"Jack Vance - Green Magic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

Fair surveyed his great-uncle with a trace of uneasiness. McIntyre laughed. "No more pranks. I predict,
however, that you will presently share my malaise."

"I share it already," said Fair. "Sometimes I wish I could abandon all my magic and return to my former
innocence."

"I have toyed with the idea," McIntyre replied thoughtfully. "In fact I have made all the necessary

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 Green Magic


arrangements. It is really a simple matter." He led Fair to a small room behind the station. Although the
door was open, the interior showed a thick darkness.

McIntyre, standing well back, surveyed the darkness with a quizzical curl to his lip. "You need only
enter. All your magic, all your recollections of the green realm will depart. You will be no wiser than the
next man you meet. And with your knowledge will go your boredom, your melancholy, your
dissatisfaction."

Fair contemplated the dark doorway. A single step would resolve his discomfort.

He glanced at McIntyre; the two surveyed each other with sardonic amusement. They returned to the
front of the building.

"Sometimes I stand by the door and look into the darkness," said McIntyre. "Then I am reminded how
dearly I cherish my boredom, and what a precious commodity is so much misery."

Fair made himself ready for departure. "I thank you for this new wisdom, which a hundred more years in
the green realm would not have taught me. And now, for a time, at least, I go back to my crag in the
Andes."

McIntyre tilted his chair against the wall of the service station. "And I, for a time, at least, will wait for
the next passerby."

"Good-bye, then, Uncle Gerald."

"Good-bye, Howard."

┬й Jack Vance 1963, 2000

"Green Magic" was first published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June
1963. It has also appeared in Jack Vance's collections Green Magic (Underwood-Miller,
1979) and The Narrow Land (DAW, 1982).




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