"Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Great Stone Face" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawthorne Nathaniel)

little boy. So she only said to him, "Perhaps you may."

And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. It
was always in his mind, whenever he looked upon the Great Stone
Face. He spent his childhood in the log-cottage where he was born, and
was dutiful to his mother, and helpful to her in many things,
assisting her much with his little hands, and more with his loving
heart. In this manner, from a happy yet often pensive child, he grew
up to be a mild, quiet, unobtrusive boy, and sun-browned with labor in
the fields, but with more intelligence brightening his aspect than
is seen in many lads who have been taught at famous schools. Yet
Ernest had had no teacher, save only that the Great Stone Face
became one to him. When the toil of the day was over, he would gaze at
it for hours, until he began to imagine that those vast features
recognized him, and gave him a smile of kindness and encouragement,
responsive to his own look of veneration. We must not take upon us
to affirm that this was a mistake, although the Face may have looked
no more kindly at Ernest than at all the world besides. But the secret
was, that the boy's tender and confiding simplicity discerned what
other people could not see; and thus the love, which was meant for
all, became his peculiar portion.

About this time, there went a rumor throughout the valley, that the
great man, foretold from ages long ago, who was to bear a
resemblance to the Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It seems
that, many years before, a young man had migrated from the valley
and settled at a distant seaport, where, after getting together a
little money, he had set up as a shopkeeper. His name- but I could
never learn whether it was his real one, or a nickname that had
grown out of his habits and success in life- was Gathergold. Being
shrewd and active, and endowed by Providence with that inscrutable
faculty which develops itself in what the world calls luck, he
became an exceedingly rich merchant, and owner of a whole fleet of
bulky-bottomed ships. All the countries of the globe appeared to
join hands for the mere purpose of adding heap after heap to the
mountainous accumulation of this one man's wealth. The cold regions of
the north, almost within the gloom and shadow of the Arctic Circle,
sent him their tribute in the shape of furs; hot Africa sifted for him
the golden sands of her rivers, and gathered up the ivory tusks of her
great elephants out of the forests; the East came bringing him the
rich shawls, and spices, and teas, and the effulgence of diamonds, and
the gleaming purity of large pearls. The ocean, not to be behindhand
with the earth, yielded up her mighty whales, that Mr. Gathergold
might sell their oil, and make a profit on it. Be the original
commodity what it might, it was gold within his grasp. It might be
said of him, as of Midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with
his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed
at once into sterling metal, or, which suited him still better, into
piles of coin. And, when Mr. Gathergold had become so very rich that
it would have taken him a hundred years only to count his wealth, he