"Patricia A. McKillip - The Snow Queen" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

nameless thing. She said,
"There's the cab."
It was a horse-drawn sleigh; the snow was too deep for ordinary
means. Had she been smiling, he wondered, because she had seen
the cab? He kissed her anyway, lightly on the cheek, before she
turned to get her coat, thinking how long he had known her and how
little he knew her and how little he knew of how much or little there
was in her to know.



Gerda


They arrived at Selene's party fashionably late. She had a vast flat
with an old-fashioned ballroom. Half the city was crushed into it,
despite the snow. Prisms of ice dazzled in the chandeliers; not even
the hundred candles in them could melt their glittering, frozen
jewels. On long tables, swans carved of ice held hothouse berries,
caviar, sherbet between their wings. A business acquaintance
attached himself to Kay; Gerda, drifting toward champagne, was
found by Selene.
"Gerda!" She kissed air enthusiastically around Gerda's face. "How
are you, angel? Such a dress. So innocent. How do you get away


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The Snow Queen


with it?"
"With what?"
"And such a sense of humor. Have you met Maurice? Gerda,
Maurice Crow."
"Call me Bob," said Maurice Crow to Gerda, as Selene flung her
fruity voice into the throng and hurried after it.
"Why?"
Maurice Crow chuckled. "Good question." He had a kindly smile,
Gerda thought; it gentled his thin, aging, beaky face. "If you were
named Maurice, wouldn't you rather be called Bob?"
"I don't think so," Gerda said doubtfully. "I think I would rather be
called my name."
"That's because you're beautiful. A beautiful woman makes any
name beautiful."
"I don't like my name. It sounds like something to hold stockings up
with. Or a five-letter word from a Biblical phrase." She glanced
around the room for Kay. He stood in a ring of brightly dressed
women; he had just made them laugh. She sighed without realizing
it. "And I'm not really beautiful. This is just a disguise."
Maurice Crow peered at her more closely out of his black, shiny