"Montgomery, Lucy Maud - Anne Of Green Gables" - читать интересную книгу автора (Montgomery Lucy Maud)

The "Avenue," so called by the Newbridge people, was a stretch of
road four or five hundred yards long, completely arched over with huge,
wide-spreading apple-trees, planted years ago by an eccentric old farmer.
Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the boughs the
air was full of a purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse of painted
sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a cathedral aisle.
Its beauty seemed to strike the child dumb. She leaned back in the
buggy, her thin hands clasped before her, her face lifted rapturously to
the white splendor above. Even when they had passed out and were driving
down the long slope to Newbridge she never moved or spoke. Still with rapt
face she gazed afar into the sunset west, with eyes that say visions
trooping splendidly across that glowing background. Through Newbridge, a
bustling little village where dogs barked at them and small boys hooted
and curious faces peered from the windows, they drove, still in silence.
When three more miles had dropped away behind them the child had not
spoken. She could keep silence, it was evident, as energetically as she
could talk.
"I guess you're feeling pretty tired and hungry," Matthew ventured to
say at last, accounting for her long visitation of dumbness with the only
reason he could think of. "But we haven't very far to go now-only another
mile."
She came out of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with
the dreamy gaze of a soul that had been wondering afar, star-led.
"Oh, Mr. Cuthbert," she whispered, "that place we came through-that
white place-what was it?"
"Well now, you must mean the Avenue," said Matthew after a few
moments' profound reflection. "It is a kind of pretty place."
"Pretty? Oh, PRETTY doesn't seem the right word to use. Nor
beautiful, either. They don't go far enough. Oh, it was
wonderful-wonderful. It's the first thing I ever saw that couldn't be
improved upon by imagination. It just satisfies me here"-she put one hand
on her breast-"it made a queer funny ache and yet it was a pleasant ache.
Did you ever have an ache like that, Mr. Cuthbert?"
"Well now, I just can't recollect that I ever had."
"I have it lots of time-whenever I see anything royally beautiful.
But they shouldn't call that lovely place the Avenue. There is no meaning
in a name like that. They should call it-let me see-the White Way of
Delight. Isn't that a nice imaginative name? When I don't like the name of
a place or a person I always imagine a new one and always think of them
so. There was a girl at the asylum whose name was Hepzibah Jenkins, but I
always imagined her as Rosalia DeVere. Other people may call that place
the Avenue, but I shall always call it the White Way of Delight. Have we
really only another mile to go before we get home? I'm glad and I'm sorry.
I'm sorry because this drive has been so pleasant and I'm always sorry
when pleasant things end. Something still pleasanter may come after, but
you can never be sure. And it's so often the case that it isn't
pleasanter. That has been my experience anyhow. But I'm glad to think of
getting home. You see, I've never had a real home since I can remember. It
gives me that pleasant ache again just to think of coming to a really
truly home. Oh, isn't that pretty!"