"Personal Recollections Of Joan Of Arc vol 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Joan of Arc)

OUR DOMREMY was like any other humble little hamlet of that
remote time and region. It was a maze of crooked, narrow lanes
and alleys shaded and sheltered by the overhanging thatch roofs of
the barnlike houses. The houses were dimly lighted by
wooden-shuttered windows--that is, holes in the walls which
served for windows. The floors were dirt, and there was very little
furniture. Sheep and cattle grazing was the main industry; all the
young folks tended flocks.

The situation was beautiful. From one edge of the village a flowery
plain extended in a wide sweep to the river--the Meuse; from the
rear edge of the village a grassy slope rose gradually, and at the top
was the great oak forest--a forest that was deep and gloomy and
dense, and full of interest for us children, for many murders had
been done in it by outlaws in old times, and in still earlier times
prodigious dragons that spouted fire and poisonous vapors from
their nostrils had their homes in there. In fact, one was still living
in there in our own time. It was as long as a tree, and had a body as
big around as a tierce, and scales like overlapping great tiles, and
deep ruby eyes as large as a cavalier's hat, and an anchor-fluke on
its tail as big as I don't know what, but very big, even unusually so
for a dragon, as everybody said who knew about dragons. It was
thought that this dragon was of a brilliant blue color, with gold
mottlings, but no one had ever seen it, therefore this was not