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

young."
"Forever, for always," sang Ralpha.
The weirdest witch in the world followed him and called,
"Love me when I'm ugly."
"For always, forever," sang Ralpha, and pulled her down
on the grass. He knew that all the creatures had been Laurie
playing Bodies.
But a peculiar thing happened: the prelude became more
important than the play. Ralpha fell in love with his own
song, and forgot Laurie who had inspired it. He made all
manner of music and poemaubade, madrigal, chanson; and
he topped it off with one hundred sonnets. He made them in
Eretzi words, Italy words, Languedoc words, and they were
excellent. And the Eretzi still copy them.
Ralpha discovered there that poetry and song are Passion
Deferred. But Laurie would rather have deferred the song.
She was long gone away and taking up with others before
Ralpha had finished singing his love for her, but he never
noticed that she had left him. After Hobble, Ralpha was the
most peculiar of them all.
In the meanwhile, Michael Goodgrind invented another
game of Bodies. He made them of marblean Eretzi lime-
stone that cuts easily without faulting. And he painted them on
canvas. He made the People of Home, and the Eretzi. He said
that he would make angels.
"But you cannot make angels," said Joan.
"We know that," said Michael, "but do the Eretzi know
that I cannot? I will make angels for the Eretzi."
He made them grotesque, like chicken men, like bird men,
with an impossible duplication of humeral function. And the
Children laughed at the carven jokes.
But Michael had sudden inspiration. He touched his crea-
tionsupand added an element of nobility. So an iconography
wasborn.
All the Children did it then, and they carried it into other
mediums. They made the Eretzi, and they made themselves.
You can still see their deep features on some of those statues,
that family look that was on them no matter what faces they
wore or copied.
Bronze is fun! Bronze horses are the best. Big bronze doors
can be an orgy of delight, or bronze bells whose shape is their
tone.
The Children went to larger things. They played at Realms
and Constitutions, and Banks and Ships and Provinces. Then
they came down to smaller things again and played at Books,
for Hobble had just invented the printing thing.
Of them all. Hobble had the least imagination. He didn't
range wide like the others. He didn't outrage the Eretzi. He
spent all his time with his sick toys as though he were a child
of much younger years.