"John Norman - Gor 01- Tarnsman of Gor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

file:///F|/rah/John%20Norman/Tarnsman%20of%20Gor.txt (6 of 98) [1/20/03 3:36:21 AM]
 file:///F|/rah/John%20Norman/Tarnsman%20of%20Gor.txt


"I am Tarl Cabot," I said.

"I am your father," he said, and shook me powerfully by the shoulders. We shook hands, on my part
rather stiffly, yet this gesture of our common homeland somehow reassured me. I was surprised to
find myself accepting this stranger not only as a being of my world, but as the father I couldn't
remember.

"Your mother?" he asked, his eyes concerned.

"Dead, years ago," I said.

He looked at me. "She, of all of them, I loved most," he said, turning away, crossing the room. He
appeared to be affected keenly, shaken. I wanted to feel no sympathy with him, yet I found that I
could not help it. I was angry with myself. He had deserted my mother and me, had he not? And what
was i2 now that he felt some regret? And how was it that he had spoken so innocently of "all of
them," whoever they might be? I did not want to find out.

Yet, somehow, in spite of these things, I found that I wanted to cross the room, to put my hand on
his arm, to touch him. I felt somehow a kinship with him, with this stranger and his sorrow. My
eyes were moist. Something stirred in me, obscure, painful memories that had been silent, quiet
for many years-the memory of a woman I had barely known, of a gentle face, of arms that had
protected a child who had awakened frightened in the night. And I remembered suddenly another
face, behind hers.

"Father," I said.

He straightened and turned to face me across that simple, strange room. It was impossible to tell
if he had wept. He looked at me with sadness in his eyes, and his rather stern features seemed for
a moment to be tender. Looking into his eyes, I realized, with an incomprehensible suddenness and
a joy that still bewilders me, that someone existed who loved me.

"My son," he said.

We met in the center of the room and embraced. I wept, and he did, too, without shame. I learned
later that on this alien world a strong man may feel and express emotions, and that the hypocrisy
of constraint is not honored on this planet as it is on mine.

At last we moved apart.

My father regarded me evenly. "She will be the last," he said. "I had no right to let her love
me."

I was silent.

He sensed my feeling and spoke brusquely. "Thank you for your gift, Tarl Cabot," he said.