"Gardner Dozois - Fairy Tale" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

own, after all, and had already gone a long mile further than she needed to just by
continuing to feed the child in the first place.
There were step-sisters too, children of a previous marriage (a marriage where
the husband had also died youngтАжbut before youтАЩre tempted to cast the
step-mother in a Black Widow scenario, keep in mind that in those days, in that
place, dying young was not an especially rare phenomenon), but they were not
particularly evil eitherтАФalthough they didnтАЩt much like Eleanor, and let it show.
However, they were no more cruel and vindictiveтАФbut no less, eitherтАФthan most
young girls forced into the company of someone they didnтАЩt much like, someone of
fallen status whom their mother didnтАЩt much like either and made no particular effort
to protect. Someone who, truth be told, had probably lorded it over them, just a little
bit, when she was her fatherтАЩs favorite and they were the new girls in the household.
Neither were the step-sisters particularly ugly; this is something that came in
with Disney, who always equates ugliness with evil. They were, in fact, quite
acceptably attractive by the standards of their day.
Although it is true that when Eleanor was around, they tended to dim in her
presence, in male eyes at least, as bright bulbs can be dimmed by a brighter one.
Eleanor was beautiful, of course. We have to give her that much if the rest of
the story is going to make any sense. Like her step-sisters, she had been brought up
as a child of the relatively prosperous merchant class, which ensured that she had
been well-enough nourished as a babe to have grown up with good teeth and glossy
hair and strong, straight bonesтАФunlike the peasants, who were often afflicted with
rickets and other vitamin-deficiency diseases.
No doubt she had breasts and legs, like other young women, but whether her
breasts were large or small, whether her legs were long or squat, is impossible to tell
at this distant point in time.
We can tell from the story, though, that she was considered to be striking, and
perhaps a bit unusual; so, since no-one knows what she really looked like, letтАЩs cater
to the tastes of our own time and say that she was tall and coltish, with long lovely
legs and smallтАФbut not too smallтАФbreasts, a contrast to many around her upon
whom a diet consisting largely of potatoes and coarse black bread had imposed a
dumpier sort of physique.
Since this tale is set in that part of Central Europe that had changed hands
dozens of times in the past few hundred years and was destined to change hands
again a few times more before the century was out, with every wave of
raping-and-pillaging Romans, Celts, Goths, Huns, Russians, Mongols, and Turks
scrambling the gene-pool a bit further, letтАЩs also say that she had red hair and green
eyes and a pale complexion, a rare but possible combination, given the presence of
Russian and Celtic DNA in the genetic stew. That should make her sufficiently
distinctive. (ItтАЩs possible, of course, that she really looked like a female Russian
weight-lifter, complete with faint mustache, or like a walking potato, and youтАЩre
welcome to picture her that way instead if youтАЩd likeтАФbut if so, you must grant at
least that she was a striking and charismatic weight-lifter or potato, one who had had
men sniffing around her from the time she started to grow hair in places other than
her head.)
In truth, like most тАЬbeautifulтАЭ women, who often are not really even pretty if
you can catch them on those rare occasions when their faces are in repose, her allure
was based in large part on her charisma and elan, and a personality that remained
vital and intense in spite of a life that increasingly tried to grind her down.
Eleanor didnтАЩt wait on the others to the degree shown in the Disney version,