cancer de mama prevencion

chapter iva day behind the counter towards noon, hepzibah saw an elderlygentleman, large and portly, and of remarkably dignified demeanor, passingslowly along on the opposite side of the white and dusty street. on coming within the shadow of the pyncheonelm, he stopt, and (taking off his hat, meanwhile, to wipe the perspiration fromhis brow) seemed to scrutinize, with especial interest, the dilapidated andrusty-visaged house of the seven gables. he himself, in a very different style, wasas well worth looking at as the house. no better model need be sought, nor couldhave been found, of a very high order of

respectability, which, by someindescribable magic, not merely expressed itself in his looks and gestures, but even governed the fashion of his garments, andrendered them all proper and essential to the man. without appearing to differ, in anytangible way, from other people's clothes, there was yet a wide and rich gravity aboutthem that must have been a characteristic of the wearer, since it could not be defined as pertaining either to the cut ormaterial. his gold-headed cane, too,--a serviceablestaff, of dark polished wood,--had similar

traits, and, had it chosen to take a walkby itself, would have been recognized anywhere as a tolerably adequaterepresentative of its master. this character--which showed itself sostrikingly in everything about him, and the effect of which we seek to convey to thereader--went no deeper than his station, habits of life, and external circumstances. one perceived him to be a personage ofmarked influence and authority; and, especially, you could feel just as certainthat he was opulent as if he had exhibited his bank account, or as if you had seen him touching the twigs of the pyncheon elm,and, midas-like, transmuting them to gold.

in his youth, he had probably beenconsidered a handsome man; at his present age, his brow was too heavy, his templestoo bare, his remaining hair too gray, his eye too cold, his lips too closely compressed, to bear any relation to merepersonal beauty. he would have made a good and massiveportrait; better now, perhaps, than at any previous period of his life, although hislook might grow positively harsh in the process of being fixed upon the canvas. the artist would have found it desirable tostudy his face, and prove its capacity for varied expression; to darken it with afrown,--to kindle it up with a smile.

while the elderly gentleman stood lookingat the pyncheon house, both the frown and the smile passed successively over hiscountenance. his eye rested on the shop-window, andputting up a pair of gold-bowed spectacles, which he held in his hand, he minutelysurveyed hepzibah's little arrangement of toys and commodities. at first it seemed not to please him,--nay,to cause him exceeding displeasure,--and yet, the very next moment, he smiled. while the latter expression was yet on hislips, he caught a glimpse of hepzibah, who had involuntarily bent forward to thewindow; and then the smile changed from

acrid and disagreeable to the sunniestcomplacency and benevolence. he bowed, with a happy mixture of dignityand courteous kindliness, and pursued his way. "there he is!" said hepzibah to herself,gulping down a very bitter emotion, and, since she could not rid herself of it,trying to drive it back into her heart. "what does he think of it, i wonder? does it please him?ah! he is looking back!" the gentleman had paused in the street, andturned himself half about, still with his eyes fixed on the shop-window.

in fact, he wheeled wholly round, andcommenced a step or two, as if designing to enter the shop; but, as it chanced, hispurpose was anticipated by hepzibah's first customer, the little cannibal of jim crow, who, staring up at the window, wasirresistibly attracted by an elephant of gingerbread. what a grand appetite had this smallurchin!--two jim crows immediately after breakfast!--and now an elephant, as apreliminary whet before dinner. by the time this latter purchase wascompleted, the elderly gentleman had resumed his way, and turned the streetcorner.

"take it as you like, cousin jaffrey,"muttered the maiden lady, as she drew back, after cautiously thrusting out her head,and looking up and down the street,--"take it as you like! you have seen my little shop-window.well!--what have you to say?--is not the pyncheon house my own, while i'm alive?" after this incident, hepzibah retreated tothe back parlor, where she at first caught up a half-finished stocking, and beganknitting at it with nervous and irregular jerks; but quickly finding herself at odds with the stitches, she threw it aside, andwalked hurriedly about the room.

at length she paused before the portrait ofthe stern old puritan, her ancestor, and the founder of the house. in one sense, this picture had almost fadedinto the canvas, and hidden itself behind the duskiness of age; in another, she couldnot but fancy that it had been growing more prominent and strikingly expressive, ever since her earliest familiarity with it as achild. for, while the physical outline andsubstance were darkening away from the beholder's eye, the bold, hard, and, at thesame time, indirect character of the man seemed to be brought out in a kind ofspiritual relief.

