"T. H. White - The Once and Future King" - читать интересную книгу автора (White T.H)

"And I don't want to have all this."
"If you would come with me to Joyous Gard it would be finished, once for all. We could live together
for our old age, anyway, and be happy, and not have to go on deceiving every day, and we should die in
peace."
"You said that Arthur knew all about it," she said, "and that we were not deceiving him at all."
"Yes, but it is different. I love Arthur and I can't stand it when I see him looking at me, and know that he
knows. You see, Arthur loves us."
"But, Lance, if you love him so much, what is the good of running away with his wife?"
"I want it to be in the open," he said stubbornly, "at least at the end,"
"Well, I don't want it to be."
"In fact," and now he was furious again, "what you really want is to have two husbands. Women always
want everything."
She declined the quarrel patiently.
"I don't want to have two husbands, and I am just as uncomfortable as you are: but what is the good of
being in the open? As we are now it is horrible, but at least Arthur knows about it inside himself, and we
still love each other and are safe. If I were to run away with you, the result would be that everything
would be broken. Arthur would have to declare war on you and lay siege to Joyous Gard, and then one


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or other of you would be killed, if not both, and hundreds of other people would be killed, and nobody
would be better off. Besides, I don't want to leave Arthur. When I married him, I promised to stay with
him, and he has always been kind to me, and I am fond of him. The least I can do is to go on giving him
a home, and helping him, even if I do love you too. I can't see the point of being in the open. Why
should we make Arthur publicly miserable?"
Neither of them had noticed, in the deepening twilight, that the King himself had come in as she was
speaking. Profiled against the window, they could see little of the room behind. But he had entered He
had stood for the fraction of a second collecting his wits, which had been far away considering the
Orkneys or some other matter of state. He had stopped in the curtained doorway, his pale hand with the
royal signet gleaming in the darkness as it held the tapestry asideтАФand then, without eavesdropping for
a moment, he had let the tapestry fall and disappeared. He had gone to find a page to announce him.
"The only decent thing," Lancelot was saying, twisting his hands together between his knees, "the only
decent thing would be for me to go away, and not come back. But my brain didn't stand it the other time,
when I tried."
"My poor Lance, if only we had not stopped singing! Now you are going to get into a state again, and
have one of your attacks. Why can't we leave everything alone, and let your famous God look after it? It
is no good trying to think, or do anything because it is right or wrong. I don't know what is right or
wrong. But can't we trust ourselves, and do what does itself, and hope for the best?"
"You are his wife and I am his friend."
"Well," she said, "who made us love each other?"
"Jenny, I don't know what to do."
"Then don't do anything. Come here and give me a kind kiss, and God will look after us both."
"My sweetheart!"
This time the page clattered up the stairs with the usual noise, in the way of pages, bringing light with
him at the same time. Arthur had ordered the candles.
The room glowed into colour round the lovers, who had released each other quickly. It began to show
the splendour of its hangings as the boy put fire to the wicks. The flowery meads and bird-fruitful