"Theodore Sturgeon - Slow Sculpture" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sturgeon Theodore)

. "Were you looking for something?" he asked her.
"No," she said. "Yes."
He could smile. Though it did not 'last long she found
the expression surprising in a face like his.
"That's not what is called, in a court of law, a respon-
sive answer."
She glanced across the hillside, metallic in that late
light. There wasn't much on it--rocks, weeds the summer
was done with, a tree or so, the orchard. Anyone present
had come a long way to get here.
"It wasn't a simple question," she said, tried to smile
and burst into tears.
She was sorry and said so.


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"Why?" he asked.
This was the first time she was to experience this ask-
the-next-question thing of his. It was unsettling. It always
would 'be--never less, sometimes a great deal more.
"Well--one doesn't have emotional explosions in pub-
lic."
"You do. I don't know this 'one' you're talking about."
"I guess I don't either, now that you mention it."
"Tell the truth then. No sense in going around and
around about it: He'll think that I . . . and the like. I'll
think what I think, whatever you say. Or--go down the
mountain and just don't say any more." She did not turn
to go, so he added: "Try the truth, then. If it's important,
it's simple. And if it's simple it's easy to say."
"I'm going to die!" she cried.
"So am 1."
"I have a lump in my breast."
"Come up to the house and I'll fix it."
Without another word he turned away and started
through the orchard. Startled half out of her wits, indig-
nant and full of insane hope, experiencing, even, a quick
curl of astonished laughter, she stood for a moment
watching him go and 'then found herself (at what point
did I decide?) running after him.
She caught up with him on the uphill margin of the
orchard.
"Are you a doctor?"
He appeared not to notice that she had waited, had
run.
"No," he said and, walking on, appeared not to see her
stand again pulling at her lower lip, then run again to
catch up.