Friday, 6 August 2010

DAVID SWAN

Nathaniel Hawthorne



PART I





We know very little about the early events which influence our course through life. Some of these events- if such they can be called- come very close to us but pass us by without apparent result and often without any indication of their coming or going. If we knew all the possible changes in out fortune, life would be too full of hopes and fears, of surprises and disappointements, to permit us a single hour of peace. This idea may be illustrated by a page from the history of David Swan.

We have nothing to do with David Swan until we find him at the age of twnty on the main road from his hme to the city of Boston where his uncle, a businessman is going to give him work in the store which he owns. It is enough to say that David was a native of the state of New Hampshire, that he was born of good parents and that he had received an ordinary school education. After traveling on foot from early morning until noon on a summer day, he feft tired and warm, and decided to sit down in the first, convenient shady place and waiting for the coming of the stage coach, in order ti ride the remaining distance. Thus he soon came upon a pleasant spot near a spring of water, surrounded by a group of the shady trees. The place was quiet and cool. He kneeled down at the spring and drank deeply of the fresh water. Then he lay on the soft earth and resting his head upon a pair of trousers and some shirts, which he carried with him in a form of a small package, he fell into a deep sleep.

While he lay asleep in the shade, other people were wide awake and passing along the road, some in on direction, some in the opposite direction; some traveled on foot, others on horseback and in variour kinds of vehicles. Some did not look to the right oe left; others when they passed where David was sleeping glanced in David’s direction but did not notice him. Some laughed when they saw how deeply he slept. A middle aged widow, when nobody else was near, stopped and looked at him tenderly and said herself that the young fellow looked charming in his sleep. A minister, who was very much opposed to strong drink, saw him and thought he was drunk. The next Sunday he mentioned poor David in his church sermon as an awful example of the results of strong drink.

David had slept only a short time when a rich looking carrigae, drawn by teo fine horses, stopped directly in font of where he slept. One of the horses had infured its leg and the driver wiches to let the horse rest for awhile. An elderly businessman and his wife got out of the carriage and decided to rest during this time under the shade of the trees. There they noticed the spring of water and David asleep alongside of it. They tried to walk lightly and to make as little noise as possible in order not to wake David.

“How deeply he sleeps,” said the old gentleman. “How quietly and easily he breathes. If I could sleep as deeply as that, I would be very happy, for such sleep, without the help of sleeping medicines, indicates good health and mind without troubles.”

“And youth besides,” said his wife. “Old people like us never sleep like that.”



PART II



The old couple became more and more interested in the i\unknown youth who lay there so peacefully sleeping.

“It seems to me,” said the woman at last to her husband “that he strongly resembles our own dear son. Shall we wake him up?”

“For what purpose?” said the husband. “We know onthing of his character.”

“That honest face,” answered his wife in a quiet voice. “This innocent sleep!”

While the conversation was going on, David did not move, nor did the features of his face indicate that he knew that two people were looking at him with great interest. Nevertheless, fortune was standing very close to him, for the old man and his wife were very rich. Their only son had recently died and there was no one in their family to whom they wanted to leave all their money. In such cases, people sometimes do stranger things than to wake up a young man, accept him as their own son, and later make him the heir to all their riches.

“Shall we wake him up?” repeated the lady.

But suddenly the driver of the coach said, “We are ready now, sir. The horse is rested.”

The old couple stopped speaking suddenly. Looked at each other with some surprise, and then hurries toward the coach. Once inside the coach, the whole idea of making David their son now seemed to them quite ridiculous, and they surprises that such a strang thought could have come to their minds. Thus, tha man bagan to tell his wife about the plan which he had, to leave all his money, when he died, for the establishmen of a large charitable instituion. Meanwhile, David went on enjoying his quiet sleep.

Not more than five minutes passed when a young girl came along. She had a light and easy step which showed at once the happiness of her spirit. She was also very pretty. She stopped to drink at the spring and was naturally surprised to find David sleeping there. At first she felt as if she had entered, without permission, into a gentleman’s bedroom, and she was about to leave quietly when she sae an enormous bee buzzing around the head of the sleeper. Quicky but quietly, she attacked the bee with her handkerchief and drove him away. How sweet a picture! This good act completed, the girl looked tenderly for a moment at David.

“He is handsome,” she said to herself.

But David did not move, nor did not smile. No look of appreciation or of welcome appeared upon his face. Perhaphs the girl was of his dreams, the girl with whom he might spend a life of happness, if only he could awake and speak to her.

“How deeply he sleeps,” said the girl.

She left, but she appeared thoughtful and now she did not move along the road as lightly or as happily as she had come.

Now the girl’s father was the owner of a large store in the neighborhood, and he happened tp be looking, at this time, for just such a young man as David Swan. If David had only awakened and had made the accquainance of the pretty yung girl, he probaly would have become a clerk in her father’s store, possibly have married the girl and later inherited the father’s business. Here again, good fortune had come very close to David and had almost touched hi, but then disappeared.



PART III



The girl was hardly out of sight when two men turned from the road to stop a moment in the shade. Both had dark faces, and both wore caps which they pulled down well over their eyes. They wore old clothes. These men were robbers who were ready to steal anything they found and to kill anyone who might try to stop them. Seeing David asleep alongside the spring, one of them said to his companion:

“Look, do you see the package under his hat?”

“Yes, perhaphs he has a pocketbook or some money hidden inside of it,” said the other. “Or perhaphs he has some money in one of his pockets”

“But what if he wakes up?” said the first.

His companion pulled down a long knife from his belt and pointed it at David.

“This will take care of him,” he said.

They approached the sleeping David and prepared to remove the package from under his head. David continued to sleep tranquilly.

“You take the package. If he moves, I’ll strike,” said the man with a knife.

But, at this moment, a dog ran in from the road to drink at the spring. The dog paid no attention to the men nor David but drank thirstily of the water. The men stopped suddenly and one of them drew a pistol from his pocket.

“Wait,” said the other man. “We can do nothing now. The ownerof the dog is probably close behind.”

“Yes,” said the other. “We’d better get out of here.”

Thus the two men left as unexpectedly as they had come and they continued down the road. In a few minutes they had forgotten the entire event- and, of course there was one less dark crime to be written against their name in the books of heaven- but of this thay did not think for even a moment.

David slept, but no longer as quietly as at first. He had had an hour’s peacefully sleep and was now more rested. He moved slightly and lay for a few minutes half asleep, half wakw. The n suddenly in the didtance there was a loud noise of approaching wheels. The stage coach was coming. David jumped up and ran out just in time to call to the driver.

“Hello. Driver! Have you room for one more passager?”

“There is one room on top,” answered the driver.

David climbed to the top of the coach and the driver started off. The coach moved quickly down the road, and David did not give even a final glance to the place where he had slept. He was thinking now of other things, of the life ahead of him. He had no memories of the place where he had rested because he had no knowledge of anything that had happened there. He did not know that Fortune had smiled on him and almost brought him great riches and a great love with perhaphs a succesfful career in business. He did not know that he had been close to death at the point of a rubber’s knife- all within the pace of one brief hour.

Thus it it that life deals with us in many strange ways. Fortunately, we do not know the many things that come colse to us and pass us by without result. As was said in the beginning og this story, if we know all the many possiblilities of change in out fortune, kife would be too full of hopes and fears, surprises and disaapoitments to permit us a single hour of peace.

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