Читать книгу The Village on Horseback - Jesse Ball - Страница 46

That season there were comedies in every playhouse.

One drought had followed another until certain countries

relied solely upon humor to survive their harsh winters.

At the time I had just begun an illustrious career

as a trainer of soldiers. I didn’t further the war—it was

against my interest. But I taught one skill to the troops:

how to stand immediately behind their opponents.

A fight would start. The enemy would lunge,

and there I would be, standing behind him,

from where I might do what I liked to help or hinder

his passage through the war. The trick, of course,

was in a particular grin and a twisting of the limbs

which accompanies the sudden shift right or left.

The whole thing was rather funny, or so I thought,

as the enemy was employing experts to accomplish

precisely the same gain. The upshot? A battle

in which two armies twirled around like dancers

in some avant-garde ballet. Everyone came out

to the countryside to watch. It was the start

of a short but bloodless epoch in world history.