passer une occasion de déployer ses talents.
It must be observed that one of Sam’s especial delights had been to ride in attendance on his master to all kinds of political gatherings, where, roosted on some rail fence, or perched aloft in some tree, he would sit watching the orators, with the greatest apparent gusto, and then, descending among the various brethren of his own color, assembled on the same errand, he would edify and delight them with the most ludicrous burlesques and imitations, all delivered with the most imperturbable earnestness and solemnity; and though the auditors immediately about him were generally of his own color, it not infrequently happened that they were fringed pretty deeply with those of a fairer complexion, who listened, laughing and winking, to Sam’s great self-congratulation. In fact, Sam considered oratory as his vocation, and never let slip an opportunity of magnifying his office.
Entre Samuel et la tante Chloé il y avait, depuis longtemps, une certaine mésintelligence, ou plutôt une froideur marquée. Mais Samuel, ayant un projet sur le département des provisions comme base de ses opérations futures, résolut, dans la circonstance présente, de faire de la conciliation; il savait bien que, si les ordres de madame étaient toujours exécutés à la lettre, cependant il y aurait un immense profit pour lui à ce qu' on en suivît aussi l' esprit. ~~~ Il parut donc devant Chloé avec une expression touchante de soumission et de résignation, comme quelqu'un qui aurait cruellement souffert pour soulager un compagnon d' infortune. Il avait déjà pour lui l' approbation de madame, qui lui donnait droit à un _extra_ de solide et de liquide, et semblait ainsi reconnaître implicitement ses mérites. Les choses marchèrent en conséquence.
Now, between Sam and Aunt Chloe there had existed, from ancient times, a sort of chronic feud, or rather a decided coolness; but, as Sam was meditating something in the provision department, as the necessary and obvious foundation of his operations, he determined, on the present occasion, to be eminently conciliatory; for he well knew that although “Missis’ orders” would undoubtedly be followed to the letter, yet he should gain a considerable deal by enlisting the spirit also. He therefore appeared before Aunt Chloe with a touchingly subdued, resigned expression, like one who has suffered immeasurable hardships in behalf of a persecuted fellow-creature,—enlarged upon the fact that Missis had directed him to come to Aunt Chloe for whatever might be wanting to make up the balance in his solids and fluids,—and thus unequivocally acknowledged her right and supremacy in the cooking department, and all thereto pertaining.
Jamais électeur pauvre, simple, vertueux, ne fut l' objet des cajoleries et des attentions d' un candidat, comme la mère Chloé des tendresses et des flatteries de Samuel. L' enfant prodigue lui-même n' aurait pas été comblé de plus de marques de bonté maternelle. Il se trouva bientôt assis, choyé, glorieux, devant une large assiette d' étain, contenant, sous forme d' _olla podrida_, les débris de tout ce qui avait paru sur la table depuis deux ou trois jours. Excellents morceaux de jambon, fragments dorés de gâteaux, débris de pâtés de toutes les formes géométriques imaginables, ailes de poulet, cuisses et gésiers, apparaissaient dans un désordre pittoresque. Samuel, roi de tous ceux qui l' entouraient, était assis comme sur un trône, couronné de son chapeau de palmier joyeusement posé sur le côté. A sa droite était André, qu' il protégeait visiblement. ~~~ La cuisine était remplie de ses compagnons, qui étaient accourus de leurs cases respectives et qui l' entouraient, pour entendre le récit des exploits du jour.
The thing took accordingly. No poor, simple, virtuous body was ever cajoled by the attentions of an electioneering politician with more ease than Aunt Chloe was won over by Master Sam’s suavities; and if he had been the prodigal son himself, he could not have been overwhelmed with more maternal bountifulness; and he soon found himself seated, happy and glorious, over a large tin pan, containing a sort of _olla podrida_ of all that had appeared on the table for two or three days past. Savory morsels of ham, golden blocks of corn-cake, fragments of pie of every conceivable mathematical figure, chicken wings, gizzards, and drumsticks, all appeared in picturesque confusion; and Sam, as monarch of all he surveyed, sat with his palm-leaf cocked rejoicingly to one side, and patronizing Andy at his right hand.
