"g149v10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ebers Georg)

"Salt sea-water or oil, it's all the same to you! Haven't I put my lamp
out long ago? Doesn't the fire on the hearth give light enough? Are
your eyes so drowsy that they don't see the dawn shining in upon us more
and more brightly? The olives are not yet pressed, and the old oil is
getting toward the dregs. Besides, you know how much fruit those
abominable thieves have stolen. But sparrows will carry grain into the
barn before you'll try to save your master's property!"

So Semestre, the ancient house-keeper of Lysander of Syracuse, scolded
the two maids, Chloris and Dorippe, who, unheeding the smoking wicks of
their lamps, were wearily turning the hand-mills.

Dorippe, the younger of the two, grasped her disordered black tresses,
over which thousands of rebellious little hairs seemed to weave a veil of
mist, drew from the mass of curls falling on her neck a bronze arrow,
with which she extinguished the feeble light of both lamps, and, turning
to the house-keeper, said:

"There, then! We can't yet tell a black thread from a white one, and I
must put out the lamps, as if this rich house were a beggar's hut. Two
hundred jars of shining oil were standing in the storehouses a week ago.
Why did the master let them be put on the ship and taken to Messina by
his brother and Mopsus?"

"And why isn't the fruit gathered yet?" asked Chloris. "The olives are
overripe, and the thieves have an easy task, now the watchmen have gone
to Messina as rowers. We must save by drops, while we own more gnarled
olive-trees than there are days in the year. How many jars of oil might
be had from the fruit that has dropped on the ground alone! The harvest
at neighbor Protarch's was over long ago, and if I were like Lysander--"

"There would probably be an end of saving," cried the house-keeper,
interrupting the girl. "Well, I confess it wasn't easy for me to part
with the golden gift of the gods, but what could I do? Our master's
brother, Alciphron, wanted it, and there was a great barter. Alciphron
is clever, and has a lucky hand, in which the liquid gold we press from
the olives with so much toil, and keep so carefully, becomes coined
metal. He's like my own child, for I was his nurse. Here in the country
we increase our riches by care, patience and frugality, while the city
merchant must have farseeing eyes, and know how to act speedily. Even
when a boy, my Alciphron was the wisest of Dionysius's three sons, and,
if there was anything sweet to be divided, always knew how to get the
largest share. When his mother was alive, she once told the lad to give
her the best of some freshly-baked cakes, that she might take it to the
temple for an offering, and what was his answer? 'It will be well for me
to taste them all, that I may be certain not to make a mistake;' and when
Clytemnestra--"

"Is Alciphron younger than our poor master?" interrupted Dorippe.