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

hers, that she was privileged in all things, and that whatever she willed must yield to her.

They had stopped at the temporarily-erected stage-door. She rose sur les pointes, took his face in her
palms, and like a hummingbird drinking her first nectar, kissed him on the mouth.

A moment later she led him into the dressing-room corridor.

He stifled a confused impulse to wipe the back of his hand across his lips. "Well...well, just remember to
take it easy. Don't try to be spectacular. The artificial wings won't take it. Canvas stretched on duralite
and piano wire calls for adagio. A fast pirouette, and they're ripped off. Besides, you're out of practice.
Control your enthusiasm in Act I, or you'll collapse in Act II. Now, run on to your dressing room. Cue in
five minutes!"

Chapter Eighteen
There is a faint, yet distinct anatomical difference in the foot of the man and that of the woman, which
keeps him earthbound, while permitting her, after long and arduous training, to soar sur les pointes.
Owing to the great and varied beauty of the arabesques open to the ballerina poised on her extended
toes, the male danseur at one time existed solely as a shadowy porteur, and was needed only to supply
unobtrusive support and assistance in the exquisite enchainements of the ballerina. Iron muscles in leg
and torso are vital in the danseur, who must help maintain the illusion that his whirling partner is made of
fairy gossamer, seeking to wing skyward from his restraining arms.

All this flashed through the incredulous mind of Ruy Jacques as he whirled in a double fouette and
followed from the corner of his eye the gray figure of Anna van Tuyl, as, wings and arms aflutter, she
pirouetted in the second enchainement of Act I, away from him and toward the ma├оtre de ballet.

It was all well enough to give the illusion of flying, of alighting apparently weightless, in his armsтАФthat was
what the audience loved. But that it could ever really happenтАФthat was simply impossible. Stage
wingsтАФthings of grey canvas and duralite framesтАФcouldn't subtract a hundred pounds from one hundred
and twenty.

And yet...it had seemed to him that she had actually flown.

He tried to pierce her mindтАФto extract the truth from the bits of metal about her. In a gust of fury he dug
at the metal outline of those remarkable wings.

In the space of seconds his forehead was drenched in cold sweat, and his hands were trembling. Only the
fall of the curtain on the first act saved him as he stumbled through his exit entrechat.

What had Matt Bell said? "To communicate in his new language of music, one may expect our man of the
future to develop specialized membranous organs, which, of course, like the tongue, will have dual
functional uses, possibly leading to the conquest of time as the tongue has conquered space."

Those wings were not wire and metal, but flesh and blood.

He was so absorbed in his ratiocination that he failed to become aware of an acutely unpleasant metal
radiation behind him until it was almost upon him. It was an intricate conglomeration of matter, mostly
metal, resting perhaps a dozen feet behind his back, showering the lethal presence of his wife.

He turned with nonchalant grace to face the first tangible spawn of the Sciomnia formula.