"Smith, Clark Ashton - Tales of Averoigne" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Clark Ashton)

of husbands. His lack of suspicion, perhaps, was partly lack of
imagination; and, for the rest, was doubtless due to the dulling of his
observational faculties by the heavy wines of Averoigne. At any rate, he
had never seen anything amiss in the friendship of his wife, Adele, with
Olivier du Montoir, a young poet who might in time have rivalled
Ronsard as one of the most brilliant luminaries of the Pleiade, if it had
not been for an unforeseen but fatal circumstance. Indeed, M. le
Comte had been rather proud than otherwise, because of the interest
shown in Mme. la Comtesse by this erudite and comely youth, who
had already moistened his lips at the fount of Helicon and was
becoming known throughout other provinces than Averoigne for his
melodious villanelles and graceful ballades. Nor was Raoul disturbed
by the fact that many of these same villanelles and ballades were
patently written in celebration of Adele's visible charms, and made
liberal mention of her wine-dark tresses, her golden eyes, and sundry
other details no less alluring, and equally essential to feminine
perfection. M. le Comte did not pretend to understand poetry: like
many others, he considered it something apart frorn all common sense
or mundane relevancy; and his mental powers became totally paralysed
whenever they were confronted by anything in rhyme and metre. In the
meanwhile, the ballades and their author were gradually waxing in
boldness.
That year, the snows of an austere winter had melted away in a
week of halcyon warmth; and the land was filled with the tender green
and chrysolite and chrysoprase of early spring. Olivier came oftener
and oftener to the chateau de la Frenaie, and he and Adele were often
alone, since they had so much to talk that was beyond the interests or
the comprehension of M. le Comte. And now, sometimes, they walked
abroad in the forest about the chateau the forest that rolled a sea of
vernal verdure almost to the grey walls and barbican, and within whose
sun-warm glades the perfume of the first wild flowers was tingeing
delicately the quiet air. If people gossiped, they did so discreetly and
beyond hearing of Raoul, or of Adele and Olivier..я
All things being as they were, it is hard to know just why M. le
Comte became suddenly troubled concerning the integrity of his
marital honour. Perhaps, in some interim of the hunting and drinking
between which he divided nearly all his time, he had noticed that his
wife was growing younger and fairer and was blooming as a woman
never blooms except to the magical sunlight of love. Perhaps he had
caught some glance of ardent or affectionate understanding between
Adele and Olivier; or, perhaps, it was the infuence of the premature
spring, which had pierced the vinous muddlernent of his brain with an
obscure stirring of forgotten thoughts and emotions, and thus had
given him a flash of insight. At any rate, he was troubled when, on this
afternoon of earliest April, he returned to the chateau from Vyones,
where he had gone on business, and learned from his servitors that
Mme. la Comtesse and Olivier du Montoir had left a few minutes
previously for a promenade in the forest. His dull face, however,
betrayed little. He seemed to reflect for a moment. Then:
'Which way did they go? I have reason to see Mme. la Cormtesse at