"Lord Dunsany - Bethmoora" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

loneliness, whose gates swing to and fro. To and fro they
swing, and creak and creak in the wind, but no one hears
them. They are of green copper, very lovely, but no one
sees them now. The desert wind pours sand into their
hinges, no watchman comes to ease them. No guard goes round
Bethmoora's battlements, no enemy assails them. There are
nolights in her houses, no footfall in her streets; she
standsthere dead and lonely beyond the Hills of Hap, and I
wouldsee Bethmoora once again, but dare not.
It is many a year, as they tell me, since Bethmoora
becamedesolate.
 Her desolation is spoken of in taverns where sailors
meet, and certain travellers have told me of it.
I had hoped to see Bethmoora once again. It is many a
yearago, they say, when the vintage was last gathered in
fromthe vineyards that I knew, where it is all desert now.
It was a radiant day, and the people of the city were
dancingby the vineyards, while here and there one played
upon the kalipac. The purple flowering shrubs were all in
bloom, and the snow shone upon the Hills of Hap.
Outside the copper gates they crushed the grapes in vats
to make the syrabub. It had been a goodly vintage.
In little gardens at the desert's edge men beat the
tambangand the tittibuk, and blew melodiously the zootibar.
All there was mirth and song and dance, because the
vintagehad been gathered in, and there would be ample
syrabubfor the winter months, and much left over to
exchangefor turquoises and emeralds with the merchants who
come down from Oxuhahn. Thus they rejoiced all day over
theirvintage on the narrow strip of cultivated ground that
laybetween Bethmoora and the desert which meets the sky to
the South. And when the heat of the day began to abate, and
thesun drew near to the snows on the Hills of Hap, the note
ofthe zootibar still rose clear from the gardens, and the
brilliantdresses of the dancers still wound among the
flowers. All that day three men on mules had been noticed
crossing the face of the Hills of Hap. Backwards and
forwardsthey moved as the track wound lower and lower,
three little specks of black against the snow. They were
seenfirst in the very early morning up near the shoulder of
Peol Jagganoth, and seemed to be coming out of Utnar Vehi.
All day they came. And in the evening, just before lights
comeout and colours change, they appeared before
Bethmoora's copper gates. They carried staves, such as
messengersbear in those lands, and seemed sombrely clad
whenthe dancers all came round them with their green and
lilac dresses. Those Europeans who were present and heard
themessage given were ignorant of the language, and only
caught the name of Utnar Vehi. But it was brief, and passed
rapidlyfrom mouth to mouth, and almost at once the people