"Simon Hawke - Wizard 4 - The Wizard of Rue Morgue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

enjoyed it, but he was weary of it now. It happened over and over again, with
monotonous regularity, and for the thousandth time, he wondered why he bothered
painting nudes. Doing landscapes or bowls of fruit would have been infinitely less
aggravating.
Unfortunately, he had already tried that, but there was simply no demand for him
to do that sort of work. They wanted Siegal to paint women, preferably naked women
or girls in various states of deshabille. He could sell a painting of a cafe street scene for
a few hundred thousand francs because, after all, it was a "See-gal," but the nudes were
what brought the big prices at the galleries. Such was his legend, the handsome,
muscular, passionate and temperamental Italian Jew from Brooklyn who spoke French
as well as any native-born Parisian, who could drink and swear and brawl with the best
of them, and who could do amazing things with light and color on canvas, producing
images of women that conveyed such a powerful, stimulating sensuality that he had
become one of the most famous painters in a city that had produced such immortal
talents as Picasso, Dali and Chagall.
It was a pathetic joke. Siegal knew perfectly well that he wasn't on the same level
with such people. He knew what real talent was and he also knew he didn't have it. He
was merely competent. He would sometimes gaze for hours on end at a Van Gogh and
be moved to tears, knowing he could never hope to produce such work. He had never
even planned to become a painter. He had come to Paris to study thaumaturgy at the
Sorbonne, but despite all his efforts, it had not taken him long to realize the dismal
truth. He simply had no talent for magic.



8
 He could never be a wizard. At best, he could perhaps achieve the status of a
lower-grade adept, learning a few simple and relatively undemanding spells such as
levitation and impulsion, enabling him to get a license as a public transportation adept
so he could pilot a barge down the Seine or operate a cab or bus. As for becoming a
sorcerer, which had been his dream, it was simply out of the question. The only magic
he was capable of performing was the illusion of making women look like wanton
angels when he painted them. And it was a cheap trick, at that.
He winced as Joelle slammed the door behind her. He took a slug of cognac from
the bottle and examined the aborted painting on the easel with disgust. He picked up
the canvas and looked at it for a moment, then swore and smashed it down over the
easel in a sudden fit of temper, tearing a gaping hole in it. He left it that way, impaled
on the easel, picked up the bottle and settled down on the couch for yet another night of
solitary drinking.
It had all come about by accident. He had always been able to draw, but he had
never seriously pursued it beyond making caricatures of people for his own
amusement. He started painting only after he had come to Paris, because Paris was
awash in artists and many students liked to fancy themselves painters. It was a good
way to meet attractive women. One day, while he was out walking with a date, they
happened upon an artist painting a young woman at a sidewalk cafe.
There was a crowd of people watching. The painter was none other then Francois
Benet, then the current rage of the Paris art world. Max had heard of him and seen
some of his work. He thought the man was overrated. As they stopped to watch him
paint, Max's date had teasingly asked him what Benet was doing wrong. Without
thinking, because he was preoccupied with watching the man work, Max told her.