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

perhaps with a dash of Great Dane or Mastiff, for he was a huge beast. His general build was wolf-like, but he was slimmer than
a wolf, because of his height. His coat, though the hair was short, was superbly thick and silky, particularly round the neck, where
it was a close turbulent ruff. Its silkiness missed effeminacy by a hint of stubborn harshness. Silk wire, Plaxy once called it. On
back and crown it was black, but on flanks and legs and the under surface of his body it paled to an austere greyish fawn. There
were also two large patches of fawn above the eyes, giving his face a strangely mask-like look, or the appearance of a Greek
statue with blank-eyed helmet pushed back from the face. What distinguished Sirius from all other dogs was his huge cranium. It
was not, as a matter of fact, quite as large as one would have expected in a creature of human intelligence, since, as I shall explain
later, Trelone's technique not only increased the brain's bulk but also produced a refinement of the nerve fibres themselves.
Nevertheless, Sirius's head was far loftier than any normal dog's. His high brow combined with the silkiness of his coat to give
him a look of the famous Border Collie, the outstanding type of sheep-dog. I learned later that this brilliant race had, indeed,
contributed to his make-up. But his cranium was far bigger than the Border Collie's. The dome reached almost up to the tips of
his large Alsatian ears. To hold up this weight of head, the muscles of his neck and shoulders were strongly developed. At the
moment of our encounter he was positively leonine, because the hair was bristling along his spine. Suspicion of me had brushed it
up the wrong way. His grey eyes might have been wolf's eyes, had not the pupils been round like any dog's, not slits like the




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wolf's. Altogether he was certainly a formidable beast, lean and sinewy as a creature of the jungle.

Without taking his gaze off me, he opened his mouth, displaying sierras of ivory, and made a queer noise, ending with an upward
inflection like a question. Plaxy replied, "Yes, it's Robert. He's true as steel, remember." She smiled at me deprecatingly, and
added, "And he may be useful."

Sirius politely waved his amply feathered tail, but kept his cold eyes fixed on mine.

Another awkward pause settled upon us, till Plaxy said, "We have been working on the sheep out on the moor all day. \Ve missed
our dinner and I'm hungry as hell. Come in and I'll make tea for us all." She added as we entered the little flagged kitchen, "Sirius
will understand everything you say. You won't be able to understand him at first, but I shall, and I'll interpret."

While Plaxy prepared a meal, passing in and out of the little larder, I sat talking to her. Sirius squatted opposite me, eyeing me
with obvious anxiety. Seeing him, she said with a certain sharpness fading into gentleness, "Sirius! I tell you he's all right. Don't
be so suspicious!" The dog rose, saying something in his strange lingo, and went out into the garden. "He's gone to fetch some
firewood," she said; then in a lowered voice, "Oh, Robert, it's good to see you, though I didn't want you to find me." I rose to take
her in my arms, but she whispered emphatically, "No, no, not now." Sirius returned with a log between his jaws. With a sidelong
glance at the two of us, and a perceptible drooping of the tail, he put the log on the fire and went out again. "Why not now?" I
cried, and she whispered, "Because of Sirius. Oh, you'll understand soon." After a pause she added, "Robert, you mustn't expect
me to be wholly yours ever, not fully and single-heartedly yours. I'm too much involved in--in this work of my father's." I
expostulated, and seized her. "Nice human Robert," she sighed, putting her head on my shoulder. But immediately she broke
away, and said with emphasis, "No, I didn't say that. It was just the female human animal that said it. What I say is, I can't play
the game you want me to play, not wholeheartedly."

Then she called through the open door, "Sirius, tea!" He replied with a bark, then strode in, carefully not looking at me.