"Kim Wilkins - The Autumn Castle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilkins Kim)

Once upon a time, a Miraculous Child was born. That night was the last of AprilтАФWalpurgis NightтАФon
the summit of the Brocken in the Harz Mountains. It has long been thought that the devil holds court on
the Brocken on such a night, but I am not a devil (for that Miraculous Child, dear reader, was me); I am
the only son of the thirteenth generation of a special family. In the dim, distant past, my ancestors bred
with faeries, bringing our family line infinite good fortune, but making a terrible mess of our gene pool.

My name is Immanuel Zweigler, but I am known as Mandy Z. I am an artist, renowned; I am wealthy
beyond your wildest dreams, and always have been, for my family has money in obscure bank accounts
in sinister places the world over. I am color-blind, truly color-blind. I see only black and white and gray,
but if you wore a particularly vibrant color, perhaps a little of its warmth would seep into my field of
vision and be rendered the palest sepia. But I have an extraordinary sense of smell, and" an extraordinary
sense of touch. That is why I like to sculpt.

You may wonder why someone so miraculous has waited until the age of forty-eight to commence his
memoir. Simply, it had never occurred to me to do so, but then the British journalist came to interview
me. He was a genial man. We had a good conversation and then I left him with the view from my west
windows while I went upstairs to fetch a photographтАФI always insist on providing my own photographs
to be published with interviews. I was rummaging in the drawer of my desk in my sculpture room, a room
I prefer to keep private, when I heard the British journalist clear his throat behind me.

"You should not have followed me in here," I said.

"This is extraordinary," he replied, advancing toward my latest sculpture.

Ah, the beautiful thing, so white and gleaming with gorgeous curves and ghastly crevices.

"It's called the Bone Wife," I told him as he ran his fingers over her hips (she only exists below the waist
at present). I was amused because he didn't know what he was touching.

"Are you going to finish her?" he' asked, gesturing to where her face would be.

"Oh yes. Though some would say she is the perfect woman just as she is."

He didn't laugh at my joke. "What medium are you using?"

"Bones."
His fingers jumped off as though scalded. "Not human bones?"

I smiled and shook my head. "Of course not."

So he returned to his examination, confident that these were the bones of unfortunate sheep and pigs, and
then I gave him his photos and asked him to leave. I sat for a long time looking at my Bone Wife, and
mused about my continued disappointment in how I am represented by the world's media, and about
how so much of what I do can never be made public. I wanted to read about a version of myself that I
recognized, even if I had to write it with my own pen; and that's when I decided upon a memoir. I
decided to celebrate me. Miraculous me.