"C. L. Moore - Fruit Of Knowledge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore C. L)

herself up again into the limitless heights above Eden.
But this time the ether was no anodyne for her grief. It had been no true
anodyne before, she knew now. For a disease was upon her that had its seed,
perhaps, in the flesh she wore briefly-but too long. God had made Adam
incomplete, and Adam to assuage his need had flung out a net to trap some
unwary creature for his own. Shame burned in her. The Queen of Air and
Darkness, like some mindless elemental, had fallen into his trap; he had used
her as she had meant to use him. She was a part of him, trapped in the flesh
that was incomplete without him, and her need for him was so deep that she
could not escape, even though that body was no longer hers. The roots of her
disease had been in the flesh, but the virulence had spread into the very
essence of the being which was Lilith and no bath in the deeps of space could
cleanse her now. In the flesh or out of it, on earth or in
ether, an insatiable need was upon her that could never be slaked. And a
dreadful suspicion was taking shape in her mind. Adam in
his innocence could never have planned this. Had God known, all along? Had it
been no error, after all, that Adam was created incomplete? And was this a
punishment designed by God for tampering with his plan? Suddenly she thought
that it must be. There would be no awe-inspiring struggle between light and
dark such as she had half expected when God recognized her presence. There
would be no struggle at all. She was vanquished, judged and punished all at a
blow. No glory was in it, only this unbearable longing, a spiritual hunger
more insatiable than any hunger the flesh could feel for the man she would
never have again. She clove the airy heights above Eden for what might have
been a thousand years, or a moment, had time existed in the void, knowing only
that Adam was lost to her forever.
Forever? She writhed around in mid-ether, checking the wild, aimless upward
flight. Forever? Adam still looked out across the Garden and called her name,
even while he held that pale usurper in his arms. Perhaps God had not realized
the strength of the strange unity between the man and the first woman in Eden.
Perhaps God had not thought that she would fight. Perhaps there was a chance
left, after all- Downward through the luminous gulfs she plunged, down and
down until Eden expanded like a bubble beneath her and the strong choruses of
the seraphim were sweet again above the Garden. Adam and Eve were still beside
the brook where she had left them. Eve on a rock was splashing her small feet
and flashing blue-eyed glances over her shoulder that made Adam smile when he
met them. Lilith hated her.
"Adam!" squealed Eve as the plunging Lilith came into hearing. "Look out-I'm
slipping! Catch me! Quick!" It was the same croon Lilith had put into the
throat of the body she had lost. Remembering how roundly and softly it had
come swelling up in her throat, she writhed with a vitriolic helplessness that
made the Garden dance in waves like heat around her.
"Catch me!" cried Eve again in the most appealing voice in the world. Adam
sprang to clasp her as she slid. She threw both pale arms about his neck and
crowed with laughter so infectious that two passing cherubs paused in midair
to rock with answering mirth and beat each other over the shoulders with their
wings.
"Adam. . . Adam. . . Adam-" wailed Lilith voicelessly. It was a silent wail,
but all her heartbreak and despair and intolerable longing went into it, and
above Eve's golden head Adam looked up, the laugh-