When she moved into his tiny house in Stroud, and took charge of his four small children, Mother was thirty and still quite handsome. She had not, I suppose, met anyone like him before. This rather priggish young man, with his devout gentility, his airs and manners, his music and ambitions, his charm, bright talk, and undeniable good looks, overwhelmed her as soon as she saw him. So she fell in love with him immediately, and remained in love for ever. And herself being comely, sensitive, and adoring, she attracted my father also. And so he married her. And so later he left her - with his children and some more of her own.
When he'd gone, she brought us to the village and waited. She waited for thirty years. I don't think she ever knew what had made him desert her, though the reasons seemed clear enough. She was too honest, too natural for this frightened man; too remote from his tidy laws. She was, after all, a country girl; disordered, hysterical, loving. She was muddled and mischievous as a chimney-jackdaw, she made her nest of rags and jewels, was happy in the sunlight, squawked loudly at danger, pried and was insatiably curious, forgot when to eat or ate all day, and sang when sunsets were red. She lived by the easy laws of the hedgerow, loved the world, and made no plans, had a quick holy eye for natural wonders and couldn't have kept a neat house for her life. What my father wished for was something quite different, something she could never give him - the protective order of an unimpeachable suburbia, which was what he got in the end.
The three or four years Mother spent with my father she fed on for the rest of her life. Her happiness at that time was something she guarded as though it must ensure his eventual return. She would talk about it almost in awe, not that it had ceased but that it had happened at all. | Quando se mudou à casinha dele em Stroud e fez-se cargo de seus quatro filhos pequenos, Mamãe tinha trinta anos e ainda era muito bonita. Acho que nunca conheceu ninguém como ele. Esse moço bastante puritano, com sua dedicada gentileza, seus gestos e maneiras, sua música, sua conversação brilhante e seu visual certamente agradável, apaixonou-a na hora. Logo ela se apaixonaria por ele, e continuaria apaixonada para sempre. Atrativa, sensível, adorável, também atraiu a meu pai e casaram. Até que um dia abandonou-a, com os quatro filhos e outros que tiveram juntos.
Quando foi embora, ela nos trouxe para o povo e esperou. Esperou durante trinta anos.
Talvez nunca soube por que a abandonou embora os motivos pareciam claros.
Ela era honesta e natural demais para este homem tímido; muito distante de suas normas rígidas. Além disso era uma caipira desorganizada, histérica, amorosa. Era tão desordenada e exasperante como gralha de chaminé; fazia seu ninho com retalhos e jóias. Alegrava-se com o sol, chiava forte ante o perigo, farejava e era curiosa insaciável. Esquecia de comer ou comia o dia todo e cantava nos entardeceres vermelhos.
Ela vivia segundo as simples leis da mata, amava o mundo e não fazia planos. Enchia seus olhos com as maravilhas da natureza e por isso nunca poderia manter uma casa arrumada em toda sua vida.
O que meu pai desejava era algo totalmente diferente, algo que ela jamais poderia ter-lhe dado, a ordem protetora de um subúrbio impecável que finalmente teve.
Nesses quatro anos que passou com Papai, Mamãe se nutriu para o resto de sua vida. Sua felicidade dessa época era algo que guardou no mais íntimo de seu ser, com a certeza de que ia retornar de repente. Falaria disso temerosa, não de que tivesse acabado, sinão de que tinha acontecido. [Subject edited by staff or moderator 2007-02-12 16:21] |