"stoker-dracula-168" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stoker Bram)

not yet been put in order after the winter snows. In this respect it
is different from the general run of roads in the Carpathians, for
it is an old tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order.
Of old the Hospadars would not repair them, lest the Turk should think
that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten the
war which was always really at loading point.

Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty
slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves.
Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full
upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this
beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks,
green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless
perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were
themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly.
Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as
the sun began to sink, we saw now and again the white gleam of falling
water. One of my companions touched my arm as we swept round the
base of a hill and opened up the lofty, snow-covered peak of a
mountain, which seemed, as we wound on our serpentine way, to be right
before us:-

"Look! Isten szek!"- "God's seat!"- and he crossed himself
reverently.

As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower
behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This
was emphasised by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held
the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink. Here and
there we passed Cszeks and Slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I
noticed that goitre was painfully prevalent. By the roadside were many
crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves.
Here and there was a peasant man or woman kneeling before a shrine,
who did not even turn round as we approached, but seemed in the
self-surrender of devotion to have neither eyes nor ears for the outer
world. There were many things new to me: for instance, hay-ricks in
the trees, and here and there very beautiful masses of weeping
birch, their white stems shining like silver through the delicate
green of the leaves. Now and again we passed a leiter-wagon- the
ordinary peasant's cart- with its long, snake-like vertebra,
calculated to suit the inequalities of the road. On this were sure
to be seated quite a group of home-coming peasants, the Cszeks with
their white, and the Slovaks with their coloured, sheepskins, the
latter carrying lance-fashion their long staves, with axe at end. As
the evening fell it began to get very cold, and the growing twilight
seemed to merge into one dark mistiness the gloom of the trees, oak,
beech, and pine, though in the valleys which ran deep between the
spurs of the hills, as we ascended through the Pass, the dark firs
stood out here and there against the background of late-lying snow.
Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in