"Lester Del Rey - The Pipes of Pan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Del Rey Lester)

Pan shook his head vigorously. The close-packed throng of humans in a dark theater was not his idea of
a soothing atmosphere. "I'm going over to'the park again. Maybe in the outdoor air, I can find some
idea."

"O.K., we'll make it a twosome, if it's all right with you. Time to kill is about the only thing I have now."
As he paid the checks, Pan noticed that the man's pocketbook was anything but overflowing, and
guessed that one of Bailey's difficulties was inability to pay for a first-class musician.

They found a bench in the shade and sat down together, each thinking of his own troubles and mulling
over the other's. It was the best way in the world of feeling miserable. Above them in a tree, a bird
settled down to a high, bubbling little song and a squirrel came over to them with the faint hopes of
peanuts clearly in its mind.

Pan clucked at it, making clicking sounds that brought its beady little eyes up at him quickly. It was a fat
well-fed squirrel that had domesticated man nicely for its purposes, and there was no fear about it. When
even the animals had learned to live with man and like it, surely a god could do as well.

He tapped his thighs slowly and felt the syrinx under his hand. The squirrel regarded him carefully as he
drew it out, saw there was no bag of peanuts there, and started to withdraw. The first low notes blown
from the reeds called it back, and it sat down on its tail, paws to its mouth in a rapt attitude that aped a
critic listening to Bach.

Pan took courage, and the old bluff laughter fell from his lips. He lifted the syrinx again and began a

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wild quick air on the spur of the moment, letting the music roam through the notes as it would. There
was no set tempo, but his feet tapped lightly on the graveled path, and the bird fell in step.

Bailey looked up quickly, his fingers twitching at the irregular rhythm. There was a wildness to it, a
primitiveness that barely escaped savagery, and groped out toward man's first awareness of the fierce
wild joy of living. Now the notes formed into a regular cadence that could be followed, and Bailey
whistled an impromptu harmony. The squirrel swayed lightly from side to side, twitching his tail.

"Jitterbug, isn't he?" Bob asked, as Pan paused. "I've never seen music hit an animal that way before.
Where'd you learn the piece?"

"Learn it?" Pan shook his head. "Music isn't learned—it's something that comes from inside."

"You mean you made thai up as you went along? Whew! Bul you can play a regular tune, can't
you?" \

"I never tried." \

"Uh. Well, here's one." He pursed his lips and began whistling one of the swingy popular things his
orchestra played at, but never hit. Pan listened to it carefully, only half sure he liked it, then put the
syrinx to his lips, beat his foot for time, and repeated it. But there were minor variations that somehow
lifted it and set the rhythm bouncing along, reaching out to the squirrel and making its tail twitch
frenziedly.