Pour Samuel, c' était l' heure de la gloire. ~~~ L' histoire fut donc rehaussée de toutes sortes d' ornements et d' enluminures susceptibles d' en augmenter l' effet. Samuel, comme quelques-uns de nos dilettanti à la mode, ne permettait pas qu' une histoire perdît aucune de ses dorures en passant par ses mains. ~~~ Des éclats de rire saluaient le récit; ils étaient répétés et indéfiniment prolongés par la petite population qui jonchait le sol ou qui perchait dans les angles de la cuisine. Au plus fort de cette gaieté, Samuel conservait cependant une inaltérable gravité; de temps en temps seulement il roulait ses yeux, relevés tout à coup, et jetait à son auditoire des regards d' une inexprimable bouffonnerie: il ne descendait pas pour cela des hauteurs sentencieuses de son éloquence.
The kitchen was full of all his compeers, who had hurried and crowded in, from the various cabins, to hear the termination of the day’s exploits. Now was Sam’s hour of glory. The story of the day was rehearsed, with all kinds of ornament and varnishing which might be necessary to heighten its effect; for Sam, like some of our fashionable dilettanti, never allowed a story to lose any of its gilding by passing through his hands. Roars of laughter attended the narration, and were taken up and prolonged by all the smaller fry, who were lying, in any quantity, about on the floor, or perched in every corner. In the height of the uproar and laughter, Sam, however, preserved an immovable gravity, only from time to time rolling his eyes up, and giving his auditors divers inexpressibly droll glances, without departing from the sententious elevation of his oratory.
« Vous voyez, amis et compatriotes, disait Samuel en brandissant un pilon de dinde avec énergie, vous voyez maintenant ce que cet enfant, qui est moi, a fait seul pour la défense de tous, oui, de tous. Celui qui essaye de sauver un de vous, c' est comme s' il essayait de vous sauver tous; le principe est le même. C' est clair ! Quand quelqu'un de ces marchands d' esclaves viendra flairer et rôder autour de nous, qu' il me rencontre sur sa route, je suis l' homme à qui il aura affaire. Oui, mes frères, je me lèverai pour vos droits, je défendrai vos droits jusqu' au dernier soupir.
“Yer see, fellow-countrymen,” said Sam, elevating a turkey’s leg, with energy, “yer see, now what dis yer chile ’s up ter, for fendin’ yer all,—yes, all on yer. For him as tries to get one o’ our people is as good as tryin’ to get all; yer see the principle ’s de same,—dat ar’s clar. And any one o’ these yer drivers that comes smelling round arter any our people, why, he’s got _me_ in his way; _I’m_ the feller he’s got to set in with,—I’m the feller for yer all to come to, bredren,—I’ll stand up for yer rights,—I’ll fend ’em to the last breath!”
“Why, but Sam, yer telled me, only this mornin’, that you’d help this yer Mas’r to cotch Lizy; seems to me yer talk don’t hang together,” said Andy.
“I tell you now, Andy,” said Sam, with awful superiority, “don’t yer be a talkin’ ’bout what yer don’t know nothin’ on; boys like you, Andy, means well, but they can’t be spected to collusitate the great principles of action.”
Andy looked rebuked, particularly by the hard word collusitate, which most of the youngerly members of the company seemed to consider as a settler in the case, while Sam proceeded.
Samuel reprit: ~~~ « C' était par conscience, André, que je voulais aller reprendre Lisa. Je croyais vraiment que c' était l' intention du maître.... Mais, quand j' ai compris que la maîtresse voulait le contraire, j' ai vu que la conscience était plus encore de son côté. Il faut être du côté de la maîtresse.... Il y a plus à gagner. Ainsi, dans les deux cas, je restais fidèle à mes principes et attaché à ma conscience. Oui, les principes ! dit Samuel en imprimant un mouvement plein d' enthousiasme à un cou de poulet. Mais à quoi les principes servent -ils.... s' ils ne sont pas persistants.... je vous le demande à tous ?... Tenez ! André, vous pouvez prendre cet os, il y a encore quelque chose autour ! »
“Dat ar was _conscience_, Andy; when I thought of gwine arter Lizy, I railly spected Mas’r was sot dat way. When I found Missis was sot the contrar, dat ar was conscience _more yet_,—cause fellers allers gets more by stickin’ to Missis’ side,—so yer see I ’s persistent either way, and sticks up to conscience, and holds on to principles. Yes, _principles_,” said Sam, giving an enthusiastic toss to a chicken’s neck,—“what’s principles good for, if we isn’t persistent, I wanter know? Thar, Andy, you may have dat ar bone,—tan’t picked quite clean.”
