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

flesh to fire, not though I keep my chastity for life.
It then occurred to him that perhaps not every
young man in the Piedmont would consider it a reward
worth remaining a virgin forтАФhearing an angel of God
play the lute of four courses. Even Damiano himself
had his moments of dissatisfaction (with virginity, that
is, not with Raphael).
And then angels were not a popular object of
study, even among the order of alchemists, since they
had no material power to offer and were more apt to
tell the truth than tell the future. Even Damiano's
father, who had been a witch of great repute, had
never tried to summon an angel. Other sorts of spirits
he had contacted, admittedly, but of that Delstrego had
repented.
At least Damiano hoped his father had repented. It
was quite possibly so, since Guillermo Delstrego was a
good while dying.
While Raphael played the pastorelle, Damiano
attempted to follow him, knowing the music. But soon
the angel burst the confines of the French piece, as his
student had known he would, and drifted away into
melodies and rhythms suggested or invented on the
spot. Raphael had a trick of running his lines together
until, like the triune Godhead, they were united into a
single being. Then, when Damiano had almost forgot-
ten what he was listening for, the different lines sprang
apart again. There were four, no five of them. Six?
Soon Damiano was utterly lost, as the angel struck
the strings all together in what should have been a
dissonant crash but was not. Raphael brushed the
strings lightly, as though with his wings, and his left
hand fluttered over the smooth black wood of the lute's
neck. The sound was no longer music at allтАФunless
water was music or the scraping of wind over the
grass.
Damiano heard silence and noticed Raphael's eyes
on him. The angel's face was perfect as silver, as a
statue, and his gaze was mother-shrewd. He waited for
Damiano to speak.
"Am I ever going to play like that?" the young man
mumbled, nudged out of a waking dream.
White wings rustled on the floor. Raphael seemed
surprised by the question. "You will play likeтАФlike
Damiano, as you do already. No one can do elsewise."
"That's all? As I do already?" His disappointment
dissolved in the intensity of the midnight gaze.
 "More and more, your playing will become Damiano. As
your life takes its form, so will your music."
Damiano pursed his bee-stung lips. His eyes,