"Gene Wolfe - Easter Sunday" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

Reverend Dobson paused in his daily walk and sat down on the park
bench. The cool green of the park around him seemed too good to enjoy
merely in passing, so he sat, pausing a moment first to thank the Creator
for this rest in the midst of an Easter Sunday's tasks. He momentarily
forgot Mrs. Albright, who acted so superior and left a dime in the
collection plate, the worries of the coming Sunday School picnic; he
meditated on the glory of God and the miracle of the resurrection.

He was a religious man with no hint of fear in his love of God. The
Reverend's meditations were not to continue long, as it chanced. The
interruption was the sight of a man walking toward him. The stranger was
strikingly tall; his figure gave the impression of both nobility and sadness.
Here, however, all resemblance to Lincoln ceased. The stranger's nobility
was not that of the common man, but that of the superior one. He had a
high forehead, flashing black eyes, wide mouth, and thin hawk nose. His
clothes had a vaguely foreign cut, and he walked with a slight limp. It was,
thought the Reverend, such a limp as might have been acquired in some
battle encounter.

The Reverend decided he had never seen a man who suggested so plainly
the idea of exiled aristocracy.

The stranger seated himself on the bench beside him and leaned forward,
his head in his hands, and his hands on a worn but well cared-for walking
stick. Reverend Dobson was a shy man by nature, but the stranger looked
such an interesting person that he could not resist the temptation:

"I, er, I just love Easter Sunday. Don't you?" he finally blurted. The
stranger looked up as if cold water had been dashed in his face.

"No." A decisive answer. "No I don't. It reminds me of my forced exile."
Reverend Dobson noted he spoke with only the slightest trace of an
accent.

"A revolution?" ventured the Reverend.

"Yes. But I was a revolutionist, not an autocrat." His eyes flamed and met
the Reverend's squarely, and his voice continued:

"My country was a dictatorship. He calls it a kingdom now, and plans on
his son following him, but you must understand that there is no established
line preceding him. The leader, or as he calls himself, the Master, started
well enough. They all do, you know. Then he worked himself into a
position that would be fantastic if it were not real. The peasants are taught
that to doubt him is the most hideous crime. In fact, in the last analysis, it is
the only crime. He pardons whatever a man may do if only the man will
apologize for it, and, of course, affirm that he is willing to die for the
Master."

The Stranger turned his head, a look of despair on his face. Reverend