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

"My marriage cost me twenty-one dollars--I worked in the corn--it
rained and the horses were blind--the clerk said, 'Are you over twenty-
one?' I said 'yes' and she said 'yes.' We had chalked it on our shoes.
My father said, 'I give you your freedom.' We had no money. My marriage
cost twenty-one dollars. She is dead."

The old man looked at the sky. It was evening and the sun had set. The
sky was all mottled with grey clouds. "I paint beautiful pictures and
give them away," he declared. "My brother is in the penitentiary. He
killed a man who called him an ugly name."

The decrepit old man held his hands before the face of the stranger. He
opened and shut them. They were black with grime. "I pick out warts,"
he explained plaintively. "They are as soft as your hands."

"I play on an accordion. You are thirty-seven years old. I sat beside
my brother in the penitentiary. He is a pretty man with pompadour hair.
'Albert' I said, 'are you sorry you killed a man?' 'No,' he said, 'I am
not sorry. I would kill ten, a hundred, a thousand!'"

The old man began to weep and to wipe his hands with a soiled
handkerchief. He attempted to take a chew of tobacco and his false
teeth became displaced. He covered his mouth with his hands and was
ashamed.

"I am old. You are thirty-seven years old but I am older than that," he
whispered.

"My brother is a bad man--he is full of hate--he is pretty and has
pompadour hair, but he would kill and kill. I hate old age--I am
ashamed that I am old.

"I have a pretty new wife. I wrote her four letters and she replied.
She came here and we married--I love to see her walk--O, I buy her
pretty clothes.

"Her foot is not straight--it is twisted--my first wife is dead--I pick
warts off the hand with my fingers and no blood comes--I cure coughs,
colds, consumption and the sickness that bleeds--people can write to me
and I answer the letters--if they send me no money it is no matter--all
is free."

Again the old man wept and the stranger tried to comfort him. "You are
a happy man?" the stranger asked.

"Yes," said the old man, "and a good man too. Ask everywhere about me--
my name is Tom, a blacksmith--my wife walks prettily although she has a
twisted foot--I have bought her a long dress--she is thirty and I am
seventy-five--she has many pairs of shoes--I have bought them for her,