I look to you like some terrible beast
She nodded in affirmation and said, “Yes.”
He understood the motion of her head. “Alas!”he said, and hesitated as if reluctant to finish the sentence; “you see, I am deaf.”
“Poor soul!”exclaimed the gipsy with a look of kindly pity.
He smiled sorrowfully. “Ah! you think I was bad enough without that? Yes, I am deaf. That is the way I am made! ’Tis horrible, in truth. And you — you are so beautiful.”
In the poor creature’s tone there was so profound a consciousness of his pitiable state, that she had not the resolution to utter a word of comfort. Besides, he would not have heard it. He continued:
“Never did I realize my deformity as I do now. When I compare myself with you, I do indeed pity myself — poor unhappy monster that I am! Confess — I look to you like some terrible beast? You — you are like a sunbeam, a drop of dew, the song of a bird! While I am something fearsome — neither man nor beast — a something that is harder, more trodden underfoot, more unsightly than a stone by the wayside!”And he laughed — the most heart–rending kind of laughter in all the world.
“Yes, I am deaf,”he went on. “But you can speak to me by signs and gestures. I have a master who talks to me in that manner. And then I shall soon know your will by the motion of your lips and by your face.”
“Well, then,”she said, smiling, “tell me why you saved me.”
He looked at her attentively while she spoke.
“I understood,”he replied, “you were asking why I saved you. You have forgotten a poor wretch who tried to carry you off one night — a wretch to whom, next day, you brought relief on the shameful pillory. A drop of water — a little pity — that is more than my whole life could repay. You have forgotten — he remembers.”
She listened to him with profound emotion. A tear rose to the bell–ringer’s eye, but it did not fall; he seemed to make it a point of honour that it should not fall.
“Listen,”he said, when he had regained control over himself. “We have very high towers here; a man, if he fell from one, would be dead before he reached the ground. If ever you desire me to throw myself down, you have but to say the word — a glance will suffice.”
Processing your request, Please wait....
