"Fritz Leiber - Midnight in the Mirror World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

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From Fritz LeiberтАЩs
The Mind Spider and Other Stories




MIDNIGHT IN THE
MIRROR WORLD


Fritz Leiber


As the dock downstairs began to clang out midnight's
twelve strokes, Giles Nefandor glanced into one of the
two big mirrors between which he was passing on his
nightly trip, regular as clockwork, from the telescopes on
the roof to the pianos and chessboards in the living room.
What he saw there made him stop and bunk and stare.
He was two steps above the mid-stair landing, where the
great wrought-iron chandelier with its freight of live and
dead electric bulbs swung m the dull fierce gusts of
wind coming through the broken, lead-webbed, dramond-
paned windows. It swung like a pendulumтАФa wilder yet
more ponderous pendulum than that in the tall clock
twanging relentlessly downstairs. He stayed aware of its
menace as he peered in the mirror.

Since there was a second mirror behind him, what he
saw in the one he faced was not a single reflection of him-
self, but many, each smaller and dimmer than the one in
front of itтАФa half-spread stack of reflections going off to-
ward infinity. Each reflection, except the eighth, showed
against a background of mirror-gloom only his dark lean
aquiline face, or at least the edge of itтАФfrom bucket-size
down to dime-sizeтАФpeering back at him intently from un-
der its sleek crown of black, silver-shot hair.

But in the eighth reflection his hair was wildly dis-
ordered and his face was leaden-green, gape-jawed, and
bulging-eyed with horror.

Also, his eighth reflection was not alone. Beside it was
a thin black figure from which a ribbony black arm
reached out and lay on his reflected shoulder. He could
see only the edge of the black figureтАФmost of it was hid-
den by the reflected gilt mirror frameтАФbut he was sure it
was thin.