The action of Charles Dickens's story "The Battle of Life" takes place in the middle XVIII century in a small town located near London. Dr. Jedler's family lives in this town.
The dramatization begins on the birthday of Mary, the doctor's youngest daughter. On this day, Dr. Jedler’s pupil, young Alfred Gitfeld, leaves for the continent to complete his education. He loves Mary, he is loved by her, and when he returns, they will get married. But it is today, on the cheerful day of her birthday and the sad day of Alfred’s departure abroad, that Mary is finally convinced that her older sister Grass also loves her fiancé, but hides her feelings for fear of interfering with the happiness of her younger sister. However, Alfred Gietfeld guesses that Grass loves him and, during a gala farewell dinner, makes a speech about the greatness of modest, unnoticed feats that are accomplished in the great “battle of life” by unnoticed, ordinary people who often sacrifice personal happiness for the happiness of the person they love. This speech makes a great impression on Mary, and she thinks about whether she has the right to accept Grass’s sacrifice, whether she loves Alfred deeply and seriously enough to accept such a sacrifice from her sister.
Several years pass. Mary has a new admirer, a certain Meikle Worden - a dissolute gentleman, a playmaker. About two months ago, his horse threw him out of the saddle right next to the fence of the doctor's garden and he was carried with a broken leg to the house of Doctor Jedler. The latter kept him with him for the entire duration of treatment, and this spendthrift and reveler fell in love with Mary. He is sure that the girl reciprocates his feelings, and is going to kidnap her, since he does not hope for the consent of Mary’s father.
The first scene of the second act takes place in the office of local notaries - Mr. Snitchey and Mr. Crags. They are both attorneys for Dr. Jedler and Meikle Worden. Having told them about his intention to marry Mary, Worden is interested in what income he can receive from his property at the disposal of the Snitch and Co. office. The lawyers tell him that he is completely ruined, that they recommend that he leave England from his creditors and not think about marrying Mary. They are convinced that she loves Alfred Gietfeld (by the way, they are also his attorneys) and will never secretly leave her father’s house.
In the second scene of the same act, Dr. Jedler, his two daughters and the faithful servants of this house - Clemency and Brittne - while away the time by the traditional fireplace in the living room. Mary reads out loud to everyone the old balla-
It’s about a certain Jenny, forced to leave her native home out of love for an unworthy person. Excitement and tears prevent her from finishing reading the ballad, and then a letter arrives with the news that in a month, just in time for Christmas, Alfred will return, having completed his education. Mary sees the joy the news of Alfred's return brings to Grass, and she goes to her room in confusion. Soon both Grass and the doctor go to their rooms. The remaining servants by the fireplace continue their conversation. Clemency dreams of marriage, but the phlegmatic Britan assures that she has “not a single chance of that.” A rustle in the garden interrupts their conversation. Brittne goes to see what's going on. During his absence, Mary appears in the room and demands that Clemency accompany her to an overnight date in the garden. “Who are you going to?” - asks her faithful maid. Instead of answering, the gloomy figure of Meikle Worden appears in the doorway leading to the garden.
Another month passes. Dr. Jedler, to celebrate Alfred's return, invited guests to a party. That same evening, by agreement with his lawyers, Meikle Worden was to leave England for six years. For this they promised to take custody of his estate and pay him six hundred pounds sterling annually.
That evening Mary decides to run away from home. And when finally the long-awaited guest, happy with his return to his native home, Alfred Gitfeld appears on the threshold, he is greeted by confused guests, and Grass falls unconscious in his arms.
"What's happened? - Young Doctor Gitfeld addresses everyone. - Mary died?
“She ran!” - one of the lawyers answers him.
“She ran away from her native shelter,” the father confirms the sad news, handing Alfred Mary’s letter, which Clemency gave him a few minutes ago.
“The world has aged another six years,” writes Charles Dickens in his story. The first scene of the fourth act is at the Terka Hotel at the entrance to the town. This hotel is run by Brittne and Clemency, who got married after they left the doctor's house. From their conversation we learn that the doctor initially took Mary’s departure very hard. But then he recovered and even became happier. This happened shortly after Grass married Alfred. Their conversation attracts the attention of a gloomy stranger who comes to the tavern for a glass of beer. “Have you heard anything about your youngest daughter since then?” - he suddenly asks Clemency a question. And she recognizes him by his voice. This is Meikle Warden.
"What with her? Where is she? Do you know anything about her? Where is she, sir? Why isn't she with you? - Clemency asks him, desperately worried. Silently, without answering anything, Warden turns away from her.
“She died!” - the faithful maid screams. Mr. Snitchey enters. Their meeting with Meikle Worden is sad. Yes, many have died over these six years. Mr. Snitch's companion, Mr. Crags, also died, and many others in this town.
“Still, you shouldn’t despair,” Mr. Snitchey consoles Clemency, “you must always wait until the next day. Wait until tomorrow, Mrs. Clemency."
This “tomorrow” is coming too. The same garden of Dr. Jedler in which the first act took place. Grass and Alfred remember the letters that Mary wrote to them from time to time. Especially the last one, in which she hinted that everything would soon be explained. And now we see Mary, led by her father’s arm. She reaches out to her sister, and we learn from Mary’s words that she loved Alfred six years ago, but realized that Grass loved him more, and then she allegedly ran away with Meikle Warden
from home. In fact, she spent all these six years with her aunt, Dr. Jedler's sister. She wrote to her father about all this as soon as she learned that Grass and Alfred were married. If she had not pretended to betray her feelings for Alfred six years ago, she is sure that neither he nor Grass would have accepted her sacrifice.
Meikle Worden arrives. All these years he thought about Mary's selfless act, completely changed his lifestyle and came to thank her and the doctor again for everything they had done for him. Clemency also comes, sees Mary alive and is convinced of the truth of Mr. Snitchey’s words that one should never lose faith in “tomorrow.”
The given topic “Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol” is so vast and fascinating that you will have to look into all its aspects. But first, it should be noted that under this name in 2009, the talented director Robert Zemeckis shot an unusually beautiful three-dimensional Disney cartoon. What attracted the director to Charles Dickens? “A Christmas Carol” is, first of all, a magnificent animated fairy tale, based on the work of the great, its original title “A Christmas Carol: yuletide story haunted."
Strange visions
The story was written in 1843 and later became one of the most popular Christmas stories that Charles Dickens ever wrote. The Christmas story that happened to the main character is simply amazing and makes each of us think about our behavior and actions.
However, one very surprising thing should be noted about the author of this work, who sometimes while working could spontaneously fall into a kind of trance, and at these moments he was subject to various visions, so he experienced common condition deja vu. There was another oddity about the writer, which was mentioned by the editor-in-chief of the Fortnightly Review publishing house. It turns out that the writer, before writing anything on paper, first heard the voices of his characters who came to him and talked to him. In any case, Charles Dickens himself told him about this. The Christmas story was probably also whispered into his ear by its main character, old man Scrooge.
It is impossible not to note the fascinating fairy-tale inclinations of the English writer, his wisdom and insight into the soul of every reader, young and old.
"A Christmas Carol": book, Charles Dickens
By the way, he was born in 1812 in Landport (Great Britain). The family had many children, his father was in prison for debts, and Charles himself worked in a factory that produced wax, then he learned shorthand and became a free reporter, and then literature became his main business. In this field, he very quickly reached the zenith of fame and was her favorite. During his lifetime, he became a wealthy man; fate did not skimp on gifts for him.
On June 9, 1870, at the age of 58, he died of a stroke. After his death, his fame eclipsed that of Byron, and his name was placed next to Shakespeare. Dickens has become a real cult for English literature. For all his life's troubles and peculiar martyrdom, he became widely known throughout the world, and above all, as a cheerful writer of good old England. His works almost always had a good ending, since he did not like to stir the hearts of vulnerable readers.
Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol": summary
The decrepit and gloomy old man Ebenezer Scrooge was very greedy. He had no other interests other than accumulation. And now Christmas is coming soon, but Ebenezer does not feel any joy about this, so he refuses his nephew’s invitation to come visit him and celebrate his favorite holiday with his family. The old man believes that on holidays, first of all, one should strive to get benefits, and not to have fun. He also never gave donations to poor children.
Christmas Eve
On Christmas Eve evening, with a creaky heart, he dismisses his clerk from work, closes the office and leisurely goes home. But suddenly the ghost of Jacob Marley appears before him - his late companion, who died just before Christmas seven years ago. Marley's spirit is exhausted, he complains to Scrooge and says that he is punished for not trying to do good and help people during his life. And now Marley doesn’t want his partner to suffer the same fate. Therefore, he warns that at night, for three days after midnight, three spirits will appear to Scrooge who will help him change his worthless and useless life. After this, the ghost says goodbye and disappears.
