"Harlan Ellison - Paladin of the Lost Hour" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Harlan)

His three-room apartment was the vacuum in which he existed. It was furnished, but ifone stepped out
into the hallway and, for all the money in all the numbered accounts inall the banks in Switzerland, one
was asked to describe those furnishings, one would comeaway no richer than before. The apartment was
charisma poor. It was a place to come whenall other possibilities had been expended. Nothing green,
nothing alive, existed in thoseboxes. No eyes looked back from the walls. Neither warmth nor chill
marked those spaces.It was a place to wait.

Gaspar leaned his closed shooting stick, now a walking stick with handles, against thebookcase. He
studied the titles of the paperbacks stacked haphazardly on the shelves.

From the kitchenette came the sound of water running into a metal pan. Then tin on castiron. Then the
hiss of gas and the flaring of a match as it was struck; and the pop of thegas being lit.

"Many years ago," Gaspar said, taking out a copy of Moravia's TheAdolescents and thumbing it as he
spoke, "I had a library of books, oh,thousands of books -- never could bear to toss one out, not even the
bad ones -- and whenfolks would come to the house to visit they'd look around at all the nooks and
cranniesstuffed with books; and if they were the sort of folks who don't snuggle with books,they'd always
ask the same dumb question." He waited a moment for a response and whennone was forthcoming (the
sound of china cups on sink tile), he said, "Guess what thequestion was."

From the kitchen, without much interest: "No idea."

"They'd always ask it with the kind of voice people use in the presence of largesculptures in museums.
They'd ask me, 'Have you read all these books?'" He waitedagain, but Billy Kinetta was not playing the
game. "Well, young fella, after a whilethe same dumb question gets asked a million times, you get sorta

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 Harlan Ellison - Paladin of the Lost Hour

snappish about it. And itcame to annoy me more than a little bit. Till I finally figured out the right
answer.

"And you know what that answer was? Go ahead, take a guess." Billy appearedin the kitchenette
doorway.

"I suppose you told them you'd read a lot of them but not all of them."

Gaspar waved the guess away with a flapping hand. "Now what good would that havedone? They
wouldn't know they'd asked a dumb question, but I didn't want to insult them,either. So when they'd ask
if I'd read all those books, I'd say, 'Hell, no. Who wants alibrary full of books you've already read?'"

Billy laughed despite himself. He scratched at his hair with idle pleasure, and shookhis head at the old
man's verve. "Gaspar, you are a wild old man. You retired?"The old man walked carefully to the most
comfortable chair in the room, an overstuffedThirties-style lounger that had been reupholstered many
times before Billy Kinetta hadpurchased it at the American Cancer Society Thrift Shop. He sank into it
with a sigh."No sir, I am not by any means retired. Still very active."

"Doing what, if I'm not prying?"