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

too, to be so cynical and repulsive. Imagine owning knees higher than your head!

I assumed the original builders of this Tunnel of Love had become confused, mixing up its function with
that of one of the Ghost Trains so typical of funfairs. Or was the spider really smart enough to devise this
opportunistic stratagem to obtain an easy meal? The more I looked, the more the nastiness of the idea
diminished, for there were no bones floating on the surface of the canal, and no signs of struggle among the
strands. The web was perfect and bare. If anything, it was a little dusty. I was forced to conclude that this in
itself wasn't the reason why the man with the mirror hadn't yet emerged. He hadn't been eaten. He was still
inside and presumably still in love.

If I was going to solve the enigma, I would have to pay for a ride myself. But I lacked time and a partner.
Ah, now my earlier complacency belonged to a wholly different age. It was I who was lonely! I didn't even
know what kind of girl I would like best to take into a Tunnel of Love. What would she look like? Auburn hair?
A brunette? A blonde? With green eyes, blue, brown? A winsome smile, for sure, and a gentle heart. In other
words, nobody I had ever met. I still hoped she was waiting for me in the future, but to wait there she would
have to live there, and if she lived there she would always be ahead of me, beyond my reach. And I was
running out of time. I consulted my watch again. The ride would have to be postponed until the evening. But if
I could look deeper into the exit, beyond the web, maybe I could ease my curiosity, spy the man and his
mirror in the distance. After all, perhaps the facts were mundane. Perhaps it was simply an extremely long
tunnel, with hundreds of loops coiled up tight inside the building.

I pulled myself away from the railings and roamed around the other attractions. Many stalls displayed
lanterns among the prizes to be won at various games. I offered to buy one at a price favourable to their
keepers, but they all declined on principle. If I wanted a lantern, I would have to win one. I played on the
coconut shy, the rifle range, the hoopla, but either I was inept or else I won prizes bigger than a lantern. At
last, loaded with soft toys, I gave up. I went back to the Tunnel of Love, but I didn't bother to cast these toys
at the web, to lure the spider. I approached the kiosk with a question.

"Excuse me, but does anyone ever come out again?"

"Why should they? Are you saying that couples mustn't stay in love for as long as possible? That's the
next best thing to forever. Aren't you going to buy a ticket?"

"Not enough time. I have to leave now."

"Nobody to go with, huh? The details are none of my concern. I'm grateful that people still fall in love at
all."

"How long is this tunnel exactly? How long is a ride?"

"More than a lifetime, mister. But I didn't design it, so don't ask me. And I'm not a matchmaker. I just
take the money. In my spare hours I write epithalamia. Love songs, slush."

"Has anyone ever come out again?"

"No, sir, not from here. Not since it was built, maybe a thousand years ago, maybe longer than that,
when the first two paying passengers climbed into a boat. Why do you want them to come out? Jealous, are
you? That's too bad. You know how love works, don't you? It's pure passion right at the beginning, hungry
lips, fevered glances, tussled hair, lack of concentration on anything else. Romance. Erotic love. Call it what
you please. After a period it settles down to a more comfortable situation, a sort of cherishing and respecting.