"Rhys Hughes - Toastmaster, Buttermistress" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Rhys)

enough to accommodate two young lovers. Curiosity overcame my bitterness, and I lingered to see who
would pay for the next ride.

A man with unkempt hair and a cheap suit approached the kiosk and bought a ticket. He carried
something under one arm. It wasn't a girl. It was a wardrobe mirror. He positioned it on the seat of a boat and
climbed in next to it. The attendant cast off the mooring rope and the implausible couple drifted through the
opening. The last I saw of the man before he vanished around a corner, he was embracing the mirror and
gazing deeply into the eyes of his own reflection. I don't know if he attempted a kiss, but I should have liked
to see how he solved the problem of nose angles.

I tapped the attendant on the shoulder. "Do you get many men going in just with mirrors?"

"Each to his own. There's too much hatred in the world as it is. No need to complain about something so
harmless as narcissism. I just take the money. None of my business."

I rubbed my chin. I was embarrassed. It was his business. I waited for the man and his mirror to come
out of the exit. I wanted to see how steamed up the glass was. But they didn't emerge. I checked my watch.
Still there was no movement at the portals of the exit. I frowned. Why would a man take a mirror into a Tunnel
of Love instead of a girl? Wasn't it a waste of time, energy and opportunity? Wasn't it a waste of love? I
decided that the man in question was lonely, a failure with women. Clearly he had no choice but to enter the
tunnel on his own, with his reflection to provide an illusion of company.

No, that wasn't right. He would have chosen a mannequin or enlarged photograph if the figment was the
only thing he needed. He preferred to go into the tunnel with himself. An egotist! I felt superior, because such
psychological decadence had nothing to do with me. I was pure, clean, feeling love for other people all the
time. For instance, within the hour, I was going to give a speech in honour of two young friends, Haylan
Duesing and Bowie Crowtoe, bride and groom, the man blushing even more than the wife, married that very
morning. I was the toastmaster for the reception. A special favour, because I had known the pair all their lives.
They had been childhood sweethearts and had finally decided to do something large and legal with their love.
I loved them both, honestly, truly, and my prepared speech reflected this. It was full of praise for them, a frank
admission of how marvellous they were. This other man with his mirror could never possibly understand the
beauty of such affection. He was too sunk in petty self-regard.

But I started to doubt this analysis. He had entered the tunnel with a look of genuine passion on his face.
He hadn't seemed so forlorn after all. I waited another ten minutes and then walked to the exit. I leaned over
the railings and peered inside. It was dark, but something vast and white glimmered just beyond the portals.
This side of the building was in a sorry state of repair, with peeling paint and crumbling plaster. The water was
topped with a green scum, undisturbed, I surmised, for decades. I twisted my head to obtain a better view of
the interior. A dozen yards or so up the exit, a giant web completely blocked the passage. It was so pale it
appeared almost artificial, thick cables faintly humming in the gentle, almost imperceptible, breeze which
wafted from the tunnel.

A giant web! I craned forward, eyes searching for the spider which had spun it. But I saw nothing, not
even a vague silhouette, which might indicate the existence of such a grisly creature. What a woebegone
trap! The lovers at the end of their ride would drift straight into the sticky strands of this cruel net, so skilled at
sighing they might forget how to scream as the horrid monster scuttled from its vantage, hairy legs balancing
lightly on the wires, to sink its fangs into their muscles, numbing them with poison, spinning their shrouds
while they remembered how to scream, but only in their minds, for their mouths were frozen, paralysed no
less than if they had caught their partners in the arms of another lover, before being dragged off to its larder,
perhaps a large cavity in the tunnel wall, still alive! Ghastly! And how fundamentally distasteful for the spider