"Avram Davidson - Naples" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

ago, perhaps, and left the rest of the wood as inedible.A courtyard as dim, as dank as the antechamber
to an Etruscan Hell. Courtyard as it might be the outer lobby of some tumulus, some tomb, not yet quite
filled although long awaiting its last occupant.Shadow.Stench. The tatters hung up here could never be
clothing again, should they in this foul damp ever indeed dry. At best they might serve to mop some ugly
doorstep, did anyone within the yard have yet pride enough for such. And yet, if not, why were they
hanging, wet from washing?Perhaps some lastunstifled gesture of respectability. Whoknows.

Naples.

Around a corner in the courtyard a door, and through the door a passageway and at the end of that a
flight of stairs and the end of the flight of stairs a doorway that no longer framed a door.A thing,
something that was less than a blanket, was hung. Theyoungman paused and rapped and murmured.
Something made a sound within. Something dragged itself across the floor within. Something seemed
simultaneously to pull the hanging aside and to wrap itself behind the hanging.

At the opposite side to the door a man sat upon a bed. The man would seemingly have been the better
for having been in the bed and not merely on it. On the cracked andriven and flaking, sodden walls some
pictures, cut from magazines.Two American Presidents.Two Popes.And one Russian leader. And two
saints. Comparisons are odious. Of those whose likenesses were on that filthy fearful wall it might be said
they had in common anyway that all were dead.

тАФGood dayтАФtheyoungman guide said.

тАФGood dayтАФthe man on the bed said.After a moment. He might, though, have been excused for not
having said it at all.

тАФThis gentleman is a foreignerтАФ

The man on the bed said nothing. His sunken eyes merely looked.

тАФAnd he would like, ahem, ha, he would like to buyтАФ

тАФBut I have nothing to sellтАФ

How dry, how faint, his voice.

тАФSome little something.Some certain article. An itemтАФ

тАФBut nothing. I have nothing. We have nothing hereтАФ

His hand made a briefgesture, fell still.

A very small degree of impatience seemed to come over the face of the older visitor. The younger
visitor, observing this, as he observed everything, took another step closer to the bed.тАФThegentleman is
a foreignerтАФhe repeated, as one who speaks to a rather stupid child.

The man on the bed looked around. His stooped shoulders, all dirty bones, shrugged, stooped
more.тАФHe may be a foreigner twice over, and what is it to meтАФhe said, low-voiced, seemingly
indifferent.