Tests
It must be said that Charles Dickens’s cartoon “A Christmas Carol” goes very closely next to the true plot of his book and looks, as they say, in one breath.
So, at midnight, the first Yule Spirit from past childhood years appears to Scrooge. And they set off on a journey to where he was born and raised, where he spent his youth and adolescence, where he was cheerful and happy and could share his good mood with people close to him. Then he sees himself already matured and in love, but greed and greed even then began to manifest themselves in him, and therefore his beloved girl was forced to break up with him and build family happiness with another. Scrooge at these moments softened, was moved and no longer wanted to look into the past. He asks the spirits to stop these unpleasant visions. The spirit disappears and Scrooge falls asleep.
Time travel
On the second night the second Holy Spirit appears to him and takes him to present time, and Scrooge sees the city preparing for the holiday. And then the Spirit leads him to the house of clerk Bob Cratchit, although he is poor and has many children, but the house is peaceful and everyone is having fun. His whole family was at the table, and Bob raised the first toast to his master Scrooge, but his wife noted that this old man was too nasty and an insensitive miser. At this time, the Spirit warns Scrooge that if he does not correct his behavior in the future, then Bob's son Tim faces death, since the boy is very sick. Then, together with the Spirit, they went to see their nephew, who is the only one in this city who does not hate his evil uncle. Time passed quickly, and Scrooge returned to his bed again.
Death
On the third night, the Spirit came to show the old man the future Christmastide, but he does not see himself either at the stock exchange or in other places and involuntarily begins to hear that people on the street are talking about the death of some obnoxious, grumpy and stingy old man. And suddenly Scrooge saw the dead man, but did not recognize his face, and soon realized that it was him, and there would be no next Christmas for him.
The spirit disappears, and Scrooge finds himself back at home. In the morning he decides to change himself into better side, he began to rejoice like a child and remembered about tomorrow's Christmas. He sends the most expensive goose to Bob and his family, donates money charitable organization and goes to celebrate the holiday with his dear nephew, who was sincerely happy about this event.
The next day of Christmas, Scrooge raises Bob's salary, and for his son, Tim, he becomes a second father and helps him cope with fatal disease. This is how the evil, grumpy and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge became the kindest and most generous person in the city, whom the whole city respected and loved. He managed to change his destiny and the destiny of the people who surrounded him for the better.
Cartoon
And now, if we talk about the topic “Charles Dickens: “A Christmas Carol”: review, reviews and impressions”, here, most likely, we can talk about a cartoon that certainly deserves special attention, because it is amazing, family-friendly and instructive. Viewers left the best reviews about him.
The director of the film, Robert Zemeckis, is simply a genius in special effects, he used innovative “digital capture” technology, which means that special sensors were installed on the actors, which provide unique technical capabilities: they accurately repeat facial expressions and movements, so the characters look very realistic . The 3D effect and first-class picture are simply amazing. And if you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check it out, you won’t regret it!
Charles Dickens
BATTLE OF LIFE
A Tale of Love
Part one
A long time ago, no matter when, in valiant England, no matter where, a fierce battle took place. It played out on a long summer day, when a lot of green trees were worrying wildflowers, created by the Almighty Hand to serve as fragrant cups for dew, felt that day how their shiny rims were filled to the brim with blood and, withering, drooped. Many insects, imitating harmless leaves and grasses with their delicate colors, were stained that day with the blood of dying people and, crawling away in fear, left unusual traces behind them. A motley butterfly carried blood into the air on the edges of its wings. The water in the river turned red. The trampled soil turned into a quagmire, and the muddy puddles that stood in the traces of human feet and horse hooves gleamed in the sun with that dark crimson glow.
God forbid that we see what the moon saw in this field, when, rising above the dark ridge of distant hills, unclear and blurred from the trees that crowned it, it rose into the sky and looked at the plain dotted with people who were now lying, motionless, with their faces up, and once upon a time, clinging to the mother’s breast, they looked for the mother’s eyes or rested in a sweet dream! God forbid that we should know the secrets that the stinking wind heard as it swept over the place where people fought that day and where death and torment reigned that night! More than once the lonely moon shone over the battlefield, and more than once the stars looked at it with sorrow; more than once winds flying from all four corners of the world blew over it before the traces of battle disappeared.
And they did not disappear for a long time, but manifested themselves only in small things, for Nature, which is higher than bad human passions, soon regained her lost serenity and smiled at the criminal battlefield as she smiled at it when it was still innocent. The larks sang high above him; swallows rushed back and forth, fell like stones, glided through the air; the shadows of the flying clouds quickly chased each other across the meadows and fields, through the forest and rutabaga field, but the roofs and bell tower of the town, drowned in gardens, and floated into the bright distance, to the edge of earth and sky, where the scarlet sunsets were extinguished. Bread was sown in the fields, and it ripened, and it was collected into the granaries; the river, once crimson with blood, now turned the wheel of a water mill; the plowmen walked behind the plow, whistling; mowers and grain gatherers calmly went about their work; sheep and oxen grazed in the pasture; the boys shouted and called to each other in the fields, scaring away the birds; smoke rose from the village chimneys; the Sunday bells rang peacefully; old people lived and died; timid field animals and modest flowers in bushes and gardens grew and died in their due time; and all this - on a terrible, blood-stained battlefield, where thousands of people died in a great battle.
But at first, thick green spots could be seen here and there among the growing wheat, and people looked at them in horror. Year after year they appeared in the same places, and it was known that in these fertile areas many people and horses, buried together, lay in the soil fertilized by their bodies. The farmers who plowed these places recoiled at the sight of the huge worms swarming there, and the sheaves compressed here were called “sheaves of battle” for many years and were stacked separately, and no one remembers that even one such “sheaf of battle” was laid together with the last ones collected from fields with sheaves and brought them to the Harvest Festival. For a long time, from each furrow made here, fragments of weapons appeared into the light of day. The wounded trees stood on the battlefield for a long time; For a long time, fragments of cut-down fences and destroyed walls lay in places of fierce battles; and not a blade of grass grew in the trampled areas. For a long time, not a single village girl dared to pin a flower from this killing field, even the most beautiful one, to her hair or bodice, and after many years people still believed that the berries growing there were left unnaturally dark spots on the hand that plucks them.
And yet, the years, although they glided one after another as easily as summer clouds across the sky, over time destroyed even these traces of a long-ago massacre and erased the legends about it in the memory of the surrounding residents, until they became like an old fairy tale, which vaguely remember winter evening at the fireplace, but every year they forget more and more. Where wildflowers and berries had grown untouched for so many years, gardens were now laid out, houses were built, and children played war on the lawns. The wounded trees had long ago been used for firewood that burned and crackled in the fireplaces, and finally burned out. The dark green spots in the bread were now no brighter than the memory of those who lay beneath them in the ground. From time to time, the plowshare still turned out pieces of rusty metal, but no one could guess what these fragments had once been, and those who found them were perplexed and argued about it among themselves. The old, battered armor and helmet had been hanging in the church above the whitewashed arch for so long that the decrepit, half-blind old man, trying in vain to see them now in the heights, recalled how he marveled at them as a child. If those killed here could come to life for a moment - each in his former appearance and each in the place where his untimely death overtook him, then hundreds of terrible mutilated warriors would look into the windows and doors of the houses; peaceful dwellings would arise at the hearth; they would fill barns and granaries like grain; would stand between the baby in the cradle and his nurse; they would float down the river, circle around the mill wheels, invade the orchard, cover up the entire meadow and lie in heaps among the haystacks. Thus the battlefield changed, where thousands and thousands of people fell in a great battle.
Nowhere, perhaps, has it changed so much as where, a hundred years before our time, a small fruit garden grew adjacent to an old stone house with a porch entwined with honeysuckle - a garden where, on one clear day, autumn morning there was music and laughter, and where two girls danced merrily with each other on the grass, and several village women, standing on ladders, picked apples from apple trees, sometimes taking time off from work to admire the girls. What a pleasant, cheerful, simple sight it was: a fine day, a secluded corner and two girls, spontaneous and carefree, dancing joyfully and carefree.
I think - and I hope you will agree with me - that if no one tried to show off themselves, we ourselves would live better, and communication with us would be incomparably more pleasant for others. How good it was to watch these dancing girls! They had no spectators, except for the apple pickers on the stairs. They were pleased to please the pickers, but they danced to please themselves (at least it seemed so from the outside), and it was just as impossible not to admire them as it was for them not to dance. And how they danced!
