"Лорд Дансени. The Lost Silk Hat (Потерянная шелковая шляпа) (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

I cannot.
:
If you would tell me the reason perhaps I could help
you.
:
I cannot. I can never enter that house again.
:
If you have committed a murder, by all means tell me.
I am not sufficiently interested in ethics to wish to
have you hanged for it.
:
Do I look like a murderer?
:
No, of course not. I am only saying that you can
safely trust me, for not only does the statute book and
its penalties rather tend to bore me, and murder itself
has always had a certain fascination for me. I write
delicate and fastidious lyrics, yet, strange as it may
appear, I read every murder trial, and my sympathies
are always with the prisoner.
:
But I tell you I am not a murderer.
:
Then what have you done?
:
I have quarrelled with a lady in that house and have
sworn to join the Bosnians and die in Africa.
:
But this is beautiful.
:
Unfortunately I forgot my hat.
:
You go to die for a hopeless love, and in a far
country; it was the wont of the troubadours.
:
But will you get my hat for me?
:
That I will gladly do for you. But we must find an
adequate reason for entering the house.
:
You pretend to tune the piano.
:
That, unfortunately, is impossible. The sound of a
piano being unskillfully handled is to me what the
continual drop of cold water on the same part of the
head is said to be in countries where that interesting
torture is practiced. There is --
:
But what are we to do?
: