"Doyle, Arthur Conan - The Stark Munro Letters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Arthur Conan)

THE STARK MUNRO LETTERS.




HOME. 30th March, 1881.

I have missed you very much since your return to
America, my dear Bertie, for you are the one man upon
this earth to whom I have ever been able to unreservedly
open my whole mind. I don't know why it is; for, now
that I come to think of it, I have never enjoyed very
much of your confidence in return. But that may be my
fault. Perhaps you don't find me sympathetic, even
though I have every wish to be. I can only say that I
find you intensely so, and perhaps I presume too much
upon the fact. But no, every instinct in my nature tells
me that I don't bore you by my confidences.

Can you remember Cullingworth at the University? You
never were in the athletic set, and so it is possible
that you don't. Anyway, I'll take it for granted
that you don't, and explain it all from the beginning.
I'm sure that you would know his photograph, however, for
the reason that he was the ugliest and queerest-looking
man of our year.

Physically he was a fine athlete--one of the fastest
and most determined Rugby forwards that I have ever
known, though he played so savage a game that he was
never given his international cap. He was well-grown,
five foot nine perhaps, with square shoulders, an arching
chest, and a quick jerky way of walking. He had a round
strong head, bristling with short wiry black hair. His
face was wonderfully ugly, but it was the ugliness of
character, which is as attractive as beauty. His jaw and
eyebrows were scraggy and rough-hewn, his nose aggressive
and red-shot, his eyes small and near set, light blue in
colour, and capable of assuming a very genial and also an
exceedingly vindictive expression. A slight wiry
moustache covered his upper lip, and his teeth were
yellow, strong, and overlapping. Add to this that he
seldom wore collar or necktie, that his throat was the
colour and texture of the bark of a Scotch fir, and that
he had a voice and especially a laugh like a bull's
bellow. Then you have some idea (if you can piece all
these items in your mind) of the outward James Cullingworth.