Not like ballet dancers. Not at all. And not like Madame So-and-So’s students who completed the course. Not to any extent. It was not a quadrille, but it was not a minuet, not even a peasant dance. They danced neither in the old style nor in the new one, not in french style and not in English, but, perhaps, a little in the Spanish style - although they themselves did not know it - and this, as I was told, is a free and joyful style, and its charm is that the sound of small castanets gives it the character of a charming and free improvisation. Easily spinning around each other, the girls danced under the trees of the garden, then descending into the grove, then returning to their original place, it seemed that their aerial dance spreads across the sunny expanse, like circles spreading across water. Their flowing hair and flowing skirts, the elastic grass under their feet, the branches rustling in the morning bustle, the bright foliage and its dappled shadows on the soft young earth, the fragrant wind blowing over the fields and willingly rotating the wings of the distant windmill, - in a word, everything, starting with both girls and ending with the distant plowman, who was plowing on a pair of horses, standing out so clearly against the sky, as if everything in the world ended with him - everything seemed to be dancing.
But then the youngest of the dancing sisters, out of breath and laughing merrily, rushed to the bench to rest. The other leaned against a nearby tree. The wandering musicians - a harpist and a violinist - fell silent, finishing the game with a brilliant passage - so they probably wanted to show that they were not at all tired, although, to tell the truth, they played at such a fast pace and were so zealous in competing with the dancers that they could not stand it maybe half a minute longer. A buzz of approval came from the stairs like bees, and the apple pickers, like bees, went back to work.
They took it all the more diligently, perhaps, because the elderly gentleman, none other than Dr. Jedler himself (you need to know that both the house and the garden belonged to Dr. Jedler, and the girls were his daughters), hastily left the house to find out what had happened and who , damn it, he made such a noise in his estate, and even before breakfast. He was great philosopher, this Dr. Jedler, and did not like music.
Part one
A long time ago, no matter when, in valiant England, no matter where, a fierce battle took place. It played out on a long summer day, when, worried and green, many wildflowers, created by the Almighty Hand to serve as fragrant cups for dew, felt that day how their shiny corollas filled to the brim with blood and, withering, drooped. Many insects, imitating harmless leaves and grasses with their delicate colors, were stained that day with the blood of dying people and, crawling away in fear, left unusual traces behind them. A motley butterfly carried blood into the air on the edges of its wings. The water in the river turned red. The trampled soil turned into a quagmire, and the muddy puddles that stood in the traces of human feet and horse hooves gleamed in the sun with that dark crimson glow.
God forbid that we see what the moon saw in this field, when, rising above the dark ridge of distant hills, unclear and blurred from the trees that crowned it, it rose into the sky and looked at the plain dotted with people who were now lying, motionless, with their faces up, and once upon a time, clinging to the mother’s breast, they looked for the mother’s eyes or rested in a sweet dream! God forbid that we should know the secrets that the stinking wind heard as it swept over the place where people fought that day and where death and torment reigned that night! More than once the lonely moon shone over the battlefield, and more than once the stars looked at it with sorrow; more than once winds flying from all four corners of the world blew over it before the traces of battle disappeared.
And they did not disappear for a long time, but appeared only in small things, for Nature, which is above the bad human passions, soon regained its lost serenity and smiled at the criminal battlefield, as she smiled at it when it was still innocent. The larks sang high above him; swallows rushed back and forth, fell like stones, glided through the air; the shadows of the flying clouds quickly chased each other across the meadows and fields, through the forest and rutabaga field, but the roofs and bell tower of the town, drowned in gardens, and floated into the bright distance, to the edge of earth and sky, where the scarlet sunsets were extinguished. Bread was sown in the fields, and it ripened, and it was collected into the granaries; the river, once crimson with blood, now turned the wheel of a water mill; the plowmen walked behind the plow, whistling; mowers and grain gatherers calmly went about their work; sheep and oxen grazed in the pasture; the boys shouted and called to each other in the fields, scaring away the birds; smoke rose from the village chimneys; the Sunday bells rang peacefully; old people lived and died; timid field animals and modest flowers in bushes and gardens grew and died in their due time; and all this - on a terrible, blood-stained battlefield, where thousands of people died in a great battle.
But at first, thick green spots could be seen here and there among the growing wheat, and people looked at them in horror. Year after year they appeared in the same places, and it was known that in these fertile areas many people and horses, buried together, lay in the soil fertilized by their bodies. The farmers who plowed these places recoiled at the sight of the huge worms swarming there, and the sheaves compressed here were called “sheaves of battle” for many years and were stacked separately, and no one remembers that even one such “sheaf of battle” was laid together with the last ones collected from fields with sheaves and brought them to the Harvest Festival. For a long time, from each furrow made here, fragments of weapons appeared into the light of day. The wounded trees stood on the battlefield for a long time; For a long time, fragments of cut-down fences and destroyed walls lay in places of fierce battles; and not a blade of grass grew in the trampled areas. For a long time, not a single village girl dared to pin a flower from this killing field, even the most beautiful one, to her hair or bodice, and after many years people still believed that the berries growing there left unnaturally dark stains on the hand that plucked them.
And yet, the years, although they glided one after another as easily as summer clouds across the sky, over time destroyed even these traces of a long-ago massacre and erased the legends about it in the memory of the surrounding residents, until they became like an old fairy tale, which they vaguely remember on a winter evening by the fireplace, but every year they forget more and more. Where wildflowers and berries had grown untouched for so many years, gardens were now laid out, houses were built, and children played war on the lawns. The wounded trees had long ago been used for firewood that burned and crackled in the fireplaces, and finally burned out. The dark green spots in the bread were now no brighter than the memory of those who lay beneath them in the ground. From time to time, the plowshare still turned out pieces of rusty metal, but no one could guess what these fragments had once been, and those who found them were perplexed and argued about it among themselves. The old, battered armor and helmet had been hanging in the church above the whitewashed arch for so long that the decrepit, half-blind old man, trying in vain to see them now in the heights, recalled how he marveled at them as a child. If those killed here could come to life for a moment - each in his former appearance and each in the place where his untimely death overtook him, then hundreds of terrible mutilated warriors would look into the windows and doors of the houses; peaceful dwellings would arise at the hearth; they would fill barns and granaries like grain; would stand between the baby in the cradle and his nurse; they would float down the river, circle around the mill wheels, invade the orchard, cover up the entire meadow and lie in heaps among the haystacks. Thus the battlefield changed, where thousands and thousands of people fell in a great battle.
Nowhere, perhaps, has it changed so much as where, a hundred years before our time, a small fruit garden grew adjacent to an old stone house with a porch entwined with honeysuckle - a garden where music and laughter sounded on one clear autumn morning and where two girls danced merrily with each other on the grass, and several village women, standing on ladders, picked apples from apple trees, sometimes looking up from their work to admire the girls. What a pleasant, cheerful, simple sight it was: a fine day, a secluded corner and two girls, spontaneous and carefree, dancing joyfully and carefree.
I think - and I hope you will agree with me - that if no one tried to show off themselves, we ourselves would live better, and communication with us would be incomparably more pleasant for others. How good it was to watch these dancing girls! They had no spectators, except for the apple pickers on the stairs. They were pleased to please the pickers, but they danced to please themselves (at least it seemed so from the outside), and it was just as impossible not to admire them as it was for them not to dance. And how they danced!
Not like ballet dancers. Not at all. And not like Madame So-and-So’s students who completed the course. Not to any extent. It was not a quadrille, but it was not a minuet, not even a peasant dance. They danced not in the old style and not in the new, not in the French style and not in the English, but, perhaps, a little in the Spanish style - although they themselves did not know it - and this, as I was told, is a free and joyful style , and its charm is that the sound of small castanets gives it the character of a charming and free improvisation. Easily spinning around each other, the girls danced under the trees of the garden, then descending into the grove, then returning to their original place, it seemed that their airy dance was spreading across the sunny expanse, like circles spreading across water. Their flowing hair and flowing skirts, the elastic grass under their feet, the branches rustling in the morning bustle, the bright foliage and its dappled shadows on the soft young earth, the fragrant wind blowing over the fields and willingly turning the wings of a distant windmill - in a word, everything, from both girls to the distant plowman, who was plowing on a pair of horses, standing out so clearly against the sky, as if everything in the world ended with him - everything seemed to be dancing.
But then the youngest of the dancing sisters, out of breath and laughing merrily, rushed to the bench to rest. The other leaned against a nearby tree. The wandering musicians - a harpist and a violinist - fell silent, finishing the game with a brilliant passage - so they probably wanted to show that they were not at all tired, although, to tell the truth, they played at such a fast pace and were so zealous in competing with the dancers that they could not stand it maybe half a minute longer. A buzz of approval came from the stairs like bees, and the apple pickers, like bees, went back to work.
