"Walter Jon Williams - No Spot of Ground" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

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 No Spot of Ground


had been rescued by a widow with a daughter. In Mrs. Forster Poe could almost see Mrs. Clemm--but
Mrs. Clemm idealized, perfected, somehow rarified, her poverty replaced by abundance, her sadness by
energy, inspiration, and hope. How could he help but see Virginia in her sparkling daughter? How could
he help but give her his love, his troth, his ring--He was not being faithless to Virginia, he thought; his
second marriage was a fulfillment of the first. Did Evania and Virginia not possess, through some
miracle of transubstantiation, the same soul, the same perfection of spirit? Were they not earthly shades
of the same pure, angelic lady, differing only in color, one dark, one bright?

Were they not blessings bestowed by Providence, a just compensation for poor Poe, who had been
driven nearly mad by soaring, like Icarus, too near the divine spark?

****

For a moment, after Poe opened his eyes, he saw her floating above him--a woman, dark-tressed, pale-
featured, crowned with stars. He could hear her voice, though distantly; he could not make sense of her
speech, hearing only a murmur of long vowel sounds"┬ж

And then she was gone, faded away, and Poe felt a knife of sorrow enter his heart. He realized he was
weeping. He threw off his buffalo robe and rolled upright.

The Starker house loomed above him, black against the Milky Way. The candles' glow still softly
illuminated the parlor window.

Poe bent over, touching his forehead to his knees until he could master himself. He had seen the woman
often in his dreams, sometimes in waking moments. He remembered her vividly, the female form rising
over the streets of Richmond, during some barely-sane moments after Virginia's death, the prelude to
that last spree in Baltimore. Always he had felt comforted by her presence, confirmed in his dreams, his
visions. When she appeared it was to confer a blessing.

He did not remember seeing her since his war service started. But then, his war service was not blessed.

Poe straightened, and looked at the soft candlelight in the Starker windows. He looked at the foot of his
cot, and saw Sextus wrapped in blankets, asleep and oblivious to his master's movements. Sometimes
Poe thought he would give half his worth for a single night of sleep as deep and dreamless as that of his
body-servant.

He put his stockinged feet in the carpet slippers that waited where Sextus had put them, then rose and
stepped out into the camp in his dressing gown. The slippers were wet with dew inside and out. Poe
didn't care. A gentle, warm wind was flitting up from the south. With this heavy dew, Poe thought, the
wind would raise a mist before dawn. Maybe it would postpone Lee's offensive.

He remembered hiking in New York with Virginia, spending days wandering down hilly lanes, spending

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 No Spot of Ground