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

coming, as Miss Westenra was not so well, and that I should let him
know if need be."

"Right, my friend," he said, "quite right! Better he not know as
yet; perhaps he shall never know. I pray so; but if it be needed, then
he shall know all. And, my good friend John, let me caution you. You
deal with the madmen. All men are mad in some way or the other; and
inasmuch as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with God's
madmen, too- the rest of the world. You tell not your madmen what
you do nor why you do it; you tell them not what you think. So you
shall keep knowledge in its place, where it may rest- where it may
gather its kind around it and breed. You and I shall keep as yet
what we know here, and here." He touched me on the heart and on the
forehead, and then touched himself the same way. "I have for myself
thoughts at the present. Later I shall unfold to you."

"Why not now?" I asked. "It may do some good; we may arrive at
some decision." He stopped and looked at me, and said:-

"My friend John, when the corn is grown, even before it has ripened-
while the milk of its mother-earth is in him, and the sunshine has not
yet begun to paint him with his gold, the husbandman he pull the ear
and rub him between his rough hands, and blow away the green chaff,
and say to you: 'Look! he's good corn; he will make good crop when the
time comes.'" I did not see the application, and told him so. For
reply he reached over and took my ear in his hand and pulled it
playfully, as he used long ago to do at lectures, and said: "The
good husbandman tell you so then because he knows, but not till
then. But you do not find the good husbandman dig up his planted
corn to see if he grow; that is for the children who play at
husbandry, and not for those who take it as of the work of their life.
See you now, friend John? I have sown my corn, and Nature has her work
to do in making it sprout; if he sprout at all, there's some
promise; and I wait till the ear begins to swell." He broke off, for
he evidently saw that I understood. Then he went on, and very
gravely:-

"You were always a careful student, and your case-book was ever more
full than the rest. You were only student then; now you are master,
and I trust that good habit have not fail. Remember, my friend, that
knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker.
Even if you have not kept the good practise, let me tell you that this
case of our dear miss is one that may be- mind, I say may be- of
such interest to us and others that all the rest may not make him kick
the beam, as your peoples say. Take then good note of it. Nothing is
too small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and
surmises. Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you
guess. We learn from failure, not from success!"

When I described Lucy's symptoms- the same as before, but infinitely