They took it all the more diligently, perhaps, because the elderly gentleman, none other than Dr. Jedler himself (you need to know that both the house and the garden belonged to Dr. Jedler, and the girls were his daughters), hastily left the house to find out what had happened and who , damn it, he made such a noise in his estate, and even before breakfast. He was a great philosopher, this Dr. Jedler, and did not like music.
Music and dancing today! - muttered the doctor, stopping. “And I thought the girls were waiting for this day with fear.” However, our life is full of contradictions... Hey, Grace! Hey Marion! - he added loudly. - What are you doing here, have you all gone crazy?
And even if it were so, don’t be angry, father,” answered his youngest daughter, Marion, running up to him and looking into his face, “after all, today is someone’s birthday.”
It's someone's birthday, kitty! - exclaimed the doctor. - Don’t you know that every day is someone’s birthday? Or have you not heard how many new participants join this every minute - ha ha ha! it is impossible to talk seriously about such things - in this ridiculous and ridiculous game called Life?
No, father!
Well, of course not; “But you’re already an adult... almost,” said the doctor. “By the way,” here he looked at the pretty face still pressed against him, “it seems to me that it’s your birthday?”
Did you really remember, father? - exclaimed his beloved daughter, holding out her scarlet lips for him to kiss.
It is for you! Accept my love with a kiss,” said the doctor, kissing her on the lips, “and God grant you many, many more times - what nonsense all this is!” - meet the day!
“To wish a person a long life, when all of it is just some kind of farce,” the doctor thought, “what nonsense! Ha-ha-ha!”
As I have already said, Dr. Jedler was a great philosopher, the innermost essence of his philosophy was that he looked at the world as a grand joke, a monstrous absurdity, not worthy of attention reasonable person. The battlefield he lived on affected him deeply, as you will soon realize.
So! Well, where did you get the musicians? - asked the Doctor. - Just look, they'll steal the chicken! Where did they come from?
Alfred sent the musicians,” said his daughter Grace, straightening the modest wildflowers in Marion’s hair, which had become disheveled during the dance, with which she herself decorated it half an hour ago, admiring her young beauty sister.
That's how! So Alfred sent the musicians? - the doctor asked.
Yes. He met them when he walked into the city early in the morning - they were just leaving there. They are traveling on foot and spent last night in the city, and since today is Marion's birthday, Alfred wanted to please her and sent them here with a note addressed to me, in which he writes that if I have nothing against, the musicians will play Marion serenade. - Exactly! - the doctor said casually. - He always asks for your consent.
And since I agreed,” Grace continued good-naturedly, falling silent for a moment and throwing her head back to admire the pretty head she adorned, “and Marion was already in a wonderful mood, she started dancing, and I with her. So we danced to Alfred's music until we were out of breath. And we decided that the music was so cheerful because Alfred sent the musicians. - Really, Marion?
Oh, really, I don’t know, Grace. You're boring me with this Alfred!
Am I annoying when I talk about your fiance? - said the elder sister.
“I’m not at all interested in listening to people talk about him,” said the wayward beauty, tearing petals from the flowers she held in her hand and scattering them on the ground. - All you hear about him is boring; Well, what about the fact that he is my fiancé...
Shut up? Don’t talk so casually about this faithful heart - it’s all yours, Marion! - Grace exclaimed. - Don't say that even as a joke. There is no truer heart in the world than Alfred's!
Yes... yes... - said Marion, with a charmingly absent-minded look, raising her eyebrows and as if thinking about something. - This is probably true. But I don’t see much merit in this... I... I don’t want him to be so faithful at all. I never asked him for this. And if he expects me... But, dear Grace, why should we even talk about him now?
It was nice to look at these graceful blooming girls when they, hugging each other, slowly walked under the trees, and although in their conversation seriousness collided with frivolity, love tenderly responded to love. And, really, it was very strange to see that tears appeared in the eyes of the younger sister: it seemed that some passionate, deep feeling was breaking through the frivolity of her speeches and painfully struggling with it.
Marion was only four years younger than her sister, but as happens in families where there is no mother (the doctor’s wife died), Grace, who tenderly cared for her younger sister and was completely devoted to her, seemed older than her years, for she did not seek to compete with Marion, nor to participate in her wayward undertakings (although the age difference between them was small), but only sympathized with her with sincere love. Great is the feeling of motherhood, if even such a shadow of it, such a weak reflection as sisterly love, cleanses the heart and makes a sublime soul like the angels!
The doctor, looking at them and hearing their conversation, at first only thought with a good-natured grin about the madness of all love and affection and how naively young people deceive themselves when they believe for even a minute that in these soap bubbles there may be something serious; after all, she will certainly be disappointed... certainly! However, Grace’s homeliness and self-sacrifice, her even character, soft and modest, but concealing an indestructible constancy and firmness of spirit, appeared especially vividly before the doctor now when he saw her, so calm and unpretentious, next to her younger, more beautiful sister, and to him I felt sorry for her - sorry for both of them - sorry that life is such a ridiculous absurdity. It never occurred to him that both of his daughters, or one of them, might be trying to turn life into something serious. What can you do - after all, he was a philosopher. Kind and generous by nature, he accidentally tripped over that stone lying on the paths of all philosophers (it is much easier to discover than philosopher's Stone- the subject of research by alchemists), which sometimes serves as a stumbling block for kind and generous people and has the fatal ability to turn gold into trash and everything precious into insignificance.
Briten! - the doctor shouted. - Briten! Come here!
A small man with an unusually sour and dissatisfied face came out of the house and responded in an unceremonious tone:
What else?
Where was the breakfast table set? - asked the doctor.
“In the house,” Briten answered.
Aren't you going to cover him here, as you were ordered last night? - asked the doctor. - Don’t know that we will have guests? That this morning we need to finish one thing before the mail coach arrives? What is this very special case?
Could I have set the table here, Dr. Jedler, before the women finished picking apples, could I have or not, what do you think? A? - answered Briten, gradually raising his voice, which at the end sounded very loud.
Okay, but they're done now? - said the doctor and, looking at his watch, clapped his hands. - Well, lively! Where is Clemency?
The one who uttered these words immediately began to fuss with the greatest zeal, and her appearance was so peculiar that it is worth describing her in a few words.
She was about thirty years old, and her face was quite plump and cheerful, but somehow ridiculously motionless. But what can we say about her face - her gait and movements were so clumsy that, looking at them, one could forget about any face in the world. To say that both her legs seemed to be left, and her arms seemed to be taken from someone else, and that all four of these limbs were dislocated and, when they began to move, stuck in the wrong places, is to give only the most attenuated description of reality. To say that she was quite pleased and satisfied with such a device, considering that she did not care about it, and did not complain at all about her hands and feet, but allowed them to move at random, means only small degree pay tribute to her mental balance. And she was dressed like this: huge, willful shoes that stubbornly refused to go where her feet went, blue stockings, a motley dress made of printed cloth of the ugliest pattern that can be found in the world, and a white apron. She always wore dresses with short sleeves and for some reason always walked around with scratched elbows, which she was so keenly interested in that she constantly turned them inside out, trying in vain to see what was happening to them. She usually had a small cap sticking out on her head, stuck anywhere but in the place that other women are usually covered with this toilet accessory; on the other hand, she was impeccably neat from head to toe and always had a kind of relaxed, clean appearance. Furthermore: a commendable desire to be neat and well-tailored, both for the sake of peace of her own conscience and so that people would not judge, sometimes forced her to perform the most amazing body movements, namely, to grab something like a long wooden handle (which formed part of her costume and in common parlance called a corset tablet) and fight with their clothes until they could get them in order.
This is how Clemency Newcome looked and dressed, who must have accidentally distorted her real name Clementine, turning it into Clemency (although no one knew this for sure, because her deaf, decrepit mother, whom she supported almost from her childhood, died after living to an unusually long age). extreme old age, and she had no other relatives), and who was now busy setting the table, but from time to time she stopped working and stood rooted to the spot, crossing her bare red arms and rubbing her scratched elbows - the right one with the fingers of her left hand and vice versa - and looked intently on this table, until she suddenly remembered that she was missing some thing, and rushed to get it.
There they go, mister! - Clemency suddenly said in a not very friendly tone.
A! - the doctor exclaimed and went to the gate to meet the guests. - Hello Hello! Grace, long time! Marion! Messrs. Sneachey and Craggs have come to us, where is Alfred?
He’ll probably be back now, father,” Grace answered. “He needs to get ready to leave, and this morning he had so much to do that he got up and left in the world.” Good morning, gentlemen.
