"Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

upon Rodriguez was as of some old darkness that had been long
undisturbed and that yielded reluctantly to that candle's
intrusion, a darkness that properly became the place and was a
part of it and had long been so, in the face of which the candle
appeared an ephemeral thing devoid of grace or dignity or
tradition. And indeed there was room for darkness in that chamber,
for the walls went up and up into such an altitude that you could
scarcely see the ceiling, at which mine host's eyes glanced, and
Rodriguez followed his look.

He accepted his accommodation with a nod; as indeed he would have
accepted any room in that inn, for the young are swift judges of
character, and one who had accepted such a host was unlikely to
find fault with rats or the profusion of giant cobwebs, dark with
the dust of years, that added so much to the dimness of that
sinister inn. They turned now and went back, in the wake of that
guttering candle, till they came again to the humbler part of the
building. Here mine host, pushing open a door of blackened oak,
indicated his dining-chamber. There a long table stood, and on it
parts of the head and hams of a boar; and at the far end of the
table a plump and sturdy man was seated in shirt-sleeves feasting
himself on the boar's meat. He leaped up at once from his chair as
soon as his master entered, for he was the servant at the Dragon
and Knight; mine host may have said much to him with a flash of
his eyes, but he said no more with his tongue than the one word,
"Dog": he then bowed himself out, leaving Rodriguez to take the
only chair and to be waited upon by its recent possessor. The
boar's meat was cold and gnarled, another piece of meat stood on a
plate on a shelf and a loaf of bread near by, but the rats had had
most of the bread: Rodriguez demanded what the meat was.
"Unicorn's tongue," said the servant, and Rodriguez bade him set
the dish before him, and he set to well content, though I fear the
unicorn's tongue was only horse: it was a credulous age, as all
ages are. At the same time he pointed to a three-legged stool that
he perceived in a corner of the room, then to the table, then to
the boar's meat, and lastly at the servant, who perceived that he
was permitted to return to his feast, to which he ran with
alacrity. "Your name?" said Rodriguez as soon as both were eating.
"Morano," replied the servant, though it must not be supposed that
when answering Rodriguez he spoke as curtly as this; I merely give
the reader the gist of his answer, for he added Spanish words that
correspond in our depraved and decadent language of to-day to such
words as "top dog," "nut" and "boss," so that his speech had a
certain grace about it in that far-away time in Spain.

I have said that Rodriguez seldom concerned himself with the past,
but considered chiefly the future: it was of the future that he
was thinking now as he asked Morano this question:

"Why did my worthy and entirely excellent host shut his door in my