"Jack Dann - The Diamond Pit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dann Jack)

Master Jefferson spoke to his slave in English.
Robert nodded and looked at me as if I were the wayward child and he
was the parent.
"Well, good evening, Mr. Orsatti," Jefferson said. "I see that you have
already provided my daughter with her first lesson. I will expect you to
attend to my daughter's musical education with as much ardor as you seem to
have displayed here tonight." He lifted my undershorts with the toe of his
polished leather spats and then kicked them across the room. "And I am
expecting to see a marked improvement in her proficiency at the piano, Mr.
Orsatti. In September, she will give a recital at Carnegie Hall. It's all
arranged."
"Sir, don't you think that's a bit, er, premature -- ?"
Jefferson gave me a genial smile, his ruddy, fleshy face the picture of
cheerfulness, his eyes as hard as the diamond mountain below us. "Wouldn't you
say _this_ is premature, sir?" he said, looking around the room, indicating my
situation with a simple turn of his head. Then he nodded to Robert, who picked
up my scattered clothes and laid them out neatly on the corner of the bed.
"You look perplexed, Mr. Orsatti," Jefferson continued. "Did you expect
I would have you beaten? Or killed? Or thrown back into the pit with your
colleagues? No, you're Phoebe's guest now. And Phoebe is a woman of the '20s.
Why, she's practically emancipated."
"_Practically_ emancipated?" Phoebe asked, opening her bathroom door a
crack and peering out. The light behind her transformed her curly hair into a
halo.
"Well, maybe you'd prefer to leave school and go to work for Mrs.
Millie Scotch Barker and her suffragettes," Jefferson said. "But this is none
of your business, young lady. You're taking your bath, are you not? while poor
Mr. Orsatti must make his own introductions."
"For your information, her name isn't Millie Scotch Barker. It's Abby
Scott Baker, and in case you've been too busy to notice, Poppa, we've won the
right to vote."
"_You_ don't have the right to vote, nor do I think you'd care to be
poor."
"I know poor people at school," Phoebe said.
"Ah, yes, those poor girlfriends of yours who can't afford to keep
their own staffs of servants.
"Well, I know Mr. Orsatti."
"Ah, yes, Mr. Orsatti, whom you're going to make as rich as Croesus,
isn't that so?"
"If you have no objections, Poppa," Phoebe said meekly, then closed the
bathroom door.
Jefferson chuckled and said, "Well, Croesus had better dress for
dinner, hadn't he? When Robert is finished with you, Mr. Orsatti, he'll bring
you to my library, and I will explain everything before we join the ladies.
No, better yet, Robert, bring him to the theater. Do you like moving pictures,
Mr. Orsatti -- ?"
Without waiting for an answer, Jefferson left, and Robert introduced me
to my new bodyguard, Wordsworth, who had been waiting like a good foot soldier
in the wood-paneled lobby. I learned that Isaac was being punished for a
dereliction of duty, and I would not see him again. I wondered if _anyone_