"Г.К.Честертон. The Scandal of Father Brown " - читать интересную книгу автора

cares no more for that little poet than if he were her publisher or her
publicity man. That's just the point - he was her publicity man. It's your
newspapers that have ruined her; it's living in the limelight; it's wanting
to see herself in the headlines, even in a scandal if it were only
sufficiently psychic and superior. It's wanting to be George Sand, her name
immortally linked with Alfred de Musset. When her real romance of youth was
over, it was the sin of middle age that got hold of her; the sin of
intellectual ambition. She hasn't got any intellect to speak of; but you
don't need any intellect to be an intellectual.'
'I should say she was pretty brainy in one sense,' observed Rock
reflectively.
'Yes, in one sense,' said Father Brown. 'In only one sense. In a
business sense. Not in any sense that has anything to do with these poor
lounging Dagos down here. You curse the Film Stars and tell me you hate
romance. Do you suppose the Film Star, who is married for the fifth time, is
misled by any romance? Such people are very practical; more practical than
you are. You say you admire the simple solid Business Man. Do you suppose
that Rudel Romanes isn't a Business Man? Can't you see he knew, quite as
well as she did, the advertising advantages of this grand affair with a
famous beauty. He also knew very well that his hold on it was pretty
insecure; hence his fussing about and bribing servants to lock doors. But
what I mean to say, first and last, is that there'd be a lot less scandal if
people didn't idealize sin and pose as sinners. These poor Mexicans may seem
sometimes to live like beasts, or rather sin like men; but they don't go in
for Ideals. You must at least give them credit for that.'
He sat down again, as abruptly as he had risen, and laughed
apologetically. 'Well, Mr Rock,' he said, 'that is my complete confession;
the whole horrible story of how I helped a romantic elopement. You can do
what you like with it.'
'In that case,' said Rock, rising, 'I will go to my room and make a few
alterations in my report. But, first of all, I must ring up my paper and
tell them I've been telling them a pack of lies.'
Not much more than half an hour had passed, between the time when Rock
had telephoned to say the priest was helping the poet to run away with the
lady, and the time when he telephoned to say that the priest had prevented
the poet from doing precisely the same thing. But in that short interval of
time was born and enlarged and scattered upon the winds the Scandal of
Father Brown. The truth is still half an hour behind the slander; and nobody
can be certain when or where it will catch up with it. The garrulity of
pressmen and the eagerness of enemies had spread the first story through the
city, even before it appeared in the first printed version. It was instantly
corrected and contradicted by Rock himself, in a second message stating how
the story had really ended; but it was by no means certain that the first
story was killed. A positively incredible number of people seemed to have
read the first issue of the paper and not the second. Again and again, in
every corner of the world, like a flame bursting from blackened ashes, there
would appear the old tale of the Brown Scandal, or Priest Ruins Potter Home.
Tireless apologists of the priest's party watched for it, and patiently
tagged after it with contradictions and exposures and letters of protest.
Sometimes the letters were published in the papers; and sometimes they were