Цитаты из книги «Росс Полдарк», страница 7

Charles exploded again. "God's my life, we all drink! Not to drink is unnatural in a man. Aarf! But we do not become murderous in our cups. To kick a woman in that condition is beyond forgiveness."

"Well, how do you get rid of 'em [lice]?"

"Wash, wash, wash," said Prudie.

"Like a blathering duck," said Jud, who had just entered the kitchen.

Demelza turned her head and gazed at him with her interested dark eyes. Then she looked again at Prudie.

"'Ow is it you an't got rid of 'em, then?" she asked, anxious to learn.

"An't washed enought," said Jud sarcastically. "Tedn't right fur human beings to 'ave skins. They must scrub themselves raw as a buttock of beef to please some folk. But then again it depend 'pon how cra'lers do attach their selves. Cra'lers is funny, kicklish creatures. Cra'lers like some folk better'n other folk. Cra'lers 'ave a natural infinity with some folk, just like they was brother and sister. Other folk, God makes 'em clean by nature. Look at me. You won't find no cra'lers on my head."

Demelza considered him.

"No," she said, "but you an't gotten any hair."

Much against her will, Prudie found herself enlisted in a campaign in which she had no personal belief: the war on lice.

"He says, 'There never was an Illuggan man what wasn't the dirty cross-eyed son of an unmarried bitch wi' no chest and spavin shanks out of a knacker's yard.' I thought twas as good as the preacher."

<...> [Jud] was deeply annoyed at having to leave the fair before he was drunk, a thing that had never happened to him since he was ten.

<...> he fought to overcome his jealousy and pain, as one will to overcome a fainting fit. This time he must destroy it once and for all. Either he must do that or leave the county again. He had his own life to live, his own way to go; there were other women in the world, common clay perhaps, but charming enough with their pretty ways and soft bodies.

A girl with four unmarried sisters does not come to her first ball with overweening expectations. To find herself singled out by a man of some distinction was heady wine, and Ross should have been careful with his doses. But he, in a good-natured way, was only pleased to find pleasure in making someone's evening a success

How clean her skin looks; she's like a westerly breeze at sunrise, rare and fresh, and good to get into your lungs and your heart.

I must think of something to say, thought Verity; why have I no small talk like those girls over there; if I could help him to talk, he would like me more; he's shy like me, and I ought to make things easier, not harder. <...> Why can't I just say, la, la, la, and giggle and be fanciful.

Except for his cousin she was the first woman he had talked with who had not relied on a strong scent to drown the odours of the body. In finding a girl who smelt as clean as Verity he felt an impulse of friendship.