"Ballard, J G - Drowned Giant" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ballard J G)

forehead and shouted down at me. Startled by this apparition, I
stepped back, and then saw that a group of youths had climbed
up onto the face and were jostling each other in and out of
the orbits.
People were now clambering all over the giant, whose
reclining arms provided a double stairway. From the palms
they walked along the forearms to the elbows and then crawled
over the distended belly of the biceps to the flat promenade of
the pectoral muscles which covered the upper half of the
smooth hairless chest. From here they climbed up onto the face,
hand over hand along the lips and nose, or forayed down the
abdomen to meet others who had straddled the ankles and were
patrolling the twin columns of the thighs.
We continued our circuit through the crowd, and stopped to
examine the outstretched right hand. A small pool of water lay
in the palm, like the residue of another world, now being kicked
away by people ascending the arm. I tried to read the palmlines
that grooved the skin, searching for some clue to the giant's
character, but the distention of the tissues had almost
obliterated them, carrying away all trace of the giant's identity
and his last tragic predicament. The huge muscles and
wristbones of the hand seemed to deny any sensitivity to their
owner, but the delicate flexion of the fingers and the well-
tended nails, each cut symmetrically to within six inches of the
quick, argued refinement of temperament, illustrated in the
Grecian features of the face, on which the townsfolk were now
sitting like flies.
One youth was even standing, arms wavering at his side, on
the very tip of the nose, shouting down at his companions, but
the face of the giant still retained its massive composure.
Returning to the shore, we sat down on the shingle and
watched the continuous stream of people arriving from the city.
Some six or seven fishing boats had collected offshore, and their
crews waded in through the shallow water for a closer look at
this enormous storm catch. Later a party of police appeared
and made a halfhearted attempt to cordon off the beach, but
after walking up to the recumbent figure, any such thoughts
left their minds, and they went off together with bemused
backward glances.
An hour later there were a thousand people present on the
beach, at least two hundred of them standing or sitting on the
giant, crowded along the arms and legs or circulating in a
ceaseless melee across his chest and stomach. A large gang of
youths occupied the head, toppling each other off the cheeks
and sliding down the smooth planes of the jaw. Two or three
straddled the nose, and another crawled into one of the nostrils,
from which he emitted barking noises like a demented dog.
That afternoon the police returned and cleared a way
through the crowd for a party of scientific expertsauthorities
on gross anatomy and marine biologyfrom the university.