"Dancers At The End Of Time - 06 - A Messiah At The End Of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

Of all the temporal adventurers I have known, my friend is the most ready
to describe his exploits to anyone
who will listen. Presumably he is not subject to the Morphail Effect (which
causes most travelers to exercise the
greatest caution regarding their actions and conversations in any of the periods
they visit) mainly because few but the
simple-minded, and those whose logical faculties have been ruined by drink,
drugs or other forms of dissipation, will
take him seriously.
My friend's own explanation is that he is not affected by such details; he
describes himself rather wildly as a
"Chronic Outlaw" (a self-view which might give the reader some insight into his
character). You might think he
charmed me into believing the tale he told me of Miss Mavis Ming and Mr.
Emmanuel Bloom, and yet there is
something about the essence of the story that inclined me to believe it - for
all that it is, in many ways, one of the most
incredible I have ever heard. It cannot, of course, be verified readily
(certainly so far as the final chapters are
concerned) but it is supported by other rumors I have heard, as well as my own
previous knowledge of Mr. Bloom
(whose earlier incarnation appeared in a tale, told to me by one of my friend's
fellow Guild Members, published
variously as The F№eclown and The Winds of Limbo, some years ago).
The events recorded here follow directly upon those recorded in Legends
from the End of Time and in effect
take up Miss Ming's story where we left it after her encounter with Dafnish
Armatuce and her son Snuffles.
As usual, the basic events described are as I had them from my source. I
have rearranged certain things, to
maintain narrative tensions, and added to an earlier, less complete draft of my
own which was written hastily, before all
the information was known to me. The "fleshing out" of the narrative, the
interpretations where they occur, many of the
details of conversations, and so on, must be blamed entirely on your auditor.
In the previous volume to this one I have already recounted something of
the peculiar relationship existing
between Miss Ming and Doctor Volospion: the unbearable bore and that
ostentatious misanthrope.
Why Doctor Volospion continued to take perverse pleasure in the woman's
miserable company, why she
allowed him to insult her in the most profound of ways - she who spent the
greater part of her days avoiding any sort of
pain - we cannot tell. Suffice it to say that relationships of this sort exist
in our own society and can be equally
puzzling.
Perhaps Doctor Volospion found confirmation of all his misanthropism in
her; perhaps she preferred this
intense, if unpleasant, attention to no attention at all. She confirmed his view
of life, while he confirmed her very