such an effect may occasionally be observedin pictures of antique date. they acquire a look which an artist (if hehave anything like the complacency of artists nowadays) would never dream ofpresenting to a patron as his own characteristic expression, but which, nevertheless, we at once recognize asreflecting the unlovely truth of a human soul. in such cases, the painter's deepconception of his subject's inward traits has wrought itself into the essence of thepicture, and is seen after the superficial coloring has been rubbed off by time.

while gazing at the portrait, hepzibahtrembled under its eye. her hereditary reverence made her afraid tojudge the character of the original so harshly as a perception of the truthcompelled her to do. but still she gazed, because the face ofthe picture enabled her--at least, she fancied so--to read more accurately, and toa greater depth, the face which she had just seen in the street. "this is the very man!" murmured she toherself. "let jaffrey pyncheon smile as he will,there is that look beneath! put on him a skull-cap, and a band, and ablack cloak, and a bible in one hand and a

sword in the other,--then let jaffrey smileas he might,--nobody would doubt that it was the old pyncheon come again. he has proved himself the very man to buildup a new house! perhaps, too, to draw down a new curse!"thus did hepzibah bewilder herself with these fantasies of the old time. she had dwelt too much alone,--too long inthe pyncheon house,--until her very brain was impregnated with the dry-rot of itstimbers. she needed a walk along the noonday streetto keep her sane. by the spell of contrast, another portraitrose up before her, painted with more

daring flattery than any artist would haveventured upon, but yet so delicately touched that the likeness remained perfect. malbone's miniature, though from the sameoriginal, was far inferior to hepzibah's air-drawn picture, at which affection andsorrowful remembrance wrought together. soft, mildly, and cheerfully contemplative,with full, red lips, just on the verge of a smile, which the eyes seemed to herald by agentle kindling-up of their orbs! feminine traits, moulded inseparably withthose of the other sex! the miniature, likewise, had this lastpeculiarity; so that you inevitably thought of the original as resembling his mother,and she a lovely and lovable woman, with

perhaps some beautiful infirmity of character, that made it all the pleasanterto know and easier to love her. "yes," thought hepzibah, with grief ofwhich it was only the more tolerable portion that welled up from her heart toher eyelids, "they persecuted his mother in him! he never was a pyncheon!"but here the shop-bell rang; it was like a sound from a remote distance,--so far hadhepzibah descended into the sepulchral depths of her reminiscences. on entering the shop, she found an old manthere, a humble resident of pyncheon

street, and whom, for a great many yearspast, she had suffered to be a kind of familiar of the house. he was an immemorial personage, who seemedalways to have had a white head and wrinkles, and never to have possessed but asingle tooth, and that a half-decayed one, in the front of the upper jaw. well advanced as hepzibah was, she couldnot remember when uncle venner, as the neighborhood called him, had not gone upand down the street, stooping a little and drawing his feet heavily over the gravel orpavement. but still there was something tough andvigorous about him, that not only kept him

in daily breath, but enabled him to fill aplace which would else have been vacant in the apparently crowded world. to go of errands with his slow andshuffling gait, which made you doubt how he ever was to arrive anywhere; to saw a smallhousehold's foot or two of firewood, or knock to pieces an old barrel, or split up a pine board for kindling-stuff; in summer,to dig the few yards of garden ground appertaining to a low-rented tenement, andshare the produce of his labor at the halves; in winter, to shovel away the snow from the sidewalk, or open paths to thewoodshed, or along the clothes-line; such

were some of the essential offices whichuncle venner performed among at least a score of families. within that circle, he claimed the samesort of privilege, and probably felt as much warmth of interest, as a clergymandoes in the range of his parishioners. not that he laid claim to the tithe pig;but, as an analogous mode of reverence, he went his rounds, every morning, to gatherup the crumbs of the table and overflowings of the dinner-pot, as food for a pig of hisown. in his younger days--for, after all, therewas a dim tradition that he had been, not young, but younger--uncle venner wascommonly regarded as rather deficient, than

otherwise, in his wits. in truth he had virtually pleaded guilty tothe charge, by scarcely aiming at such success as other men seek, and by takingonly that humble and modest part in the intercourse of life which belongs to thealleged deficiency. but now, in his extreme old age,--whetherit were that his long and hard experience had actually brightened him, or that hisdecaying judgment rendered him less capable of fairly measuring himself,--the venerable man made pretensions to no little wisdom,and really enjoyed the credit of it. there was likewise, at times, a vein ofsomething like poetry in him; it was the

