"Ursula K. LeGuin - A Woman's Liberation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

House!" My mother slapped me to make me stop and scolded me for being wild.
She said, "You are too young! You can't behave! If you get sent away from the
House you can never come back."
I promised to be old enough.
"You must do everything right," Yowa told me. "You must do everything I say
when I say it. Never question. Never delay. If my lady sees that you're wild,
she'll send you back here. And that will be the end of you forever."
I promised to be tame. I promised to obey at once in everything, and not to
speak. The more frightening she made it, the more I desired to see the
wonderful, shining House.
When my mother left I did not believe she would speak to my-lady. I was not
used to promises being kept. But after some days she returned, and I heard her
speaking to my grandmother. Dosse was angry at first, speaking loudly. I crept
under the window of the hut to listen. I heard my grandmother weep. I was
frightened and amazed. My grandmother was patient with me, always looked after
me, and fed me well. It had never entered my mind that there was anything more
to it than that, until I heard her crying. Her crying made me cry, as if I
were part of her.
"You could let me keep her one more year," she said. "She's just a baby. I
would never let her out the gate. " She was pleading, as if she were
powerless, not a grandmother. "She is my joy, Yowa!"
"Don't you want her to do well, then?"
"Just a year more. She's too wild for the House."
"She's run wild too long. She'll get sent out to the fields if she stays. A

year of that and they won't have her at the House. She'll be dust. Anyhow,
there's no use crying about it. I asked my lady, and she's expected. I can't
go back without her."
"Yowa, don't let her come to harm," Dosse said very low, as if ashamed to say
this to her daughter, and yet with strength in her voice.
"I'm taking her to keep her out of harm, " my mother said. Then she called me,
and I wiped my tears and came.
It is queer, but I do not remember my first walk through the world outside the
compound or my first sight of the House. I suppose I was frightened and kept
my eyes down, and everything was so strange to me that I did not understand
what I saw. I know it was a number of days before my mother took me to show me
to Lady Tazeu. She had to scrub me and train me and make sure I would not
disgrace her. I was terrified when at last she took my hand, scolding me in a
whisper all the time, and brought me out of the bondswomen's quarters, through
halls and doorways of painted wood, into a bright, sunny room with no roof,
full of flowers growing in pots.
I had hardly ever seen a flower, only the weeds in the kitchen gardens, and I
stared and stared at them. My mother had to jerk my hand to make me look at
the woman lying in a chair among the flowers, in clothes soft and brightly
colored like the flowers. I could hardly tell them apart. The woman's hair was
long and shining, and her skin was shining and black. My mother pushed me, and
I did what she had made me practice over and over: I went and knelt down
beside the chair and waited, and when the woman put out her long, narrow, soft
hand, black above and azure on the palm, I touched my forehead to it. I was
supposed to say "I am your slave Rakain, Ma'am," but my voice would not come