Лучшие рассказы О. Генри = The Best of O. Henry

Her voice rang like a great silver bell; her smile was many-toothed and frequent; she seemed like a yellow sunrise on mountain tops. I never saw her but I thought of the Yosemite[89 - Yosemite – Yosemite Valley, a picturesque region in east-central California]. And yet, somehow, I could never think of her as existing outside of Cypher’s. There nature had placed her, and she had taken root and grown mightily. She seemed happy, and took her few poor dollars on Saturday nights with the flushed pleasure of a child that receives an unexpected donation.

It was Kraft who first voiced the fear that each of us must have held latently. It came up apropos, of course, of certain questions of art at which we were hammering. One of us compared the harmony existing between a Haydn[90 - Haydn – Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), a famous Austrian composer of the Classical style in music] symphony and pistache ice cream to the exquisite congruity between Milly and Cypher’s.

“There is a certain fate hanging over Milly,” said Kraft, “and if it overtakes her she is lost to Cypher’s and to us.

“She will grow fat?” asked Judkins, fearsomely.

“She will go to night school and become refined?” I ventured anxiously.

“It is this,” said Kraft, punctuating in a puddle of spilled coffee with a stiff forefinger. “Caesar had his Brutus – the cotton has its bollworm, the chorus girl has her Pittsburger, the summer boarder has his poison ivy, the hero has his Carnegie medal[91 - Carnegie medal – the award given for heroic deeds, established by Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919), a famous American industrialist and philanthropist], art has its Morgan[92 - Morgan – John Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913), an American financier and industrialist], the rose has its —”

“Speak,” I interrupted, much perturbed.

“One day,” concluded Kraft, solemnly, “there will come to Cypher’s for a plate of beans a millionaire lumberman from Wisconsin, and he will marry Milly.

“Never!” exclaimed Judkins and I, in horror.

“A lumberman,” repeated Kraft, hoarsely.

“And a millionaire lumberman!” I sighed, despairingly.

“From Wisconsin!” groaned Judkins.

We agreed that the awful fate seemed to menace her. Few things were less improbable. Milly, like some vast virgin stretch of pine woods, was made to catch the lumberman’s eye.