“哎呀,老天爷——你就从来没到这个车站来过?”他指向杂志摊。“我一直就在那儿。那个摊儿是我的。我看过每个上楼的人。”
她的脸色开始变得有些苍白。过了一会儿,她向楼梯看去,声音微弱地说:“我——我过去一直没上这个楼梯。你看,我昨天出城是去办点公事——噢,哈里!”然后,她伸手搂住他的脖子,哭了起来。
她往后一站,用手直指车站的最北头。“哈里,3年来,整整3年,我就在那儿——就在这个车站工作,在站长办公室里,打字。”
Located in the checkroom in Union Station as I am, I see everybody that comes up the stairs.
Harry came in a little over three years ago and waited at the head of the stairs for the passengers from the 9:05 train.
I remember seeing Harry that first evening. He wasn’t much more than a thin, anxious kid then. He was all dressed up and I knew he was meeting his girl and that they would be married twenty minutes after she arrived.
Well, the passengers came up and I had to get busy. I didn’t look toward the stairs again until nearly time for the 9:18 and I was very surprised to see that the young fellow was still there.
She didn’t come on the 9:18 either, nor on the 9:40, and when the passengers from the 10:02 had all arrived and left, Harry was looking pretty desperate. Pretty soon he came close to my window so I called out and asked him what she looked like.
"She’s small and dark," he said, "and nineteen years old and very neat in the way she walks. She has a face," he said, thinking a minute, "that has lots of spirit. I mean she can get mad but she never stays mad for long, and her eyebrows come to a little point in the middle. She’s got a brown fur, but maybe she isn’t wearing it."
I couldn’t remember seeing anybody like that.
He showed me the telegram he’d received: ARRIVE THURSDAY. MEET ME STATION. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. MAY. It was from Omaha, Nebraska.
"Well," I finally said, "why don’t you phone to your home? She’s probably called there if she got in ahead of you."
He gave me a sick look. "I’ve only been in town two days. We were going to meet and then drive down South where I’ve got a job. She hasn’t any address for me." He touched the telegram.
When I came on duty the next day he was still there and came over as soon as he saw me.
"Did she work anywhere?" I asked.
He nodded. "She was a typist. I telegraphed her former boss. All they know is that she left her job to get married."
Harry met every train for the next three or four days. Of course, the railroad lines made a routine checkup and the police looked into the case. But nobody was any real help. I could see that they all figured that May had simply played a trick on him. But I never believed that, somehow.
One day, after about two weeks, Harry and I were talking and I told him about my theory. "If you’ll just wait long enough," I said, "you’ll see her coming up those stairs some day." He turned and looked at the stairs as though he had never seen them before.
The next day when I came to work Harry was behind the counter of Tony’s magazine stand. He looked at me rather sheepishly and said, "Well, I had to get a job somewhere, didn’t I?"
So he began to work as a clerk for Tony. We never spoke of May anymore and neither of us ever mentioned my theory. But I noticed that Harry always saw every person who came up the stairs.
Toward the end of the year Tony was killed in some argument over gambling, and Tony’s widow left Harry in complete charge of the magazine stand. And when she got married again some time later, Harry bought the stand from her. He borrowed money and installed a soda fountain and pretty soon he had a very nice little business.
Then came yesterday. I heard a cry and a lot of things falling. The cry was from Harry and the things falling were a lot of dolls and other things which he had upset while he was jumping over the counter. He ran across and grabbed a girl not ten feet from my window. She was small and dark and her eyebrows came to a little point in the middle.
For a while they just hung there to each other laughing and crying and saying things without meaning. She’d say a few words like, "It was the bus station I meant" and he’d kiss her speechless and tell her the many things he had done to find her. What apparently had happeded three years before was that May had come by bus, not by train, and in her telegram she meant "bus station," not "railroad station." She had waited at the bus station for days and had spent all her money trying to find Harry. Finally she got a job typing.
"What?" said Harry. "Have you been working in town? All the time?"
She nodded.
"Well, Heavens. Didn’t you ever come down here to the station?" He pointed across to his magazine stand. "I’ve been there all the time. I own it. I’ve watched everybody that came up the stairs."
She began to look a little pale. Pretty soon she looked over at the stairs and said in a weak voice, "I never came up the stairs before. You see, I went out of town yesterday on a short business trip. Oh, Harry!" Then she threw her arms around his neck and really began to cry.
After a minute she backed away and pointed very stiffly toward the north end of the station. "Harry, for three years, for three solid years, I’ve been right over there working right in this very station, typing, in the office of the stationmaster."
当前位置:主页 > 英语学习 > 英语阅读 > 英语文摘 > >
Detour to romance 曲折的浪漫路
来源::未知 | 作者:足球app下载-足球app哪个好-官网手机版推荐* | 本文已影响 人
随机阅读
热榜阅读
本周TOP10
- [英语文摘] Pen of Life 人生之笔
- [英语文摘] Somewhere only you know
- [英语文摘] 双语美文:由心而发的幸福
- [英语文摘] 美文阅读:Non-crying cry
- [英语文摘] 励志美文:成功源于积极的
- [英语文摘] 双语美文:倾听是一剂良药
- [英语文摘] 每天都是幸运日 Every Day
- [英语文摘] 英语美文欣赏:父亲的拥抱
- [英语文摘] Love is action 爱在不言
- [英语文摘] Detour to romance 曲折的
- [英语文摘] 双语阅读:用心理学来自我
- [英语文摘] Forget and forgive 没什
- [英语文摘] 双语美文:儿子背包里的“
- [英语文摘] What is Happiness?(美
- [英语文摘] 双语:27岁的人生
- [英语文摘] Pure English :别让缺点