"Alexander Green - Crimson Sails" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Alexander)

leading to the ground floor corridor. Gray was absolutely forbidden to
enter the kitchen, but once, having discovered this wonderful world of
flaming hearths and soot, this hissing and bubbling of boiling liquids,
chopping of knives and mouth-watering smells, the boy became a diligent
visitor to the great chamber. The chefs moved in stony silence like some
high priests; their white hats etched against the soot-blackened walls lent
an air of solemn ritual to their movements; the fat, jovial dishwashers at
their barrels of water scrubbed the tableware, making the china and silver
ring; boys came in, bent under the weight of baskets of fish, oysters,
lobsters and fruit. Laid out on a long table were rainbow-hued pheasants,
grey ducks and brightly-feathered chickens; farther on was the carcass of
a suckling pig with a tiny tail and eyes shut like a babe's; then there were
turnips, cabbages, nuts, raisins and sun-burnished peaches.
Gray always quailed slightly in the kitchen: he felt that some strange
force was in charge here, and that its power was the mainspring of life in
the castle; the shouts sounded like orders and invocations; the movements
of the kitchen staff after years of practice had acquired that precise,
measured rhythm that seems like inspiration. Gray was not yet tall enough
to peep into the largest cauldron which bubbled like Mt. Vesuvius, but he
felt a special respect for it; he watched in awe as two serving women
handled it; at such times steaming froth would splash out onto the top of
the stove, and the steam that rose from the hissing stove lid would billow
out into the kitchen. On one occasion so much liquid splashed out it
scalded one of the kitchen maid's hands. The skin immediately turned red
from the rush of blood, and Betsy (for that was her name) wept as she
rubbed oil into the burned skin. Tears coursed down her round, frightened
face uncontrollably.
Gray was petrified. As the other women fussed about Betsy, he was
suddenly gripped by the pain of another person's suffering which he could
not himself experience.
"Does it hurt very much?" he asked.
"Try it, and you'll see," Betsy replied, covering her hand with her apron.
The boy frowned and climbed up onto a stool, dipped a long-handled
spoon into the hot liquid (in this case it was lamb soup) and splashed
some onto his wrist. The sensation was not faint, but the faintness
resulting from the sharp pain made him sway. He was as pale as flour
when he went up to Betsy, hiding his scalded hand in his pants pocket.
"I think it hurts you awfully," he murmured, saying nothing of his own
experiment. "Come to the doctor, Betsy. Come on!"
 He tugged at her skirt insistently, though all the while the believers in
home remedies were giving the girl all sorts of advice for treating the
burn. However, she was in very great pain, and so she followed Gray. The
doctor relieved her pain by applying some medication. Not before Betsy
was gone did Gray show him his own hand.
This insignificant episode made twenty-year-old Betsy and ten-year-old
Gray bosom friends. She would fill his pockets with sweets and apples, and
he would tell her fairy-tales and other stories he had read in his books.
One day he discovered that Betsy could not marry Jim, the groom,
because they had no money to set themselves up in a home of their own.
Gray used his fireplace tongs to crack his china piggy-bank and shook out