Sam’s audience hanging on his words with open mouth, he could not but proceed.
« Ce sujet de la persistance, nègres, mes amis, dit Samuel de l' air d' un homme qui pénètre dans les profondeurs de l' abstraction, ce sujet est une chose qui n' a jamais été tirée au clair par personne ! Vous comprenez ! Quand un homme veut une chose un jour et une nuit, et que le lendemain il en veut une autre, on voit tout naturellement dans ce cas qu' il n' est pas persistant !... Passe -moi ce morceau de gâteau, André.... Pénétrons dans le sujet, reprit Samuel ! -- Les gentlemen et le beau sexe de cet auditoire excuseront ma comparaison usitée et vulgaire. Écoutez ! Je veux monter au sommet d' une meule de foin. Bien ! je mets mon échelle d' un côté.... Ça ne va pas ! alors, parce que je n' essaye pas de ce côté, mais que je porte mon échelle de l' autre, peut -on dire que je ne suis pas persistant ? Je suis persistant en ce sens que je veux toujours monter du côté où se trouve mon échelle.... Est -ce clair ?
“Dis yer matter ’bout persistence, feller-niggers,” said Sam, with the air of one entering into an abstruse subject, “dis yer ’sistency ’s a thing what an’t seed into very clar, by most anybody. Now, yer see, when a feller stands up for a thing one day and night, de contrar de next, folks ses (and nat’rally enough dey ses), why he an’t persistent,—hand me dat ar bit o’ corn-cake, Andy. But let’s look inter it. I hope the gen’lmen and der fair sex will scuse my usin’ an or’nary sort o’ ’parison. Here! I’m a trying to get top o’ der hay. Wal, I puts up my larder dis yer side; ’tan’t no go;—den, cause I don’t try dere no more, but puts my larder right de contrar side, an’t I persistent? I’m persistent in wantin’ to get up which ary side my larder is; don’t you see, all on yer?”
“It’s the only thing ye ever was persistent in, Lord knows!” muttered Aunt Chloe, who was getting rather restive; the merriment of the evening being to her somewhat after the Scripture comparison,—like “vinegar upon nitre.”
« Oui, sans doute, dit Samuel en se levant, plein de souper et de gloire, pour l' effort suprême de la péroraison, oui, amis et concitoyens, et vous, dames de l' autre sexe, j' ai des principes: c' est là mon orgueil ! je les ai conservés jusqu' ici, je les conserverai toujours.... J' ai des principes et je m' attache à eux fortement. Tout ce que je pense devient principes ! Je marche dans mes principes; peu m' importe s' ils me font brûler vivant ! je marcherai au bûcher !... Et maintenant, je dis: Je viens ici pour verser la dernière goutte de mon sang pour mes principes, pour mon pays, pour la défense des intérêts de la société !
“Yes, indeed!” said Sam, rising, full of supper and glory, for a closing effort. “Yes, my feller-citizens and ladies of de other sex in general, I has principles,—I’m proud to ’oon ’em,—they ’s perquisite to dese yer times, and ter _all_ times. I has principles, and I sticks to ’em like forty,—jest anything that I thinks is principle, I goes in to ’t;—I wouldn’t mind if dey burnt me ’live,—I’d walk right up to de stake, I would, and say, here I comes to shed my last blood fur my principles, fur my country, fur de gen’l interests of society.”
“Well,” said Aunt Chloe, “one o’ yer principles will have to be to get to bed some time tonight, and not be a keepin’ everybody up till mornin’; now, every one of you young uns that don’t want to be cracked, had better be scase, mighty sudden.”
“Niggers! all on yer,” said Sam, waving his palm-leaf with benignity, “I give yer my blessin’; go to bed now, and be good boys.”
Après cette bénédiction pathétique, l' assemblée se dispersa.
And, with this pathetic benediction, the assembly dispersed.