WITH Good morning, lady! - said Mr. Snitchey, - I speak for myself and for Crags. (Crags bowed.) Miss,” here Snitchey turned to Marion, “I kiss your hand.” - Snitchy kissed Marion's hand. - And I wish (whether he wanted or not is unknown, because at first glance he did not seem like a person capable of warm feelings for other people), I wish you a hundred times more happily to meet this significant day.
Ha ha ha! Life is a farce! - The doctor laughed thoughtfully, putting his hands in his pockets. - A long farce of a hundred acts!
I am sure, however,” said Mr. Speech, leaning a small blue bag with legal documents against the table leg, “that you, Dr. Jedler, would in no way want to reduce the role of this actress in this long farce.
Of course not! - the doctor agreed. - God forbid! Let him live and laugh at him while he can laugh, and then he will say, together with one witty Frenchman: “The farce is over; lower the curtain."
"A witty Frenchman," said Mr. Snitchey, looking quickly into his blue bag. - I was wrong, Dr. Jedler, and your philosophy, truly, is wrong from beginning to end, as I have already explained to you more than once. To say that there is nothing serious in life! What is a court, in your opinion?
Buffoonery! - answered the doctor.
Have you ever gone to court? - asked Mr. Snitchey, looking up from the blue bag.
Never,” answered the doctor.
Well, if that happens,” continued Mr. Snitchey, “you might change your mind.”
Craggs, for whom Snitchey always spoke and who himself did not seem to feel like separate personality and did not have an individual existence, this time he spoke out too. The thought expressed in this judgment was the only thought which he did not share on an equal footing with Snitchey; but it was shared by some of his like-minded people from among the smartest people in the world.
The trial has now been simplified too much,” said Mr. Craggs.
How? Has the trial been simplified? - the doctor doubted.
Yes,” replied Mr. Craggs, “everything is simplified.” Everything has now been made too simple, in my opinion. This is the vice of our time. If life is a joke (and I'm not going to deny it), that joke must be very difficult to play. Life must be a brutal struggle, sir. That's the point. But it is oversimplified. We oil the gates of life. But they need to be rusty. Soon they will open without squeaking. And they need to grind on their hinges, sir.
In uttering all this, Mr. Craggs seemed to be grinding on his own hinges, and this impression was further intensified by his appearance, for he was a cold, hard, dry man, a real flint, and he was dressed in gray and white, and his eyes sparkled slightly, as if sparks were being struck from them. All three kingdoms of nature - mineral, animal and vegetable - seemed to have found their representatives in this brotherhood of debaters: for Snitchy looked like a magpie or a crow (only he was not as sleek as they were), and the doctor had a face wrinkled like ice cream an apple with dimples, as if pecked out by birds, and on the back of his head there was a braid sticking out that resembled a stalk.
But then an energetic, handsome young man in a traveling suit, accompanied by a porter carrying several packages and baskets, cheerful and cheerful - to match this clear morning - entered the garden with quick steps, and all three interlocutors, like brothers of the three Parok sisters, or beyond recognition the disguised Graces, or three prophetesses on the heath, approached him together and greeted him.
Happy birthday, Elf! - the doctor said cheerfully.
“Congratulations and I wish you a hundred more happy times on this auspicious day, Mr. Heathfield,” said Snitchey with a low bow.
Congratulations! - Craggs muttered dully.
It seems I came under fire from an entire battery! - exclaimed Alfred, stopping. - And... one, two, three... all three do not bode well for me in that great sea that spreads out before me. It’s good that I didn’t meet you first this morning, otherwise I would have thought that this was not good. No, the first was Grace, sweet, affectionate Grace, so I’m not afraid of all of you!..
Excuse me, mister, I was the first,” Clemency Newcome intervened. - She walked here in the garden when the sun had not yet risen, remember? And I was in the house.
That's right, Clemency was the first,” Alfred agreed. - So Clemency will protect me from you.
Ha ha ha! “I speak for myself and for Craggs,” said Snitchey. - That's protection!
“Perhaps it’s not as bad as it seems,” said Alfred, heartily shaking hands with the doctor, Snitchey and Crags, and looking around. - Where is... My God!
He rushed forward, causing Jonathan Sneachey and Thomas Crags to become closer for a moment than was stipulated in their business agreement, ran up to the sisters, and... However, I don’t need to go into detail about how he greeted, first Marion, then Grace ; I will only hint that Mr. Craggs might have found his manner of greeting “too simplistic.”
Perhaps wanting to change the topic of conversation, Dr. Jedler ordered breakfast to be served, and everyone sat down at the table. Grace took the place of the hostess, and prudently sat down so that she separated her sister and Alfred from everyone else. Snitches and Craggs sat at the end of the table opposite each other, with the blue bag between them for greater safety, and the doctor took his usual place opposite Grace. Clemency, as if electrified, rushed around the table, serving food, and the melancholy Briten, standing at another, small table, cut roast beef and ham.
Meat? - suggested Britain, approaching Mr. Snitchey with a large knife and fork in his hands and throwing a question at his guest like a missile.
“Certainly,” answered the lawyer.
What do you want? - Britain asked Crags.
Low-fat and well-done,” this gentleman answered.
Having carried out these orders and given the doctor a moderate portion (Britain seemed to know that young people do not even think about food), he stood next to the owners of the law office as close as decency allowed, and watched with a stern gaze as they dealt with the meat, and he Only once did he lose his stern expression. This happened when Mr. Craggs, whose teeth were not in a brilliant condition, almost choked; then Briten, suddenly perking up, exclaimed: “I thought he was done for!”
Well, Alfred,” said the doctor, “let’s talk about business while we have breakfast.”
“While we’re having breakfast,” said Snitchey and Craggs, who apparently had no intention of stopping this activity.
Alfred had not eaten breakfast, and he must have had enough to do as it was, but he answered respectfully.
Please sir.
“If there could be anything serious,” the doctor began, “in this...
“... a farce, like life, sir,” finished Alfred.
“... in such a farce as life,” the doctor confirmed, “it is that today, on the eve of the separation of the bride and groom, we celebrate their birthday... after all, this is a day associated with many memories, pleasant for the four of us, and with the memory of a long friendship . However, this is beside the point.
Oh, no, no, Dr. Jedler! - objected the young man. “This relates to the matter, it directly relates to it, and this morning my heart is speaking about it, and yours too, I know, - just don’t interfere with it.” Today I am leaving your house; from today I cease to be your ward; our old friendly relations are interrupted and will not resume in the same form, but we will be connected by other relationships,” he looked at Marion, who was sitting next to him, “but they are so significant that I do not dare talk about them now. Well, well, doctor,” he added, having become cheerful and laughing slightly at the doctor, “there is at least a grain of seriousness in this huge garbage heap of absurdities!” Let's agree today that there is at least one thing.
Today! - the doctor cried. - What is he just talking about! Ha ha ha! “We’ll agree today.” Of all the days of the entire ridiculous year, we must choose this particular day! Yes, today is the anniversary great battle, which took place here, in this very place. After all, here, where we are sitting now, where I saw my girls dancing this morning, where they had just picked apples for us, from these trees, whose roots grew not into the soil, but into people, so many lives have died here that tens of years later, within my memory, an entire cemetery, full of bones, bone dust and fragments of broken skulls, was dug out of the ground right here, under our feet. However, out of all the participants in this battle, there are not even a hundred people who knew what they were fighting for and why, and out of all the frivolous but jubilant victors, there are not even a hundred who knew why they were rejoicing. There are not even fifty people who benefited from victory or defeat. There are not half a dozen who agree with each other about the causes of this battle, or its consequences, and, in short, no one has formed a definite opinion about it, except those who mourned the slain. Well, what's so serious about that? - the doctor finished with a laugh. - Complete nonsense!
But it all seems very serious to me,” Alfred said.
Serious! - exclaimed the doctor. - If this is considered serious, then you need to go crazy or die, or climb to the top of a mountain and sit on it as a hermit.
Besides... all this was so long ago,” said Alfred.
For a long time! - the doctor picked up. - Do you know what people have done since then? Do you know what else they did? In any case, I don’t know!
“They sometimes started litigation in court,” said Mr. Snitchey, stirring his tea with a spoon.
Unfortunately, finishing it was always too easy, said his companion.
And you will excuse me, Doctor,” continued Mr. Snitchey, “if I express my opinion, although you have already had the opportunity to hear it thousands of times during our discussions: that people went to court, and in general in all their judicial system I see something serious, really, something tangible, something acting with conscious and definite intention...
Clemency Newcome pushed the table with an angular movement, and there was a loud clatter of cups and saucers.
