Читать книгу Seven Gothic Tales онлайн

6 страница из 8

"...that rare, wild, broken and arrogant smile of the dying poet..." sounds again like a description of the spirit of the book. And this from "The Monkey" (a story guaranteed to addle your brains in the most powerful manner), when young Boris kisses the hand of his old aunt, the Chanoinesse, "...and all at once got such a terrible impression of strength and cunning that it was as if he had touched an electric eel. Women, he thought, when they are old enough to have done with the business of being women and can let loose their strength, must be the most powerful creatures in the whole world." And on the next page, when as he leaves he encounters a corpulent old countess, "...a gentle melancholy veiled her always and her lady companion said of her, 'The Countess Anastasia has a heavy cross. The love of eating is a heavy cross.'" And as he drives on to find Athena, "Now in the afternoon sun the trunks of the fir trees were burning red, and the landscape far away seemed cool, all blue and pale gold. Boris was able to believe what the old gardener at the convent had told him when he was a child; that he had once seen about this time of the year and the day, a herd of unicorns come out of the woods to graze upon the sunny slopes, the white and dappled mares rosy in the sun, treading daintily and looking around for their young, the old stallion, darker roan, sniffing and pawing the ground. The air here smelled of pine needles and toadstools and was so fresh that it made him yawn. And yet, he thought, it was different from the freshness of spring; the courage and gayety of it were tinged with despair. It was the finale of the symphony."