"M. Rickert - Cold Fires" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rickert Mary)

"'He wanted to keep her alive somehow.'

"'But that painting, it's quite spectacular and his other work is so├втВмтАЭ"

"'Lousy.'

"'Anyone who enters this house wants to know about her.'

"'I don't mean to be rude, but how did she, I'm sorry, please excuse me.'

"'Die?'

"'It doesn't matter.'

"'Of course it does. She fell from the church cliff. She'd gone up there to light a candle for Our Lady, a
flame of gratitude. Emile had proposed and she had accepted. She went up there and it started raining
while she was inside. She slipped and fell on her way home.'

"'How terrible.'

"'Oh yes, but there are really so few pleasant ways to die.'

"Our own rain still lashed the windows. The fat calico came into the room and stopped to lick her paws.
We just sat there, listening to the rain and the clink of china cup set neatly in saucer. The tea was good
and hot. The fire smelled strangely of chocolate. I looked at their two old faces in profile, wrinkled as
poorly folded maps. Then I proceeded to make a fool of myself by explaining to them my position as
curator of the Castor museum. I described the collection, the beautiful house and location by a stream
visited by deer (but I did not describe the dismal town) and ended with a description of Emile's horrible
work, the room filled with poor paintings of their daughter, surely, I told them, Elizabeth belonged there,
redeemed against the vast assortment of clowns, for the angel she was. When I was finished the silence
was sharp. Neither spoke nor looked at me, but even so, as though possessed by some horrible tic, I
continued. ├втВм╦ЬOf course we'd pay you handsomely.├втВмтДв Theresa bowed her head and I thought that
perhaps this was the posture she took for important decisions until I realized she was crying.

"Ed turned slowly, his old head like a marionette's on an uncertain string. He fixed me with a look that
told me what a fool I was and will always be.

"'Please accept my apology for being so....├втВмтДв I said, finding myself speaking and rising as though
driven by the same puppeteer's hand. ├втВм╦ЬI can't tell you how.... Thank you.├втВмтДв I turned abruptly and
walked out of the room, angry at my clumsy social skills, in despair actually, that I had made a mess of
such a pleasant afternoon. I intended to hurry to my room and read my book until dinner when I would
skulk down the stairs and try to find a decent place to eat. That I could insult and hurt two such kind
people was unforgivable. I was actually almost blind with self-loathing until I entered the foyer and saw
her out of the corner of my eye.

"It is really quite impossible to describe that other thing that brings a painting beyond competent, even
beyond beauty into the realm of great art. Of course she was a beautiful woman; of course the lighting,
colors, composition, brushstroke, all of these elements could be separated and described, but this still did
not account for that ethereal feeling, the sense one gets standing next to a masterpiece, the need to take a
deep breath as if suddenly the air consumed by one is needed for two.