"GL4" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol12)

canker. If he eats its fruit, he does it no injury. It produces fruit
more abundantly than it needs for its own purpose: the con-
tinuing of its kind.'
'Let him eat the fruit then, or play with it,' said Saelon. 'But I
spoke of slaying: hewing and burning; and by what right men
do such things to trees.'
'You did not. You spoke of the judgement of trees in these
matters. But trees are not judges. The children of the One are
the masters. My judgement as one of them you know already.
The evils of the world were not at first in the great Theme, but
entered with the discords of Melkor. Men did not come with
these discords; they entered afterwards as a new thing direct
from Eru, the One, and therefore they are called His children,
and all that was in the Theme they have, for their own good,
the right to use - rightly, without pride or wantonness, but with
reverence.(10)
'If the smallest child of a woodman feels the cold of winter,
the proudest tree is not wronged, if it is bidden to surrender its
flesh to warm the child with fire. But the child must not mar
the tree in play or spite, rip its bark or break its branches. And

the good husbandman will use first, if he can, dead wood or an
old tree; he will not fell a young tree and leave it to rot, for no
better reason than his pleasure in axe-play. That is orkish.
'But it is even as I said: the roots of Evil lie deep, and from far
off comes the poison that works in us, so that many do these
things - at times, and become then indeed like the servants of
Melkor. But the Orcs did these things at all times; they did harm
with delight to all things that could suffer it, and they were
restrained only by lack of power, not by either prudence or
mercy. But we have spoken enough of this.'
'Why!' said Saelon. 'We have hardly begun. It was not of your
orchard, nor your apples, nor of me, that you were thinking
when you spoke of the re-arising of the dark tree. What you
were thinking of, Master Borlas, I can guess nonetheless. I have
eyes and ears, and other senses, Master.' His voice sank low and
could scarcely be heard above the murmur of a sudden chill
wind in the leaves, as the sun sank behind Mindolluin. 'You
have heard then the name?' With hardly more than breath he
formed it. 'Of Herumor?'(11)
Borlas looked at him with amazement and fear. His mouth
made tremulous motions of speech, but no sound came from it.
'I see that you have,' said Saelon. 'And you seem astonished
to learn that I have heard it also. But you are not more aston-
ished than I was to see that this name has reached you. For, as I
say, I have keen eyes and ears, but yours are now dim even for
daily use, and the matter has been kept as secret as cunning
could contrive.'
'Whose cunning?' said Borlas, suddenly and fiercely. The
sight of his eyes might be dim, but they blazed now with anger.