"Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Maypole of Merry Mount" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawthorne Nathaniel)

paid it a tribute of its own richest splendor. Its votaries danced
round it, once, at least, in every month; sometimes they called it
their religion, or their altar; but always, it was the banner staff of
Merry Mount.

Unfortunately, there were men in the new world of a sterner faith
than these Maypole worshippers. Not far from Merry Mount was a
settlement of Puritans, most dismal wretches, who said their prayers
before daylight, and then wrought in the forest or the corn-field till
evening made it prayer time again. Their weapons were always at hand
to shoot down the straggling savage. When they met in conclave, it was
never to keep up the old English mirth, but to hear sermons three
hours long, or to proclaim bounties on the heads of wolves and the
scalps of Indians. Their festivals were fast days, and their chief
pastime the singing of psalms. Wo to the youth or maiden who did but
dream of a dance! The selectman nodded to the constable; and there sat
the light-heeled reprobate in the stocks; or if he danced, it was
round the whipping-post, which might be termed the Puritan Maypole.

A party of these grim Puritans, toiling through the difficult
woods, each with a horseload of iron armor to burden his footsteps,
would sometimes draw near the sunny precincts of Merry Mount. There
were the silken colonists, sporting round their Maypole; perhaps
teaching a bear to dance, or striving to communicate their mirth to
the grave Indian; or masquerading in the skins of deer and wolves,
which they had hunted for that especial purpose. Often, the whole
colony were playing at blindman's buff, magistrates and all, with
their eyes bandaged, except a single scapegoat, whom the blinded
sinners pursued by the tinkling of the bells at his garments. Once, it
is said, they were seen following a flower-decked corpse, with
merriment and festive music, to his grave. But did the dead man laugh?
In their quietest times, they sang ballads and told tales, for the
edification of their pious visitors; or perplexed them with juggling
tricks; or grinned at them through horse collars; and when sport
itself grew wearisome, they made game of their own stupidity, and
began a yawning match. At the very least of these enormities, the
men of iron shook their heads and frowned so darkly that the revellers
looked up, imagining that a momentary cloud had overcast the sunshine,
which was to be perpetual there. On the other hand, the Puritans
affirmed that, when a psalm was pealing from their place of worship,
the echo which the forest sent them back seemed often like the
chorus of a jolly catch, closing with a roar of laughter. Who but
the fiend, and his bond slaves, the crew of Merry Mount, had thus
disturbed them? In due time, a feud arose, stern and bitter on one
side, and as serious on the other as anything could be among such
light spirits as had sworn allegiance to the Maypole. The future
complexion of New England was involved in this important quarrel.
Should the grizzly saints establish their jurisdiction over the gay
sinners, then would their spirits darken all the clime, and make it
a land of clouded visages, of hard toil, of sermon and psalm