"Karl Glogaver - 02 - Breakfast In The Ruins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

Karl lost interest in the conversation. He didn't understand it, anyway.
Besides, he was more interested in butterflies. He transferred the string to
his left toe.

When all the guests had withdrawn, a footman came to tell Karl that he might go
to his supper. Stiffly Karl walked round the screen and hobbled towards the
door. The dinner had been a long one.

In the kitchen the cook put a large plate of succulent scraps before him and
said: "Hurry up now, young man. I've had a long day and I want to get to my
bed."
He ate the food and washed it down with the half a glass of beer the cook gave
him. It was a treat. She knew he had been working hard, too. As she let him
out of the kitchen, she rumpled his hair and said: "Poor little chap. How's
your butterflies?"
"Very well, thank you, cook." Karl was always polite.

"You must show them to me sometime."
"I'll show them to you tomorrow, if you like."
She nodded. "Well, sometime ... Goodnight, Butterfly."
"Goodnight, cook."
He climbed the back stairs high up to his room in the roof. The two houseboys
were already asleep. Quietly, he lit his lamp and got out his case of
butterflies. He would be needing another case soon.

Smiling tenderly, he delicately stroked their wings with the tip of his little
finger.

For over an hour he looked at his butterflies and then he got into his bed and
pulled the sheet over him. He lay staring at the eaves and thinking about the
blue and yellow butterfly he would try to catch tomorrow.

There was a sound outside. He ignored it. It was a familiar sound. Feet
creeping along the passage. Either one of the housemaids was on her way out to
keep an assignation with her follower, or her follower had boldly entered the
house. Karl turned over and tried to go to sleep.

The door of his room opened.

He turned onto his back again and peered through the gloom. A white figure was
standing there, panting. It was a man in pajamas and a dressing gown. The man
paused for a moment and then crept towards Karl's bed.

"There you are, you little beauty," whispered the man. Karl recognized the
voice as the one he had heard earlier talking about the Boers.

"What do you want, sir?" Karl sat up in bed.
"Eh? Damn! Who the devil are you? "
"The punch-boy, sir."
"I thought this was where that little fat maid slept. What the devil!"