"Gene Wolfe - The Boy Who Hooked the Sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

But the boy only laughed at him and pelted him with the shining stones of
Atlantis, saying, "Oh, really? A king. Who is to be emperor?" And after the cleverest
man in the village had talked a great deal more, he went away.

Then the magic woman from the hills, the sorceress, who knew every fu-ture
save her own, came to the boy, say-ing, "Little boy, you must cut your line. Sabaoth
sweats and trembles in his shrine and will no longer accept my offerings; the feet of
Sith, called by the ignorant Kronos, son of Uranus, have broken; and the magic bird
Tchataka has flown. The stars riot in the heavens, so that at one moment humankind
is to rule them all, and at the next is to perish. Cut your line!"

But the boy only laughed at her and pelted her with the shining stones of
Atlantis, with agates and alexandrites, moonstones and onyxes, rubies, sardonyxes,
and sapphires; and at last the magic woman from the hills went away muttering.

Then the most foolish man in the vil-lage, the idiot, who sang songs without
words to the brooks and boasted of bed-ding the white birch on the hill, came to the
boy and tried to say how fright-ened he was to see the Sun fighting his line in the
sky, though he could not find the words.

But the boy only smiled and let him touch the pole and feel the strength of the
Sun, and after a time he too went away.

And at last the boy's mother came, saying, "Remember all the fine stories I
have told you through the years? Never have I told you the finest one of all. Come to
the little house the richest man in the village has given back to us. Put on your crown
and tell your general to stand guard; take up the magic feather of the bird Tchataka,
who opens its mouth to the sky and drinks wisdom with the dew. Then we shall dip
the feather in the blood of a wild ox and write that story on white birch bark, you
and I."

The boy asked, "What is that story, Mother?"

And his mother answered, "It is called `The Boy Who Hooked the Sun'. Now
cut your line and promise me you will never fish for the Sun again, so long as we
both shall live."

Aha, thought the boy, as he got out his little knife. / love my mother, who is
more beautiful that the white birch tree on the hill and always kind. But do not all
the souls wear away at last as they circle on the Wheel? Then the time must come
when I live and she does not; and when that time comes, surely I will bait my hook
again with the shining stones of Uranus, and we shall rule the stars. Or not.

And so it is that the Sun swims far from Earth sometimes, thinking of its sore
mouth; and we have winter. But now, when the days are very short and we see the
boy's line stretched across the sky and powdered with hoarfrost, the Sun recalls
Earth and her clever and foolish men and kind and magical women, and then it
returns to us.