"Henry Kuttner & CL Moore - Vintage Season" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

УKleph!Ф he said in a whisper. УOr Kila. I know they both just came on from Canterbury. But I thoughtЧФ
УHush.Ф Madame HoffiaТs features composed themselves into an imperious blank. She breathed triumphantly through her nose, drew back upon herself and turned an imposing facade to the door.

Kleph wore the same softly downy robe Oliver had seen before, except that today it was not white, but a pale, clear blue that gave her tan an apricot flush. She was smiling.
УWhy, Hoffia!Ф Her tone was at its most musical. УI thought I recognized voices from home. How nice to see you. No one knew you were coming to theЧФ She broke off and glanced at Oliver and then away again. УHara, too,Ф she said. УWhat a pleasant surprise.Ф
Sue said flatly, УWhen did you get back?Ф
Kleph smiled at her. УYou must be the little Miss Johnson. Why, I did not go out at all. I was tired of sightseeing. I have been napping in my room.Ф
Sue drew in her breath in something that just escaped being a disbelieving sniff. A look flashed between the two women, and for an instant heldЧand that instant was timeless. It was an extraordinary pause in which a great deal of wordless interplay took place in the space of a second.
Oliver saw the quality of KiephТs smile at Sue, that same look of
quiet confidence he had noticed so often about all of these strange people. He saw SueТs quick inventory of the other woman, and he saw how Sue squared her shoulders and stood up straight, smoothing down her summer frock over her flat hips so that for an instant she stood posed consciously, looking down on Kieph. It was deliberate. Bewildered, he glanced again at Kleph.
KlephТs shoulders sloped softly, her robe was belted to a tiny waist and hung in deep folds over frankly rounded hips. SueТs was the fashionable figureЧbut Sue was the first to surrender.
KiephТs smile did not falter. But in the silence there was an abrupt reversal of values, based on no more than the measureless quality of KlephТs confidence in herself, the quiet, assured smile. It was suddenly made very clear that fashion is not a constant. KlephТs curious, out-of-mode curves without warning became the norm, and Sue was a queer, angular, half-masculine creature beside her.
Oliver had no idea how it was done. Somehow the authority passed in a breath from one woman to the other. Beauty is almost wholly a matter of fashion; what is beautiful today would have been grotesque a couple of generations ago and will be grotesque a hundred years ahead. It will be worse than grotesque; it wifi be outmoded and therefore faintly ridiculous.
Sue was that. Kieph had only to exert her authority to make it clear to everyone on the porch. Kleph was a beauty, suddenly and very convincingly, beautiful in the accepted mode, and Sue was amusingly old-fashioned, an anachronism in her lithe, square-shouldered slimness. She did not belong. She was grotesque among these strangely immaculate people.
SueТs collapse was complete. But pride sustained her, and bewilderment. Probably she never did grasp entirely what was wrong. She gave Kieph one glance of burning resentment and when her eyes came back to Oliver there was suspicion in them, and mistrust.
Looking backward later, Oliver thought that in that moment, for the first time clearly, he began to suspect the truth. But he had no time to ponder it, for after the brief instant of enmity the three people fromЧelsewhereЧbegan to speak all at once, as if in a belated attempt to cover something they did not want noticed.
Kleph said, УThis beautiful weatherЧФ and Madame Hollia said, УSo fortunate to have this houseЧФ and Hara, holding up the red leather box, said loudest of all, УCenbe sent you this, Kleph. His latest.Ф
Kleph put out both hands for it eagerly, the eiderdown sleeves
falling back from her rounded arms. Oliver had a quick glimpse of that mysterious scar before the sleeve fell back, and it seemed to him that there was the faintest trace of a similar scar vanishing into HaraТs cuff as he let his own arm drop.
УCenbe!Ф Kleph cried, her voice high and sweet and delighted. УHow wonderful! What period?Ф
УFrom November 1664,Ф Hara said. УLondon, of course, though I think there may be some counterpoint from the 1347 November. He hasnТt finishedЧof course.Ф He glanced almost nervously at Oliver and Sue. УA wonderful example,Ф he said quickly. УMarvelous. If you have the taste for it, of course.Ф
Madame Hoffia shuddered with ponderous delicacy.
УThat man!Ф she said. УFascinating, of courseЧa great man. ButЧ so advanced!Ф
УIt takes a connoisseur to appreciate CenbeТs work fully,Ф Kleph said in a slightly tart voice. УWe all admit that.Ф
УOh yes, we all bow to Cenbe,Ф Hoffia conceded. УI confess the man terrifies me a little, my dear. Do we expect him to join us?Ф
УI suppose so,Ф Kleph said. УIf hisЧworkЧis not yet finished, then of course. You know CenbeТs tastes.Ф
Hollia and Hara laughed together. УI know when to look for him, then,Ф Hollia said. She glanced at the staring Oliver and the subdued but angry Sue, and with a commanding effort brought the subject back into line.
УSo fortunate, my dear Kleph, to have this house,Ф she declared heavily. УI saw a tridimensional of itЧafterwardЧand it was still quite perfect. Such a fortunate coincidence. Would you consider parting with your lease, for a consideration? Say, a coronation seat atЧФ
УNothing could buy us, Hoffia,Ф Kleph told her gaily, clasping the red box to her bosom.
HoIlia gave her a cool stare. УYou may change your mind, my dear Kleph,Ф she said pontifically. УThere is stifi time. You can always reach us through Mr. Wilson here. We have rooms up the street in the Montgomery HouseЧnothing like yours, of course, but they will do. For us, they will do.Ф
Oliver blinked. The Montgomery House was the most expensive hotel in town. Compared to this collapsing old ruin, it was a palace. There was no understanding these people. Their values seemed to have suffered a complete reversal.
Madame Hollia moved majestically toward the steps.
УVery pleasant to see you, my dear,Ф she said over one well-padded shoulder. УEnjoy your stay. My regards to Omerie and Klia. Mr. WilsonЧФ she nodded toward the walk. УA word with you.Ф
Oliver followed her down toward the street. Madame Hollia paused halfway there and touched his arm.
УOne word of advice,Ф she said huskily. УYou say you sleep here? Move out, young man. Move out before tonight.Ф

