Электронная книга - «The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]». Краткое содержание книги:
Антология содержит: The World's Greatest Books — Volume 01 — Fiction от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 02 — Fiction от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 03 — Fiction от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 04 — Fiction от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 05 — Fiction от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 06 — Fiction от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 07 — Fiction от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 08 — Fiction от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 09 — Lives and Letters от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 10 — Lives and Letters от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 11 — Ancient and Mediæval History от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 12 — Modern History от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 13 — Religion and Philosophy от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 14 — Philosophy and Economics от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 15 — Science от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 17 — Poetry and Drama от Неизвестный The world's greatest books от Mee, Arthur, 1875-1943, joint editor & Hammerton, John Alexander, Sir, 1871-1949, joint editor & McClure, S. S. (Samuel Sidney), 1857-1949, joint editor The World's Greatest Books — Volume 19 — Travel and Adventure от Неизвестный The World's Greatest Books — Volume 20 — Miscellaneous Literature and Index от Неизвестный
[She struggles, speechless, in the agony of death.
Triboulet (shrieking): Help! Help! Oh, help!
[Rushing to the ferry-bell by the riverside, he rings it madly. The people in the cottages around come running out in wild alarm.
A Woman: What is it? Is she wounded?
A Man: She is dead.
Triboulet (taking the lifeless body in his arms and hugging it to his breast): I have killed my child! I have killed my child!
FOOTNOTES:
[L] Victor Hugo was a man with a remarkable aptitude for divining the real course of popular feeling and giving violent expression to it. It was this that made him one of the leaders of the modern republican movement in France. Precluded by his earlier works from attacking the monarchy openly, he set about discrediting it by a series of historical plays in which the French kings were depicted in a sinister light. In "Marion de Lorme" he holds up the weakest of the Bourbons to bitter contempt; in "The King Amuses Himself" ("Le roi s'amuse"), produced in 1832, he satirises the most brilliant of the Valois—François I. The portrait is a clever but one-sided piece of work; it is based on facts; but not on all the facts. It is true that François used to frequent low taverns and mix in disreputable company, but he was also the most chivalrous king of his age, and a man of fine tastes in art and letters. Nevertheless, the play is one of the best of Victor Hugo's by reason of the strange and terrible character of the king's jester, Triboulet. This ugly little hunchback is surely a memorable figure in literature. The horror and pity which he excites as he sits by the river in the storm and darkness, rejoicing in the consummation of his scheme of revenge, have something of that awfulness which is the note of veritable tragedy. The scene is a superb example of dramatic irony.
The Legend of the Ages[M]
Conscience
Cain, flying from the presence of the Lord,
Came through the tempest to a mountain land;
And being worn and weary with the flight,
His wife and children cried to him, and said:
"Here let us rest upon the earth and sleep."
And, folded in the skin of beasts, they slept.
But no sleep fell on Cain; he raised his head,
And saw, amid the shadows of the night,
An eye in heaven sternly fixed on him.
"I am too near," he said, with trembling voice.
Rousing his weary children and worn wife,
He fled again along the wilderness.
For thirty days and thirty nights he fled.
Silent and pale, and shuddering at a sound,
He walked with downcast eyes, and never turned
To look behind him. On the thirtieth day
He came unto the shore of a great sea.
"Here we will live," he said. "Here we are safe.
Here on the lonely frontier of the world!"
And, sitting down, he gazed across the sea,
And there, on the horizon, was the eye
Still fixed on him. He leaped up, wild with fear,
Crying, "Oh, hide me! Hide me!" to his sons.
And Jabal, the tent-maker, sheltered him
Within his tent, and fastened down with stones
The flapping skins. But Cain still saw the eye
Burning upon him through the leathern tent.
And Enoch said, "Come, let us build with stone,
A city with a wall and citadel,
And hide our father there, and close the gates."
Then Tubalcain, the great artificer,
Quarried the granite, and with iron bands
Bound the huge blocks together, and he made
A city, with a rampart like a hill
Encircling it, and towers that threw a shade
Longer than any mountain's on the plain.
Deep in the highest and the strongest tower,
Cain was enclosed. "Can the eye see you now?"
His children asked him. "Yes, it is fixed on me,"
He answered. And with haggard face he crept
Out of the tower, and cried unto his sons,
"I will go down into the earth, and live
Alone, within a dark and silent tomb.
No one shall ever see my face again,
And I will never look at anything."
They made a vaulted tomb beneath the earth,
And he was lowered into it; the hole
Above his head was closed; but in the tomb
Cain saw the eye still sternly fixed on him.
Eviradnus
When John the Striker, lord of Lusace, died,
Leaving his kingdom to his gentle niece,
Mahaud, great joy there was in all the land;
For she was beautiful, and sweet and young,
Kind to the people, and beloved by them.
But Sigismund, the German emperor,
And Ladislas of Poland were not glad.
Long had they coveted the wide domains
Of John the Striker; and Eviradnus,
The tall, white-haired Alastian warrior,
Home from his battles in the Holy Land,
Heard, as he wandered through the castle grounds,
Strange talk between two strangers—a lute-player
And troubadour—who with their minstrelsy
Had charmed the lovely lady of Lusace.
And she was taking them with her that night
To Corbus Castle—an old ruined keep
From which her race was sprung. Ere she was crowned,
An ancient custom of the land required
Mahaud to pass the night in solitude
At Corbus, where her ancestors reposed,
Amid the silence of the wooded hills
On which the stronghold stands. Being afraid
Of the ordeal, Mahaud took with her
The two strange minstrels, so that they might make
Music and mirth until she fell asleep.
An old priest, cunning in the use of herbs,
Came with her to the border of the wood,
And gave her a mysterious wine to drink
To make her slumber till the break of day,
When all the people of Lusace would come
And wake her with their shouts, and lead her forth