"Lord Dunsany - The Glittering Gate (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

tongue, in Church, like all the rest, but all the time
I'd be thinking of you in that little room at Putney
and the man searching every corner of it for you with a
revolver in one hand and a candle in the other, and you
almost going round with him.

Jim:
What is Putney?

Bill:
Oh, Jim, can't you remember? Can't you remember the
day you taught me a livelihood? I was n't more than
twelve, and it was spring, and all the may was in
blossom outside the town. And we cleared out No. 25 in
the new street. And the next day we saw the man's fat,
silly face. It was thirty years ago.

Jim:
What are years?
Bill:
Oh, *Jim!*

Jim:
You see there is n't any hope here. And when there
isn't any hope there is n't any future. And when there
is n't any future there is n't any past. It's just the
present here. I tell you we're stuck. There are n't
no years here. Nor no nothing.

Bill:
Cheer up, Jim. You're thinking of a quotation,
"Abandon hope, all ye that enter here." I used to
learn quotations; they are awfully genteel. A fellow
named Shakespeare used to make them. But there is n't
any sense in them. What's the use of saying "ye" when
you mean "you"? Don't be thinking of quotations, Jim.

Jim:
I tell you there is no hope here.

Bill:
Cheer up, Jim. There's plenty of hope there, is n't
there? {Points to the Gate of Heaven}

Jim:
Yes, and that's why they keep it locked up so. They
won't let us have any. No. I begin to remember Earth
again now since you've been speaking. It was just the
same there. The more they'd got the more they wanted
to keep *you* from having a bit.