Читать книгу Walda. A Novel онлайн

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He spoke simply, but there was a little quaver in his voice, and he turned his head away.

Everett rose and began to pace up and down the porch. The humble tragedy in the life of the man of Zanah touched him and made him feel ashamed of his own paltry aims.

“Do you mean that you illuminated their books?” he asked.

Gerson Brandt shook his head.

“Not at first. I still loved beauty. I yet had ambition, and it was long before I could trust myself to use the colors. I had a hard discipline. For years I have made the designs for the blue calicoes that the mills turn out.”

“By Jove! I don’t know how a man can surrender all his ambitions. I cannot make it out,” Everett exclaimed, pausing before the gentle school-master. “How long have you been in Zanah?”

“Fifteen years. I was two-and-twenty when I came. Some day, before I die, I mean to go out to see what changes have taken place. I know that men are doing marvellous things, for sometimes I talk to strangers. But it is better not to know the world, for it gives a man so many interests he forgets his God.” Gerson Brandt hesitated a moment. “Even under the protection of Zanah it is hard for a man to subdue all the human forces within him,” he added.