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

I said, "I hope you're not going to ask what sign I was born under. I usually
leave when people ask that. I was born on the cusp, August, 1920." I pretended
to half-rise. He pressed a gentle hand to my lapel.

"No, no, dear boy -- you don't understand. Look here. And here." He touched
under his eyes and then around his neck. "Look for wrinkles."

"But, you have none," I said.

"How observant. None. And that is why I have become this very night a fresh new
stunningly handsome FRIEND TO DORIAN."

"I still don't see the connection."

"Look at the backs of my hands." He showed his wrists. "No liver spots. I am not
turning to rust. I repeat the question, how old am I?"

I swirled the wine in my glass and studied his reflection in the swirl.

"Sixty?" I guessed. "Seventy?"

"Good God!" He fell back in his chair astonish ed. "How did you know?"

"Word association. You've been rattling on about Dorian. I know my Oscar Wilde,
I know my Dorian Gray, which means you, sir, have a portrait of yourself stashed
in an attic aging while you yourself, drinking old wine, stay young."

"No, no." The handsome stranger leaned forward. "Not stayed young. Became young.
I was old, very old, and it took a year, but the clock went back and after a
year of playing at it, I achieved what I set out for."

"Twenty-nine was your target?"

"How clever you are!"

"And once you became twenty-nine you were fully elected as --"

"A friend to Dorian! Bullseye! But there is no portrait, no attic, no staying
young. It's becoming young again's the ticket."

"I'm still puzzled!"

"Child of my heart, you might possibly be another Friend. Come along. Before the
greatest revelation, let me show you the far end of the room and some doors."

He seized my hand. "Bring your wine. You'll need it!" He hustled me along
through the tables in a swiftly filling room of mostly middle-aged and some
fairly young men, and a few smoke-exhaling ladies. I jogged along, staring back
at the EXIT as if my future life were there.