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

"Here he comes!" cried a group of people who were assembled to
witness the arrival. "Here comes the great Mr. Gathergold!"

A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the
road. Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the
physiognomy of a little old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own
Midas-hand had transmuted it. He had a low forehead, small, sharp
eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips,
which he made still thinner by pressing them forcibly together.

"The very image of the Great Stone Face!" shouted the people. "Sure
enough, the old prophecy is true; and here we have the great man come,
at last!"

And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe
that here was the likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside
there chanced to be an old beggar-woman and two little
beggar-children, stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the
carriage rolled onward, held out their hands and lifted up their
doleful voices, most piteously beseeching charity. A yellow claw-
the very same that had clawed together so much wealth- poked itself
out of the coach-window, and dropt some copper coins upon the
ground; so that, though the great man's name seems to have been
Gathergold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed
Scattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest shout, and
evidently with as much good faith as ever, the people bellowed, "He is
the very image of the Great Stone Face!"

But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that sordid
visage, and gazed up the valley, where, amid a gathering mist,
gilded by the last sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glorious
features which had impressed themselves into his soul. Their aspect
cheered him. What did the benign lips seem to say?

"He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come!"

The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. He had grown to
be a young man now. He attracted little notice from the other
inhabitants of the valley; for they saw nothing remarkable in his
way of life, save that, when the labor of the day was over, he still
loved to go apart and gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face.
According to their idea of the matter, it was a folly, indeed, but
pardonable, inasmuch as Ernest was industrious, kind, and
neighborly, and neglected no duty for the sake of indulging this
idle habit. They knew not that the Great Stone Face had become a
teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was expressed in it would
enlarge the young man's heart, and fill it with wider and deeper
sympathies than other hearts. They knew not that thence would come a
better wisdom than could be learned from books, and a better life than