"R. A. Lafferty - Stories 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)

Peter Feeney was a salesman of a Universe-wide product. He wasn't a
good salesman. He was shuffled off to poorer and poorer territories. Now he
had fallen to the poorest territory of all.
And on that day on Groll's Planet, he beard a sound as though a
swish of silk had passed over him, a thread, a mesh. It was the invisible
net.
"Oh how strange are the Fish of Far Ocean!" an ancient poet
exclaimed.
Peter had seen Teresa, and it was all over with him.
Peter was eating that day by peculiar arrangement. It was the
smallest of the towns of Groll's Planet and there was no public eating place
there. But a Grollian man raked clean sand and set a mat for Peter to sit
on, and served him a meal there on a crate or box. The man also gave him
coffee -- good coffee, but not like the coffee you know.
It was very like a sidewalk-cafe. It was in the way where people
came and went, though not properly a sidewalk. Teresa came and sat down
opposite Peter on the raked sand.
"Hari bagus," Peter said, which is all the words that a man needs to
get along in the Grollian language.
"Bagus," said Teresa. And that is all that they said to each other
that dav.
Peter finished his meal and attempted to light a cigar. The cigars
of that world are not factory made. They are rolled by hand of an oblong
leaf for the flier and a triangular leaf for the wrapper. Often they will
keep their form for an hour or more, but Peter had made his cigar badly and
it was not stable.
Now it exploded into an unmanageable disarray of leaves and pieces,
and Peter was unable to cope with it. Teresa took the pieces and rolled and
folded them into a green cylinder that was sheer art. She licked it with the
most beautiful tongue in the world and gave the reconstituted cigar to
Peter.
Then it was luxurious to sit there in the green shade and smoke
opposite the most beautiful woman ever. When he had finished, Peter rose
awkwardly and left. But he was pleased.
He watched from a distance. Teresa with quick competence ate up all
that he had left. "She was very hungry," Peter said, and admired her
quickness about things. She rose with flowing grace, retrieved the
smoldering remnants of Peter's cigar, and went toward the beach, trailing
smoke from the green-leaf stogie and moving like a queen.
 The next day Peter again sat on the mat on the raked sand and ate
the food that the Grollian man sold him. Once more he felt the swish of the
invisible net over him, and again Teresa sat opposite him on the sand.
"A senhora tem grande beleze," said Peter, which is all the words
that a man needs to get along in the Galactic Brazilian language.
"Noa em nossos dias," said Teresa, "porem outrora." And that is all
that they said to each other that day.
But he had told her that she was beautiful. And she had answered:
No, she was not so now, but in a former time she had been.

When he had finished the meal and pulled the cigar from his pocket