Hey! What is there? - the doctor cried.
“Yes, this evil blue bag,” said Clemency, “is always getting under our feet.”
With a definite and conscious intention, as I already said,” Snitchey continued, “and this commands respect.” Are you saying that life is a farce, Dr. Jedler? Despite the fact that there is a court in it?
The Doctor laughed and looked at Alfred.
“I agree with you that war is madness,” said Snitchey. - We agree on this. I’ll explain in more detail: here is a flourishing area,” he poked his fork into space, “once flooded with soldiers (who all lawlessly violated the borders of other people’s possessions) and devastated by fire and sword. Yes Yes Yes! Just think that there are people who voluntarily expose themselves to fire and sword! Stupid, wasteful, downright ridiculous; When you think about it, you can’t help but laugh at your neighbors! But look at this flourishing area as it has become now. Think about the laws relating to real estate, inheritance and will of real estate: mortgage and redemption of real estate; use of land on the basis of lease, ownership, lease with the condition of paying land tax; remember,” continued Mr. Snitchey, who was so excited that he even smacked his lips, “remember the most complex laws relating to the rights of possession and the proof of these rights, together with all the contradictory precedents and resolutions of Parliament connected with them; think of the countless ingenious and endless litigations in the Chancery Court that this pleasant area can give rise to, and admit, Doctor, that there is something bright in our life! I believe,” added Mr. Snitchey, looking at his companion, “that I speak for myself and Craggs.”
Mr. Craggs made a sign of agreement with these words, and Mr. Snitchey, somewhat refreshed by his eloquence, said that he would not mind eating a little more meat and drinking another cup of tea.
“I’m not a fan of life in general,” he continued, rubbing his hands and chuckling, “for it is full of absurdities; full of even worse things. Well, talk about loyalty, trust, selflessness and the like! What nonsense all this is! We know their value. But you shouldn't laugh at life. You need to play out the game; truly a very serious game! Everyone and everyone is playing against you, mind you, and you are playing against them. Yes, all this is very interesting! On this chessboard, other moves are very clever. Laugh only when you win, Dr. Jedler, and not too loudly. Yes Yes Yes! And not too loudly,” Snitchey repeated, shaking his head and winking as if he wanted to say: “Better not laugh, but shake your head and wink too!”
Well, Alfred, what do you say now? - exclaimed the doctor.
“I say, sir,” replied Alfred, “that I think you will do me and yourself the greatest benefit if you sometimes try to forget this battlefield and others like it for the sake of the larger battlefield of Life, on which the sun looks every day.” .
“I’m afraid this won’t soften the doctor’s views, Mr. Alfred,” said Snitchey. - After all, in this “battle of life” the opponents fight very fiercely and very bitterly. Every now and then they chop, cut and shoot people in the back of the head. They trample each other and trample underfoot. A very bad job.
And I, Mr. Snitchey,” said Alfred, “believe that, despite the apparent frivolity of people and the contradictions of their character, there are silent victories and fights in the battle of life, there are great self-sacrifice and noble heroism, which are not made any easier by the fact that they are not spoken or written about; these feats are performed every day in remote corners and crannies, in humble houses and in the hearts of men and women; and any of such exploits could reconcile the harshest man with life and instill in him faith and hope, even if two quarters of humanity fought among themselves, and the third quarter sued them; and this is an important conclusion.
The sisters listened attentively.
Well, well,” said the doctor, “I’m too old to change my beliefs even under the influence of my friend Snitchey, who is present here, or my kind unmarried sister Martha Jedler, who once upon a time experienced all sorts of, as she calls it, family misadventures and with since then he always sympathizes with everyone; and her views coincide so much with yours (although, being a woman, she is less prudent and more stubborn) that we cannot get along with her and rarely meet. I was born on this battlefield. When I was a boy my thoughts were busy true history this battlefield. Sixty years flashed over my head, and I saw that all christian world, including many loving mothers and kind girls, like my daughters, are downright fascinated by the battlefield. And there are the same contradictions in everything. The only choice is to laugh or cry at such astonishing inconsistency, and I prefer to laugh.
Britain, who listened with the deepest and most melancholy attention to each of the speakers, must have suddenly decided to follow the doctor's advice, if the dull, sepulchral sound that escaped from his chest could be called laughter. However, both before and after this his face remained motionless, and although some of those sitting at breakfast looked around, surprised by the mysterious sound, no one understood where this sound came from. No one - except Clemency Newcome, who served with Briten at the table, and she, stirring him with one of her favorite joints - her elbow - asked in a reproachful whisper at whom he was laughing.
Not over you! - said Briten.
And over whom?
“Over humanity,” answered Briten. - That's the problem!
I’ve listened enough to the owner and these quarrels, and now he’s getting stupider every day! - cried Clemency, poking Briten with her other elbow to stimulate his mental activity. - Do you know or not where you are now? Do you want to get fired?
“I don’t know anything,” said Briten with a leaden gaze and a motionless face. - I'm not interested in anything. I don't understand anything. I don't believe anything. And I don't wish for anything.
Such a hopeless characterization of his state of mind may have been somewhat exaggerated by himself in a fit of despondency, but Benjamin Britain, who was sometimes jokingly called "Little-Britain", hinting at the similarity of his surname with the name "Great Britain", but wishing to note the difference between them (after all, we sometimes say “Young England”, at the same time emphasizing its connection with “Old England” and their difference) - Benjamin Britain described his state of mind, in general, quite accurately. After all, he was to the doctor about what Miles was to Friar Bacon, and, listening day after day to the doctor ranting to different people, seeking to prove that the very existence of man is at best only an error and an absurdity, the unfortunate servant gradually became mired in such an abyss of confused and contradictory reflections that the Truth, which, as they say, “dwells at the bottom of the well,” would seem to float on the surface in comparison with Briten plunged into the bottomless depths of his delusions. One thing he fully understood: the new thoughts usually brought into these discussions by Snitchey and Craggs did not help to clarify his perplexities, but for some reason always gave the doctor an advantage and confirmed his views. Therefore, Briten hated the owners of the law office, seeing in them one of the immediate reasons for his state of mind.
But that’s not what we’re talking about, Alfred,” said the doctor. - Today you (in your own words) leave my care and leave us, armed to the teeth with the knowledge that you received at the local school and then in London, as well as with the practical wisdom that such a modest old country doctor could instill in you , like me. Today you enter into life. The first one ended probation, appointed by your late father, and you - now your own master - are leaving to fulfill his second wish. You will spend three years abroad, getting to know the medical schools there, and of course, long before you return, you will have forgotten us. What is there! and six months will not pass before you forget us!
I’ll forget!.. However, you all know what I should talk to you about! - Alfred said with a laugh.
“I don’t know anything,” the doctor objected. - What do you say, Marion?
Marion, running her finger over her teacup, apparently wanted to say - but did not say - that Alfred was free to forget them if he could. Grace pressed her sister's blooming face to her cheek and smiled.
I hope I wasn’t too careless of a guardian,” the doctor continued, “but, in any case, this morning I should be formally fired, released - what else is it called? - from my guardianship duties. Our friends Sneachey and Craggs came here with a whole bag of all sorts of papers, bills and documents to put you in possession of the property under my care (it’s a pity it’s small, so it wasn’t difficult to dispose of it, Alfred, but you will become big man and increase it); in other words, you will have to draw up some ridiculous pieces of paper, and then sign, seal and hand them to you.
And also to properly testify, according to the law,” said Snitchey, pushing aside his plate and taking papers from his bag, which his companion began to lay out on the table. - But since Crags and I managed the inheritance together with you, doctor, we will ask both of your servants to witness the signatures. Can you read, Mrs. Newcome?
“I’m single, mister,” Clemency corrected him.
Oh, sorry! And how come I didn’t guess it myself? - Snitchey grinned, glancing at Clemency's extraordinary figure. - Can you read?
“A little,” Clemency replied.
Morning and evening you read the missal, where it is written about the wedding ceremony, huh? - the attorney asked jokingly.
No,” Clemency replied. - This is difficult for me. I only read a thimble.
Reading the thimble! - Snitchey repeated. - What do you mean by this, my dear?
Clemency nodded her head.
And also a nutmeg grater.
She's out of her mind! This is a case for the Chancery Court! - said Snitchey, looking at her.
“...if only she has property,” Craggs screwed up.
Here Grace intervened, explaining that both of the objects mentioned were engraved with the saying, and they thus constituted Clemency's pocket library, for she was not a reader of books.
Yes, yes, Miss Grace! - said Snitchey. - Ha-ha-ha! And I mistook this person for a weak-minded person. “It’s very similar,” he muttered, looking at Clemency. - What does the thimble say, Mrs. Newcome?
