"Dann,_Jack_-_The_Diamond_Pit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dann Jack)

Into a Baroque hall of mirrors that overlooked park-like grounds.
Hundreds of mirrors were set opposite windows and into the scrolled columns and archways. The high ceiling was curved, and painted angels gazed down from clouds in heaven upon gold and silver chairs and bejeweled trees. A forest of gold. Glades of diamonds. In keeping with this stone and jeweled forest was a grand piano that looked to be cut from a gigantic block of jade. Our feet clacked on the inlaid floor of this formal hall that seemed to extend into a finger-width arched door in the distance as Robert and Isaac led me to the piano.
Robert bowed and said, "I will leave you now, sir."
Isaac stood over me, and I was sure that, should I stand up from the piano, he would force me back down onto the cushioned stool.
"And what am I to play?" I asked.
"I would think that would be up to you sir," Robert said, and, nodding to Isaac, he clattered away toward the far, perspective-shrunk doorway, his reflections creating an army of stiff, marching Roberts.
"And who am I to play to -- ?"
I sat before the translucent green piano, and began warming up by playing scales from Clementi's instruction book. Looking around the seemingly endless room, I couldn't see anyone except for Isaac, reflected in a dozen mirrors; he stood so still that I wondered if he even breathed. But I could _feel_ other eyes watching me, and I remembered what crazy George Bernard had said about God not allowing me to return to my gilded prison. What was he planning for me, then? I wondered. Certainly Master Randolph Estes Jefferson wasn't going to take any chances with me, although I wondered -- perhaps I _could_ escape. I chuckled and looked around at this room constructed from dream and imagination. Would I _want_ to escape?
But I could feel Isaac's presence pressing against me and knew I was freer in the pit. No matter, I was here to play, and if I failed Jefferson's test -- if that was what it was -- who knew what he might do. So I played, beginning with Chopin's _Waltz in G Flat_, then playing his preludes and nocturnes and etudes. I played Bach and Mozart and Beethoven. I expected _something_ to happen. Someone besides Isaac to appear. Then I began playing Erik Satie's piano works, which I loved: _Gymnopedies, Gnossiennes, Peccadilles importunes_ -- Satie the joker, the dissonant, the genius; and I heard a giggle behind me.
Saw reflections.
Phoebe stood before me, big as life, just as she stood beside and behind me, reflections in a myriad mirrors, a company of lovely, fragile, faun-like Phoebes looking awkward one instant and graceful the next. She wore a white gown, a silk scarf draped carelessly -- or perhaps very carefully -- over her shoulder, and a fetching bonnet with a red sash. Her eyes were indeed blue, her face was freckled, and she was the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen.
She said something to Isaac, which sounded like, "_Ra'ase, nah'ye haingwine heaightmuh_," and then she stood right by the piano and said, "Well, Mr. Paul Orsatti, you can certainly play, and I told Poppa that if he didn't bring you up out of that horrible place with those men, I'd never speak to him again. You're a genius, that's just what I told him, and I told him you'd be happy to teach me how to play the piano. I want to play as well as you, can you do that for me?"
I was about to tell her that I didn't know, but she said something else to Isaac, who looked sullenly down at the glassy floor.
"What did you say to him?" I asked.
"Just now, or before?" She looked steadily at me, and I could feel myself blushing. I don't know why, but she made me feel like I was sixteen and pimply and gawky and trying to get up the courage to ask out the prom queen. She was just a wisp of a thing, her cheeks were freckled, and her curly blond hair stuck out from under her bonnet. Yet she seemed completely self-assured, as though she was accustomed to absolute obedience. And innocent. Perhaps it was the combination that unnerved me. Or perhaps I had just instantly fallen completely in love with her.
"I don't know," I said. "Both, I guess."
She giggled. "Well, I told him to calm himself down, that you probably weren't going to hurt me or kill me or anything like that." She backed away a step. "You're not, are you?"
"No, of course not."
"There, you see -- ? And then I told him -- "
"Yes?"
"That's for me to know and you to find out," she said. "Now do you want to take me for a walk before you meet Poppa? He wants to have a talk with you."
"What about your friend Isaac?"
"Oh, don't worry about him. He'll keep out of the way," and she turned to him and glared. He quickly resumed looking at the floor.
"I'm Phoebe," she said as she led the way out of what she called the Mirror Gallery. Isaac followed, keeping a safe distance.
"I know your name."
"Ah, those awful men in the pit told you, did they." It wasn't a question. "I hate them."
"Why?"
"Because of what they say about me."
"And what is that?"
"That's for me to know."
I nodded. She was obviously younger than her years, but I couldn't help feeling attracted to her. I'd often been in the company of the rich and spoiled, and Phoebe was certainly the quintessential product of excess. Could she even imagine that there was another world out there, a world of people working twelve hours a day, haggling over pennies at the market, cooking their own food, sharing their possessions? Probably -- no, definitely not.
"How did you know I could play the piano?" I asked.
"Well, because I heard you, that's how. Poppa can listen to everything those horrible men say down in the pit. And so can I, although if you tell Poppa that, I'll never speak to you again." We walked down a huge stone staircase and past the Neptune Pool that reflected the sun as a sheet of yellow light. "But you wouldn't care, would you?"
"About what?" I asked, overwhelmed by the sheer size of this place, by the formal gardens with statues as large as houses, by the pergola ahead, which was fashioned of crystal and gems and seemed to extend for a mile. And there was the chateau -- the castle that connected to dozens of other buildings, each one of a different period, yet part of the perfect white, geometric whole -- that was surrounded by pools the color of terra-cotta and marble constructions that resembled Greek and Roman ruins.
"You wouldn't care if I ever spoke to you again, would you, Mr. Paul Orsatti?" She sniffled, turning her head from me. "Well?"
"Of course, I would care."
"Why?"
"I don't know!"
"There, you see?" she said, but of course I didn't see.
"I listened to you play, even the night you got so drunk that the dumbbell with no eyebrows had to drag you to his room. I listened to you snore. Do you know how loud you snore? I'd do something about that if I were you."
I chuckled and asked if her father was able to see his prisoners as well as hear them. But Phoebe ignored that question -- as though she hadn't heard it.
We walked past tennis courts, a reservoir, greenhouses, barracks, a zoo surrounded by marble lions, and then through the pergola to the edge of the formal gardens. Phoebe glanced back at Isaac every few minutes, and he would respectfully drop back several feet.
"I think it's all a lie," Phoebe said.
"What?" I asked.
"That the servants can't understand English. I think they've been tricking Poppa about that for years, and so does Uncle George."
"Uncle George?"
"You met him and played with his trains. That's what Poppa told me."
"Your _uncle_ is in the pit?"
"Oh, yes," Phoebe said. "George Bernard Jefferson. He didn't tell you his last name, I imagine." She giggled. "He's always been in there. Well, practically always. But Poppa will tell you all about that. He tells everybody."
Everybody -- ? I thought.