Читать книгу The Manor School онлайн

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But the dolls, with their dolls'-house for the respectable members of the family, and with their forests full of bandits, their crusades, their land of Palestine, their troubadours for the others, had had their day. Christian grew old enough to feel the glamour of the dolls depart. It was ridiculous to suppose that Abelard had really got that ghastly wound in his side, or that he had really lost his legs, fighting the Saracens. Yes, the dolls had had their day. But the fairy tales could be read and lived through, and she herself could be the heroine of adventure; and what a time she had when she was the voiceless Mermaid who loved a Prince and for his sake had her tongue cut out! Or how depressed she was when she acted the Ugly Duckling; and how she had, as the little Tin Soldier, adored the little Paper Princess!

But even the fairy-tale stage came to an end, and the history books had now their turn. Christian was William Tell, and her hand shook as she fired at the apple. Or she was Joan of Arc in prison, and putting on her armor when there was no one by to see. Or she was Charlotte Corday at the moment of her great inspiration. Or, again, she was on the way to the guillotine as that great hero of fiction, Sidney Carton.