“I’m single, mister,” Clemency corrected him again.
Okay, let's just say Newcomb. Is it good? - said the lawyer. - So what does the thimble say, Newcome?
It is needless to say how Clemency, without answering the question, parted one of her pockets and looked into its yawning depths, looking for a thimble, which was not there, and how she then parted another pocket, and, apparently, seeing there the one she was looking for. thimble, like a precious pearl, at the very bottom, she began to remove all the obstacles that stood in her way, namely: a handkerchief, a wax candle stub, a ruddy apple, an orange, a coin that she kept for good luck, a lamb bone, a padlock, large scissors in a case ( it would be more accurate to call them half-grown sheep shears), a whole handful of untied beads, several balls of paper thread, a needle case, a collection of curling papers and a biscuit, and how she handed all these objects to Briten, one after another, for him to hold.
It’s also not worth mentioning that in her determination to grab this pocket by the throat and hold him captive (for he strove to wriggle out and catch on to the nearest corner), she bent all over and stood calmly in a pose that seemed incompatible with the human physique and laws gravity. Suffice it to say that she finally triumphantly put the thimble on her finger and began to jingle the nutmeg grater, and it turned out that the images imprinted on them literary works were already almost illegible - so often these objects were cleaned and polished.
This, then, is the thimble, my dear? asked Mr. Snitchey, chuckling at Clemency. - What does the thimble say?
“He says,” Clemency answered and, turning the thimble, began to read the inscription on it, but so slowly, as if this inscription encircled not the thimble, but the tower, “he says: “Forgive grudges, remember no evil.” .
Sneachey and Craggs laughed heartily.
How new! - said Snitchey.
Too simple! - responded Crags.
What knowledge human nature! - Snitchey remarked.
Inapplicable to life! - Crags picked up.
What about the nutmeg grater? - asked the head of the company.
The grater says, Clemency answered: “Do... with others as... you... want... to be treated with you.”
Do you want to say: “Step on others, otherwise they will step on you”?
“I don’t understand that,” Clemency answered, shaking her head in bewilderment. - I'm not a lawyer.
“I’m afraid that if she were a lawyer, Doctor,” said Mr. Snitchey, suddenly turning to the owner and, apparently wishing to prevent possible responses to Clemency’s answer, “she would soon be convinced that this - Golden Rule half of its clients. In this regard, they are quite serious (even though, in your opinion, life is just a joke), and then they blame us. We lawyers are only mirrors after all, Mr. Alfred; but we are usually consulted by angry and grumpy people who do not shine with spiritual beauty, and, really, it is unfair to scold us for reflecting unsightly phenomena. I suppose,” added Mr. Snitchey, “I speak for myself and Craggs.”
Absolutely,” confirmed Craggs.
Now, if Mr. Britain will be so kind as to give us a sip of ink,” said Mr. Snitchey, taking up his papers again, “we will sign, seal, and deliver, and let us do it quickly, or before we know it, we are like a post-coach.” will pass by.
As for Mr. Britain, judging by his face, one could say with confidence that the carriage would pass before he had time to look back, for he stood with an absent look, mentally contrasting the doctor with the attorneys, the attorneys with the doctor, and their clients with all three, and at the same time, trying in vain to reconcile the sayings on the nutmeg grater and thimble (new to him) with all other philosophical systems and getting confused in the same way as his great namesake Britain was confused in all sorts of theories and schools. But Clemency, who this time, as always, acted as his kind genius (although he did not value her mental abilities at all, for she rarely bothered herself with abstract thoughts, but was invariably at hand and did everything that was needed on time ), - Clemency brought the ink in the blink of an eye and did him another service: she brought him to himself with the help of her elbows and so successfully stirred his memory - in a more literal sense of the word than is usually said - with these light pokes that he immediately he perked up and became emboldened.
How he was tormented - like many people of his rank, not accustomed to pen and ink - not daring to put his name on a document that was not written by himself, for fear of getting entangled in some shady matter or somehow owing an unspecified but enormous sum money, and how he finally approached the documents - approached reluctantly and only under pressure from the doctor; and how he refused to sign until he had looked through all the papers (even though they were like Chinese letters to him, due to the illegible handwriting, not to mention the clerical style of presentation), and how he turned the sheets over to make sure there was no trick on the back side ; and how, having signed, he fell into despair, like a man deprived of his fortune and all rights - I do not have enough time to tell about all this. Nor will I tell you how he immediately became inflamed with a mysterious interest in the blue bag that had absorbed his signature, and was no longer able to move a single step away from it; Nor will I tell you how Clemency Newcome, bursting into jubilant laughter at the thought of the importance and significance of her role, first stretched herself across the table, spreading her elbows like an eagle with outstretched wings, and bowed her head on left hand, and then began to draw some cabalistic signs, wasting ink very wastefully and at the same time making auxiliary movements with her tongue. I won’t tell you how, once she became acquainted with ink, she began to crave it, just as tame tigers allegedly crave some living liquid if they have ever tasted it, and how she tried to sign absolutely all the papers and put her name everywhere , wherever possible. In short, the doctor was released from guardianship and the associated responsibility, and Alfred, who took it upon himself, was equipped for the journey of life.
Briten! - said the doctor. - Run to the gate and see if the post coach is coming. Time flies, Alfred!
Yes sir, yes! - the young man hastily answered. - Dear Grace, just a minute! My Marion, so young and beautiful and captivating everyone, my Marion, which is dearer to me than anything in the world... I leave, remember this, Grace!..., in your care!
Caring for her has always been sacred to me, Alfred. And now they will be doubly sacred. Believe me, I will religiously fulfill your request.
I know, Grace. I am sure about that. And who can doubt this, looking at your face and hearing your voice? Ah, Grace! If I had your balanced heart and calm mind, with what firmness of spirit would I leave today.
Really? - she responded with a slight smile.
And yet, Grace... no, - sister, that's what you should be called.
Yes, call me that! - she quickly responded. - I'm happy with it. Don't call me anything else.
“... and yet, sister,” said Alfred, “Marion and I would prefer that your loyalty and constancy remain here to guard our happiness.” Even if it were possible, I would not take them with me, even though they would serve me as a great support!
The mail coach has climbed the hill! - Britain shouted.
Time doesn’t wait, Alfred,” said the doctor.
Marion had stood aside all the time, with her eyes downcast, and now, hearing Briten's cry, the young groom gently led her to her sister, who took her into her arms.
“Dear Marion, I was just telling Grace,” he began, “that while I am leaving you, I am entrusting you to her care as my treasure.” And when I return and demand you back, my love, and our bright life together begins, with the greatest joy we will begin to think together about how we can make our Grace happy; how can we prevent her desires; how to express our gratitude and love to her; how to return to her at least part of the debt that will accumulate by then.
One of Marion's hands lay in his; the other was wrapped around her sister's neck. The girl looked into those sisterly eyes, so calm, clear and joyful, with a look in which love, admiration, sadness, amazement, almost reverence merged together. She looked into this sister's face as if it were the face of a shining angel. Grace answered her sister and her fiancé with a calm, clear, joyful look.
When the time comes - and it must come someday, - said Alfred, - and I wonder why it has not come yet, but Grace knows better, because Grace is always right - when will the time come for her to choose a friend to whom she can open her whole heart and who will become for her what she was for us, then, Marion, we will prove our devotion to her, and - how joyful it will be for us to know that she, our dear, kind sister , loves and is loved the way we wish her!
Younger sister still looked into the eyes of the eldest, not even looking back at the groom. And the eldest’s honest eyes answered Marion and her fiancé with the same calm, clear, joyful look.
And when all this is a thing of the past and we grow old and live together (and we will certainly live together, all together!) and we often remember the old times,” Alfred continued, “then these days will seem to us the best of all, and this day is special, and we will tell each other about what we thought and felt, what we hoped for and what we were afraid of before separation and how unbearably difficult it was for us to part...
The mail carriage is driving through the forest! - Britain shouted.
I'm ready!.. And we will also talk about how we met again and were so happy, no matter what; and we will consider this day the happiest of the year and celebrate it as a triple birthday. Isn't that right, honey?
Yes! - the elder sister responded quickly with a radiant smile. - Yes! But, Alfred, don't hesitate. Time is running out. Say goodbye to Marion. And may God bless you! He hugged his little sister to his chest. And she freed herself from his embrace, again pressed herself close to Grace, and her eyes, which reflected so many different feelings, met again with her sister’s eyes, so calm, clear and joyful.
