Come, Tell Me How You Live: An Archaeological Memoir

Name: Come, Tell Me How You Live: An Archaeological Memoir
Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
Author: Агата Кристи

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Агата Кристи

Жанр

Биографии и мемуары

Год написания книги

2018

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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