"Asimov, Isaac - One Night of Song" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asimov Isaac)

didn't even know what it was. He asked me what I meant and it
turned out I didn't know what it was, either. It's just that he's
such a little fellow in his own universe that it gives him a feeling
of great success to be able to throw his weight around in our
universe. He likes to help out.
He said he could manage three hours and Mortenson said that
would be perfect when I gave him the news. We picked a night
when she was going to be singing Bach or Handel or one of those
old piano-bangers, and was going to have a long and impressive
solo.
Mortenson went to the church that night and, of course, I
went too. I felt responsible for what was going to happen and I
thought I had better oversee the situation.
Mortenson said, gloomily, "I attended the rehearsals. She was
just singing the same way she always did; you know, as though
she had a tail and someone was stepping on it."
That wasn't the way he used to describe her voice. The music
of the spheres, he said on a number of occasions, and it was all
uphill from there. Of course, though, he had been thrown over,
which does warp a man's judgment.
I fixed him with a censorious eye. "That's no way to talk of a
woman you're trying to bestow a great gift upon."
"That's just it. I want her voice to be perfect. Really perfect.
And I now see--now that the mists of love have cleared from
my eyes--that she has a long way to go. Do you think your
spirit can handle it?"
"The change isn't time to start till 8:15 P.M." A stab of
suspicion went through me. "You hadn't been hoping to use up
the perfection on the rehearsal and then disappoint the audi-
ence?"
"You have it all wrong," he said
They got started a little early and when she got up in her
white dress to sing it was 8:14 by my old pocket watch which is
never off by more than two seconds. She wasn't one of your
peewee sopranos; she was built on a generous scale, leaving lots
of room for the kind of resonance you need when you reach for
that high note and drown out the orchestra. Whenever she drew
in a few gallons of breath with which to manipulate it all, I could
see what Mortenson saw in her, allowing for several layers of
textile material.
She started at her usual level and then at 8:15 precisely, it was
as though another voice had been added. I saw her give a little
jump as though she didn't believe what she heard, and one hand,
which was held to her diaphragm, seemed to vibrate.
Her voice soared. It was as though she had become an organ
in perfect pitch. Each note was perfect, a note invented freshly at
that moment, besides which all other notes of the same pitch and
quality were imperfect copies.
Each note hit squarely with just the proper vibrato, if that's
the word, swelling or diminishing with enormous power and