"Kuttner, Henry - The Children's Hour UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

The park again. Curious how memory-haunted the parks of New York were for him now. This time there had been rain, and somethingЧalarmingЧhad happened. What was it? He did not know. He had to grope back step by step toward a climax of impossibility that his mind shied away from touching.
Rain. A sudden thunderstorm that caught them at the edge of the lake. Cold wind ruffling the water, raindrops
spattering~ down big and noisy around them. And himself saying, УHurry, we can make it back to the summerhouse.Ф
They ran hand in hand along the shore, laughing, Clarissa clutching her big hat and matching her steps to his, long, easy, running strides so that they moved as smoothly as dancers over the grass.
The summerhouse was dingy from many winters upon the rocks. It stood in a little niche in the black stone of the hillside overlooking the lake, a dusty gray refuge from the spattering drops as they ran laughing up the slope of the rock.
But it never sheltered them. The summerhouse did not wait. -
Looking incredulously up the black hills, Leasing saw it glimmer and go in a luminous blurring-out, like a picture on a trick ifim that faded as he watched.
УNot the way Clarissa -disappeared,Ф he told Dyke carefully. УThat happened quite clearly, in concentric diminishing rings. This time - the thing just blurred and melted. One minute it was there, the nextЧФ He made an expunging gesture in the air.
Dyke had not moved. His clear, piercing gaze dwelt unwavering upon Lessing. -
УWhat did Clarissa say this time?Ф
Leasing rubbed his chin, frowning. УShe saw it happen. I I think she just said something like, СHell, weТre in for
it now. Never mind, I like walking in the rain, donТt you?Т
As if she were used to things like that. Of course, maybe she wasЧ It didnТt surprise her.Ф
УAnd yoi~i didnТt comment this time either?Ф
УI couldnТt. Not when she took it so calmly. It was a relief to know that sheТd seen it too. That meant I hadnТt just imagined the thing. Not this time, anyhow. But by nowЧФ
Suddenly Leasing paused. Up to this moment he had been too absorbed in the recapture of elusive memory to look єbjectively at what hq was remembering. Now the incredible reality of what he had just been saying struck him without warning and he stared at Dyke with real terror in his eyes. How could there be any explanation for these imaginings, except actual madness? All this could not possibly have happened in the lost months which his conscious mind had remembered so clearly. It was incredible enough that he could have forgotten, but as for what he had forgotten, as for the unbelievable theory he had been about to explain to Dyke,
and quite matter-of-factly, drawn from hypotheses of sheer miracleЧ УGo on,Ф Dyke said quietly. УBy nowЧwhat?Ф Leasing took a long, unsteady breath.
УBy now.. . I think. . . I began to discard the idea I was having hallucinations.Ф He paused again, unable to continue with such obvious ~npossibilffies.
Dyke urged him gently. УGo on, Leasing. YouТve got to go on until we can get hold of something to work from. There must be an explanation somewhere. Keep digging. Why did you decide you werenТt subject to hallucinations?Ф
УBecause . . . well, I suppose it seemed too easy an explanation,Ф Lessing said doggedly. It was ridiculous to argue so solidly from a basis of insanity, but he searched through his mind again and came out -with an answer of very tenuous logic. УSomehow madness seemed the wrong answer,Ф he said. УAs I remember now, I think I felt there was a reason behind what had happened. Claxissa didnТt know, but Fd begun to see.Ф
УA reason? What?Ф -
He frowned with concentration. In spite of himself the fascination of the still unknown was renewing its spell and he groped through the murk of amnesia for the answer he had grasped once, years ago, and let slip again.
УIt was so natural - to her that she didnТt even notice. A
- nuisance, but something to accept with philosophy. You were meant to get wet if you got caught in the- rain away from shelter, and if the shelter were miraculously removedЧwell, that only emphasizчd the fact that you were meant to get a soaking~ Meant to, you see.Ф He paused, not at all sure just where this thread was leading, but his memory, dredging among the flotsam, had come up with that one phrase that all but dripped with significance when he saw it in full light.
Revelations hovered just beyond the next thought. -
УShe did get wet,Ф he went on slowly. УI remember now. She went home dripping, and caught cold, and had a high
f ever for several daysЧФ , -
His mind moved swiftly along the chain of thoughts, drawing incredible conclusions. Was something, somehow, ruling ClarissaТs life with a hand so powerful it could violate every law of nature to keep her in the path its whim selected? Had something snatched her away through a tiny section of time and space to keep the street accident from her? But she had been meant to have that drenching and that fever, soЧ
let the summerhouse be erased. Let it never have been. Let it vanish as naturally as the rain came down, so that Clarissa might have her fever.... -

Leasing shut his eyes again and ground his palms hard over them. Did he want to remember much farther? What morasses of implausibility was his memory leading him into? Vanishing summerhouses and vanishing girls and. . . and.. . intervention fromЧoutside? He took one horrified mental glance at that thought and then covered it up quickly and went on. Deep down in the murk the gleam of that amazing discovery still drew him on, but he went more slowly now, not at all certain that he wanted to plumb the depths and see it clearly.
