Читать книгу Miraculous Happenings in the Year of the Elephant - Mehded Maryam Sinclair - Страница 8
ОглавлениеON a steamy-hot day in the Yemen of old a hundred slaves
dressed in nothing but tattered rags wrapped around their
waists heaved and hauled, hammered and hewed tons of
marble and stone for their master, the vice-regent Abrahah.
They worked inside an enormous cloud of rising white dust,
dust that clung to their skins, piled up in the hollows of
their ears, ringed their eyes and settled in their
hair and their beards. They scurried here
and there, lugging marble slabs, grinding
them into shape for corners and stairs,
sanding them smooth. The ring of mallets
on chisels stabbed the air; now and then
one of them coughed or sneezed
the dust out of his nose.
The lean, mean
Abrahah came in
his swirling black
robes and towered
over them to inspect, like a black ant
wandering amid a pile of sugar cubes.
He came only long enough to gloat, and
then returned to his chamber of thick
carpets and clean air.
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