CHAPTER IX In Which It Appears That a Senator Is But a Man
Les lueurs d' un feu joyeux se reflétaient sur le tapis et les tentures d' un beau salon, et brillaient sur le ventre resplendissant d' une théière et de ses tasses. M. Bird, le sénateur, tirait ses bottes et se préparait à mettre à ses pieds une paire de pantoufles neuves, que sa femme venait d' achever pour lui pendant la session du sénat. Mme Bird, image vivante du bonheur, surveillait l' arrangement de la table, tout en adressant de temps en temps des admonestations à un certain nombre d' enfants turbulents, qui se livraient à tout le désordre et à toutes les malices qui font le tourment des mères depuis le déluge.
The light of the cheerful fire shone on the rug and carpet of a cosey parlor, and glittered on the sides of the tea-cups and well-brightened tea-pot, as Senator Bird was drawing off his boots, preparatory to inserting his feet in a pair of new handsome slippers, which his wife had been working for him while away on his senatorial tour. Mrs. Bird, looking the very picture of delight, was superintending the arrangements of the table, ever and anon mingling admonitory remarks to a number of frolicsome juveniles, who were effervescing in all those modes of untold gambol and mischief that have astonished mothers ever since the flood.
« Tom, laissez donc le bouton de la porte; là ! voilà qui est bien ! Mary, Mary ! ne tirez pas la queue du chat.... ce pauvre animal ! Jean, il ne faut pas monter sur la table ! non ! vous dis -je. » ~~~ Puis enfin, trouvant le moyen de parler à son mari: ~~~ « Vous ne savez pas, mon ami, quel plaisir c' est pour nous de vous avoir ici ce soir.
“Tom, let the door-knob alone,—there’s a man! Mary! Mary! don’t pull the cat’s tail,—poor pussy! Jim, you mustn’t climb on that table,—no, no!—You don’t know, my dear, what a surprise it is to us all, to see you here tonight!” said she, at last, when she found a space to say something to her husband.
“Yes, yes, I thought I’d just make a run down, spend the night, and have a little comfort at home. I’m tired to death, and my head aches!”
Mrs. Bird cast a glance at a camphor-bottle, which stood in the half-open closet, and appeared to meditate an approach to it, but her husband interposed.
“No, no, Mary, no doctoring! a cup of your good hot tea, and some of our good home living, is what I want. It’s a tiresome business, this legislating!”
Et le sénateur sourit, comme s' il se fût complu dans l' idée qu' il se sacrifiait à son pays.
And the senator smiled, as if he rather liked the idea of considering himself a sacrifice to his country.
“Well,” said his wife, after the business of the tea-table was getting rather slack, “and what have they been doing in the Senate?”
Now, it was a very unusual thing for gentle little Mrs. Bird ever to trouble her head with what was going on in the house of the state, very wisely considering that she had enough to do to mind her own. Mr. Bird, therefore, opened his eyes in surprise, and said,
“Not very much of importance.”
“Well; but is it true that they have been passing a law forbidding people to give meat and drink to those poor colored folks that come along? I heard they were talking of some such law, but I didn’t think any Christian legislature would pass it!”
“Why, Mary, you are getting to be a politician, all at once.”
“No, nonsense! I wouldn’t give a fig for all your politics, generally, but I think this is something downright cruel and unchristian. I hope, my dear, no such law has been passed.”
“There has been a law passed forbidding people to help off the slaves that come over from Kentucky, my dear; so much of that thing has been done by these reckless Abolitionists, that our brethren in Kentucky are very strongly excited, and it seems necessary, and no more than Christian and kind, that something should be done by our state to quiet the excitement.”
“And what is the law? It don’t forbid us to shelter those poor creatures a night, does it, and to give ’em something comfortable to eat, and a few old clothes, and send them quietly about their business?”
“Why, yes, my dear; that would be aiding and abetting, you know.”
Mme Bird était une petite femme timide et rougissante, d' à peu près quatre pieds de haut, avec deux yeux bleus, un teint de fleur de pêcher, et la plus jolie, la plus douce voix du monde; quant au courage, une poule d' Inde d' une taille médiocre la mettait en fuite au premier gloussement. Un chien de garde de médiocre apparence la réduisait à merci, rien qu' en lui montrant les dents. Son mari et ses enfants étaient tout son univers; elle les gouvernait par la douceur et la persuasion bien plus que par le raisonnement et l' autorité. Il n' y avait qu' une chose qui pût l' animer: tout ce qui ressemblait à de la cruauté la jetait dans une colère d'autant plus alarmante qu' elle faisait un contraste inexplicable avec la douceur habituelle de son caractère. Elle, qui était la plus indulgente et la plus tendre des mères, elle avait cependant infligé un très-sévère châtiment à ses enfants, qu' elle avait surpris un jour ligués avec de mauvais garnements du voisinage pour assommer à coups de pierres un pauvre petit chat sans défense.
