Читать книгу The Village on Horseback - Jesse Ball - Страница 20

As it happened, a young laborer was building a small house for himself and for his family. He was a poor man, and his family was poorer still, for money is lost in every passing of hands, not least from the wages of a dutiful husband. At any rate, the family was poor, and the house to be built would have but one room. Long hours

in the sun, the man had been planning the house, and he had come to the decision that his house should have but one door, as was the custom in those parts. Now the laborer’s wife was a lovely woman, and had been the prize of the district until she had taken his hand and let him lead her beneath the marriage arch. This was a strange thing, accounted strange by all concerned, for the laborer’s wife could have had any man, rich or poor, but of them all, she had chosen him. And it was not for his looks, nor for his wits, nor for his temper, as the laborer would in none of these ways impress. No, she had married him because of a certain child that had grown in the dark, deep inside her, and which, when she was aware of it, had told her by kicking and scraping that if she would be safe and whole and living, she should at once be married. And so she had done; the child arrived, and 3 long years had passed, living within the house of the laborer’s father, day and night, forever beneath the watchful eye of the laborer’s mother, who wondered day and night, why had she, the local beauty, married her plain son. And when the time came for their own house to be built, she had told her husband that they must have two doors, one to the east and one to the west, that the sun might be let in in the morning, and let out at nightfall. One door or two, the laborer asked himself, as he walked up and down in the fields. One door or two, he asked himself again, as he trudged home through a patchwork of hills. For his mother had told him, day in day out, you must watch a pretty wife. You must watch her with both of your god-given eyes, and with the others too, that are little spoken of. For she will squirm in your arms, and tell you that she is yours, but my son, beauty cannot be kept. It is restless, and will speak to every passing eye, will allow the lissome stares of every passing man.

One door or two. One door or two. It was to be but a one-room house. And as she says, day and night, the sun must be allowed to pass. Not just through all the broad and empty places, but through this town of man, and through that town of man, through anger and misfortune, through pettiness and filth. And every sun will be a deeper, a crueler sun. And every sun will know far better the shape, the broad dull shape, of the wound it makes on your face and arms, the wound it presses, deep through the windows of your eyes, where such things will be remembered, but can never be made good.