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

nightmare he had experienced put an end to Menners' days. He did not
live a full forty-eight hours, calling down upon Longren every calamity
possible on earth and in his imagination. Menners' story of the sailor
watching his doom, having refused him help, the more convincing since
the dying man could barely breathe and kept moaning, astounded the
people of Kaperna. To say nothing of the fact that hardly a one of them
would remember an insult even greater than the one inflicted upon
Longren or to grieve as he was to grieve for Mary till the end of his
days--they were repulsed, puzzled and stunned by Longren's silence.
Longren had stood there in silence until those last words he had shouted
to Menners; he had stood there without moving, sternly and silently, as a
judge, expressing his utter contempt of Menners--there was something
greater than hatred in his silence and they all sensed this. If he had
shouted, expressed his gloating through gesture or bustling action, or had
in any other way shown his triumph at the sight of Menners' despair, the
fishermen would have understood him, but he had acted differently than
they would have -- he had acted impressively and strangely and had thus
placed himself above them -- in a word, he had done that which is not
forgiven. No longer did anyone salute him in the street or offer him his
hand, or cast a friendly glance of recognition and greeting his way. From
now and to the end he was to remain aloof from the affairs of the village;
boys catching sight of him in the street would shout after him: "Longren
drowned Menners!" He paid no attention to this. Nor did it seem that he
noticed the fact that in the tavern or on the beach among the boats the
fishermen would stop talking in his presence and would move away as
from someone who had the plague. The Menners' affair had served to
strengthen their formerly partial alienation. Becoming complete, it
created an unshakeable mutual hatred, the shadow of which fell upon
Assol as well.
The little girl grew up without friends. The two or three dozen children
of her age in the village, which was saturated like a sponge is with water
with the crude law of family rule, the basis of which is the unquestioned
authority of the parents, imitative like all children in the world, excluded
little Assol once and for all from the circle of their protection and interest.
Naturally, this came about gradually, through the admonitions and
scolding of the adults, and assumed the nature of a terrible taboo which,
increased by idle talk and rumour, burgeoned in the children's minds to
become a fear of the sailor's house.
Besides, the secluded life Longren led now gave vent to the hysterical
tongues of gossip; it was implied that the sailor had murdered someone
somewhere and that, they said, was why he was no longer signed up on
any ship, and he was so sullen and unsociable because he was "tormented
by a criminal conscience". When playing, the children would chase Assol
away if she came near, they would sling mud at her and taunt her by
saying that her father ate human flesh and was now a counterfeiter. One
after another her naive attempts at making friends ended in bitter tears,
bruises, scratches and other manifestations of public opinion; she finally
stopped feeling affronted, but would still sometimes ask her father:
"Why don't they like us? Tell me."
"Ah, Assol, they don't know how to like or love. One must be able to love,