"Diana Wynne Jones - Castle In The Air" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Diana Wynne)

After the usual opening courtesies, in which Abdullah called the artist
prince of the pencil and enchanter with chalks and the artist retorted
by calling Abdullah cream of customers and duke of discernment, Abdullah
said, "I want drawings of every size, shape, and kind of man that you
have ever seen. Draw me kings and paupers, merchants and workmen, fat
and thin, young and old, handsome and ugly, and also plain average. If
some of these are kinds of men that you have never seen, I require you
to invent them, O paragon of the paintbrush. And if your invention
fails, which I hardly think is likely, O aristocrat of artists, then all
you need do is turn your eyes outward, gaze, and copy!"

Abdullah flung out one arm to point to the teeming, rushing crowds
shopping in the Bazaar. He was moved almost to tears at the thought that
this everyday sight was something Flower-in-the-Night had never seen.

The artist drew his hand dubiously down his straggly beard.

20

"For sure, noble admirer of mankind," he said, "this I can do easily.
But could the jewel of judgment perhaps inform this humble draftsman
what these many portraits of men are needed for?"

"Why should the crown and diadem of the drawing board wish to know
this?" Abdullah asked, rather dismayed.

"Assuredly, the chieftain of customers will understand that this crooked
worm needs to know what medium to use," the artist replied. In fact, he
was simply curious about this most unusual order. "Whether I paint in
oils on wood or canvas, in pen upon paper or vellum, or even in fresco
upon a wall depends on what this pearl among patrons wishes to do with
the portraits."
"Ah, paper, please," Abdullah said hastily. He had no wish to make his
meeting with Flower-in-the-Night public. It was clear to him that her
father must be a very rich man who would certainly object to a young
carpet merchant's showing her other men besides this Prince of
Ochinstan. "The portraits are for an invalid who has never been able to
walk abroad as other men do."

"Then you are a champion of charity," said the artist, and he agreed to
draw the pictures for a surprisingly small sum. "No, no, child of
fortune, do not thank me," he said when Abdullah tried to express his
gratitude. "My reasons are three. First, I have laid by me many
portraits which I do for my own pleasure, and to charge you for those is
not honest since I would have drawn them anyway. Second, the task you
set is ten times more interesting than my usual work, which is to do
portraits of young women or their bridegrooms, or of horses and camels,
all of whom I have to make handsome, regardless of reality; or else to
paint rows of sticky children whose parents wish them to seem like