"R. A. MacAvoy - Damiano" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacAvoy R A)

Damiano's direction. "Sit down, Signor Delstrego. I
want to talk to you."
"Thank you, General." Damiano lowered himself
gratefully onto the cushion. "I also, was wanting to
speak with you."
"Ahh?"
Uttered by a Piedmontese, that single, interrogato-
ry syllable would have echoed in the back of the throat
and in the nose, like the crooning of a mother cat. At
the most a Piedmontese would have glanced at his
companion as he spoke to show him it was to him the
inquiry was addressed. But General Pardo was a Ro-
man by birth. Both eyebrows shot up and his lips
pulled back from his teeth. The intensity of interest
revealed by the single syllable of "Ahhh?" seemed in
Damiano's eyes excessive: a thing too, too pointed,
almost bloodthirsty. It was of a piece with the general's
appearance and his snapping temper.
These Italians, Damiano thoughtтАФnot meaning to
include the PiedmonteseтАФthey are too hot and too cold
together. Passionate and unreliable.
"To speak with me? I expected as much," conclud-
ed Pardo, with some satisfaction. "Well be my guest,
Signor Dottore. I slept in a bed for the first time in a
week, last night, and now am disposed to listen."
Damiano spared only a moment to wonder whose
bed the general had slept in, and whether the original
owner of it now slept on a straw pile or in the hand of
God. Then he put his mind to the task.
He leaned forward on his stool, his legs crossed at
the ankles, each knee draped in gold cloth like the
smooth peak of a furrowed mountain. His staff was set
between his feet, and it pointed at the cracked roof and
the heavens beyond. Against the ebony he leaned his
cheek, and the wood was invisible next to unruly curls
of the same color. His eyes, too, were black, and his
mouth childishly soft. A painter or a poet, seeing that
unlined face, might have envisioned it as springtime, a
thing pretty enough in itself but more important in its
promise of things to come.
General Pardo looked at Damiano, but he was not
a painter or a poet. He noticed the huge hands, like the
paws of a pup still growing, and he saw Damiano, like
a pup still growing, as a bit of a clown.
"It is about this city," Damiano began, and was
immediately interrupted, as Pardo inquired what city
he meant.
"Partestrada," replied Damiano, wondering how
the general could be so slow. "Partestrada has been
under Savoy governance for many years."