登陆注册
19594700000029

第29章

Marie's father, Albert Tovesky, was one of the more intelligent Bohemians who came West in the early seventies. He settled in Omaha and became a leader and adviser among his people there. Marie was his youngest child, by a second wife, and was the apple of his eye. She was barely sixteen, and was in the graduating class of the Omaha High School, when Frank Shabata arrived from the old coun-try and set all the Bohemian girls in a flutter.

He was easily the buck of the beer-gardens, and on Sunday he was a sight to see, with his silk hat and tucked shirt and blue frock-coat, wearing gloves and carrying a little wisp of a yellow cane. He was tall and fair, with splendid teeth and close-cropped yellow curls, and he wore a slightly disdainful expression, proper for a young man with high connections, whose mother had a big farm in the Elbe valley. There was often an interesting discontent in his blue eyes, and every Bohemian girl he met imagined herself the cause of that unsatisfied expression.

He had a way of drawing out his cambric hand-kerchief slowly, by one corner, from his breast-pocket, that was melancholy and romantic in the extreme. He took a little flight with each of the more eligible Bohemian girls, but it was when he was with little Marie Tovesky that he drew his handkerchief out most slowly, and, after he had lit a fresh cigar, dropped the match most despairingly. Any one could see, with half an eye, that his proud heart was bleeding for somebody.

One Sunday, late in the summer after Marie's graduation, she met Frank at a Bohemian pic-nic down the river and went rowing with him all the afternoon. When she got home that even-ing she went straight to her father's room and told him that she was engaged to Shabata. Old Tovesky was having a comfortable pipe before he went to bed. When he heard his daughter's announcement, he first prudently corked his beer bottle and then leaped to his feet and had a turn of temper. He characterized Frank Shabata by a Bohemian expression which is the equivalent of stuffed shirt.

"Why don't he go to work like the rest of us did? His farm in the Elbe valley, indeed!

Ain't he got plenty brothers and sisters? It's his mother's farm, and why don't he stay at home and help her? Haven't I seen his mother out in the morning at five o'clock with her ladle and her big bucket on wheels, putting liquid manure on the cabbages? Don't I know the look of old Eva Shabata's hands? Like an old horse's hoofs they are--and this fellow wearing gloves and rings! Engaged, indeed!

You aren't fit to be out of school, and that's what's the matter with you. I will send you off to the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in St.

Louis, and they will teach you some sense, ~I~ guess!"Accordingly, the very next week, Albert Tovesky took his daughter, pale and tearful, down the river to the convent. But the way to make Frank want anything was to tell him he couldn't have it. He managed to have an in-terview with Marie before she went away, and whereas he had been only half in love with her before, he now persuaded himself that he would not stop at anything. Marie took with her to the convent, under the canvas lining of her trunk, the results of a laborious and satisfying morning on Frank's part; no less than a dozen photographs of himself, taken in a dozen differ-ent love-lorn attitudes. There was a little round photograph for her watch-case, photographs for her wall and dresser, and even long nar-row ones to be used as bookmarks. More than once the handsome gentleman was torn to pieces before the French class by an indignant nun.

Marie pined in the convent for a year, until her eighteenth birthday was passed. Then she met Frank Shabata in the Union Station in St. Louis and ran away with him. Old Tovesky forgave his daughter because there was nothing else to do, and bought her a farm in the country that she had loved so well as a child. Since then her story had been a part of the history of the Divide. She and Frank had been living there for five years when Carl Linstrum came back to pay his long deferred visit to Alexandra. Frank had, on the whole, done better than one might have expected. He had flung himself at the soil with savage energy. Once a year he went to Hastings or to Omaha, on a spree. He stayed away for a week or two, and then came home and worked like a demon. He did work; if he felt sorry for himself, that was his own affair.

