"R. A. Lafferty - Stories 5" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)

high-spirited horses. With this, she boldly drives, on a stormy night, into
the secret town of her enemies and down that jagged road (there was a
lightning storm going on that made everything seem jagged) at the end of which
was the castle itself. The bloodhounds leap high at her as she passes, but
they cannot pull her from the wagon.
But the Panther (Is he a Man? Is he a Beast?) has leapt onto her hay
wagon behind her, and she does not see him. He comes close behind her-But
Patience Palmer is already making her move. Driving unswervingly, carrying out
her own intrepid plan, at that very moment she raises a key in her hand very
high into the air. This draws the lightning down with a stunning flash, and
the hay wagon is set ablaze. Patience leaps clear of the flaming hay wagon at
the last possible moment, and the blazing, hurtling inferno crashes into the
tall and evil castle to set it and its outbuildings and its whole town ablaze.
This is the flaming climax to one of the greatest chase dramas ever.
This final scene of The Perils will be met with often later. Due to the
character of the "slow light" or selenium scenes, this vivid scene leaks out
of its own framework and is superimposed, sometimes faintly, sometimes
powerfully, as a ghost scene on all twelve of the subsequent dramas.
2. Thirtsy Daggers, a Murder Mystery. This is the second of the Aurelian
Bentley television dramas of 1873. Clarinda Calliope, one of the most talented
actresses of her time, played the part of Maud Trenchant, the Girl Detective.
The actors Leslie Whitemansion, Kirbac Fouet, X. Paul McCoffin, Jaime del
Diablo, Torres Malgre, Inspiro Spectral ski, and Hubert Saint Nicholas played
powerful and menacing roles, but their identities and purposes cannot be set
exactly. One must enter into the bloody and thrilling spirit of the drama
without knowing the details.
More even than The Perils of Patience does Thirsty Daggers seem to be
freed from the bonds of time and sequence. It is all one unfolding moment,
growing always in intensity and intricacy, but not following a straight line
of action. And this, accompanied by a deficiency of the libretto, leads to
confusion.
The libretto cannot be read. It is darkened and stained. Chemical
analysis has revealed that it is stained with human blood. It is our belief
that Bentley sent the librettos to his clients decorated with fresh human
blood to set a mood. But time has spread the stains, and almost nothing can be
read. This is, however, a highly interesting drama, the earliest murder ever
done for television.
It is nearly certain that Maud Trenchant, the Girl Detective, overcomes
all the menaces and solves all the crimes, but the finer details of this are
lost forever.
3. The Great Bicycle Race, the third of the Bentley television dramas,
has that versatile actress Clarinda Calliope playing the lead role of July
Meadowbloom in this joyful and allegorical "journey into summertime". It is in
The Great Bicycle Race that sound makes its first appearance in the Bentley
dramas. It is the sounds of all outdoors that are heard in this drama, faintly
at first, and more and more as time goes on. These are country and village
sounds; they are county-fair sounds. Though the sounds seem to be an
accidental intrusion (another ghostly side-play of the selenium response
magic), yet their quality lends belief to the evidence that the full and
original title of this drama was The Great Bicycle Race, a Pastoral.