"Baker, Kage - The Literary Agent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baker Kage)
"They're heroes in their own stories."
"Oh, yeah? What about the Musketeers guy, Dumas, he was a quadroon or something, right? Who's in his books? French Kings and Counts. Black, white, it's only a metaphor anyway. Believe me, our audience wants rich white guys as heroes."
"Well, I despise your audience."
"No, you don't. You need money as much as anybody else. You know the stuff you can't write about. You know where you're free to put in those really interesting bits in a way readers won't mind. Villains! It's the villains everyone secretly loves, Louis. They can be lowborn, they can be strange, they can do rotten things and it's okay because that's what the audience wants. And why? _Because people are lowborn and strange and rotten, Louis! _They want the hero to be this impossible perfect white guy so they can watch the villain beat the crap out of him, since it's what they'd like to do themselves. As long as the villain loses in the end, they don't have to feel guilty about it. And it's all phony anyway. I mean, have you ever really talked to a member of the House of Lords? What a bunch of pinheads."
"I see your point, but I can't agree. The human condition is evil, but we _must_ strive to be otherwise. A writer can't glorify evil in his work. He can't write of the miserable _Status Quo_ of human life as though it were a fine and natural state. He must morally instruct, he must inspire, he must hold up an ideal to be worked for -- "
" Oh, garbage. You don't believe that yourself, even. That's why you wrote -- " Joseph halted himself with an effort. "Well, look. Given that a writer has this other fine noble purpose in life, he's still got to eat, okay? So there's no harm in a nice swashbuckling adventure yarn with a swell dark villain -- Byronic, like you said -- and a little thin white cardboard hero to bounce off him. It sells, Louis, and there's no point denying it. So. About this Dark Lord guy."
"This is really too depressing." Stevenson gazed into the fire. "I've never seen the pattern in this sort of thing. But it _is_ what we do, isn't it? We feed a perverse urge in our readers by creating supremely interesting images of evil. Perhaps we even cultivate that urge. The villain wins sympathy in our hearts through the skill of the writer. I've felt admiration for the rogue of the old romance myself, the man with the hand of the devil on his shoulder. Great God, what are we doing when we create such characters? _And yet they make the story live._"
"Now, now, buck up. Look. Suppose you've got your hero sailing along with his two ladies, one good, one bad. Nice tension there. Suppose, Louis, he's got a Bad Guy chasing him, say the chief of the pirates, only this guy isn't just a pirate, he's _the_ Pirate of Pirates, powerful, intelligent, interesting -- maybe he's some kind of magician, picked it up in the islands -- maybe he has something weird about his appearance, in a fascinating way. Huh? Huh, Louis?"
"You even intrigue me with it." Stevenson turned listless eyes on him. "You persuade. You seduce. I want to take pen in hand and write the awful thing and gain immortal fame thereby. Oh, God, this is the real temptation."
"Ah, come on, Louis. We're not talking about sin, we're talking about Dramatic Conflict."
"What if Dramatic Conflict _were_ a sin?" Stevenson said in a small frightened voice, looking back at the flames. "What if my old nurse were right and storytelling does imperil men's souls? Because we do pander to their worst instincts. We do. Let me make my hero as brown as I will, he'll still be the innocent, the Fool. He'll still inspire contempt by his virtue. All my art is spent on making my _villain _fascinate and charm."
"Hey, look, Louis, don't get sore. I don't dictate public taste, I just try to accommodate it. People live such sad lives. Why not take their minds off the fact by entertaining them?"
"And this is to be my choice, isn't it? I can die an unknown scribbler of essays or I can write the kind of thing you want for your photo-plays and live a successful and famous man." Stevenson shut his eyes tightly. "Well, you can get straight back to Hell with your infernal trunk. I won't sell my soul for eternal fame and you can tell your master so from me. Thee and all thy works I utterly reject."
"Believe me, Louis, you're taking this all the wrong way," the other said soothingly, getting down on his knees beside him. "Isn't it possible to use people's appetites to instruct them in a, uh, positive moral way? Sell 'em tickets to the Palace of Excess and then slip 'em out the back to Wisdom by putting up a sign that says _This Way to the Egress_? Sure it is. Sure you can. You will. Dickens did it all the time. And even if there _is_ something wrong with the entertainment business, can't you atone for what you do? You can use your loot to do something good. Fight injustice. Defend the brown guys oppressed by white guys, maybe. Louis, you can use this talent of yours to do such good."
"This is just the way you'd have to talk to convince me." Stevenson was trembling, clenching his poor scabbed hands. "Fiendish. Fiendish. Can't you let me die in peace?" The other looked at him with something like compassion. He leaned forward and said:
"Has it occurred to you that you might be wrestling with an angel, Louis?" Stevenson opened his eyes again and stared at him, sweat beading on his high brow. "Come on now. We've almost got it right. Tell me why the pirate is chasing after our hero. Is he after a treasure map? Is _he_ in love with one of the girls? Are they rivals from childhood? _Tell me the story, Louis."_
Stevenson's breathing had grown steadily harsher. "Very well," he began, covering his face with his long hands and staring up through his fingers at the stars, "your damned pirate's the man for me. Perhaps he's got a cloak that blows about him as he makes his entrance in a storm, black as shadows dancing on the wall of the night-nursery, black as devil's wings. And if you're good, and lie very still, he can't see you ... why can't he see you? Evil's not blind, no, Evil walks in the sun with a bland and reasonable face." he lowered his hands and glared at Joseph. "But there's some horror to him as he searches for you there in the dark. _You can hear him coming._ He's a limping devil, you can hear his halting step -- or his wooden leg! The man is maimed, that's it, he's had a leg clean gone by a round broadside of eighteen-pound shot!" He sat up in excitement, taken with his creation.
