"Lofts, Norah - How Far To Bethlehem" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lofts Norah)

it had broken off. But before they had learned this, when they were
still very young, they'd tried to rouse her.

Once, abruptly, she'd been very sick; and once she had cried, so long
and so violently that they had been frightened. Mary's mother, Anne,
was well known for her sharp tongue and hard hand, and although she
herself was never overtly indulgent to her daughter, anybody who made
Mary cry was in for trouble.

So they'd learned. Amongst themselves they'd talked about it
naturally, and reached their own childish conclusion. Mary's
grandmother had been a woman of the desert who had fallen sick and been
left for dead by her tribe. Mary's grandfather, a merchant in a small
way, had been coming home with his two camels, had found the woman,
brought her to his home and in due time married her. Desert people
were known to be different; when they were thirsty or hungry or
exhausted or tired they could absent themselves from their suffering
bodies and so survive, in some mysterious fashion, where other people
would have died. There was something about the desert, the three
little village girls had agreed, prophets and holy men often came out
of the desert. And as they grew older, they noticed small differences
in their well-loved friend, a peculiarly free-striding manner of
walking, a way of holding the head, an outspokenness which was
startling in one so modest, and these lapses.

Rachel, looking at Mary and seeing her state, wished with all her heart
that she could similarly absent herself from the connubial bed. Leah
said:

"Look the red rags are out. Spring has come!"

"No more donkeys," Susannah said, shifting Joshua again.

"What a blessing. I hate walking through dung!"

"We're lucky," Leah said.

"We have wood. There are places where women have to gather it and use
it for fuel. Imagine having to wait till a donkey passed before you
could cook your dinner."

"I don't believe it," Rachel said, and an argument began.

The girl named Mary had sighted the red rags and felt the now familiar
feeling of sadness and foreboding and desolation. Spring had come; and
with the short smooth path closed to them, the donkeys, with their
heavy loads, must face the hill. Uphill they slowed down a little,
downhill they stumbled, and their riders or their drivers were always

too ready to prod or strike. For her the bad season had begun.