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

power of God. Her perspective had been too warped down there in Eden to
realize how little that magnificent body of his mattered in comparison to the
power inherent in it.
She let the cold, clear ether bathe her of illusions while the timeless time
of the void swam motionless around her. She had been in greater
danger than she knew; it had taken this morning dip in the luminous heights to
cleanse her mind of Adam. Refreshed, fortified against that perilous weakness,
she could return now and take up her mission again. And she must do it
quickly, before God noticed her. Or was he watching already?
She swooped luxuriantly in a long, airy curve and plummeted toward Eden.
Adam still slept timelessly upon the moss. Lilith dropped closer, shrugging
herself together in anticipation of entering and filling out into life the
body she had thrown off. And then-then a shock like the shock of lightning
jolted her in midair until the Garden reeled beneath her. For where she had
left only the faint, ephemeral husk of a woman beside Adam, a woman of firm,
pale flesh lay now, asleep on the Man's shoulder. Golden hair spilled in a
long skein across the moss, and the woman's head moved a little to the rhythm
of Adam's breathing.
Lilith recovered herself and hovered nearer, incandescent with such jealousy
and rage as she had never dreamed could touch her. The woman was clothed in a
softly glowing halo as Adam was clothed. But it was Lilith's own shape she
wore beneath that halo.
A sick dismay shook Lilith bodilessly in the air. God had been watching,
then-waiting, perhaps, to strike. He had been here-it might have been no
longer than a moment ago. She knew it by the very silence of the place.
Everything was still hushed and awed by the recent Presence. God had passed
by, and God had seen that tenantless garment of flesh she had cast off to swim
in the ether, and God had known her whole scheme in one flash of His
all-seeing eye.
He had taken the flesh she had worn, then, and used it for His own
purposes-her precious, responsive flesh that had glowed at the touch of Adam's
hand belonged now to another woman, slept in her place on Adam's shoulder.
Lilith shook with intolerable emotion at the thought of it. She would not-
Adam was waking. Lilith hovered closer, watching jealously as he
yawned, blinked, smiled, turned his curly head to look down at the woman
beside him. Then he sat up so abruptly that the golden creature at his side
cried out in a sweet, high voice and opened eyes bluer than a cherub's to
stare at him reproachfully. Lilith, hating her, still saw that she had beauty
of a sort comparable to Adam's, exquisite, brimming with the glorious
emptiness of utter innocence. There was a
roundness and an appealing softness to her that was new in Eden, but the shape
she wore was Lilith's and none other.
Adam stared down at her in amazement.
"L-Lilith-" he stammered. "Who are you? Where's Lilith? I-"
"Who is Lilith?" demanded the golden girl in a soft, hurt voice, sitting up
and pushing the glowing hair back with both hands in a lovely, smooth gesture.
"I don't know. I can't remember-" She let the words die and stared about the
Garden with a blue gaze luminous with wonder. Then the eyes came back to Adam
and she smiled very sweetly.
Adam had put a hand to his side, a pucker of the first pain in Eden drawing