Читать книгу The Cleft - Doris Lessing - Страница 3

In a recent scientific article it was remarked that the basic and primal human stock was probably female, and that males came along later, as a kind of cosmic afterthought. I cannot believe that this was a trouble-free advent. The idea was grist to an already active mill, for I had been wondering if men were not a younger type, a junior variation. They lack the solidity of women, who seem to have been endowed with a natural harmony with the ways of the world. I think most people would agree with this, even if a definition would be hard to come by. Men in comparison are unstable, and erratic. Is Nature trying something out?

Brooding about this whole question sparked off speculation and then that spinning of the imagination that can lead to the birth of stories. Here is one of the tales about what might have happened when Clefts first gave birth to a baby boy.

Man does, woman is.

ROBERT GRAVES

Merchant

We travel not for trafficking alone: By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned: For lust of knowing what should not be known We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.

The Master of the Caravan

Open the gate, O watchman of the night.

The Watchman

Ho, travellers I open. For what land Leave you the dim-moon city of delight?

The Merchants (WITH A SHOUT)

We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.

(The caravan passes through the gate)

The Watchman (CONSOLING THE WOMEN)

What would you, ladies? It was ever thus. Men are unwise and curiously planned.

A Woman

They have their dreams, and do not think of us.

Voices of the Caravan (IN THE DISTANCE, SINGING)

We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.

JAMES ELROY FLECKER

THE CLEFT