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

The look of horror on his face in that reflection was so
intense and so suggestive of strangulation that he clutched
at his throat with both hands.

All his reflections, from the nearly life-size giants to the
Lilliputians, copied this sudden gestureтАФexcept the eighth.

The eleventh stroke of midnight resounded brassily. An
especially fierce gust of wind blew the chandelier closer
to him so that one of its black hook-fingered arms ap-
proached his shoulder and he cringed away from it before
he recognized it for the familiar object it was. It-should
have been hung higher, he was such a tall man, and he
should have had the window repaired, but his head missed
the chandelier except when the wind blew hard and after
he'd been unable to find a craftsman who could work
leaded glass, he had not bothered about either chore.

The twelfth stroke clanged.

When he looked into the mirror the next instant, all
strangeness was gone. His eighth reflection was like the
rest. All his reflections were alike, even the dimmest most
distant ones that melted into mirror smoke. And there was
no sign of a black figure in any one of them, although he
peered until his vision blurred.

He continued downstairs, choosing a moment when the
chandelier was swinging away from him. He went immedi-
ately to his Steinway and played Scriabin preludes and
sonatas until dawn, fighting the wind with them until it
slunk away then analysed chess positions in the latest
Russian tournament until the oppressive daylight had-
wearied him enough for sleep. From time to time he
thought about what he had glimpsed in the mirror, and
each time it seemed to him more likely that the disordered
eighth reflection had been an optical illusion. His eyes had
been strained and weary with star-gazing when it had hap-
pened. There had been those rushing shadows from the
swinging chandelier, or even his narrow black necktie
blown by the wind, while the thin black figure might
have been simply a partial second reflection of his own
black clothesтАФimperfections in the mirror could explain
why these things had stood out only in the eighth reflec-
tion. For that matter the odd appearance of his face in
that reflection might have been due to no more than a tar-
nished spot in the mirror's silvering. Like this whole vast
houseтАФand himselfтАФthe mirror was decaying.

He awoke when the first stars, winking on in the sky of