"Lafferty, R A - Among the Hairy Earthmen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)

example, mixed into it, they treated him as a separate person.
They did not know that Michael Goodgrind was often the
King of Aragon, just as Lonnie was often the Duke of
Flanders. But, played for itself, the Emperor game would be
quite a limited one. Too limited for the children.
The girls played their own roles Laurie claimed to be
thirteen different queens. She was consort of all three Emper-
ors in every one of their guises, and she also dabbled with the
Eretzi. She was the wanton of the group.
Bea liked the Grande Dame part and the Lady Bountiful
bit. She was very good on Great Renunciations. In her
different characters, she beat paths from thrones to nunneries
and back again; and she is now known as five different saints.
Every time you turn to the Common of the Mass of Holy
Women who are Neither Virgins nor Martyrs, you are likely
to meet her.
And Joan was the dreamer who may have enjoyed the
Afternoon more than any of them.
Laurie made up a melodramaLucrezia Borgia and the
Poison Ring. There is an advantage in doing these little
melodramas on Eretzi. You can have as many characters as
you wishthey come free. You can have them act as extrava-
gantly as you desirewho is there to object to it? Lucrezia
was very well done, as children's burlesques go, and the
bodies were strewn from Napoli to Vienne. The Eretzi play
with great eagerness any convincing part offered them, and
they go to their deaths quite willingly if the part calls for it.
Lonnie made one up called The Pawn-Broker and the
Pope. It was in the grand manner, all about the Medici
family, and had some very funny episodes in the fourth act.
Lonnie, who was vain of his acting ability, played Medici
parts in five succeeding generations. The drama left more
corpses than did the Lucrezia piece, but the killings weren't so
sudden or showy; the girls had a better touch at the bloody
stuff.
Ralpha did a Think Piece called One, Two, Three
Infinity. In its presentation he put all the rest of the Children
to roast grandly in Hell; he filled up Purgatory with Eretzi-
type peoplethe dullards; and for the Paradise he did a
burlesque of Home. The Eretzi use a cropped version of
Ralpha's piece and call it the Divine Comedy, leaving out a
lot of fun.
Bea did a poetic one named the Witches' Bonfire. All the
Children spent many a happy evening with that one, and they
burnt twenty thousand witches. There was something satisfy-
ing about those Eretzi autumnal twilights with the scarlet sky
and the frosty fields and the kine lowing in the meadows and
.lhe evening smell of witches burning. Bea's was really a
pastoral piece.
All the Children ranged far except Hobble. Hobble (who