Читать книгу Heathcliff Redux - Lily Tuck - Страница 38

A solitary bird known as a brood parasite, the cuckoo lays its eggs in another bird’s nest, then leaves. When the baby cuckoo hatches—the cuckoo egg usually hatches first—he pushes all the other birds or eggs, as the case may be, out of the nest and takes all the food for himself from his surrogate parents.

I don’t remember where I read this story. The story takes place during the Renaissance, in Florence. It seems that a certain countess, who lived in a beautiful palazzo, had her jewels stolen. Every day during one hot summer—the windows of the palazzo all left open—another ring, another bracelet and necklace, went missing from her dressing table in her bedroom. She accused her maid. The maid denied any knowledge of the missing jewels, but the maid was fired. More servants were fired. No one admitted to stealing the countess’s jewels, and the countess never got any satisfaction before she died. But many, many years later, while some workmen were redoing the facade of the palazzo, hidden high up in the eaves, they came across a nest. Guess what they found inside it?