"Olaf Stapledon - Sirius" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stapledon Olaf)

of Plaxy's letters spoke of an "unexpectedly sweet reward" in connection with her new duty, but in a more passionate one she
cried out against "this exacting, fascinating, dehumanizing life." Sometimes she seemed to be in a state of conflict and torture
about something which she must not explain. One of these letters was so distraught that I feared for her sanity. I determined
thcrefore to devote my approaching leave to walking in North Wales in the hope of finding her.

I spent ten days wandering from pub to pub in the region indicated by the addresses, asking everywhere if a Miss Trelone was
known in the neighbourhood. At last, in Llan Ffestiniog, I heard of her. There was a young lady of that name living in a
shepherd's cottage on the fringe of the moor somewhere above Trawsfynydd. The local shopkeeper who gave me this information
said with an air of mystery, "She is a strange young lady, indeed. She has friends, and I am one of them; but she has enemies."

Following his directions, I walked for some miles along the winding Trawsfynydd road and then turned to the left up a lane. After
another mile or so, right on the edge of the open moor, I came upon a minute cottage built of rough slabs of shale, and surrounded
by a little garden and stunted trees. The door was shut, but smoke rose from a chimney. I knocked. The door remained shut.
Peering through a window, I saw a typical cottage kitchen, but on the table was a pile of books. I sat down on a rickety seat in the
garden and noted the neat rows of cabbages and peas. Away to my right, across the deep Cynfal gorge, was Ffestiniog, a pack of
slate-grey elephants following their leader, the unsteepled church, down a spur of hill towards the valley. Behind and above stood
the Moelwyn range.

I was smoking my second cigarette when I heard Plaxy's voice in the distance. It was her voice that had first attracted me to her.
Sitting in a cafe, I had been enthralled by that sensitive human sound coming from some unknown person behind me. And now




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Sirius




once more I heard but did not see her. For a moment I listened with delight to her speech, which, as I had often said, was like the
cool sparkling talk of small waves on the pebbly shore of a tarn on a hot day.

I rose to meet her, but something strange arrested me. Interspersed with Plaxy's remarks was no other human voice but a quite
different sound, articulate but inhuman. Just before she came round the corner of the house she said, "But, my dear, don't dwell
on your handlessness so! You have triumphed over it superbly." There followed a strange trickle of speech from her companion;
then through the gate into the garden came Plaxy and a large dog.

She halted, her eyes wide with surprise, and (I hoped) with joy; but her brows soon puckered. Laying a hand on the dog's head,
she stood silent for a moment. I had time to observe that a change had come over her. She was wearing rather muddy corduroy
trousers and a blue shirt. The same grey eyes, the same ample, but decisive mouth, which had recently seemed to me to belie her
character, the same shock of auburn, faintly carroty hair. But instead of a rather pale face, a ruddy brown one, and a complete
absence of make-up. No lip-stick, even. The appearance of rude health was oddly contradicted by a darkness under the eyes and a
tautness round the mouth. Strange how much one can notice in a couple of seconds, when one is in love!

Her hand deserted the dog's head, and was stretched out to me in welcome. "Oh well," she said smiling, "since you have nosed us
out, we had better take you into our confidence." There was some embarrassment in her tone, but also perhaps a ring of relief.
"Hadn't we, Sirius," she added, looking down at the great dog.

Then for the first time I took note of this remarkable creature. He was certainly no ordinary dog. In the main he was an Alsatian,