同类推荐
  • 大乘起信论略述

    大乘起信论略述

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 诗经集传

    诗经集传

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 熹庙谅阴记事

    熹庙谅阴记事

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • The Redheaded Outfield

    The Redheaded Outfield

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 断桥妙伦禅师语录

    断桥妙伦禅师语录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 大地芬芳

    大地芬芳

    脚夫陶秉坤救下沉潭的女子做了堂客,开始了拥有土地和发家致富的梦想,陶家的争斗与苦难从此也如影随形,而出身豪门的陈秀英却投身革命,弃爱情而为理想……
  • 穿越之始皇末年

    穿越之始皇末年

    是命运的安排,还是上天的捉弄;不知自己真正的身份,无缘无故被穿越到秦朝;二十七岁的吴晓毅每晚都在做同一个梦,自从到了秦朝之后。终于知道了自己的真实身份,当他原以为一切都会平静;有一个身份降临在他的身上,之后主人公该如何自处。就让我们一起去了解…
  • 女王爷的小蛇夫

    女王爷的小蛇夫

    “啧啧,居然有这么小,这么细的蛇,还是条红颜色的,真是稀罕物件呐!”一个说话语气极其散漫的女人掐着这条小蛇的七寸说到。这条小蛇愤力的挣扎着,想从这个女人的手里挣脱出来。按照原理说是这样的,可现实呢,令人哭笑不已。不知怎么的,这位云王手一滑,这条小蛇扑到了她的嘴上,伸出细滑的舌头舔啊舔啊。“哇,靠!”云王脑袋一懵,出现了一句话:被轻薄了!从此以后,开始了两人的,哦!不,是一人一蛇的亲密之旅。
  • 佳人成骗之玩转江湖

    佳人成骗之玩转江湖

    七十二行,骗术为王。“风”、“马”、“雁”、“雀”,“金”、“皮”、“彩”、“挂”,穷家门、骗术门,江湖就是这么的精彩,江湖就是尔虞我诈,充满欺骗与被骗。关思琪重生了,重生在了一个历史背景类似于清末、民国初的空间大陆上。而自己所夺取身子的这个女孩也太弱了一点吧,刚死了亲爹,就惨遭亲戚坑害,怎么看都像一朵小白花啊。好吧,既来之,则安之,姐虽不善,但有的是一身逍遥人世的手段,那众亲戚还不够姐一个小指头的碾压呢,轻轻松松便能搞定。只是……这接踵而来的人,怎么都一个个心怀鬼胎、各有心思?哼,只是他们不知道,这换了“芯”的关思琪,早已是骗子中的战斗机,他们再多的手段也是不够瞧的。
  • 混一天地之剑动九天

    混一天地之剑动九天

    一把剑而已,再锋利,又有谁能相信它能震动天地?可是在世人看不见的某个地方,一个少年轻轻抚摸着那把剑青黑色的剑锋,寒光闪过,整个世界都在悲鸣。某时某刻,泠羽的狂笑声飘荡在众山之巅。“苍天动怒九霄上,我偏拔剑斩天罡!”
  • 穿越之落入王府不等闲

    穿越之落入王府不等闲

    情不知所起,一往而情深,冷酷王爷、古怪的鸭子、金发不祥的皇子,再加上迷糊的女主,从丫环到百般受宠,从在宅院到宫墙内,美人心计,怎能少!失忆!那是必须的!我们古代穿,可是个个穿越元素不能少!
  • 炽冰天使

    炽冰天使

    相克属性?炽火与寒冰?天使与恶魔战争的胜负将由他来决定,浮空之陆,是否会覆灭……
  • 繁星邀月

    繁星邀月

    本是朋友的两个人同是天下赞誉的天骄。他的天赋与智慧,他的善良与医术。可天赋与智慧成了拖累,善良与医术成为谎言。究竟为何反目?只是执念与骄傲……
  • 圣匙

    圣匙

    黑暗和光明的最终交锋,谁才是真正的正义?
  • 投资信条:你不可不知的行为金融学

    投资信条:你不可不知的行为金融学

    本书用通俗的语言解读行为金融学,并以此对投资所应遵循的定则进行了详细的阐述。行为金融学融入了心理学、金融学、行为学等学科,是一门综合性学科,关注的是人们在金融领域的真实行为,特别是人们的心理如何影响投资决策、公司行为和金融市场。希望这本行为金融学的白话读本对读者的投资行为有所助益。