Come, Tell Me How You Live: An Archaeological Memoir. Agatha Christie
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Название: Come, Tell Me How You Live: An Archaeological Memoir
Автор: Agatha Christie
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Биографии и Мемуары
isbn: 9780007487202
isbn:
And you have got the knack,
Then you could come and dig with me
And never wander back.’
But I was thinking how to thrust
Some arsenic into tea,
And could not all at once adjust
My mind so far B.C.
I looked at him and softly sighed,
His face was pleasant too…
‘Come, tell me how you live?’ I cried,
‘And what it is you do?’
He said: ‘I hunt for objects made
By men where’er they roam,
I photograph and catalogue
And pack and send them home.
These things we do not sell for gold
(Nor yet, indeed, for copper!),
But place them on Museum shelves
As only right and proper.
‘I sometimes dig up amulets
And figurines most lewd,
For in those prehistoric days
They were extremely rude!
And that’s the way we take our fun,
’Tis not the way of wealth.
But archaeologists live long
And have the rudest health.’
I heard him then, for I had just
Completed a design
To keep a body free from dust
By boiling it in brine.
I thanked him much for telling me
With so much erudition,
And said that I would go with him
Upon an Expedition…
And now, if e’er by chance I dip
My fingers into acid,
Or smash some pottery (with slip!)
Because I am not placid,
Or if I see a river flow
And hear a far-off yell,
I sigh, for it reminds me so
Of that young man I learned to know—
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose thoughts were in the long ago,
Whose pockets sagged with potsherds so,
Who lectured learnedly and low,
Who used long words I didn’t know,
Whose eyes, with fervour all a-glow,
Upon the ground looked to and fro,
Who sought conclusively to show
That there were things I ought to know
And that with him I ought to go
And dig upon a Tell!
This book is an answer. It is the answer to a question that is asked me very often.
‘So you dig in Syria, do you? Do tell me all about it. How do you live? In a tent?’ etc., etc.
Most people, probably, do not want to know. It is just the small change of conversation. But there are, now and then, one or two people who are really interested.
It is the question, too, that Archaeology asks of the Past—Come, tell me how you lived?
And with picks and spades and baskets we find the answer.
‘These were our cooking pots.’ ‘In this big silo we kept our grain.’ ‘With these bone needles we sewed our clothes.’ ‘These were our houses, this our bathroom, here our system of sanitation!’ ‘Here, in this pot, are the gold earrings of my daughter’s dowry.’ ‘Here, in this little jar, is my make-up.’ ‘All these cook-pots are of a very common type. You’ll find them by the hundred. We get them from the Potter at the corner. Woolworth’s, did you say? Is that what you call him in your time?’
Occasionally there is a Royal Palace, sometimes a Temple, much more rarely a Royal burial. These things are spectacular. They appear in newspapers in headlines, are lectured about, shown on screens, everybody hears of them! Yet I think to one engaged in digging, the real interest is in the everyday life—the life of the potter, the farmer, the tool-maker, the expert cutter of animal seals and amulets—in fact, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker.
A final warning, so that there will be no disappointment. This is not a profound book—it will give you no interesting sidelights on archaeology, there will be no beautiful descriptions of scenery, no treating of economic problems, no racial reflections, no history.
It is, in fact, small beer—a very little book, full of everyday doings and happenings.
AGATHA CHRISTIE MALLOWAN
In a few weeks’ time we are starting for Syria!
Shopping for a hot climate in autumn or winter presents certain difficulties. One’s last year’s summer clothes, which one has optimistically hoped will ‘do’, do not ‘do’ now the time has come. For one thing they appear to be (like the depressing annotations in furniture removers’ lists) ‘Bruised, Scratched and Marked’. (And also Shrunk, Faded and Peculiar!) For another—alas, alas that one has to say it!—they are too tight everywhere.
So—to the shops and the stores, and:
‘Of course, СКАЧАТЬ