"And that's the mark by which you may know him, for you couldn't _tell_, else, he looks so big and bluff and brave, like somebody's father come to chase the night horrors away. There's your subtle evil, man, there's the Pirate as honest seaman in plain broadcloth, a man full of virtues to win your trust -- until he finds it convenient to kill you. Yes! And the damnable thing is, he'll _have _those virtues! Not a mask, d'you see? He'll _be_ brave, and clever, and decent enough in his way -- for all his murderous resolution -- oh, this is the man, _ecce homo_, look at him there large as life! Dear God, he's standing there beside you even now, leaning on his crutch, and there's the parrot on his shoulder -- "
He threw out his frail arm, pointing with such feverish conviction that Joseph, who had been sitting spellbound in spite of himself, turned involuntarily to look. Louis' voice rose to a hoarse scream:
"Oh, give me paper! Give me even a scrap of that yellow paper, please, you can have the bloody soul, only let me get this down before he slips away from me -- " and he groped at his pockets, searching for a pencil; but then he went into a coughing fit that sprayed blood across the other man's trousers. Aghast, Joseph pulled out a tiny device and forced it between Stevenson's teeth.
"Bite! Bite on this and inhale!" Stevenson obeyed and clung to him, strangling, as the other fumbled out another needle and managed to inject another drug.
"Jeez, this wasn't due to happen yet! I'm really sorry, Mr. Stevenson, really, just keep breathing, keep breathing. Okay? You'll be okay now. I promise. This'll fix you up just fine."
After a moment Stevenson fell back, limp. His coughing had stopped. His breathing slowed. Joseph had produced a sponge and a bottle of some kind of cleaner from the trunk and was hastily dabbing blood from his trousers.
"See what you made me do?" Stevenson smiled feebly. "Blood-red ensign's hoisted at last. Disgusting, isn't it?"
"I dare say you have." Stevenson giggled again. "My apologies for the blood. But it's a sort of a metaphor, isn't it? And now you've foxed your own design, for I'll die and he'll never live, my limping devil ... though he'd have been a grand piece of work..."
"Oh, you'll live long enough to write about _him_." Joseph peered critically at his cleaning job and decided he'd gotten everything out. "Not that it'll do my masters any damn good."
Stevenson closed his eyes. Joseph gave a final swab at his shirtfront. As he was doing so the trunk made a chattering noise and spewed out another sheet of paper. Almost absently he reached out to tear it loose, and glanced at the reply:
CLIENT SAW "NOTES" ON KNIGHTS IN ARMOR STORY, LOVES IT. _DE GUSTIBUS NON EST_ _DISPUTANDEM_. SOME ADAPTATION POSSIBLE. SECURE RIGHTS ON FORGERY BELOW AND PROCEED TO NEXT ARTIST.
Stevenson had opened his eyes again at the sound the trunk made. Joseph looked up from his communication and met his gaze with a frank smile.
"Well, Louis, you've won. Your soul has been tested and found pure. You're one of the Elect, okay? Congratulations, and let me just ask you one last favor."
"What's that?" Stevenson was groggy now.
"Can I have your autograph? Just sign here." He put the pen in Stevenson's hand and watched as Stevenson scrawled his name on the paper, just below the cleverly faked holograph of plot outline and character notes.
"Thanks, pal. I mean that. Sincerely." The other fed the paper into the trunk and this time it did not return. He stood and hoisted the trunk up to his shoulder.
"I'll be running along now, Louis, but before I do I'd like to give you a piece of advice. You won't take it, but I feel compelled. That's just the kind of guy I am."
Stevenson peered at him. Joseph leaned down.
"You really would live longer if you'd give up the cigarettes."
"Tempter, get thee below," Stevenson said.
"Funny you should say that, you know, because that _is_ where I'm based. In a geographical sense only, of course, Down and South being sort of the same? Little suburb just outside of Los Angeles. We produce our photo-plays down there. It's not a great town for writers, Louis. I know you like to travel and everything, but you'd want to leave this one off your world itinerary. Believe me, it's not a place for a man with your scruples to work. The climate's good, though, and they really like your stuff, so it might have suited you. Who knows?"
"I'll die first." Stevenson closed his eyes. The other man nodded somberly and walked away into the night.
* * * *
IN ENTIRELY another time and place, there was a whirl and scatter of brown beech leaves and the trunk was _there_, spinning unsteadily to a halt; and as there had been no witness to observe its previous arrival, there was no witness now to notice that it was spinning in the opposite direction. It slowed and stopped, and the winter silence of an English forest settled over it. When the lid popped the trunk fell over, and the man in the brown suit had to push the lid aside as he crawled out on hands and knees through a small cloud of yellow smoke.
He crouched on the forest floor a moment or two, panting out stasis gas. As he got to his feet and brushed off his clothes he heard the approaching rattle of an automobile. He looked at his (for lack of a better word) watch.
It was December 3, 1926.
At that precise moment there was a mechanical squeal followed by crashing sounds and a thud, coming from beyond a nearby grove of trees.
He grinned and gave a little stamp of his foot, in appreciation of perfect timing. Then he turned and ran in the direction of the accident.
The automobile was not seriously damaged, although steam was hissing from the radiator cap under the hood ornament. The bug-eyed headlights stared as if in shock. So did the woman seated behind the wheel. Her cloche hat had flown off her head and lay outside the car. He picked it up and presented it to her with a bow. She turned her pale unhappy face to look at him, but said nothing.
"Here's your hat, Mrs. Christie. Say, you're lucky I came along when I did. I think you've had a bump on the head. That sort of injury can cause amnesia, you know."
She did not respond.
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