"Hope Mirrlees - Lud in the Mist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mirrlees Hope)

might he one day have in their presence?
Hence, at times, he would gaze on the present with the agonizing tenderness of one who gazes on the
past: his wife, sitting under the lamp embroidering, and retailing to him the gossip she had culled during
the day; or his little son, playing with the great mastiff on the floor.
This nostalgia for what was still there seemed to find a voice in the cry of the cock, which tells of the
plough going through the land, the smell of the country, the placid bustle of the farm, as happening now,
all round one; and which, simultaneously, mourns them as things vanished centuries ago.
From his secret poison there was, however, some sweetness to be distilled. For the unknown thing that
he dreaded could at times be envisaged as a dangerous cape that he had already doubled. And to lie
awake at night in his warm feather bed, listening to the breathing of his wife and the soughing of the trees,
would become, from this attitude, an exquisite pleasure.
He would say to himself, "How pleasant this is! How safe! How warm! What a difference from that
lonely heath when I had no cloak and the wind found the fissures in my doublet, and my feet were aching,
and there was not moon enough to prevent my stumbling, and IT was lurking in the darkness!" enhancing
thus his present well-being by imagining some unpleasant adventure now safe behind him.
This also was the cause of his taking a pride in knowing his way about his native town. For instance,
when returning from the Guildhall to his own house he would say to himself, "Straight across the
market-place, down Appleimp Lane, and round by the Duke Aubrey Arms into the High Street . . . I
know every step of the way, every step of the way!"
And he would get a sense of security, a thrill of pride, from every acquaintance who passed the time of
day with him, from every dog to whom he could put a name. "That's Wagtail, Goceline Flack's dog.
That's Mab, the bitch of Rackabite the butcher, I know them!"
Though he did not realise it, he was masquerading to himself as a stranger in Lud-in-the-Mist тАФ a
stranger whom nobody knew, and who was thus almost as safe as if he were invisible. And one always
takes a pride in knowing one's way about a strange town. But it was only this pride that emerged
completely into his consciousness.
The only outward expression of this secret fear was a sudden, unaccountable irascibility, when some
harmless word or remark happened to sting the fear into activity. He could not stand people saying,
"Who knows what we shall be doing this time next year?" and he loathed such expressions as "for the last
time," "never again," however trivial the context in which they appeared. For instance, he would snap his
wife's head off тАФ why, she could not think тАФ if she said, "Never again shall I go to that butcher," or
"That starch is a disgrace. It's the last time I shall use it for my ruffs."
This fear, too, had awakened in him a wistful craving for other men's shoes that caused him to take a
passionate interest in the lives of his neighbors; that is to say if these lives moved in a different sphere
from his own. From this he had gained the reputation тАФ not quite deserved тАФof being a very
warmhearted, sympathetic man, and he had won the heart of many a sea-captain, of many a farmer, of
many an old working-woman by the unfeigned interest he showed in their conversation. Their long,
meandering tales of humble normal lives were like the proverbial glimpse of a snug, lamp-lit parlour to a
traveller belated after nightfall.
He even coveted dead men's shoes, and he would loiter by the hour in the ancient burying-ground of
Lud-in-the-Mist, known from time immemorial as the Fields of Grammary. He could justify this habit by
pointing out the charming view that one got thence of both Lud and the surrounding country. But though
he sincerely loved the view, what really brought him there were such epitaphs as this:

HERE LIES EBENEEZOR SPIKE
BAKER
WHO HAVING PROVIDED THE CITIZENS
OF LUD-IN-THE-MIST FOR SIXTY YEARS
WITH FRESH SWEET LOAVES
DIED AT THE AGE OF EIGHTY-EIGHT