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

he was pleased when it exploded into its constituent parts. Teresa rescued
it, reassembled it, and licked it. Her tongue had a tripart curve in it,
more extensible, more flexible, more beautiful than other tongues. Then
Peter rose and left as he had the day before. And again Teresa cleaned up
the remnants -- ravenously and beautifully. He watched her till she finally
went toward the beach haloed in blue smoke from the stub of the cigar.
Peter wrote up an order that day. It was not a good order, not
sufficient to pay expenses, but something. Groll's Planet had acquired a
glow for him, just as if it was a good order he had written up.

On the third day, Peter again sat on the mat that was very like a
sidewalk-cafe, and Teresa was opposite him. Peter told the Grollian man that
he should also bring food for the woman. He brought it, but angrily.
"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen," said Peter,
which is all the words that a man needs to get along in the English
language.
"I have told you that I am not now beautiful, but that once I was,"
Teresa told him. "Through the grace of God, I may again regain my lost
beauty."
"How is it that you know English?"
"I was the school-teach."
"And now?"
"Now it goes bad for our world. There is no longer schools. I am
nothing."
"What are you, girl? Old human? Groll's Troll? That isn't possible.
What?"
"Who can say? A book-man has said that the biology of our planet
goes from the odd to the incredible. Was that not nice thing to say about
us? My father was old human, a traveling man, a bum."
"And your mother?"
"A queer fish, mama. Of this world, though."
"And you were once even more beautiful than you are now, Teresa? How
could you have looked?"
"How I looked then? As in English -- Wow! -- a colloquialism." "To me you
are perfect."
"No. I am a poor wasted bird now. But once I was beautiful."
"There must be some livelihood for you. what did your father do?"
"Outside of bum, he was fisherman."
"Then why do you not fish?"
"In my own way, I fish."
Peter heard again the swish of the invisible net, but he was very willing
to be taken by it. After this, things went famously between them.
But two days later there came a shame to Peter. He and Teresa were
sitting and eating together on the mat, and the Grollian man came out.
"Are you near finished?" he asked Peter.
"Yes, I am near finished. Why do you ask?"
"Are you finished with the fork yet?"
"No, not quite finished with it."
"I must have the fork," the Grollian man said. "There is another
human man here, of the better sort. I must have the fork for him to eat