"Bon-Bon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

"that it was difficult to say whether Pierre Bon-Bon was indeed a bird
of Paradise, or rather a very Paradise of perfection." I might, I say,
expatiate upon all these points if I pleased,- but I forbear, merely
personal details may be left to historical novelists,- they are
beneath the moral dignity of matter-of-fact.
I have said that "to enter the Cafe in the cul-de-sac Le Febvre
was to enter the sanctum of a man of genius"- but then it was only
the man of genius who could duly estimate the merits of the sanctum. A
sign, consisting of a vast folio, swung before the entrance. On one
side of the volume was painted a bottle; on the reverse a pate. On the
back were visible in large letters Oeuvres de Bon-Bon. Thus was
delicately shadowed forth the two-fold occupation of the proprietor.
Upon stepping over the threshold, the whole interior of the building
presented itself to view. A long, low-pitched room, of antique
construction, was indeed all the accommodation afforded by the Cafe.
In a corner of the apartment stood the bed of the metaphysician. An
army of curtains, together with a canopy a la Grecque, gave it an
air at once classic and comfortable. In the corner diagonary opposite,
appeared, in direct family communion, the properties of the kitchen
and the bibliotheque. A dish of polemics stood peacefully upon the
dresser. Here lay an ovenful of the latest ethics- there a kettle of
dudecimo melanges. Volumes of German morality were hand and glove with
the gridiron- a toasting-fork might be discovered by the side of
Eusebius- Plato reclined at his ease in the frying-pan- and
contemporary manuscripts were filed away upon the spit.
In other respects the Cafe de Bon-Bon might be said to differ little
from the usual restaurants of the period. A fireplace yawned
opposite the door. On the right of the fireplace an open cupboard
displayed a formidable array of labelled bottles.
It was here, about twelve o'clock one night during the severe winter
the comments of his neighbours upon his singular propensity- that
Pierre Bon-Bon, I say, having turned them all out of his house, locked
the door upon them with an oath, and betook himself in no very pacific
mood to the comforts of a leather-bottomed arm-chair, and a fire of
blazing fagots.
It was one of those terrific nights which are only met with once
or twice during a century. It snowed fiercely, and the house
tottered to its centre with the floods of wind that, rushing through
the crannies in the wall, and pouring impetuously down the chimney,
shook awfully the curtains of the philosopher's bed, and
disorganized the economy of his pate-pans and papers. The huge folio
sign that swung without, exposed to the fury of the tempest, creaked
ominously, and gave out a moaning sound from its stanchions of solid
oak.
It was in no placid temper, I say, that the metaphysician drew up
his chair to its customary station by the hearth. Many circumstances
of a perplexing nature had occurred during the day, to disturb the
serenity of his meditations. In attempting des oeufs a la Princesse,
he had unfortunately perpetrated an omelette a la Reine; the discovery
of a principle in ethics had been frustrated by the overturning of a