"China Mieville - Details" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mieville China)

"That was a long, long journey home. Every time I peeked through
the cracks in my fingers, I saw that thing crawling for me.
"It waited ready to pounce, and when I opened my eyes even a

file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/China%20Mieville%20-%20Details.html (13 of 22)13-8-2005 23:44:36
China Mieville - Details


crack I opened the door again. I saw the back of a woman's jumper
and in the detail of the fabric the thing leapt for me. I glimpsed a
yard of broken paving and I noticed just the lines that showed me
the thingтАж baying.
"I had to shut my eyes quick.
"I groped my way home.
"And then I taped my eyes shut and I tried to think about things."
There was silence for a time.
"See, there was always the easy way, that scared me rotten, because
I was never one for blood and pain," she said suddenly, and her
voice was harder. "I held the scissors in front of my eyes a couple of
times, but even bandaged blind as I was I couldn't bear it. I suppose
I could've gone to a doctor. I can pull strings, I could pull in a few
favors, have them do the job without pain.
"But you know I neverтАж reallyтАж reckonedтАж that's what I'd do,"
she said thoughtfully. "What if you found a way to close the door?
Eh? And you'd already put out your eyes? You'd feel such a fool,
wouldn't you?
"And you know it wouldn't be good enough to wear pads and
eycpatches and all. I tried. You catch glimpses. You see the
glimmers of light and maybe a few of your own hairs, and that's the
doorway right there, when the hairs cross in the corner of your eye
so that if you notice just a few of them in just the right wayтАж they
look like something coming for you. That's a doorway.
"It'sтАж unbearableтАж having sight, but trapping it like that.
"I'm not giving up. SeeтАж" Her voice lowered, and she spoke

file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/China%20Mieville%20-%20Details.html (14 of 22)13-8-2005 23:44:36
China Mieville - Details


conspiratorially. "I still think I can close the door. I learnt to see. I
can unlearn. I'm looking for ways. I want to see a wall asтАж as
bricks again. Nothing more. That's why you read for me," she said.
"Research. Can't look at it myself of course, too many edges and
lines and so on on a printed page, so you do it for me. And you're a
good boy to do it."
I've thought about what she said many times, and still it makes no
sense to me. The books I read to Mrs. Miller were school textbooks,
old and dull village histories, the occasional romantic novel. I think
that she must have been talking of some of her other visitors, who
perhaps read her more esoteric stuff than I did. Either that, or the