Читать книгу Silas Marner - George Eliot - Страница 1

In the quiet villages of England in the early nineteenth century, life follows an unchanging pattern. The seasons come and go, for both the rich Squire and his family in the big house, and the villagers in their little cottages. Anything new or strange is met with suspicion in villages like Raveloe.

And Silas Marner the linen-weaver is strange. He lives alone, and no one knows anything about his family. How can you trust a man when you don’t know his mother and father? And he is pale, with strange, staring eyes, for he works long hours at his loom every day – even on Sundays, when he should be in church. He must be a friend of the devil, the villagers say to each other.

Poor Silas! He’s a sad, lonely man, and his only friends are the bright gold coins that he earns for his weaving and keeps hidden under the floorboards. But change must come, even to a quiet place like Raveloe. The Squire’s two sons share a secret, which leads to quarrelling, robbery, and a death, one cold snowy night not far from the door of Silas’s cottage …