DykeТs voice broke in as his mind began to let go and fall slack.
УShe had a fever? Go on, what came next?Ф
УI didnТt see her for a couple of weeks. And the . . . the colors began to go out of everythingЧФ
It had to be renewed, then, by her presence, that strange glamour that heightened every color, sharpened every outline, made every sound musical when they were together. He began to crave the stimulus as he felt it fade. Looking back now, he remembered the intolerable dullness of that period. It was then, probably, that he first began to realize he had fallen in love.
And Clarissa, in the interval, had discovered it too. Yes, he was remembering. He had seen it shining in her enormous black eyes on the first day he visited her again. A brilliance almost too strong to look upon, as if bright stars were interlacing their rays there until her eyes were a blaze of blackness more dazzling than any light.
He had seen her, alone, in that first meeting after her illness. Where had the aunt been? Not there, at any rate. The strange, windowless apartment was empty except for themselves. Windowless? He looked back curiously. It was true-there had been no windows. But there were many mirrors. And the carpets were very deep and dark. That was his dominant impression of the place, walking upon softness and silence, with the glimmer of reflecting distances all around.
He had sat beside Clarissa, holding her hand, talldng in a low voice. Her smile had been tremulous, and her eyes so bright they were almost frightening. They were very happy that afternoon. He glowed a little, even now, remembering
how happy they had been. He would not remember, just yet, that nothing was to come of it but grief.
The wonderful clarity of perception came back around him by degrees as they sat there talldng, so that everything in the world had seemed gloriously right. The room was the center of a perfect universe, beautiful and ordered, and the spheres sang together as ~t,~iey turned around it.
УI was closer to Clarissa then,Ф he thought to himself, Уthan I ever came again. That was ClarissaТs world, beautiful and peaceful, and very bright. You could almost hear the music of the machinery, singing in its perfection as it worked. Life was always like that to her. No, I never came so close again.Ф
MachineryЧ Why did that image occur to him?
There was only one thing wrong with the apartment. He kept thinking that eyes were upon him, watching all he thought and did. It was probably only the mirrors, but it made him uncomfortable. He asked Clarissa why there were so many. She laughed.
УAll the better to see you in, my darling.Ф But then she paused as if some thought had come to her unexpectedly, and glanced around the reflecting walls at her own face seen from so many angles, looking puzzled. Leasing was used by then to seeing reactions upon her face that had no real origin in the normal cause-and-effect sequence of familiar life, and he did not pursue the matter. She was a strange creature, Clarissa, in so many, many ways. Two and two, he thought with sudden affectionate amusement, seldom made less, than six to her, and she fell so often into such disproportionately deep and. thoughtful silences over the most trivial things. He had learned early in their acquaintance how futile it was to question her about them.
УBy now,Ф he said, almost to himself, УI wasnТt questioning anything. I didnТt dare. I lived on the fringes of a world that wasnТt quite normal, but it was ClarissaТs world and I didnТt ask questions.Ф
ClarissaТs serene, bright, immeasurably orderly little universe. So orderly that the stars in their courses might be forced out of pattern, if need be, to maintain her in her serenity. The smooth machinery singing in its motion as it violated possibility to spare her a street accident, or annihilating matter that she might have her drenching and her fever. . .
The fever served a purpose. Nothing happened to Clarissa,, he was fairly sure now, except things with a purpose. Chance
had no place in that little world that circled her in. The fever brought delirium, and in the delirium with its strange~ abnormal clarity of visionЧsuppose she had glimpsed the truth? Or was there a truth? He could not guess. But her eyes were unnaturally bright now, - as if the brilliance of fever had lingered or as if.. . as if she were looking ahead into a future so incredibly shining that its reflections glittered constantly in her eyes, with a blackness brighter than light.
He was sure by now that she did not suspect life was at all different for her, that everyone did not watch miracles happen or walk in the same glory clari&sima. (And once or twice the world reversed itself and he - wondered wildly if she could be right and he wrong, if everyone did but himself.)
They moved in a particular little glory of their own during those days. She did love him; he had no doubt of it. But her subtle exaltation went beyond that. Something wonderful was to come, her manner constantly implied, but the most curious thing was - that he thought she herself did not know what. He was reminded of a child wakening on Christmas morning and lying there in a delicious state of drowsiness, remembering only that something wonderful waits him when he comes fully awake.