moss or wall-flower of his mind in itssmall dilapidation, and gave a charm to what might have been vulgar and commonplacein his earlier and middle life. hepzibah had a regard for him, because hisname was ancient in the town and had formerly been respectable. it was a still better reason for awardinghim a species of familiar reverence that uncle venner was himself the most ancientexistence, whether of man or thing, in pyncheon street, except the house of the seven gables, and perhaps the elm thatovershadowed it. this patriarch now presented himself beforehepzibah, clad in an old blue coat, which

had a fashionable air, and must haveaccrued to him from the cast-off wardrobe of some dashing clerk. as for his trousers, they were of tow-cloth, very short in the legs, and bagging down strangely in the rear, but yet havinga suitableness to his figure which his other garment entirely lacked. his hat had relation to no other part ofhis dress, and but very little to the head that wore it. thus uncle venner was a miscellaneous oldgentleman, partly himself, but, in good measure, somebody else; patched together,too, of different epochs; an epitome of

times and fashions. "so, you have really begun trade," saidhe,--"really begun trade! well, i'm glad to see it. young people should never live idle in theworld, nor old ones neither, unless when the rheumatize gets hold of them. it has given me warning already; and in twoor three years longer, i shall think of putting aside business and retiring to myfarm. that's yonder,--the great brick house, youknow,--the workhouse, most folks call it; but i mean to do my work first, and gothere to be idle and enjoy myself.

and i'm glad to see you beginning to doyour work, miss hepzibah!" "thank you, uncle venner" said hepzibah,smiling; for she always felt kindly towards the simple and talkative old man. had he been an old woman, she mightprobably have repelled the freedom, which she now took in good part."it is time for me to begin work, indeed! or, to speak the truth, i have just begunwhen i ought to be giving it up." "oh, never say that, miss hepzibah!"answered the old man. "you are a young woman yet. why, i hardly thought myself younger than iam now, it seems so little while ago since

i used to see you playing about the door ofthe old house, quite a small child! oftener, though, you used to be sitting atthe threshold, and looking gravely into the street; for you had always a grave kind ofway with you,--a grown-up air, when you were only the height of my knee. it seems as if i saw you now; and yourgrandfather with his red cloak, and his white wig, and his cocked hat, and hiscane, coming out of the house, and stepping so grandly up the street! those old gentlemen that grew up before therevolution used to put on grand airs. in my young days, the great man of the townwas commonly called king; and his wife, not

queen to be sure, but lady. nowadays, a man would not dare to be calledking; and if he feels himself a little above common folks, he only stoops so muchthe lower to them. i met your cousin, the judge, ten minutesago; and, in my old tow-cloth trousers, as you see, the judge raised his hat to me, ido believe! at any rate, the judge bowed and smiled!" "yes," said hepzibah, with something bitterstealing unawares into her tone; "my cousin jaffrey is thought to have a very pleasantsmile!" "and so he has" replied uncle venner.

"and that's rather remarkable in apyncheon; for, begging your pardon, miss hepzibah, they never had the name of beingan easy and agreeable set of folks. there was no getting close to them. but now, miss hepzibah, if an old man maybe bold to ask, why don't judge pyncheon, with his great means, step forward, andtell his cousin to shut up her little shop at once? it's for your credit to be doing something,but it's not for the judge's credit to let you!""we won't talk of this, if you please, uncle venner," said hepzibah coldly.

"i ought to say, however, that, if i chooseto earn bread for myself, it is not judge pyncheon's fault. neither will he deserve the blame," addedshe more kindly, remembering uncle venner's privileges of age and humble familiarity,"if i should, by and by, find it convenient to retire with you to your farm." "and it's no bad place, either, that farmof mine!" cried the old man cheerily, as if there were something positively delightfulin the prospect. "no bad place is the great brick farm-house, especially for them that will find a good many old cronies there, as will be mycase.

i quite long to be among them, sometimes,of the winter evenings; for it is but dull business for a lonesome elderly man, likeme, to be nodding, by the hour together, with no company but his air-tight stove. summer or winter, there's a great deal tobe said in favor of my farm! and, take it in the autumn, what can bepleasanter than to spend a whole day on the sunny side of a barn or a wood-pile,chatting with somebody as old as one's self; or, perhaps, idling away the time with a natural-born simpleton, who knowshow to be idle, because even our busy yankees never have found out how to put himto any use?

