"Michael Moorcock - The Dancers at the End of Time 04 - Legends From the End of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

Legend The Second: White Stars

Legend The Third: Ancient Shadows




Legend The First

Pale-Roses
Short summer-time and then, my heart's desire,
The winter and the darkness: one by one
The roses fall, the pale roses expire
Beneath the slow decadence of the sun.
Ernest Dowson
"Transition"




1

In Which Werther is Inconsolable
"You can still amuse people, Werther, and that's the main thing," said Mistress Christia, lifting her
skirts to reveal her surprise.
It was rare enough for Werther de Goethe to put on an entertainment (though this one was typical
тАФ it was called "Rain") and rare, too, for the Everlasting Concubine to think in individual terms to please
her lover of the day.
"Do you like it?" she asked as he peered into her thighs.
Werther's voice in reply was faintly, unusually animated. "Yes." His pale fingers traced the tattoos,
which were primarily on the theme of Death and the Maiden, but corpses also coupled, skeletons
entwined in a variety of extravagant carnal embraces тАФ and at the centre, in bone-white, her pubic hair
had been fashioned in the outline of an elegant and somehow quintessentially feminine skull. "You alone
know me, Mistress Christia."
She had heard the phrase so often, from so many, and it always delighted her. "Cadaverous
Werther!"
He bent to kiss the skull's somewhat elongated lips.

His rain rushed through dark air, each drop a different gloomy shade of green, purple or red. And it
was actually wet so that when it fell upon the small audience (the Duke of Queens, Bishop Castle, My
Lady Charlotina, and one or two recently arrived, absolutely bemused, time travellers from the remote
past) it soaked their clothes and made them shiver as they stood on the shelf of glassy rock overlooking
Werther's Romantic Precipice (below, a waterfall foamed through fierce, black rock).
"Nature," exclaimed Werther. "The only verity!"
The Duke of Queens sneezed. He looked about him with a delighted smile, but nobody else had
noticed. He coughed to draw their attention, tried to sneeze again, but failed. He looked up into the
ghastly sky; fresh waves of black cloud boiled in: there was lightning now, and thunder. The rain became
hail. My Lady Charlotina, in a globular dress of pink veined in soft blue, giggled as the little stones fell
upon her gilded features with an almost inaudible ringing sound.