"Bradbury, Ray - In A Season Of Calm Weather" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradbury Ray)

George Smith looked down at the sand. And after a long while, looking,
he began to tremble.
For there on the flat shore were pictures of Grecian lions and Medite-
rranean goats and maidens with flesh of sand like powdered gold and satyrs
piping on hand-carved horns and children dancing, strewing flowers along and
along the beach with lambs gamboling after, and musicians skipping to their
harps and lyres and unicorns racing youths toward distant meadows, woodlands,
ruined temples, and volcanoes. Along the shore in a never-broken line, the
hand, the wooden stylus of this man, bent down in fever and raining perspira-
tion, scribbled, ribboned, looped around over and up, across, in, out,
stitched, whispered, stayed, then hurried on as if this traveling bacchanal
must flourish to its end before the sun was put out by the sea. Twenty, thirty
yards or morethe nymphs and dryads and summer founts sprang up in unraveled
hieroglyphs. And the sand in the dying light was the color of molten copper on
which was now slashed a message that any man in any time might read and savor
down the years. Everything whirled and poised in its own wind and gravity. Now
wine was being crushed from under the grape-blooded feet of dancing vintners'
daughters, now steaming seas gave birth to coin-sheated monsters while flowe-
red kites strewed scent on blowing clouds...now...now...now...
The artist stopped.
George Smith drew back and stood away.
The artist glanced up, surprised to find someone so near. Then he
simply stood there, looking from George Smith to his own creations flung like
idle footprints down the way. He smiled at last and shrugged as if to say,
Look what I've done; see what a child? You will forgive me, won't you? One day
or another we are all fools... You too, perhaps? So allow an old fool this,
eh? Good! Good!
But George Smith could only look at the little man with the sun-dark
skin and the clear sharp eyes and say the man's name once, in a whisper, to
himself.
They stood thus for perhaps another five seconds. George Smith staring
at the sand-frieze, and the artist watching George Smith with amused curiosi-
ty. George Smith opened his mouth, closed it, put out his hand, took it back.
He stepped toward the pictures, stepped away. Then he moved along the line of
figures, like a man viewing a precious series of marbles cast up from some
ancient ruin on the shore. His eyes did not blink, his hand wanted to touch
but did not dare to touch. He wanted to run but did not run.
He looked suddenly at the hotel. Run, yes! Run! What? Grab a shovel,
dig, excavate, save a chunk of this all-to-crubbling sand? Find a repairman,
race him back here with plaster of Paris to cast a mold of some small fragile
part of these? No, no. Silly, silly. Or...? His eyes flicked to his hotel
window. The camera! Run, get it, get back, and hurry along the shore, click-
ing, changing film, clicking, until...
George Smith whirled to face the sun. It burned faintly on his face;
his eyes were two small fires from it. The sun was half underwater, and as he
watched it sank the rest of the way in a matter of seconds.
The artist had drawn nearer and now was gazing into George Smith's
face with great friendliness, as if he were guessing every thought. Now he
was nodding his head in a little bow. Now the ice cream stick had fallen
casuallyfrom his fingers. Now he was saying good night, good night. Now he