The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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СКАЧАТЬ a sort of religion. He evidently thought of him every moment. So when he spoke of Loristan’s knowing him to be only a rat of the gutter, Marco felt he himself was fortunate in remembering something he could say.

      “My father said yesterday that you had a big brain and a strong will,” he answered from his bed. “He said that you had a wonderful memory which only needed exercising. He said it after he looked over the list you made of the things you had seen in the Tower.”

      The Rat shuffled on his sofa and clasped his knees tighter.

      “Did he? Did he?” he said.

      He rested his chin upon his knees for a few minutes and stared straight before him. Then he turned to the bed.

      “Marco,” he said, in a rather hoarse voice, a queer voice; “are you jealous?”

      “Jealous,” said Marco; “why?”

      “I mean, have you ever been jealous? Do you know what it is like?”

      “I don’t think I do,” answered Marco, staring a little.

      “Are you ever jealous of Lazarus because he’s always with your father—because he’s with him oftener than you are—and knows about his work—and can do things for him you can’t? I mean, are you jealous of—your father?”

      Marco loosed his arms from his knees and lay down flat on his pillow.

      “No, I’m not. The more people love and serve him, the better,” he said. “The only thing I care for is—is him. I just care for HIM. Lazarus does too. Don’t you?”

      The Rat was greatly excited internally. He had been thinking of this thing a great deal. The thought had sometimes terrified him. He might as well have it out now if he could. If he could get at the truth, everything would be easier. But would Marco really tell him?

      “Don’t you mind?” he said, still hoarse and eager—“don’t you mind how much I care for him? Could it ever make you feel savage? Could it ever set you thinking I was nothing but—what I am—and that it was cheek of me to push myself in and fasten on to a gentleman who only took me up for charity? Here’s the living truth,” he ended in an outburst; “if I were you and you were me, that’s what I should be thinking. I know it is. I couldn’t help it. I should see every low thing there was in you, in your manners and your voice and your looks. I should see nothing but the contrast between you and me and between you and him. I should be so jealous that I should just rage. I should HATE you—and I should DESPISE you!”

      He had wrought himself up to such a passion of feeling that he set Marco thinking that what he was hearing meant strange and strong emotions such as he himself had never experienced. The Rat had been thinking over all this in secret for some time, it was evident. Marco lay still a few minutes and thought it over. Then he found something to say, just as he had found something before.

      “You might, if you were with other people who thought in the same way,” he said, “and if you hadn’t found out that it is such a mistake to think in that way, that it’s even stupid. But, you see, if you were I, you would have lived with my father, and he’d have told you what he knows—what he’s been finding out all his life.”

      “What’s he found out?”

      “Oh!” Marco answered, quite casually, “just that you can’t set savage thoughts loose in the world, any more than you can let loose savage beasts with hydrophobia. They spread a sort of rabies, and they always tear and worry you first of all.”

      “What do you mean?” The Rat gasped out.

      “It’s like this,” said Marco, lying flat and cool on his hard pillow and looking at the reflection of the street lamp on the ceiling. “That day I turned into your Barracks, without knowing that you’d think I was spying, it made you feel savage, and you threw the stone at me. If it had made me feel savage and I’d rushed in and fought, what would have happened to all of us?”

      The Rat’s spirit of generalship gave the answer.

      “I should have called on the Squad to charge with fixed bayonets. They’d have half killed you. You’re a strong chap, and you’d have hurt a lot of them.”

      A note of terror broke into his voice. “What a fool I should have been!” he cried out. “I should never have come here! I should never have known HIM!” Even by the light of the street lamp Marco could see him begin to look almost ghastly.

      “The Squad could easily have half killed me,” Marco added. “They could have quite killed me, if they had wanted to do it. And who would have got any good out of it? It would only have been a street-lads’ row—with the police and prison at the end of it.”

      “But because you’d lived with him,” The Rat pondered, “you walked in as if you didn’t mind, and just asked why we did it, and looked like a stronger chap than any of us—and different—different. I wondered what was the matter with you, you were so cool and steady. I know now. It was because you were like him. He’d taught you. He’s like a wizard.”

      “He knows things that wizards think they know, but he knows them better,” Marco said. “He says they’re not queer and unnatural. They’re just simple laws of nature. You have to be either on one side or the other, like an army. You choose your side. You either build up or tear down. You either keep in the light where you can see, or you stand in the dark and fight everything that comes near you, because you can’t see and you think it’s an enemy. No, you wouldn’t have been jealous if you’d been I and I’d been you.”

      “And you’re NOT?” The Rat’s sharp voice was almost hollow. “You’ll swear you’re not?”

      “I’m not,” said Marco.

      The Rat’s excitement even increased a shade as he poured forth his confession.

      “I was afraid,” he said. “I’ve been afraid every day since I came here. I’ll tell you straight out. It seemed just natural that you and Lazarus wouldn’t stand me, just as I wouldn’t have stood you. It seemed just natural that you’d work together to throw me out. I knew how I should have worked myself. Marco—I said I’d tell you straight out—I’m jealous of you. I’m jealous of Lazarus. It makes me wild when I see you both knowing all about him, and fit and ready to do anything he wants done. I’m not ready and I’m not fit.”

      “You’d do anything he wanted done, whether you were fit and ready or not,” said Marco. “He knows that.”

      “Does he? Do you think he does?” cried The Rat. “I wish he’d try me. I wish he would.”

      Marco turned over on his bed and rose up on his elbow so that he faced The Rat on his sofa.

      “Let us WAIT,” he said in a whisper. “Let us WAIT.”

      There was a pause, and then The Rat whispered also.

      “For what?”

      “For him to find out that we’re fit to be tried. Don’t you see what fools we should be if we spent our time in being jealous, either of us. We’re only two boys. Suppose he saw we were only two silly fools. When you are jealous of me or of Lazarus, just go and sit down in a still place and think of HIM. Don’t think about СКАЧАТЬ