"Meredith, George - The Gentleman of Fifty" - читать интересную книгу автора (Meredith George)

explain the phenomenon of his appearance there, suggested that he might
have walked in, the victim of a fit of abstraction, and that he had not
yet fully comprehended his plight; but this idea was dispersed when I
beheld the very portly lady, his partner in joy and adversity, standing
immersed, and perfectly attired, some short distance nearer to the bank.
As I advanced along the bank opposed to them, I was further amazed to
hear them discoursing quite equably together, so that it was impossible
to say on the face of it whether a catastrophe had occurred, or the great
heat of a cloudless summer day had tempted an eccentric couple to seek
for coolness in the directest fashion, without absolute disregard to
propriety. I made a point of listening for the accentuation of the
'my dear' which was being interchanged, but the key-note to the harmony
existing between husband and wife was neither excessively unctuous, nor
shrewd, and the connubial shuttlecock was so well kept up on both sides
that I chose to await the issue rather than speculate on the origin of
this strange exhibition. I therefore, as I could not be accused of an
outrage to modesty, permitted myself to maintain what might be
invidiously termed a satyr-like watch from behind a forward flinging
willow, whose business in life was to look at its image in a brown depth,
branches, trunk, and roots. The sole indication of discomfort displayed
by the pair was that the lady's hand worked somewhat fretfully to keep
her dress from ballooning and puffing out of all proportion round about
her person, while the vicar, who stood without his hat, employed a spongy
handkerchief from time to time in tempering the ardours of a vertical
sun. If you will consent to imagine a bald blackbird, his neck being
shrunk in apprehensively, as you may see him in the first rolling of the
thunder, you will gather an image of my friend's appearance.

He performed his capital ablutions with many loud 'poofs,' and a casting
up of dazzled eyes, an action that gave point to his recital of the
invocation of Chryses to Smintheus which brought upon the Greeks disaster
and much woe. Between the lines he replied to his wife, whose remarks
increased in quantity, and also, as I thought, in emphasis, under the
river of verse which he poured forth unbaffled, broadening his chest to
the sonorous Greek music in a singular rapture of obliviousness.

A wise man will not squander his laughter if he can help it, but will
keep the agitation of it down as long as he may. The simmering of humour
sends a lively spirit into the mind, whereas the boiling over is but a
prodigal expenditure and the disturbance of a clear current: for the
comic element is visible to you in all things, if you do but keep your
mind charged with the perception of it, as I have heard a great expounder
deliver himself on another subject; and he spoke very truly. So, I
continued to look on with the gravity of Nature herself, and I could not
but fancy, and with less than our usual wilfulness when we fancy things
about Nature's moods, that the Mother of men beheld this scene with half
a smile, differently from the simple observation of those cows whisking
the flies from their flanks at the edge of the shorn meadow and its
aspens, seen beneath the curved roof of a broad oak-branch. Save for
this happy upward curve of the branch, we are encompassed by breathless