"Jones, Diana Wynne - Chrestomanci 2 - 1980 - The Magicians of Caprona" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Diana Wynne)

were taught by their father, Antonio. Antonio was the eldest son of Old Niccolo,
and would be head of the Casa Montana when Old Niccolo died. Paolo thought this
weighed on his father. Antonio was a thin, worried person who laughed less often
than the other Montanas. He was different. One of the differences was that,
instead of letting Old Niccolo carefully choose a wife for him from a
spell-house in Italy, Antonio had gone on a visit to England and come back
married to Elizabeth. Elizabeth taught the boys music.
"If I'd been teaching that Angelica Petrocchi, " she was fond of saying, "she'd
never have turned anything green."
Old Niccolo said Elizabeth was the best musician in Caprona. And that, Lucia
told the boys, was why Antonio got away with marrying her. But Rosa told them to
take no notice. Rosa was proud of being half English.
Paolo and Tonino were probably prouder to be Montanas. It was a grand thing to
know you were born into a family that was known worldwide as the greatest
spell-house in EuropeЧif you did not count the Petrocchis. There were times when
Paolo could hardly wait to grow up and be like his cousin, dashing Rinaldo.
Everything came easily to Rinaldo. Girls fell in love with him, spells dripped
from his pen. He had composed seven new charms before he left school. And these
days, as Old Niccolo said, making a new spell was not easy. There were so many
already. Paolo admired Rinaldo desperately. He told Tonino that Rinaldo was a
true Montana.
Tonino agreed, because he was more than a year younger than Paolo and valued
Paolo's opinions, but it always seemed to him that it was Paolo who was the true
Montana. Paolo was as quick as Rinaldo. He could learn without trying spells
which took Tonino days to acquire. Tonino was slow. He could only remember
things if he went over them again and again. It seemed to him that Paolo had
been born with an instinct for magic which he just did not have himself.
Tonino was sometimes quite depressed about his slowness. Nobody else minded in
the least. All his sisters, even the studious Corinna, spent hours helping him.
Elizabeth assured him he never sang out of tune. His father scolded him for
working too hard, and Paolo assured him that he would be streets ahead of the
other children when he went to school. Paolo had just started school. He was as
quick at ordinary lessons as he was at spells.
But when Tonino started school, he was just as slow there as he was at home.
School bewildered him. He did not understand what the teachers wanted him to do.
By the first Saturday he was so miserable that he had to slip away from the Casa
and wander around Caprona in tears. He was missing for hours.
"I can't help being quicker than he is!" Paolo said, almost in tears too.
Aunt Maria rushed at Paolo and hugged him. "Now, now, don't you start too!
You're as clever as my Rinaldo, and we're all proud of you."
"Lucia, go and look for Tonino," said Elizabeth. "Paolo, you mustn't worry so.
Tonino's soaking up spells without knowing he is. I did the same when I came
here. Should I tell Tonino?" she asked Antonio. Antonio had hurried in from the
gallery. In the Casa Montana, if anyone was in distress, it always fetched the
rest of the family.
Antonio rubbed his forehead. "Perhaps. Let's go and ask Old Niccolo. Come on,
Paolo."
Paolo followed his thin, brisk father through the patterns of sunlight in the
gallery and into the blue coolness of the Scriptorium. Here his other two
sisters, Rinaldo and five other cousins, and two of his uncles, were all