"Bradbury, Ray - Dorian In Excelsis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradbury Ray)

RAY BRADBURY

DORIAN IN EXCELSIS

Good Evening. Welcome. I see you have my invitation in your hands. Decided to be
brave, did you? Fine. Here we are. Grab onto this."

The tall handsome stranger with the heavenly eyes and the impossibly blond hair
handed me a wine glass.

"Clean your palate," he said.

I took the glass and read the label on the bottle he held in his left hand.
Bordeaux, it read. St. Emillion.

"Go on, said my host. "It's not poison. May I sit? And might you drink ?"

"I might." I sipped, shut my eyes, and smiled. "You're a connoisseur. This is
the best I've had in years. But, why this wine and why the invitation? What am I
doing here at GRAY'S ANATOMY Bar and Grille.?"

"I," my host sat and filled his own glass, "am doing a favor to myself. This is
a great night, perhaps for both of us. Greater than Christmas or Halloween." His
lizard tongue darted into his wine to vanish back into his contentment. "We
celebrate my being honored, at last becoming --"

He exhaled it all out:

"Becoming," he said, "a friend to Dorian! Dorian's friend. Me!"

"Ah," I laughed. "That explains the name of this place, then? Does Dorian own
GRAY'S ANATOMY?"

"More! Inspire and rule over it. And deservedly so."

"You make it sound as if being a friend to Dorian is the most important thing in
the world."

"No! In life! In all of life." He rocked back and forth, drunk not from the wine
but some inner joy. "Guess."

"At what?"

"How old I am!"

"You look to be twenty-nine at the most."

"Twenty-nine. What a lovely sound. Not thirty, forty, or fifty, but --"