silence; but as we began to crawl up the long hill from Corbury Flats to the Starkfield ridge I became aware in the dusk that he had turned his face to mine.
“There are things in that book that I didn’t know the first word about,” he said.
I wondered less at his words than at the queer note of resentment in his voice. He was evidently surprised and slightly aggrieved at his own ignorance.
“Does that sort of thing interest you?” I asked.
“It used to.”
“There are one or two rather new things in the book: there have been some big strides lately in that particular line of research.” I waited a moment for an answer that did not come; then I said: “If you’d like to look the book through I’d be glad to leave it with you.”
He hesitated, and I had the impression that he felt himself about to yield to a stealing tide of inertia; then, “Thank you—I’ll take it,” he answered shortly.
23
Sous la neige~ Chapitre I
Il n'ajouta pas un mot ; et j'eus à deviner le reste par le ton de sa voix et le brusque silence qui suivit.
Une autre fois, à peine monté dans mon comparti-ment, je m'avisai que j'avais oublié sur le traîneau un livre que je comptais lire pendant le trajet. C'était un ouvrage de vulgarisation scientifique, un traité de bio-chimie, si je me rappelle bien… Le soir, je ne pensais déjà plus à mon étourderie, lorsque, en descendant du train, je vis le volume entre les mains de Frome.
— Je l'ai trouvé après votre départ, — me dit-il.
Je mis le livre dans ma poche, et nous revînmes à notre mutisme habituel. Mais, comme nous commencions à gravir la longue côte qui va de Corbury Flats à Starkfield, j'aperçus dans le crépuscule le visage de Frome tourné de mon côté.
— Il y a dans ce livre des choses dont je n'avais pas entendu parler jusqu'ici…
Le propos m'étonna moins que l'accent dont il fut prononcé : évidemment, Frome était surpris et tant soit peu vexé de son ignorance.
— Ces questions vous intéressent donc ? — lui deman-dai-je.
— Elles m'intéressaient autrefois…
— Il y a quelques nouveautés dans ce livre… On a fait récemment des découvertes importantes dans cet ordre de recherches.
J'attendais une phrase qui ne vint pas, et je repris :
— Si vous voulez parcourir ce livre, je serai heureux de vous le prêter.
Ethan Frome hésita. J'eus l'impression qu'il faisait effort pour secouer son inertie et me répondre.
— Merci. J'accepte, — dit-il simplement.
24
Ethan Frome ~Chapter I
I hoped that this incident might set up some more direct communication between us. Frome was so simple and straightforward that I was sure his curiosity about the book was based on a genuine interest in its subject. Such tastes and acquirements in a man of his condition made the contrast more poignant between his outer situation and his inner needs, and I hoped that the chance of giving expression to the latter might at least unseal his lips. But something in his past history, or in his present way of living, had apparently driven him too deeply into himself for any casual impulse to draw him back to his kind. At our next meeting he made no allusion to the book, and our intercourse seemed fated to remain as negative and one-sided as if there had been no break in his reserve.
Frome had been driving me over to the Flats for about a week when one morning I looked out of my window into a thick snow-fall. The height of the white waves massed against the garden-fence and along the wall of the church showed that the storm must have been going on all night, and that the drifts were likely to be heavy in the open. I thought it probable that my train would be delayed; but I had to be at the power-house for an hour or two that afternoon, and I de-cided, if Frome turned up, to push through to the Flats and wait there till my train came in. I don’t know why I put it in the conditional, however, for I never doubted that Frome would appear. He was not the kind of man to be turned from his business by any commotion of the elements; and at the appointed hour his sleigh glided up through the snow like a stage-apparition behind thickening veils of gauze.
I was getting to know him too well to express either wonder or gratitude at his keeping his appointment; but I ex-claimed in surprise as I saw him turn his horse in a direction opposite to that of the Corbury road.
25
Sous la neige~ Chapitre I
Je comptais qu'il s'ensuivrait quelques familiarités en-tre nous. La modestie de Frome et sa franchise m'assuraient que sa curiosité avait certainement pour cause l'intérêt réel jadis porté par lui à ces sujets-là. Ces préoccupations et ces connaissances, chez un homme de sa condition, rendaient le contraste encore plus poignant entre sa situation matérielle et ses besoins intimes et, puisque cet incident m'avait permis de satisfaire ses goûts secrets, j'espérais qu'il se déciderait à parler. Mais il y avait dans son passé ou dans sa vie présente quelque chose qui l'empêchait de se livrer. A notre rencontre suivante, il ne fit même pas allusion au livre et notre rap-prochement semblait destiné à n'avoir pas de lendemain.
Depuis plus d'une semaine déjà, Frome me condui-sait à Corbury Flats, quand, un matin, à mon réveil, je vis qu'il neigeait abondamment. La hauteur des vagues blanches massées contre la palissade du jardin et le long du mur de l'église témoignait que la tempête avait duré toute la nuit : là-bas, en rase campagne, les couches de neige amoncelées par le vent devaient être plus épaisses encore. Je songeai aussitôt que mon train était assurément bloqué. Or, ce jour-là, ma présence était indispensable à l'usine dans le courant de l'après-midi. Je décidai donc, que si Frome venait, je me ferais conduire par lui jusqu'aux Flats. Une fois là, j'attend-rais mon train jusqu'à ce qu'il se décidât à paraître. D'ailleurs je n'avais pas le moindre doute que Frome ne vînt. Je le connaissais assez bien pour savoir à quoi m'en tenir : il était un de ces hommes que nulle difficulté ne saurait détourner de leur tâche. En effet, à l'heure habituelle, je vis venir son traîneau glissant sur la neige : telle une apparition de théâtre qui traverse la scène derrière un léger voile de gaze…
Inutile avec lui de manifester étonnement ou recon-naissance. Je ne pus cependant retenir un mouvement de surprise quand je le vis engager son cheval dans la direction opposée à la route de Corbury.
26
Ethan Frome ~Chapter I
“The railroad’s blocked by a freight-train that got stuck in a drift below the Flats,” he explained, as we jogged off into the stinging whiteness.
“But look here—where are you taking me, then?”
“Straight to the Junction, by the shortest way,” he an-swered, pointing up School House Hill with his whip.
“To the Junction—in this storm? Why, it’s a good ten miles!”
“The bay’ll do it if you give him time. You said you had some business there this afternoon. I’ll see you get there.”
He said it so quietly that I could only answer: “You’re doing me the biggest kind of a favour.”
“That’s all right,” he rejoined.
Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the weight of the snow. I had often walked that way on Sundays, and knew that the solitary roof showing through bare branches near the bottom of the hill was that of Frome’s saw-mill. It looked exanimate enough, with its idle wheel looming above the black stream dashed with yellow-white spume, and its cluster of sheds sagging under their white load. Frome did not even turn his head as we drove by, and still in silence we began to mount the next slope. About a mile farther, on a road I had never travelled, we came to an orchard