"Hawthorne, Nathaniel - Ethan Brand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawthorne Nathaniel)

same moment, beheld only a vacant space of canvas.

"I remember you now," muttered Ethan Brand to the showman.

"Ah, Captain," whispered the Jew of Nuremberg, with a dark smile,
"I find it to be a heavy matter in my show-box- this Unpardonable Sin!
By my faith, Captain, it has wearied my shoulders, this long day, to
carry it over the mountain."

"Peace," answered Ethan Brand, sternly, "or get thee into the
furnace yonder!"

The Jew's exhibition had scarcely concluded, when a great,
elderly dog- who seemed to be his own master, as no person in the
company laid claim to him- saw fit to render himself the object of
public notice. Hitherto, he had shown himself a very quiet, well
disposed old dog, going round from one to another, and, by way of
being sociable, offering his rough head to be patted by any kindly
hand that would take so much trouble. But now, all of a sudden, this
grave and venerable quadruped, of his own mere motion, and without the
slightest suggestion from anybody else, began to run round after his
tail, which, to heighten the absurdity of the proceeding, was a
great deal shorter than it should have been. Never was seen such
headlong eagerness in pursuit of an object that could not possibly
be attained; never was heard such a tremendous outbreak of growling,
snarling, barking, and snapping- as if one end of the ridiculous
brute's body were at deadly and most unforgivable enmity with the
other. Faster and faster, round about went the cur; and faster and
still faster fled the unapproachable brevity of his tail; and louder
and fiercer grew his yells of rage and animosity; until, utterly
exhausted, and as far from the goal as ever, the foolish old dog
ceased his performance as suddenly as he had begun it. The next moment
he was as mild, quiet, sensible, and respectable in his deportment, as
when he first scraped acquaintance with the company.

As may be supposed, the exhibition was greeted with universal
laughter, clapping of hands, and shouts of encore, to which the canine
performer responded by wagging all that there was to wag of his
tail, but appeared totally unable to repeat his very successful effort
to amuse the spectators.

Meanwhile, Ethan Brand had resumed his seat upon the log, and
moved, it might be, by a perception of some remote analogy between his
own case and that of this self-pursuing cur, he broke into the awful
laugh, which, more than any other token, expressed the condition of
his inward being. From that moment, the merriment of the party was
at an end; they stood aghast, dreading lest the inauspicious sound
should be reverberated around the horizon, and that mountain would
thunder it to mountain, and so the horror be prolonged upon their
ears. Then, whispering one to another that it was late- that the