Oliver was searching in a half-desultory fashion for the hiding place Sue had found for the mysterious silver cube, when the first sounds from above began to drift down the stairwell toward him. Kleph had closed her door, but the house was old, and strange qualities in the noise overhead seemed to seep through the woodwork like an almost visible stain.
It was music, in a way. But much more than music. And it was a terrible sound, the sounds of calamity and of all human reaction to calamity, everything from hysteria to heartbreak, from irrational joy to rationalized acceptance.
The calamity wasЧsingle. The music did not attempt to correlate all human sorrows; it focused sharply upon one and followed the ramifications out and out. Oliver recognized these basics to the sounds in a very brief moment. They were essentials, and they seemed to beat into his brain with the first strains of the music which was so much more than music.
But when he lifted his head to listen he lost all grasp upon the meaning of the noise and it was sheer medley and confusion. To think of it was to blur it hopelessly in the mind, and he could not recapture that first instant of unreasoning acceptance.
He went upstairs almost in a daze, hardly knowing what he was doing. He pushed KlephТs door open. He looked insideЧ What he saw there he could not afterward remember except in a
blurring as vague as the blurred ideas the music roused in his brain. Half the room had vanished behind a mist, and the mist was a threedimensional screen upon which were projectedЧ He had no words for them. He was not even sure if the projections were visual. The mist was spinning with motion and sound, but essentially it was neither sound nor motion that Oliver saw.
This was a work of art. Oliver knew no name for it. It transcended all art-forms he knew, blended them, and out of the blend produced subtleties his mind could not begin to grasp. Basically, this was the
attempt of a master composer to correlate every essential aspect of a
vast human experience into something that could be conveyed in a
few moments to every sense at once.
The shifting visions on the screen were not pictures in themselves, but hints of pictures, subtly selected outlines that plucked at the mind and with one deft touch set whole chords ringing through the memory. Perhaps each beholder reacted differently, since it was in the eye and the mind of the beholder that the truth of the picture lay. No two would be aware of the same symphonic panorama, but each would see essentially the same terrible story unfold.
Every sense was touched by that deft and merciless genius. Color and shape and motion ifickered in the screen, hinting much, evoking unbearable memories deep in the mind; odors floated from the screen and touched the heart of the beholder more poignantly than anything visual could do. The skin crawled sometimes as if to a tangible cold hand laid upon it. The tongue curled with remembered bitterness and remembered sweet.
It was outrageous. It violated the innermost privacies of a manТs mind, called up secret things long ago walled off behind mental scar tissue, forced its terrible message upon the beholder relentlessly though the mind might threaten to crack beneath the stress of it.
And yet, in spite of all this vivid awareness, Oliver did not know what calamity the screen portrayed. That it was real, vast, overwhelmingly dreadful he could not doubt. That it had once happened was unmistakable. He caught flashing glimpses of human faces distorted with grief and disease and deathЧreal faces, faces that had once lived and were seen now in the instant of dying. He saw men and women in rich clothing superimposed in panorama upon reeling thousands of ragged folk, great throngs of them swept past the sight in an instant, and he saw that death made no distinction among them.