"Mary Renault - Greece 5 - Mask Of Apollo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Renault Mary)

thought I should look sorry for my mother's grief, so I reached up and touched the mask's dead hair. At
this I heard sighing and sobbing rise like a wave. It was coming from the block where the hetairas sit;
they love a good cry more than figs. But it was a few years yet before I knew enough to look for them.

When the Herald bore me off to die, I thought everyone backstage would be there to pay me
compliments; but only the wardrobe master's assistant came in a hurry, to strip me naked and paint on
my bloody wounds. My father, who had exited soon after me, ran over to pat my bare belly as I lay, and
say, "Good boy!" Then he was off; it's a quick change from Andromache to Helen, what with the jewels
and so on. It is always a splendid costume, meant to show up against the other captives'. The mask was
most delicately painted, and had gold-wreathed hair. He went on, and I heard his new voice, bland and
beguiling, answering angry Menelaos.

Soon after came my cue to be brought on, dead. They stretched me out on the shield, and a couple of
extras lifted it. The day was warm, but the breeze tickled my skin, and I gave my mind to lying limp as I
had been told. The chorus called out the dreadful news to my grannie Hecuba; lying, eyes shut, while the
Herald made a long speech about my death, I prayed Dionysos not to let me sneeze. There was a pause
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which, because I could not see, seemed to last forever. The whole theater had become dead silent,
holding its breath. Then a terrible low voice said just beside me:

"Lay down the circled shield of Hector on the ground."

I had been well rehearsed for this scene, but not with Hecuba. I had nothing to do but keep still; and this
was Kroisos, the leading man. He was then at the peak of his powers, and, fairly enough, did not expect
to tutor children. I had seen the mask, and that was all.

I had already heard him, of course, lamenting with Andromache; but that is her scene, and I had my own
part to think of. Now, the voice seemed to go all through me, making my backbone creep with cold. I
forgot it was I who was being mourned for. Indeed, it was more than I.

No sweetness here, but old pride brought naked to despair, still new to it, a wandering stranger. At the
bottom of the pit a new pit opens, and still the mind can feel. Cold hands touched my head. So silent
were the tiers above us, I heard clearly, from the pines outside, the murmur of a dove.

I was not seven years old. I think I remember; but no doubt I have mixed in scraps from all sorts of later
renderings, by Theodoros or Philemon or Thettalos; even from my own. I dreamed of it, though, for
years, and it is from this I remember certain trifles-such as the embroidery on his robe, which had a
border of keys and roses-glimpsed between my eyelids. When I think of these dreams it all comes back
to me. Was it Troy I grieved for, or man's mortality; or for my father, in the stillness that was like a
wreath of victory on Kroisos' brow? All I remember for certain is my swelling throat, and the horror that
came over me when I knew I was going to cry.

My eyes were burning. Terror was added to my grief. I was going to wreck the play. The sponsor would
lose the prize; Kroisos, the crown; my father would never get a part again; we would be in the streets
begging our bread. And after the play, I would have to face terrible Hecuba without a mask. Tears burst
from my shut eyes; my nose was running. I hoped I might die, that the earth would open or the skene