"John Morressy - The Juggler" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morressy John)

making faces all the time, until he had finished the bread. Then he rubbed his hands together briskly and
said, "Now I will teach this boy to juggle. Let the lessons begin!"
He tossed a brightly colored ball to Beran. It was surprisingly light. "Throw it up in the air and catch it
with the other hand," he said. Beran did so, and the juggler turned to the crowd and said, "Behold, a natu-ral
talent! He juggles one ball with the skill of a mas-ter!" He threw Beran a second ball and said, "Toss them
from hand to hand, one after the other." Beran again did as the man bid, and the crowd shouted and
cheered. "A prodigy!" the juggler cried. "A wonder! Now, if he can do as well with three as he can with
two ..." He tossed a third ball. With a ball in each hand, Beran tried to catch the third, but missed it and
dropped one of the others. The man picked it up and handed it to him, then stood with his hands on his hips,
looking at him impatiently. "Well, go ahead. Juggle. Don't you want to learn to juggle?" he said.
Beran threw all three balls into the air and caught one. The others went rolling about the platform. He
chased them and gathered them up. He tried again, throwing one, and then another, but dropping both when
he tossed up the third. The crowd was laughing now, and calling out to him.
"Keep them in the air, boy, not on the ground!" someone in the crowd shouted, and other voices fol-lowed.
"He's no juggler!"
"Show us the real thing!"
The juggler shrugged his shoulders. Bending low, he said softly, "You heard the people, boy. They've
seen all they want of you."
"Won't you teach me?"
"You've had all the lessons you can buy for a piece of bread. If you want me to teach you, bring me
silver."
The woman quickly added, "For both of us. A silver stater each, and we'll teach you everything we
know."
"I don't have silver."
"Then you'll grow oats and barley all your life, boy. Away with you now." The juggler lifted him by the
waist and swung him high, then let him down lightly at the front of the crowd.
Beran said nothing of this adventure to his father. When they were home again, he told his brother
every-thing. Rolf, still angry that Beran and not he had gone to the market, said that Beran had been
foolish. Rolf had once heard tell of a juggler-the very same one, he believed-and he told Beran that a boy
like him could never learn to do such things.
"Why not?"
"Those people are different from us. They're in league with the devil, I've heard."
Beran thought for a time. "Maybe the woman was, but not the juggler. He didn't do anything magical. I
could learn to do it."
 "You can't learn those things all by yourself."
"Yes, I can. I watched him. I know what he did."
Rolf made a contemptuous gesture of dismissal. "Then go ahead and learn. And what good will it do
you here in the village? There's work to be done. You have no time for tricks."
"I won't stay in the village."
"You can't leave. You'll never get permission."
"Our brother left."
"The king needed him. Sit Morier didn't like to let him go. He wants us to stay here, where we belong."
"I'll leave without his permission, then."
Rolf sprang at Beran, knocking him over backward. He struck him hard across the face and held him down.
He said, "Don't ever talk like that. If you ran away, we'd all be in trouble."
"I'd come back in a year or two. I'd have a purse full of gold."
"You're stupid. Don't talk that way," Rolf said.
The next day Beran made three soft balls from old rags. From then on, whenever he had a spare moment, he
worked at juggling. He had watched the juggler's hands very closely, and he remembered the way they
moved. He tried again and again to match the fluid motion, but it was easier to picture it in his mind than