"Williams, Tad - MONSIEUR VERGALANT'S CANARD" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Tad)

TAD WILLIAMS

MONSIEUR VERGALANT'S CANARD

He placed the burnished rosewood box on the table, then went to all the windows
in turn, pulling the drapes together, tugging at the edges to make sure no gap
remained. After he had started a fire and set the kettle on the blackened stove,
he returned to the table. He opened the box and paused, a smile flickering
across his face. The contents of the box gleamed in the candlelight.

"It was a triumph, Henri," he said loudly. "All Paris will be talking about it
tomorrow. The best yet. I wish you could have seen their faces -- they were
amazed!"

"You are quite a showman," his brother called back, his voice muffled by the
intervening wall. "And the pretty Comtesse? The one I saw the painting of?"

Gerard laughed, a deliberately casual sound. "Ah, yes, the Comtesse de Buise.
Her eyes were as wide as a little girl's. She loved it so much, she wanted to
take it home with her and keep it as a pet." He laughed again. "So beautiful,
that one, and so likely to be disappointed -- at least in this." He reached into
the box and teased free the velvet ties. "No one will ever make a pet of my
wonderful canard."

With the care of a priest handling the sacrament, Gerard Vergalant lifted out
the gilded metal duck and set it upright on the table. Eyes narrowed, he took
his kerchief from the pocket of his well-cut but ever so slightly threadbare
coat and dusted the duck's feathers and buffed its gleaming bill. He paid
particular attention to polishing the glass eyes, which seemed almost more real
than those of a living bird. The duck was indeed a magnificent thing, a little
smaller than life-size, shaped with an intricacy of detail that made every
golden feather a sculpture unto itself.

The teapot chuffed faintly. Vergalant repocketed his kerchief and went to it.

"Indeed, you should have seen them, Henri," he called. "Old Guineau, the
Marquis, he was most dismissive at first -- the doddering fool. 'In my youth, I
saw the bronze nightingales of Constantinople,' he says, and waves his hand in
that if-you-must-bore-me way he has. Hah! In his youth he saw them build the
Hanging Gardens of Babylon, I'll wager."

He poured the water into a teacup with a small chip in the handle, then a little
more in a bowl which he set on the table.

"The old bastard went on and on, telling everyone about clockwork movement, how
the Emperor's nightingales would lift their wings up and down, and swivel their
heads. But when my duck walked, they all sat up." He grinned at the memory of
triumph. "None of them expected it to look so real! When it swam, one of the