Mrs. Bird was a timid, blushing little woman, of about four feet in height, and with mild blue eyes, and a peach-blow complexion, and the gentlest, sweetest voice in the world;—as for courage, a moderate-sized cock-turkey had been known to put her to rout at the very first gobble, and a stout house-dog, of moderate capacity, would bring her into subjection merely by a show of his teeth. Her husband and children were her entire world, and in these she ruled more by entreaty and persuasion than by command or argument. There was only one thing that was capable of arousing her, and that provocation came in on the side of her unusually gentle and sympathetic nature;—anything in the shape of cruelty would throw her into a passion, which was the more alarming and inexplicable in proportion to the general softness of her nature. Generally the most indulgent and easy to be entreated of all mothers, still her boys had a very reverent remembrance of a most vehement chastisement she once bestowed on them, because she found them leagued with several graceless boys of the neighborhood, stoning a defenceless kitten.
« J' en ai porté longtemps les marques, disait à ce sujet un des enfants. Ma mère vint à moi si furieuse, que je la crus folle. Je fus fouetté et envoyé au lit sans souper, avant même d' avoir eu le temps de savoir de quoi il s' agissait.... puis j' entendis ma mère qui pleurait derrière la porte; cela me fit encore plus de mal que tout le reste !... Je puis bien vous assurer, ajoutait -il, que depuis nous ne jetâmes plus de pierres aux chats. »........................
“I’ll tell you what,” Master Bill used to say, “I was scared that time. Mother came at me so that I thought she was crazy, and I was whipped and tumbled off to bed, without any supper, before I could get over wondering what had come about; and, after that, I heard mother crying outside the door, which made me feel worse than all the rest. I’ll tell you what,” he’d say, “we boys never stoned another kitten!”
On the present occasion, Mrs. Bird rose quickly, with very red cheeks, which quite improved her general appearance, and walked up to her husband, with quite a resolute air, and said, in a determined tone,
“Now, John, I want to know if you think such a law as that is right and Christian?”
“You won’t shoot me, now, Mary, if I say I do!”
“I never could have thought it of you, John; you didn’t vote for it?”
--Mon Dieu si, ma belle politique.
“Even so, my fair politician.”
-- Vous devriez avoir honte, John ! ces pauvres créatures, sans toit, sans asile ! Oh ! la loi honteuse, sans entrailles, abominable !... Je la violerai dès que j' en aurai l' occasion... et j' espère que je l' aurai, cette occasion.... Ah ! les choses en sont venues à un triste point, si une femme ne peut plus donner, sans crime, un souper chaud et un lit à ces pauvres malheureux mourant de faim, parce qu' ils sont esclaves, c'est-à-dire parce qu' ils ont été opprimés et torturés toute leur vie ! Pauvres êtres !
“You ought to be ashamed, John! Poor, homeless, houseless creatures! It’s a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I’ll break it, for one, the first time I get a chance; and I hope I _shall_ have a chance, I do! Things have got to a pretty pass, if a woman can’t give a warm supper and a bed to poor, starving creatures, just because they are slaves, and have been abused and oppressed all their lives, poor things!”
-- Mais, chère Mary, écoutez -moi. Vos sentiments sont justes et humains, je vous aime parce que vous les avez. Mais, chère, il ne faut pas laisser aller nos sentiments sans notre jugement. Il ne s' agit pas ici de ce qu' on éprouve soi -même: de grands intérêts publics sont en question. Il y a une telle effervescence dans le peuple, que nous devons faire le sacrifice de nos propres sympathies.
“But, Mary, just listen to me. Your feelings are all quite right, dear, and interesting, and I love you for them; but, then, dear, we mustn’t suffer our feelings to run away with our judgment; you must consider it’s a matter of private feeling,—there are great public interests involved,—there is such a state of public agitation rising, that we must put aside our private feelings.”