upon my word, miss hepzibah, i doubtwhether i've ever been so comfortable as i mean to be at my farm, which most folkscall the workhouse. but you,--you're a young woman yet,--younever need go there! something still better will turn up foryou. i'm sure of it!" hepzibah fancied that there was somethingpeculiar in her venerable friend's look and tone; insomuch, that she gazed into hisface with considerable earnestness, endeavoring to discover what secretmeaning, if any, might be lurking there. individuals whose affairs have reached anutterly desperate crisis almost invariably

keep themselves alive with hopes, so muchthe more airily magnificent as they have the less of solid matter within their grasp whereof to mould any judicious and moderateexpectation of good. thus, all the while hepzibah was perfectingthe scheme of her little shop, she had cherished an unacknowledged idea that someharlequin trick of fortune would intervene in her favor. for example, an uncle--who had sailed forindia fifty years before, and never been heard of since--might yet return, and adopther to be the comfort of his very extreme and decrepit age, and adorn her with

pearls, diamonds, and oriental shawls andturbans, and make her the ultimate heiress of his unreckonable riches. or the member of parliament, now at thehead of the english branch of the family,-- with which the elder stock, on this side ofthe atlantic, had held little or no intercourse for the last two centuries,-- this eminent gentleman might invitehepzibah to quit the ruinous house of the seven gables, and come over to dwell withher kindred at pyncheon hall. but, for reasons the most imperative, shecould not yield to his request. it was more probable, therefore, that thedescendants of a pyncheon who had emigrated

to virginia, in some past generation, andbecame a great planter there,--hearing of hepzibah's destitution, and impelled by the splendid generosity of character with whichtheir virginian mixture must have enriched the new england blood,--would send her aremittance of a thousand dollars, with a hint of repeating the favor annually. or,--and, surely, anything so undeniablyjust could not be beyond the limits of reasonable anticipation,--the great claimto the heritage of waldo county might finally be decided in favor of the pyncheons; so that, instead of keeping acent-shop, hepzibah would build a palace,

and look down from its highest tower onhill, dale, forest, field, and town, as her own share of the ancestral territory. these were some of the fantasies which shehad long dreamed about; and, aided by these, uncle venner's casual attempt atencouragement kindled a strange festal glory in the poor, bare, melancholy chambers of her brain, as if that innerworld were suddenly lighted up with gas. but either he knew nothing of her castlesin the air,--as how should he?--or else her earnest scowl disturbed his recollection,as it might a more courageous man's. instead of pursuing any weightier topic,uncle venner was pleased to favor hepzibah

with some sage counsel in her shop-keepingcapacity. "give no credit!"--these were some of hisgolden maxims,--"never take paper-money. look well to your change!ring the silver on the four-pound weight! shove back all english half-pence and basecopper tokens, such as are very plenty about town!at your leisure hours, knit children's woollen socks and mittens! brew your own yeast, and make your ownginger-beer!" and while hepzibah was doing her utmost todigest the hard little pellets of his already uttered wisdom, he gave vent to hisfinal, and what he declared to be his all-

important advice, as follows:-- "put on a bright face for your customers,and smile pleasantly as you hand them what they ask for! a stale article, if you dip it in a good,warm, sunny smile, will go off better than a fresh one that you've scowled upon." to this last apothegm poor hepzibahresponded with a sigh so deep and heavy that it almost rustled uncle venner quiteaway, like a withered leaf,--as he was,-- before an autumnal gale. recovering himself, however, he bentforward, and, with a good deal of feeling

in his ancient visage, beckoned her nearerto him. "when do you expect him home?" whisperedhe. "whom do you mean?" asked hepzibah, turningpale. "ah!--you don't love to talk about it,"said uncle venner. "well, well! we'll say no more, thoughthere's word of it all over town. i remember him, miss hepzibah, before hecould run alone!" during the remainder of the day, poorhepzibah acquitted herself even less creditably, as a shop-keeper, than in herearlier efforts. she appeared to be walking in a dream; or,more truly, the vivid life and reality

assumed by her emotions made all outwardoccurrences unsubstantial, like the teasing phantasms of a half-conscious slumber. she still responded, mechanically, to thefrequent summons of the shop-bell, and, at the demand of her customers, went pryingwith vague eyes about the shop, proffering them one article after another, and thrusting aside--perversely, as most ofthem supposed--the identical thing they asked for. there is sad confusion, indeed, when thespirit thus flits away into the past, or into the more awful future, or, in anymanner, steps across the spaceless boundary

betwixt its own region and the actual world; where the body remains to guideitself as best it may, with little more than the mechanism of animal life.it is like death, without death's quiet privilege,--its freedom from mortal care. worst of all, when the actual duties arecomprised in such petty details as now vexed the brooding soul of the oldgentlewoman. as the animosity of fate would have it,there was a great influx of custom in the course of the afternoon. hepzibah blundered to and fro about hersmall place of business, committing the

most unheard-of errors: now stringing uptwelve, and now seven, tallow-candles, instead of ten to the pound; selling ginger for scotch snuff, pins for needles, andneedles for pins; misreckoning her change, sometimes to the public detriment, and muchoftener to her own; and thus she went on, doing her utmost to bring chaos back again, until, at the close of the day's labor, toher inexplicable astonishment, she found the money-drawer almost destitute of coin. after all her painful traffic, the wholeproceeds were perhaps half a dozen coppers, and a questionable ninepence whichultimately proved to be copper likewise.

