20 лучших повестей на английском / 20 Best Short Novels

As they rode along the forest, they met Athelstane the Thane powdering along the road in the direction of Rotherwood on his great dray-horse of a charger. ‘Good-by, good luck to you, old brick,’ cried the Prince, using the vernacular Saxon. ‘Pitch into those Frenchmen; give it ’em over the face and eyes; and I’ll stop at home and take care of Mrs. I.’

‘Thank you, kinsman,’ said Ivanhoe – looking, however, not particularly well pleased; and the chief’s shaking hands, the train of each took its different way – Athelstane’s to Rotherwood, Ivanhoe’s towards his place of embarkation.

The poor knight had his wish, and yet his face was a yard long and as yellow as a lawyer’s parchment; and having longed to quit home any time these three years past, he found himself envying Athelstane, because, forsooth, he was going to Rotherwood: which symptoms of discontent being observed by the witless Wamba, caused that absurd madman to bring his rebeck over his shoulder from his back, and to sing —

Atra cura

‘Before I lost my five poor wits,
I mind me of a Romish clerk,
Who sang how Care, the phantom dark,
Beside the belted horseman sits.
Methought I saw the griesly sprite
Jump up but now behind my Knight.’

‘Perhaps thou didst, knave,’ said Ivanhoe, looking over his shoulder; and the knave went on with his jingle:

‘And though he gallop as he may,
I mark that cursed monster black
Still sits behind his honor’s back,
Tight squeezing of his heart alway.
Like two black Templars sit they there,
Beside one crupper, Knight and Care.
‘No knight am I with pennoned spear,
To prance upon a bold destrere:
I will not have black Care prevail
Upon my long-eared charger’s tail,
For lo, I am a witless fool,
And laugh at Grief and ride a mule.
And his bells rattled as he kicked his mule’s sides.

‘Silence, fool!’ said Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, in a voice both majestic and wrathful. ‘If thou knowest not care and grief, it is because thou knowest not love, whereof they are the companions. Who can love without an anxious heart? How shall there be joy at meeting, without tears at parting?’ (‘I did not see that his honor or in lady shed many anon,’ thought Wamba the Fool; but he was only a zany, and his mind was not right.) ‘I would not exchange my very sorrows for thine indifference,’ the knight continued. ‘Where there, is a sun, there must be a shadow. If the shadow offend me, shall I put out my eyes and live in the dark? No! I am content with my fate, even such as it is. The Care of which thou speakest, hard though it may vex him, never yet rode down an honest man. I can bear him on my shoulders, and make my way through the world’s press in spite of him; for my arm is strong, and my sword is keen, and my shield has no stain on it; and my heart, though it is sad, knows no guile.’ And here, taking a locket out of his waistcoat (which was made of chain-mail), the knight kissed the token, put it back under the waistcoat again, heaved a profound sigh, and stuck spurs into his horse.

As for Wamba, he was munching a black pudding whilst Sir Wilfrid was making the above speech, (which implied some secret grief on the knight’s part, that must have been perfectly unintelligible to the fool,) and so did not listen to a single word of Ivanhoe’s pompous remarks. They travelled on by slow stages through the whole kingdom, until they came to Dover[770], whence they took shipping for Calais. And in this little voyage, being exceedingly sea-sick, and besides elated at the thought of meeting his sovereign, the good knight cast away that profound melancholy which had accompanied him during the whole of his land journey.

Chapter II The last days of the lion