"Mervyn Peake - Ghormenghast 01 - Titus Groan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Peake Mervyn)

call for their authors to come forward. When they had stationed themselves immediately beneath
where he was standing, the Earl would throw down to them the traditional scrolls of vellum, which,
as the writings upon them verified, permitted these men to walk the battlements above their
cantonment at the full moon of each alternate month. On these particular nights, from a window in
the southern wall of Gormenghast, an observer might watch the minute moonlit figures whose skill
had won for them this honour which they so coveted, moving to and fro along the battlements.
Saving this exception of the day of carvings, and the latitude permitted to the most
peerless, there was no other opportunity for those who lived within the walls to know of these
"outer" folk, nor in fact were they of interest to the "inner" world, being submerged within the
shadows of the great walls.
They were all-but forgotten people: the breed that was remembered with a start, or with
the unreality of a recrudescent dream. The day of carvings alone brought them into the sunlight
and reawakened the memory of former times. For as far back as even Nettel, the octogenarian who
lived in the tower above the rusting armoury, could remember, the ceremony had been held.
Innumerable carvings had smouldered to ashes in obedience to the law, but the choicest were still
housed in the Hall of the Bright Carvings.
This hall which ran along the top storey of the north wing was presided over by the
curator, Rottcodd, who, as no one ever visited the room, slept during most of his life in the
hammock he had erected at the far end. For all his dozing, he had never been known to relinquish
the feather duster from his grasp; the duster with which he would perform one of the only two
regular tasks which appeared to be necessary in that long and silent hall, namely to flick the
dust from the Bright Carvings.
As objects of beauty, these works held little interest to him and yet in spite of himself


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he had become attached in a propinquital way to a few of the carvings. He would be more than
thorough when dusting the Emerald Horse. The black-and-olive Head which faced it across the boards
and the Piebald Shark were also his especial care. Not that there were any on which the dust was
allowed to settle.
Entering at seven o'clock, winter and summer, year in and year out, Rottcodd would
disengage himself of his jacket and draw over his head a long grey overall which descended
shapelessly to his ankles. With his feather duster tucked beneath his arm, it was his habit to
peer sagaciously over his glasses down-the length of the hall. His skull was dark and small like a
corroded musket bullet and his eyes behind the gleaming of his glasses were the twin miniatures of
his head. All three were constantly on the move, as though to make up for the time they spent
asleep, the head wobbling in a mechanical way from side to side when Mr. Rottcodd walked, and the
eyes, as though taking their cue from the parent sphere to which they were attached, peering here,
there, and everywhere at nothing in particular. Having peered quickly over his glasses on entering
and having repeated the performance along the length of the north wing after enveloping himself in
his overall, it was the custom of Rottcodd to relieve his left armpit of the feather duster, and
with that weapon raised, to advance towards the first of the carvings on his right hand side,
without more ado. Being at the top floor of the north wing, this hall was not in any real sense a
hall at all, but was more in the nature of a loft. The only window was at its far end, and
opposite the door through which Rottcodd would enter from the upper body of the building. It gave
little light. The shutters were invariably lowered. The Hall of the Bright Carvings was
illuminated night and day by seven great candelabra suspended from the ceiling at intervals of
nine feet. The candles were never allowed to fail or even to gutter, Rottcodd himself seeing to