"Burroughs, Edgar Rice - Tarzan 6 - Jungle Tales" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

Lost to Tarzan of the Apes was the truth of his origin.
That he was John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, with a seat
in the House of Lords, he did not know, nor, knowing,
would have understood.
Yes, Teeka was indeed beautiful!
Of course Kala had been beautiful--one's mother is always
that--but Teeka was beautiful in a way all her own,
an indescribable sort of way which Tarzan was just
beginning to sense in a rather vague and hazy manner.
For years had Tarzan and Teeka been play-fellows, and Teeka
still continued to be playful while the young bulls of her own
age were rapidly becoming surly and morose. Tarzan, if he
gave the matter much thought at all, probably reasoned
that his growing attachment for the young female could
be easily accounted for by the fact that of the former
playmates she and he alone retained any desire to frolic as of
old.
But today, as he sat gazing upon her, he found himself
noting the beauties of Teeka's form and features--something
he never had done before, since none of them had aught
to do with Teeka's ability to race nimbly through the lower
terraces of the forest in the primitive games of tag and
hide-and-go-seek which Tarzan's fertile brain evolved.
Tarzan scratched his head, running his fingers deep
into the shock of black hair which framed his shapely,
boyish face--he scratched his head and sighed.
Teeka's new-found beauty became as suddenly his despair.
He envied her the handsome coat of hair which covered
her body. His own smooth, brown hide he hated with a
hatred born of disgust and contempt. Years back he had
harbored a hope that some day he, too, would be clothed
in hair as were all his brothers and sisters; but of late
he had been forced to abandon the delectable dream.
Then there were Teeka's great teeth, not so large as the males,
of course, but still mighty, handsome things by comparison
with Tarzan's feeble white ones. And her beetling brows,
and broad, flat nose, and her mouth! Tarzan had often
practiced making his mouth into a little round circle and then
puffing out his cheeks while he winked his eyes rapidly;
but he felt that he could never do it in the same cute
and irresistible way in which Teeka did it.
And as he watched her that afternoon, and wondered,
a young bull ape who had been lazily foraging for food
beneath the damp, matted carpet of decaying vegetation
at the roots of a near-by tree lumbered awkwardly
in Teeka's direction. The other apes of the tribe
of Kerchak moved listlessly about or lolled restfully
in the midday heat of the equatorial jungle. From time
to time one or another of them had passed close to Teeka,
and Tarzan had been uninterested. Why was it then that his