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

held against the rock to catch the spouting water had altered the
formation of the spring which now gushed into a circle of eroded stone
which looked as though it had been placed there for the convenience of
the women. Each woman rested her jar against the rim, tilted it
slightly and waited until it was full. Newcomers to Nazareth, or women
who had had occasion to visit other villages, said that this was a
quick and easier way of getting water than hauling a bucket up from a
well by a rope.

Few people were in a hurry, most of them indeed were willing to prolong
the business, nevertheless there was some rough order of precedence.
Married women first, according to age; then girls. And every morning,
as the women, like figures on a frieze, moved, stooped, waited,
straightened themselves and set their jars on their head, half-way
through the married women's line somebody was certain to say, "Michal's
turn." And there would be laughter.

Mary, part of the frieze, standing aside with the other girls would
wait for the poor joke and wonder that now, after two years, it should
still have the power to amuse. Sometimes she felt impatient with them;
at other times she would think--It is the measure of the fundamental
dullness of their lives. She would wonder, too if twenty years hence
her life would have narrowed down to a point where she must relish an
ancient jest and one that had never, at first coming, been very good.

There'd been a time when Michal, a pretty, lively young woman, had
taken her rightful place at the spring; then her husband had died,
leaving her in a pitiful plight, no relatives at all, nobody to be
responsible for her or to fend for her. She'd been reduced to doing
the most menial jobs about the village in return for a meal or a bit of
cast-off clothing. Then suddenly she had ceased to solicit jobs or
charity, had appeared in a brand-new dress one day, the next with
scented oil on her hair, soon with bangles on her wrists. There were
whispers and raised eyebrows and hard looks and suspicion, soon
confirmed. Her tumbledown little house stood on the outskirts of the
village, almost next door to the inn on the road to Sepphoris, and men
had been seen going in, and coming out.

She must have been very stupid, Mary thought, or very brave, for
morning after morning she had joined the exodus to the spring, amazed
at first and then tearful to find herself treated as though she were
invisible, until she came too near; then she'd be pushed past or
jostled. She seemed to think that if she persisted the morning would
dawn when she would find herself forgiven and accepted again. She'd
had three new water-jars broken and two dresses soaked before she
realised that the women had outlawed her--for ever.

After the last 'accident' Mary, then very young, and strictly brought
up to respect her elders, had spoken out in a way that Rachel and
Susannah and Leah knew.