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

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chance I happen to say your command word in my sleep, you must instantly
fly with me to the night garden of Flower-in-the-Night." That seemed the
best he could do. It took him a long time to get to sleep.

He woke to the dreamy fragrance of night flowers and a hand gently
prodding him. Flower-in-the-Night was leaning over him. Abdullah saw she
was far lovelier than he had been remembering her.

"You really did bring the pictures!" she said. "You are very kind."

I did it! Abdullah thought triumphantly. "Yes," he said. "I have one
hundred and eighty-nine kinds of men here. I think this ought to give
you at least a general idea."

He helped her unhook a number of the golden lamps and put them in a ring
beside the bank. Then Abdullah showed her the pictures, holding them
under a lamp first and then leaning them up against the bank. He began
to feel like a pavement artist.

Flower-in-the-Night inspected each man as Abdullah showed him,
absolutely impartially and with great concentration. Then she picked up
a lamp and inspected the artist's drawings all over again. This pleased
Abdullah. The artist was a true professional. He had drawn men exactly
as Abdullah asked, from a heroic and kingly person evidently taken from
a statue, to the hunchback who cleaned shoes in the Bazaar, and had even
included a self-portrait halfway through.

"Yes, I see," Flower-in-the-Night said at last. "Men do vary a lot, just
as you said. My father is not at all typical, and neither are you, of
course."

"So you admit I am not a woman?" said Abdullah.

"I am forced to do so," she said. "I apologize for my error." Then she
carried the lamp along the bank, inspecting certain of the pictures a
third time.

Abdullah noticed, rather nervously, that the ones she had singled out
were the handsomest. He watched her leaning over them with a small frown
on her forehead and a curly tendril of dark hair

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straying over the frown, looking thoroughly intent. He began to wonder
what he had started.

Flower-in-the-Night collected the pictures together and stacked them
neatly in a pile beside the bank. "It is just as I thought," she said.