 132  5 |
6 |
||||
A15 — A21
-
Прочитайте текст и выполните задания А15 — А21, обводя цифру 1, 2, 3 или 4, со-^ ответcmвующую номеру выбранного вами варианта ответа._
Our province has not always been a dead place, entirely unknown to fame, as it is today. Long ago, the people from all the farms within 20 miles brought us their crops of grain to grind. To right and left, one could see nothing but the sails turning about in the wind above the huge pine trees, and long strings of little donkeys loaded with bags climbing the hills and stretching out along the roads.
On Sundays, we went to the mills in groups. The millers treated us to wine, and we danced until it was pitch-dark. Those mills, you see, were the pleasure and wealth of our province. Then some Frenchman from Paris got the idea of setting up a steam flourmill on the road to Tarascon, and the people fell into the habit of sending their grain there, and the poor windmills were left without work. We saw no more strings of little donkeys. No more wine! No more dancing!
But one little mill continued to turn bravely on its hill. That was Master Comille’s mill. The Master was an old miller who was crazy over his trade. Then the old man shut himself up in his mill, and lived alone like a wild beast. He wouldn’t even keep with him his granddaughter Vivette, a child of 15. Since the death of her parents, she had no one but her grandfather in the world. The poor child had to hire herself out among the farms for the harvest or the olive picking. And yet, her grandfather seemed to love the child dearly. He often traveled eight miles on foot to see her at the farm where she was working. When he was with her, he would pass hours at a time gazing at her and weeping. They were tears of grief for the girl.
There was something in Master Cornille’s life we couldn’t understand. For a long time, no one in the village had brought him any grain, and yet the sails of his windmill were always in motion as before. In the evenings, people met the old miller on the roads, driving before him his donkey loaded with fat bags of flour. If any one asked where so much work could come from, he would put a finger to his lips and answer gravely: “Hush! I am working for export.” No one could get anything more from him. Everyone had his own explanation of Master Cornille’s secret. But the general report was that there were even more bags of silver in the mill than bags of grain.
132 
