"MacDONALD, George - The Castle" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacDonald George)

been present when her brother was imprisoned; and indeed for some days had been
so wrapt in her own business, that she had taken but little heed of anything
that was going on. But they all expected her to show herself when the company
was gathered; and they had applied to her for advice at various times during
their operations.
At length the expected hour arrived, and the company began to assemble. It was a
warm summer evening. The dark lake reflected the rose-coloured clouds in the
west, and through the flush rowed many gaily painted boats, with various
coloured flags, towards the massy rock on which the castle stood. The trees and
flowers seemed already asleep, and breathing forth their sweet dream-breath.
Laughter and low voices rose from the breast of the lake to the ears of the
youths and maidens looking forth expectant from the lofty windows. They went
down to the broad platform at the top of the stairs in front of the door to
receive their visitors. By degrees the festivities of the evening commenced. The
same smiles flew forth both at eyes and lips, darting like beams through the
gathering crowd. Music, from unseen sources, now rolled in billows, now crept in
ripples through the sea of air that filled the lofty rooms. And in the dancing
halls, when hand took hand, and form and motion were moulded and swayed by the
indwelling music, it governed not these alone, but, as the ruling spirit of the
place, every new burst of music for a new dance swept before it a new and
accordant odour, and dyed the flames that glowed in the lofty lamps with a new
and accordant stain. The floors bent beneath the feet of the time-keeping
dancers. But twice in the evening some of the inmates started, and the pallor
occasionally common to the household overspread their faces, for they felt
underneath them a counter-motion to the dance, as if the floor rose slightly to
answer their feet. And all the time their brother lay below in the dungeon, like
John the Baptist in the castle of Herod, when the lords and captains sat around,
and the daughter of Herodias danced before them. Outside, all around the castle,
brooded the dark night unheeded; for the clouds had come up from all sides, and
were crowding together overhead. In the unfrequent pauses of the music, they
might have heard, now and then, the gusty rush of a lonely wind, coming and
going no one could know whence or whither, born and dying unexpected and
unregarded.
But when the festivities were at their height, when the external and passing
confidence which is produced between superficial natures by a common pleasure
was at the full, a sudden crash of thunder quelled the music, as the thunder
quells the noise of the uplifted sea. The windows were driven in, and torrents
of rain, carried in the folds of a rushing wind, poured into the halls. The
lights were swept away; and the great rooms, now dark within, were darkened yet
more by the dazzling shoots of flame from the vault of blackness overhead. Those
that ventured to look out of the windows saw, in the blue brilliancy of the
quick-following jets of lightning, the lake at the foot of the rock, ordinarily
so still and so dark, lighted up, not on the surface only, but down to half its
depth; so that, as it tossed in the wind, like a tortured sea of writhing
flames, or incandescent half-molten serpents of brass, they could not tell
whether a strong phosphorescence did not issue from the transparent body of the
waters, as if earth and sky lightened together, one consenting source of flaming
utterance.
Sad was the condition of the late plastic mass of living form that had flowed
into shape at the will and law of the music. Broken into individuals, the common