at this price, or at whatever price, sherejoiced that the day had reached its end. never before had she had such a sense ofthe intolerable length of time that creeps between dawn and sunset, and of themiserable irksomeness of having aught to do, and of the better wisdom that it would be to lie down at once, in sullenresignation, and let life, and its toils and vexations, trample over one's prostratebody as they may! hepzibah's final operation was with thelittle devourer of jim crow and the elephant, who now proposed to eat a camel. in her bewilderment, she offered him firsta wooden dragoon, and next a handful of

marbles; neither of which being adapted tohis else omnivorous appetite, she hastily held out her whole remaining stock of natural history in gingerbread, and huddledthe small customer out of the shop. she then muffled the bell in an unfinishedstocking, and put up the oaken bar across the door. during the latter process, an omnibus cameto a stand-still under the branches of the elm-tree.hepzibah's heart was in her mouth. remote and dusky, and with no sunshine onall the intervening space, was that region of the past whence her only guest might beexpected to arrive!

was she to meet him now? somebody, at all events, was passing fromthe farthest interior of the omnibus towards its entrance. a gentleman alighted; but it was only tooffer his hand to a young girl whose slender figure, nowise needing suchassistance, now lightly descended the steps, and made an airy little jump fromthe final one to the sidewalk. she rewarded her cavalier with a smile, thecheery glow of which was seen reflected on his own face as he reentered the vehicle. the girl then turned towards the house ofthe seven gables, to the door of which,

meanwhile,--not the shop-door, but theantique portal,--the omnibus-man had carried a light trunk and a bandbox. first giving a sharp rap of the old ironknocker, he left his passenger and her luggage at the door-step, and departed. "who can it be?" thought hepzibah, who hadbeen screwing her visual organs into the acutest focus of which they were capable."the girl must have mistaken the house." she stole softly into the hall, and,herself invisible, gazed through the dusty side-lights of the portal at the young,blooming, and very cheerful face which presented itself for admittance into thegloomy old mansion.

it was a face to which almost any doorwould have opened of its own accord. the young girl, so fresh, sounconventional, and yet so orderly and obedient to common rules, as you at oncerecognized her to be, was widely in contrast, at that moment, with everythingabout her. the sordid and ugly luxuriance of giganticweeds that grew in the angle of the house, and the heavy projection that overshadowedher, and the time-worn framework of the door,--none of these things belonged to hersphere. but, even as a ray of sunshine, fall intowhat dismal place it may, instantaneously creates for itself a propriety in beingthere, so did it seem altogether fit that

the girl should be standing at thethreshold. it was no less evidently proper that thedoor should swing open to admit her. the maiden lady herself, sternlyinhospitable in her first purposes, soon began to feel that the door ought to beshoved back, and the rusty key be turned in the reluctant lock. "can it be phoebe?" questioned she withinherself. "it must be little phoebe; for it can benobody else,--and there is a look of her father about her, too! but what does she want here?and how like a country cousin, to come down

upon a poor body in this way, without somuch as a day's notice, or asking whether she would be welcome! well; she must have a night's lodging, isuppose; and to-morrow the child shall go back to her mother." phoebe, it must be understood, was that onelittle offshoot of the pyncheon race to whom we have already referred, as a nativeof a rural part of new england, where the old fashions and feelings of relationshipare still partially kept up. in her own circle, it was regarded as by nomeans improper for kinsfolk to visit one another without invitation, or preliminaryand ceremonious warning.

yet, in consideration of miss hepzibah'srecluse way of life, a letter had actually been written and despatched, conveyinginformation of phoebe's projected visit. this epistle, for three or four days past,had been in the pocket of the penny- postman, who, happening to have no otherbusiness in pyncheon street, had not yet made it convenient to call at the house ofthe seven gables. "no--she can stay only one night," saidhepzibah, unbolting the door. "if clifford were to find her here, itmight disturb him!"