Happy journey, my boy! - said the doctor. - Of course, talk about any serious relationship or serious attachments and mutual obligations and so on in such a way... ha ha ha! Well, you already know my views - all this, of course, is pure nonsense. I’ll just say one thing: if you and Marion continue to persist in your ridiculous intentions, I will not refuse to take you as my son-in-law someday.
Carriage on the bridge! - Britain shouted.
I'm coming! - said Alfred, shaking the doctor's hand firmly. - Think about me sometimes old friend and guardian, think at least a little seriously, if you can. Goodbye Mr. Snitchey! Goodbye Mr Crags!
He's going down the road! - Britain shouted.
You have to kiss Clemency Newcome for the sake of an old acquaintance. I shake your hand, Briten! Marion, my dear, goodbye! Sister Grace, don't forget! Calm, modest, instead of answering, she turned her face to him, radiant and beautiful, but Marion did not move, and her eyes did not change expression.
The mail carriage rolled up to the gate. The fuss began with packing luggage. The carriage drove off. Marion stood motionless.
He's waving his hat at you, honey,” Grace said. - The husband you have chosen, dear! Look! The younger sister raised her head and turned it slightly. Then she turned away again, then looked intently into her sister’s calm eyes and, sobbing, threw herself on her neck.
Oh Grace! God bless you! But I can't see it, Grace! Heart is breaking!
Charles Dickens
BATTLE OF LIFE
A Tale of Love
Part one
A long time ago, no matter when, in valiant England, no matter where, a fierce battle took place. It played out on a long summer day, when, worried and green, many wildflowers, created by the Almighty Hand to serve as fragrant cups for dew, felt that day how their shiny corollas filled to the brim with blood and, withering, drooped. Many insects, imitating harmless leaves and grasses with their delicate colors, were stained that day with the blood of dying people and, crawling away in fear, left unusual traces behind them. A motley butterfly carried blood into the air on the edges of its wings. The water in the river turned red. The trampled soil turned into a quagmire, and the muddy puddles that stood in the traces of human feet and horse hooves gleamed in the sun with that dark crimson glow.
God forbid that we see what the moon saw in this field, when, rising above the dark ridge of distant hills, unclear and blurred from the trees that crowned it, it rose into the sky and looked at the plain dotted with people who were now lying, motionless, with their faces up, and once upon a time, clinging to the mother’s breast, they looked for the mother’s eyes or rested in a sweet dream! God forbid that we should know the secrets that the stinking wind heard as it swept over the place where people fought that day and where death and torment reigned that night! More than once the lonely moon shone over the battlefield, and more than once the stars looked at it with sorrow; more than once winds flying from all four corners of the world blew over it before the traces of battle disappeared.
And they did not disappear for a long time, but appeared only in small things, for Nature, which is above the bad human passions, soon regained its lost serenity and smiled at the criminal battlefield, as she smiled at it when it was still innocent. The larks sang high above him; swallows rushed back and forth, fell like stones, glided through the air; the shadows of the flying clouds quickly chased each other across the meadows and fields, through the forest and rutabaga field, but the roofs and bell tower of the town, drowned in gardens, and floated into the bright distance, to the edge of earth and sky, where the scarlet sunsets were extinguished. Bread was sown in the fields, and it ripened, and it was collected into the granaries; the river, once crimson with blood, now turned the wheel of a water mill; the plowmen walked behind the plow, whistling; mowers and grain gatherers calmly went about their work; sheep and oxen grazed in the pasture; the boys shouted and called to each other in the fields, scaring away the birds; smoke rose from the village chimneys; the Sunday bells rang peacefully; old people lived and died; timid field animals and modest flowers in bushes and gardens grew and died in their due time; and all this - on a terrible, blood-stained battlefield, where thousands of people died in a great battle.
But at first, thick green spots could be seen here and there among the growing wheat, and people looked at them in horror. Year after year they appeared in the same places, and it was known that in these fertile areas many people and horses, buried together, lay in the soil fertilized by their bodies. The farmers who plowed these places recoiled at the sight of the huge worms swarming there, and the sheaves compressed here were called “sheaves of battle” for many years and were stacked separately, and no one remembers that even one such “sheaf of battle” was laid together with the last ones collected from fields with sheaves and brought them to the Harvest Festival. For a long time, from each furrow made here, fragments of weapons appeared into the light of day. The wounded trees stood on the battlefield for a long time; For a long time, fragments of cut-down fences and destroyed walls lay in places of fierce battles; and not a blade of grass grew in the trampled areas. For a long time, not a single village girl dared to pin a flower from this killing field, even the most beautiful one, to her hair or bodice, and after many years people still believed that the berries growing there left unnaturally dark stains on the hand that plucked them.
And yet, the years, although they glided one after another as easily as summer clouds across the sky, over time destroyed even these traces of a long-ago massacre and erased the legends about it in the memory of the surrounding residents, until they became like an old fairy tale, which they vaguely remember on a winter evening by the fireplace, but every year they forget more and more. Where wildflowers and berries had grown untouched for so many years, gardens were now laid out, houses were built, and children played war on the lawns. The wounded trees had long ago been used for firewood that burned and crackled in the fireplaces, and finally burned out. Dark green the spots in the bread were now no brighter than the memory of those who lay under them in the ground. From time to time, the plowshare still turned out pieces of rusty metal, but no one could guess what these fragments had once been, and those who found them were perplexed and argued about it among themselves. The old, battered armor and helmet had been hanging in the church above the whitewashed arch for so long that the decrepit, half-blind old man, trying in vain to see them now in the heights, recalled how he marveled at them as a child. If those killed here could come to life for a moment - each in his former appearance and each in the place where his untimely death overtook him, then hundreds of terrible mutilated warriors would look into the windows and doors of the houses; peaceful dwellings would arise at the hearth; they would fill barns and granaries like grain; would stand between the baby in the cradle and his nurse; they would float down the river, circle around the mill wheels, invade the orchard, cover up the entire meadow and lie in heaps among the haystacks. Thus the battlefield changed, where thousands and thousands of people fell in a great battle.
Nowhere, perhaps, has it changed so much as where, a hundred years before our time, a small fruit garden grew adjacent to an old stone house with a porch entwined with honeysuckle - a garden where music and laughter sounded on one clear autumn morning and where two girls danced merrily with each other on the grass, and several village women, standing on ladders, picked apples from apple trees, sometimes looking up from their work to admire the girls. What a pleasant, cheerful, simple sight it was: a fine day, a secluded corner and two girls, spontaneous and carefree, dancing joyfully and carefree.
I think - and I hope you will agree with me - that if no one tried to show off themselves, we ourselves would live better, and communication with us would be incomparably more pleasant for others. How good it was to watch these dancing girls! They had no spectators, except for the apple pickers on the stairs. They were pleased to please the pickers, but they danced to please themselves (at least it seemed so from the outside), and it was just as impossible not to admire them as it was for them not to dance. And how they danced!
Not like ballet dancers. Not at all. And not like Madame So-and-So’s students who completed the course. Not to any extent. It was not a quadrille, but it was not a minuet, not even a peasant dance. They danced not in the old style and not in the new, not in the French style and not in the English, but, perhaps, a little in the Spanish style - although they themselves did not know it - and this, as I was told, is a free and joyful style , and its charm is that the sound of small castanets gives it the character of a charming and free improvisation. Easily spinning around each other, the girls danced under the trees of the garden, then descending into the grove, then returning to their original place, it seemed that their airy dance was spreading across the sunny expanse, like circles spreading across water. Their flowing hair and flowing skirts, the elastic grass under their feet, the branches rustling in the morning bustle, the bright foliage and its dappled shadows on the soft young earth, the fragrant wind blowing over the fields and willingly turning the wings of a distant windmill - in a word, everything, from both girls to the distant plowman, who was plowing on a pair of horses, standing out so clearly against the sky, as if everything in the world ended with him - everything seemed to be dancing.
But then the youngest of the dancing sisters, out of breath and laughing merrily, rushed to the bench to rest. The other leaned against a nearby tree. The wandering musicians - a harpist and a violinist - fell silent, finishing the game with a brilliant passage - so they probably wanted to show that they were not at all tired, although, to tell the truth, they played at such a fast pace and were so zealous in competing with the dancers that they could not stand it maybe half a minute longer. A buzz of approval came from the stairs like bees, and the apple pickers, like bees, went back to work.
They took it all the more diligently, perhaps, because the elderly gentleman, none other than Dr. Jedler himself (you need to know that both the house and the garden belonged to Dr. Jedler, and the girls were his daughters), hastily left the house to find out what had happened and who , damn it, he made such a noise in his estate, and even before breakfast. He was a great philosopher, this Dr. Jedler, and did not like music.
