"Шервуд Андерсен. Триумф яйца (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

As she remembered the incident Mary remembered also that on that
evening of her childhood she had met her father's advances in silence.
It seemed to her that she, not her father, was to blame for the life
they had led together. The farm laborer she had met on the bridge had
not felt her father's coldness. That was because he had himself been
warm and generous in his attitude toward the man who had cared for him
in his hour of sickness and misfortune. Her father had said that the
laborer knew how to be a father and Mary remembered with what warmth
the two boys fishing by the creek had called to her as she went away
into the darkness. "Their father has known how to be a father because
his children have known how to give themselves," she thought guiltily.
She also would give herself. Before the night had passed she would do
that. On that evening long ago and as she rode home beside her father
he had made another unsuccessful effort to break through the wall that
separated them. The heavy rains had swollen the streams they had to
cross and when they had almost reached town he had stopped the horse on
a wooden bridge. The horse danced nervously about and her father held
the reins firmly and occasionally spoke to him. Beneath the bridge the
swollen stream made a great roaring sound and beside the road in a long
flat field there was a lake of flood water. At that moment the moon had
come out from behind clouds and the wind that blew across the water
made little waves. The lake of flood water was covered with dancing
lights. "I'm going to tell you about your mother and myself," her
father said huskily, but at that moment the timbers of the bridge began
to crack dangerously and the horse plunged forward. When her father had
regained control of the frightened beast they were in the streets of
the town and his diffident silent nature had reasserted itself.

Mary sat in the darkness by the office window and saw her father drive
into the street. When his horse had been put away he did not, as was
his custom, come at once up the stairway to the office but lingered in
the darkness before the barn door. Once he started to cross the street
and then returned into the darkness.

Among the men who for two hours had been sitting and talking quietly a
quarrel broke out. Jack Fisher the town nightwatchman had been telling
the others the story of a battle in which he had fought during the
Civil War and Duke Yetter had begun bantering him. The nightwatchman
grew angry. Grasping his nightstick he limped up and down. The loud
voice of Duke Yetter cut across the shrill angry voice of the victim of
his wit. "You ought to a flanked the fellow, I tell you Jack. Yes sir
'ee, you ought to a flanked that reb and then when you got him flanked
you ought to a knocked the stuffings out of the cuss. That's what I
would a done," Duke shouted, laughing boisterously. "You would a raised
hell, you would," the night watchman answered, filled with ineffectual
wrath.

The old soldier went off along the street followed by the laughter of
Duke and his companions and Barney Smithfield, having put the doctor's