"Patricia A. McKillip - The Gorgon in the Cupboard" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

the closed doors to the inner sanctum. Surely She would notice me thenтАж
He went across the garden, up the steps to his door, and stopped again, hand on the latch, as he mused over an
appropriate subject for a masterpiece. The goat, while original and artistically challenging, held no dignity; it would
not rivet crowds with its power and mystery. At most, viewers might pity it and its ambiguous female counterpart, and
then pass on. More likely they would pity the artist, who had stood in a sweltering tavern yard painting a goat.
Aurora's face passed again through his thoughts; his hand opened and closed convulsively on the door latch.
Something worthy of those eyes he must paint. Something that would bring expression into them: wonder, admiration,
curiosityтАж
What?
Whatever it was, he would dedicate his masterpiece to Her.
The door pulled abruptly out of his hold. Mrs. Grommet, his placid housekeeper, held a hand to her ample bosom
as she stared at him. "Oh, it's you, Mr. Waterman. I couldn't imagine who was making that racket with the door latch."
She shifted aside, opened the door wide for him to enter.
"Sorry, Mrs. Grommet," he murmured. "Throes of creation."
"Of course, Mr. Waterman. I didn't expect you back so soon. Have you had your lunch, sir?"
"No. Just bring me tea in my studio, please. I expect to be in the throes for the rest of the afternoon."
"Yes, sir."
In the highest floor of the house, he had knocked down walls, enlarged windows to give him space and light, views
from a city park on one side, the broad, busy river on the other. Mrs. Grommet came panting up with a great silver
tray. He slumped in an easy chair, sipped tea as he flipped through his sketchbooks for inspiration. Faces, dogs,
flowers, birds, hills, rocks, pieces of armor, horses, folds of heavy tapestry, drifting silk, hands, feet, eyesтАж Nothing
coherent, nothing whole, nothing containing the lightning bolt of inspiration he craved.
He read some poetry; words did not compel an image. He paced for a while, his mind a blank canvas. He
beseeched his Muse. Anybody's Muse. Inspiration failed to turn her lovely face, her kindly attention, toward him. He
wandered to his cupboards, pulled out old, unfinished canvases, studied the stilted figures, the fuzzy landscapes for
something that he might redeem to greatness.
One caught at memory: a head without a mouth. He placed it on the easel, stood studying it. The head, when
completed, would have belonged to Persephone at the moment she realized that, having eaten of the fruits of the
Underworld, she was doomed to spend half her life in that gloomy place. The young model he had chosen for it had
vanished before he could finish it. Harry gazed at her, struck by her beauty, which had inspired his normally clumsy
brushwork. The almond-shaped eyes of such pale gray they seemed the color of sun-kissed ice, the white-gold hair, the
apricot skin. A true mingling of spring and winter, his model, who had disappeared so completely she might have been
carried away into the netherworld herself.
He tried to remember her name. May? Jenny? She had gotten herself into trouble, he suspected. Harry had noticed
a certain heaviness in her walk, the frigidity of terror in her expression. Moved, he had offered, in his nebulous,
hesitant way, to help. But she had fled. Or died, perhaps, he was forced to consider. In childbirth, or trying to get rid of
the child, who could know? He had tried to find her so that he could finish the painting. But no one seemed to know
anything at all about her.
He wondered if it might be worth finishing. Her eyes, gazing straight out at the viewer, compelled attention. Idly,
he traced a mouth with his forefinger, rifling through all the likely mouths he might borrow to finish it. There was
Beresford's cousin JaneтАж But no, even at her young age, her lips were too thin to suggest the hunger that had caused
Persephone to eat forbidden fruitтАж Or was that a different tale?
He recognized the invisible mouth his finger had outlined, and swallowed.
Some passing Muse, a mischievous sprite, tempted him to reach for crimson paint. The lips that haunted him
burned like fire in memoryтАж but darker than fire, darker than rose, darker than blood. He toyed guiltily with all those
colors on his palette. Only paint, he told himself. Only memory. The color of wine, they were, deep, shadowy
burgundy, with all the silken moistness of the rose petal.
Vaguely he heard Mrs. Grommet knock, inquire about his supper. Vaguely he made some noise. She went away.
The room darkened; he lit lamps, candles. Mrs. Grommet did not return; the streets grew even quieter; the river faded
into night.