"Gene Wolfe - Detective of dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

"You have this experience each night?"
"It differs," he said slowly, "in some details."
"You have told me that the orders you give the under-servants vary."
"There is another difference. When the dreams began, I woke when the
hinges of the door at the passage-end creaked. Each night now the dream
endures a moment longer. Perhaps a tenth of a second. Now I see the arm
of the creature who opens that door, nearly to the elbow."
I took the address of his home, which he was glad enough to give me,
and leaving the bank made my way to my hotel.

When I had eaten my roll and drunk my coffee the next morning, I went to
the place indicated by the card given me by Baron H____, and in a few
minutes was sitting with him in a room as bare as those tents from which
armies in the field are cast into battle. "You are ready to begin the case this
morning?" he asked.
"On the contrary. I have already begun; indeed, I am about to enter a new
phase of my investigation. You would not have come to me if your
Dream-Master were not torturing someone other than the people whose
names you gave me. I wish to know the identity of that person, and to
interrogate him."
"I told you that there were many other reports. I-"
"Provided me with a list. They are all of the petite bourgeoisie, when they
are not persons still less important. I believed at first that it might be
because of the urgings of Herr R____ that you engaged me; but when I
had time to reflect on what I know of your methods, I realized that you
would have demanded that he provide my fee had that been the case. So
you are sheltering someone of greater importance, and I wish to speak to
him."
"The Countess-" Baron H____ began.
"Ah!"
 "The Countess herself has expressed some desire that you should be
presented to her. The Count opposes it."
"We are speaking, I take it, of the governor of this province?"
The Baron nodded. "Of Count von V____. He is responsible, you
understand, only to the Queen Regent herself."
"Very well. I wish to bear the Countess, and she wishes to talk with me. I
assure you, Baron, that we will meet; the only question is whether it will be
under your auspices."

The Countess, to whom I was introduced that afternoon, was a woman in
her early twenties, deep-breasted and somber-haired, with skin like milk,
and great dark eyes welling with fear and (I thought) pity, set in a perfect
oval face.
"I am glad you have come, monsieur. For seven weeks now our good
Baron H____ has sought this man for me, but he has not found him."
"If I had known my presence here would please you, Countess, I would
have come long ago, whatever the obstacles. You then, like the others, are
certain it is a real man we seek?"
"I seldom go out, monsieur. My husband feels we are in constant danger
of assassination."