"Joanna Russ - Second Inquisition" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russ Joanna)

and she held it out to me, leaning back in her chair with that long arm
doing all the work, .the book enclosed in a cage of fingers wrapped
completely around it. I think she could have put those forgers around a
basketball. I did not take it.

"Go on," she said, "read it, go on, go away," and I found myself at the-
archway, by the foot of the stairs with The Green Hat: A Romance in
my hand. I turned it so the title was hidden. She was smiling -at me and
had her arms folded back under her head. "Don't worry," she said.
"Your body will be in fashion by the time of the next war." I met my
mother at the top of the stairs and had to hide :the book from her; my
mother said, "Oh, the poor woman!" She was carrying some sheets. I
went to my room .and read through almost the whole night, hiding the
book in the bedclothes when I was through. When I slept, I dreamed of
Hispano-Suizas, of shingled hair and tragic eyes; of women with
painted lips who had Affairs, who went night after night with Jews to
low drives, who lived as they pleased, who had miscarriages in
expensive Swiss clinics; of midnight swims, of desperation, .of money,
of illicit love, of a beautiful Englishman and getting into a taxi with him
while wearing a cloth-of-silver cloak and a silver turban like the ones
shown in the society pages of the New York City newspapers.

Unfortunately our guest's face kept recurring in my dream, and because
I could not make out whether she was amused or bitter or very much
of bath, it really spoiled everything.

My mother discovered the book the next morning. I found it next to
my plate at breakfast. Neither my mother

nor my father made any remark about it; only my mother kept putting
out the breakfast things with a kind of tender, reluctant smile. We all
sat down, finally, when she had put out everything, and my farther
helped me to rolls and eggs and ham. Then he took off his glasses and
folded them next to his plate. He leaned back in his chair and crossed
his legs. Then he looked at the book and said in a tone of mock
surprise, "Well! What's this?"

I didn't say anything. I only looked at my plate.

"I believe I've seen this before," he said. "Yes, I believe I have." Then
he asked my mother, "Have you, seen this before?" My mother made a

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kind of vague movement with her head. She had begun to butter some
toast and was putting it on my plate. I knew she was not supposed to
discipline me; only my father was. "Eat your egg," she said. My father,
who had continued to look at The Green Hat: A Romance with the
same expression of unvarying surprise, finally said: