Читать книгу The Complete Works of Algernon Blackwood. Novels, Short Stories, Horror Classics, Occult & Supernatural Tales, Plays онлайн

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'Months, Nixie?'

'Oh, yes, a single breath is months long,' she whispered, her eyes growing in size, and darkening with wonder and awe. 'Pouf lies on me and breathe twice to my once, but I breathe millions of times ever so many millions—as I lie on the earth's body,' And it breathes in and out just as Pouf and I do. Winter is breathing in, and summer is breathing out, you see.'

'So the equinoctial gales are the changes from one breath to the other?' he put in gravely.

'I hadn't thought about the—the gales,' she said, putting her face closer and lowering her voice, 'but I know that in the summer I often hear the earth breathing out—'specially on still warm nights when everything lies awake and listens for it.'

'Then do, 'Things really listen as we do?' he asked gently.

'Not 'xactly as we do. We only listen in one place—our ears. They listen all over. But they're alive just the same, though so much quieter. Oh, Uncle Paul, everything is alive; everything, I know it!' She fixed a searching look on him. 'You knew that, didn't you?'