"A Canticle for Leibowitz" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Walter M)

"Y-y-yes--" Francis scarcely touched the knob, but it seemed that the accursed door opened anyway; he had hoped that it would be tightly stuck.
"The Lord Abbot s-s-sent for--me?" squawked the novice.
Abbot Arkos pursed his lips and nodded slowly. "Mmmm-yes, the Lord Abbot sent for--you. Do come in and shut the door."
Brother Francis got the door closed and stood shivering in the center of the room. The abbot was toying with some of the wirewhiskered things from the old toolbox.
"Or perhaps it would be more fitting," said Abbot Arkos, "if the Reverend Father Abbot were sent for by you. Now that you have been so favored by Providence and have become so famous, eh?" He smiled soothingly.
"Heh heh?" Brother Francis laughed inquiringly. "Oh n-n-no, m'Lord."
"You do not dispute that you have won overnight fame? That Providence elected you to discover THIS--" he gestured sweepingly at the relics spread on the desk "--this JUNK box, as its previous owner no doubt rightly called it?"
The novice stammered helplessly, and somehow managed to wind up wearing a grin.
"You are seventeen and plainly an idiot, are you not?"
"That is undoubtedly true, m'Lord Abbot."
"What excuse do you propose for believing yourself called to Religion?"
"No excuse, Magister meus."
"Ah? So? Then you feel that you have no vocation to the Order?"
"Oh, I do!" the novice gasped.
"But you propose no excuse?"
"None."
"You little cretin, I am asking your reason. Since you state none, I take it you are prepared to deny that you met anyone in the desert the other day, that you stumbled on this--this JUNK box with no help, and that what I have been hearing from others is only--feverish raving?"
"Oh, no, Dom Arkos!"
"Oh, no, what?"
"I cannot deny what I saw with my own eyes, Reverend Father."
"So, you did meet an angel--or was it a saint?--or perhaps not yet a saint?--and he showed you where to look?"
"I never said he was--"
"And this is your excuse for believing yourself to have a true vocation, is it not? That this, this--shall we call him a 'creature'?-- spoke to you of finding a voice, and marked a rock with his initials, and told you it was what you were looking for, and when you looked under it--there THIS was. Eh?"
"Yes, Dom Arkos."
"What is your opinion of your own execrable vanity?"
"My execrable vanity is unpardonable, m'Lord'n'Teacher."
"To imagine yourself important enough to be unpardonable is an even vaster vanity," roared the sovereign of the abbey.
"M'Lord, I am indeed a worm."
"Very well, you need only deny the part about the pilgrim. No one else saw such a person, you know. I understand he was supposed to have been headed in this direction? That he even said he might stop here? That he inquired about the abbey? Yes? And where would he have disappeared to, if he ever existed? No such person came past here. The brother on duty at that time in the watchtower didn't see him. Eh? Are you now ready to admit that you imagined him?"
"If there are not really two marks on that rock where he--then maybe I might--"
The abbot closed his eyes and sighed wearily. "The marks are there--faintly," he admitted. "You might have made them yourself."
"No, m'Lord."
"Will you admit that you imagined the old creature?"
"No, m'Lord."
"Very well, do you know what is going to happen to you now?"
"Yes, Reverend Father."
"Then prepare to take it."
Trembling, the novice gathered up his habit about his waist and bent over the desk. The abbot withdrew a stout hickory ruler from the drawer, tested it on his palm, then gave Francis a smart whack with it across the buttocks.
"Deo gratias!" the novice dutifully responded, gasping slightly.
"Care to change your mind, my boy?"
"Reverend Father, I can't deny--"
WHACK!
"Deo gratias!"
WHACK!
"Deo gratias!"
Ten times was this simple but painful litany repeated, with Brother Francis yelping his thanks to Heaven for each scorching lesson in the virtue of humility, as he was expected to do. The abbot paused after the tenth whack. Brother Francis was on tiptoe and bouncing slightly. Tears squeezed from the corners of clenched eyelids.
"My dear Brother Francis," said the Abbot Arkos, "are you quite sure you saw the old man?"
"certain," he squeaked, steeling himself for more.
Abbot Arkos glanced clinically at the youth, then walked round his desk and sat down with a grunt. He glowered for a time at the slip of parchment bearing the letters **.
"Who do you suppose he could have been?" Abbot Arkos muttered absently.