"Gene Wolfe - The Fifth Head of Cerberus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

one, the center head, regarded the world of garden and street with a look of tolerant
interest. The third, the one nearest the brick path that led to our door, was--there is no
other term for it--frankly grinning; and it was the custom for my father's patrons to
pat this head between the ears as they came up the path. Their fingers had polished
the spot to the consistency of black glass.
╖
This, then, was my world at seven of our world's long years, and perhaps for half a
year beyond. Most of my days were spent in the little classroom over which Mr
Million presided, and my evenings in the dormitory where David and I played and
fought in total silence. They were varied by the trips to the library I have described or,
very rarely, .elsewhere. I pushed aside the leaves of the silver trumpet vine
occasionally to watch the girls and their benefactors in the court below, or heard their
talk drifting down from the roof garden, but the things they did and talked of were of
no great interest to me. I knew that the tall, hatchet-faced man who ruled our house
and was called "Maюtre" by the girls and servants was my father. I had known for as
long as I could remember that there was somewhere a fearsome woman--the servants
were in terror of her--called "Madame," but that she was neither my mother nor
David's, nor my father's wife.
That life and my childhood, or at least my infancy, ended one evening after
David and I, worn out with wrestling and silent arguments, had gone to sleep.
Someone shook me by the shoulder and called me, and it was not Mr Million but one
of the servants, a hunched little man in a shabby red jacket. "He wants you," this
summoner informed me. "Get up."
I did, and he saw that I was wearing nightclothes. This I think had not been
covered in his instructions, and for a moment during which I stood and yawned, he
debated with himself. "Get dressed," he said at last. "Comb your hair."
I obeyed, putting on the black velvet trousers I had worn the day before, but
(guided by some instinct) a new clean shirt. The room to which he then conducted me
(through tortuous corridors now emptied of the last patrons; and others, musty, filthy
with the excrement of rats, to which patrons were never admitted) was my father's
library--the room with the great carved door before which I had received the
whispered confidences of the woman in pink. I had never been inside it, but when my
guide rapped discreetly on the door it swung back, and I found myself within, almost
before I realized what had happened.
My father, who had opened the door, closed it behind me; and leaving me
standing where I was, walked to the most distant end of that long room and threw
himself down in a huge chair. He was wearing the red dressing gown and black scarf
in which I had most often seen him, and his long, sparse hair was brushed straight
back. He stared at me, and I remember that my lip trembled as I tried to keep from
breaking into sobs.
"Well," he said, after we had looked at one another for a long time, "and there
you are. What am I going to call you?"
I told him my name, but he shook his head. "Not that. You must have another
name for me--a private name. You may choose it yourself if you like."
I said nothing. It seemed to me quite impossible that I should have any name
other than the two words which were, in some mystic sense I only respected without
understanding, my name.
"I'll choose for you then," my father said. "You are Number Five. Come here,
Number Five."
I came, and when I was standing in front of him, he told me, "Now we are going