"Charles L. Harness - The Rose" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

Chapter Five
The swart ugliness of that face verged on the sublime. Anna observed for the first time the two horn-like
protuberances on his forehead, which the man made no effort to conceal. His black woolen beret was
cocked jauntily over one horn; the other, the visible one, bulged even more than Anna's horns, and to her
fascinated eyes he appeared as some Greek satyr; Silenus with an eternal hangover, or Pan wearying of
fruitless pursuit of fleeting nymphs. It was the face of a cynical post-gaol Wilde, of a Rimbaud, of a Goya
turning his brush in saturnine glee from Spanish grandees to the horror-world of Ensayos.

Like a phantom voice, Matthew Bell's cryptic prediction seemed to float into her ears again: "...much in
common...more than you guessтАж "

There was so little time to think. Ruy Jacques must have recognized her frontal deformities even while
that tassellated mortar-board of his Student costume had prevented her from seeing his. He must have
identified her as a less advanced case of his own disease. Had he foreseen the turn of events here? Was
he here to protect the only person on earth who might help him? That wasn't like him. He just wasn't the
sensible type. She got the uneasy impression that he was here solely for his own amusementтАФsimply to
make fools of the three of them.

Grade began to sputter. "Now see here, Mr. Jacques. It's impossible to get in through that door. It's my
private entrance. I changed the combination myself only this morning." The moustache bristled
indignantly. "I must ask the meaning of this."

"Pray do, Colonel, pray do."

"Well, then, what is the meaning of this?"

"None, Colonel. Have you no faith in your own syllogisms? No one can open your private door but you.
Q.E.D. No one did. I'm not really here. No smiles? Tsk tsk! Paragraph 6, p. 840 of the Manual of
Permissible Military Humor officially recognizes the paradox."

"There's no such publicationтАФ" stormed Grade.

But Jacques brushed him aside. He seemed now to notice Anna for the first time, and bowed with
exaggerated punctilio. "My profound apologies, madame. You were standing so still, so quiet, that I
mistook you for a rose bush." He beamed at each in turn. "Now isn't this delightful? I feel like a literary
lion. It's the first time in my life that my admirers ever met for the express purpose of discussing my
work."

How could he know that we were discussing his "composition," wondered Anna. And how did he open
the door?

"If you'd eavesdropped long enough," said Martha Jacques, "you'd have learned we weren't admiring
your 'prose poem'. In fact, I think it's pure nonsense."

No, thought Anna, he couldn't have eavesdropped, because we didn't talk about his speech after Grade
opened the door. There's something hereтАФin this roomтАФthat tells him.

"You don't even think it's poetry?" repeated Jacques, wide-eyed. "Martha, coming from one with your
scientificaIly developed poetical sense, this is utterly damning."
"There are certain well recognized approaches to the appreciation of poetry," said Martha Jacques