"Dunsany, Lord - collection - A Dreamer's Tales- And Other Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

for homing ships, and a sunlit city stood upon its marge, and people walked
about the streets of it clad in the unimagined merchandise of far
sea-bordering lands.
An easy slope of loose rock went from the top of Poltarnees to the shore of
the Sea.
For a long while Athelvok stood there regretfully, knowing that there had
come something into his soul that no one in the Inner Lands could
understand, where the thoughts of their minds had gone no farther than the
three little kingdoms. Then, looking long upon the wandering ships, and the
marvelous merchandise from alien lands, and the unknown colour that wreathed
the brows of the Sea, he turned his face to the darkness and the Inner
Lands.
At that moment the Sea sang a dirge at sunset for all the harm that he had
done in anger and all the ruin wrought on adventurous ships; and there were
tears in the voice of the tyrannous Sea, for he had loved the galleons that
he had overwhelmed, and he called all men to h im and all living things that
he might make amends, because he had loved the bones that he had strewn
afar. And Athelvok turned and set one foot upon the crumbled slope, and then
another, and walked a little way to be nearer to the Sea, and then a dream
came upon him and he felt that men had wronged the lovely Sea because he had
been angry a little, because he had been sometimes cruel; he felt that there
was trouble among the tides of the Sea because he had loved the galleons who
were dead. Still he walked on and the crumbled stones rolled with him, and
just as the twilight faded and a star appeared he came to the golden shore,
and walked on till the surges were about his knees, and he heard the
prayer-like blessings of the Sea. Long he stood thus, while the stars came
out above him and shone again in the surges; more stars came wheeling in
their courses up from the Sea, lights twinkled out through all the haven
city, lanterns were slung from the ships, the purple night burned on; and
Earth, to the eyes of the gods as they sat afar, glowed as with one flame.
Then Athelvok went into the haven city; there he met many who had left the
Inner Lands before him; none of them wished to return to the people who had
not seen the Sea; many of them had forgotten the three little kingdoms, and
it was rumoured that one man, who had once tried to return, had found the
shifting, crumbled slope impossible to climb.
Hilnaric never married. But her dowry was set aside to build a temple
wherein men curse the ocean.
Once every year, with solemn rite and ceremony, they curse the tides of the
Sea; and the moon looks in and hates them.




A Dreamer's Tales -- Chapter 2 A Dreamer's Tales
By Lord Dunsany




BLAGDAROSS