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

transfusing spirit withdrawn, they stood drenched, cold, and benumbed, with
clinging garments; light, order, harmony, purpose departed, and chaos restored;
the issuings of life turned back on their sources, chilly and dead. And in every
heart reigned the falsest of despairing convictions, that this was the only
reality, and that was but a dream. The eldest sister stood with clasped hands
and down-bent head, shivering and speechless, as if waiting for something to
follow. Nor did she wait long. A terrible flash and thunder-peal made the castle
rock; and in the pausing silence that followed, her quick sense heard the
rattling of a chain far off, deep down; and soon the sound of heavy footsteps,
accompanied with the clanking of iron, reached her ear. She felt that her
brother was at hand. Even in the darkness, and amidst the bellowing of another
deep-bosomed cloud-monster, she knew that he had entered the room. A moment
after, a continuous pulsation of angry blue light began, which, lasting for some
moments, revealed him standing amidst them, gaunt, haggard, and motionless; his
hair and beard untrimmed, his face ghastly, his eyes large and hollow. The light
seemed to gather around him as a centre. Indeed some believed that it throbbed
and radiated from his person, and not from the stormy heavens above them. The
lightning had rent the wall of his prison, and released the iron staple of his
chain, which he had wound about him like a girdle. In his hand he carried an
iron fetter-bar, which he had found on the floor of the vault. More terrified at
his aspect than at all the violence of the storm, the visitors, with many a
shriek and cry, rushed out into the tempestuous night. By degrees, the storm
died away. Its last flash revealed the forms of the brothers and sisters lying
prostrate, with their faces on the floor, and that fearful shape standing
motionless amidst them still.
Morning dawned, and there they lay, and there he stood. But at a word from him,
they arose and went about their various duties, though listlessly enough. The
eldest sister was the last to rise; and when she did, it was only by a terrible
effort that she was able to reach her room, where she fell again on the floor.
There she remained lying for days. The brother caused the doors of the great
suite of rooms to be closed, leaving them just as they were, with all the
childish adornment scattered about, and the rain still falling in through the
shattered windows. "Thus let them lie," said he, "till the rain and frost have
cleansed them of paint and drapery: no storm can hurt the pillars and arches of
these halls."
The hours of this day went heavily. The storm was gone, but the rain was left;
the passion had departed, but the tears remained behind. Dull and dark the low
misty clouds brooded over the castle and the lake, and shut out all the
neighbourhood. Even if they had climbed to the loftiest known turret, they would
have found it swathed in a garment of clinging vapour, affording no refreshment
to the eye, and no hope to the heart. There was one lofty tower that rose sheer
a hundred feet above the rest, and from which the fog could have been seen lying
in a grey mass beneath; but that tower they had not yet discovered, nor another
close beside it, the top of which was never seen, nor could be, for the highest
clouds of heaven clustered continually around it. The rain fell continuously,
though not heavily, without; and within, too, there were clouds from which
dropped the tears which are the rain of the spirit. All the good of life seemed
for the time departed, and their souls lived but as leafless trees that had
forgotten the joy of the summer, and whom no wind prophetic of spring had yet
visited. They moved about mechanically, and had not strength enough left to wish