"John Kessel - Pride and Prometheus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kessel John)

study with Mr. Krempe and Mr. Waldman in Ingolstadt.”

“You no longer countenance the subject, yet you seek out Mr.
Langdon.”

A shadow swept over Mr. Frankenstein’s handsome face. “It is
unsupportable to me, yet pursue it I must.”

“A paradox.”

“A paradox that I am unable to explain, Miss Bennet.”

All this said in a voice heavy with despair. Mary watched his sober
black eyes, and replied, “‘The heart has its reasons of which reason knows
nothing.’”

For the second time that evening he gave her a look that suggested
an understanding. Frankenstein sipped from his cup, then spoke: “Avoid
any pastime, Miss Bennet, that takes you out of the normal course of
human contact. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to
weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for simple pleasures,
then that study is certainly unlawful.”

The purport of this extraordinary speech Mary was unable to fathom.
“Surely there is no harm in seeking knowledge.”

Mr. Frankenstein smiled. “Henry has been urging me to go out into
London society; had I known that I might meet such a thoughtful person as
yourself I would have taken him up on it long ere now.”

He took her hand. “But I spy your aunt at the door,” he said. “No doubt
she has been dispatched to protect you. If you will, please let me return you
to your mother. I must thank you for the dance, and even more for your
conversation, Miss Bennet. In the midst of a foreign land, you have brought
me a moment of sympathy.”

And again Mary sat beside her mother and aunt as she had half an
hour before. She was nonplused. It was not seemly for a stranger to speak
so much from the heart to a woman he had never previously met, yet she
could not find it in herself to condemn him. Rather, she felt her own failure
in not keeping him longer.

A cold March rain was falling when, after midnight, they left the ball.
They waited under the portico while the coachman brought round the
carriage. Kitty began coughing. As they stood there in the chill night, Mary
noticed a hooded man, of enormous size, standing in the shadows at the
corner of the lane. Full in the downpour, unmoving, he watched the town
house and its partiers without coming closer or going away, as if this
observation were all his intention in life. Mary shivered.