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

"It is nice for you in your home," said Lancelot peculiarly.
"But what?"
"I have no home."
"Never mind, Lance, you will. Wait until you are my age, and then start worrying about it."
"It is not," said the Queen, "as if every woman you met didn't chase you for miles."
"With a hatchet," added Arthur.
"Half of them actually propose."
"And then you complain about not having a home."
Lancelot began to laugh, and the last strand of tension seemed to have broken.
"Would you," he asked, "marry a woman who chased you with a hatchet?"
The King considered the matter gravely before he answered.
"I couldn't do that," he said in the end, "because I am married already."
"To Gwen," said Lancelot.
It was peculiar. They seemed to have started talking with meanings which were separate from the words
they used. It was like ants talking with their antennae.
"To Queen Guenever," said the King, in contradiction. "Or Jenny?" suggested the Queen. "Yes," he
agreed, but only after a long pause, "or Jenny,"
There was a deeper silence, until Lancelot rose for the second time. "Well, I must go." Arthur put one
hand on his arm. "No, Lance, stay a minute. I want to tell Guenever something this evening, and I would
like you to hear it too. We have been together such a long time. I want to make a ciean breast about an
old business to both of you, because you are one of the family." Lancelot sat down.
"That's right. Now give me a hand each, both of you, and I shall sit between you like this. There. My
Queen and my Lance, and neither of you is to blame me for what I am going to tell."

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Lancelot said bitterly: "We are not in a position to blame people. King,"
"No? Well, I don't know what you mean by that; but I want to tell you the story of something which I
did when I was yoong. It was before I was married to Gwen, and long before you were knighted. Will
you mind if I do that?" "Of course we shan't mind, if you want to." "But we don't believe you did
anything wrong." "It started before I was born, really, for my father fell in love with the Countess of
Cornwall, and killed the Earl in order to get her. She was my mother. You know that part of the story."
"Yes,"
"Perhaps you didn't know that I was born at rather an awkward date. It was too soon after the marriage
of my father and mother. That was why they hushed me up altogether, and sent me off in my swaddling
bands to be brought up by Sir Ector. Merlyn was the person who took me." "And then," said Lancelot
cheerfully, "you were brought back to court when your father died, and pulled a magic sword out of a
stone, which proved that you were the rightful King born of all England, and lived happily ever
afterward, and that was the end of that. I don't call it a bad story."
"Unfortunately that was not the end."
"How?"
"Well, my dears, I was taken away from my mother the moment I was born, and she never knew where I
was taken. Nor did I know who my mother was. The only people who knew the relationship between us
were Uther Pendragon and Merlyn. Many years afterward, when I was already a king, I met my mother's
family, still without knowing who they were. Uther was dead, and Merlyn was always so muddled with
his second sight that he had forgotten to tell me, and so we met as strangers. I thought that one of them
was clever and handsome."
"The famous Cornwall sisters," mentioned the Queen coldly.