"Diana Wynne Jones - Howl's Moving Castle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Diana Wynne)

Sophie gaped at him. "Where did you come from? I saw you go out."
"I meant you to," said Howl. "You'd done your worst with Calcifer and poor Michael. It stood to reason
you'd descend on me today. And whatever Calcifer told you, I am a wizard, you know. Didn't you think
I could do magic?"
This undermined all Sophie's assumptions. She would have died rather than admit it. "Everyone knows
you're a wizard, young man," she said severely. "But that doesn't alter the fact that your castle is the
dirtiest place I've ever been in." she looked into the room past Howl's dangling blue-and-silver sleeve.
The carpet on the floor was littered like a bird's nest. She glimpsed peeling walls and a shelf full of
books, some of them very queer-looking. There was no sign of a pile of gnawed hearts, but those were
probably behind or under the huge fourposter bed. Its hangings were gray-white with dust and they
prevented her from seeing what the window looked out onto.
Howl swung his sleeve in front of her face. "Uh-uh. Don't be nosy."
"I'm not being nosy!" Sophie protested. "That room-!"
"Yes, you are nosy," said Howl. "You're a dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean old
woman. Control yourself. You're victimizing us all."
"But it's a pigsty," said Sophie. "I can't help what I am!"
"Yes you can," said Howl. "And I like my room the way it is. You must admit I have a right to live in a
pigsty if I want. Now go downstairs and think of something else to do. Please. I hate quarreling with
people."
There was nothing Sophie could do but hobble away with her bucket clanking by her side. She was a
little shaken, and very surprised that Howl had not thrown her out of the castle on the spot. But since he
had not, she thought of the next thing that needed doing at once. She opened the door beside the stairs,
found the drizzle had almost stopped, and sallied out into the yard, where she began vigorously sorting
through piles of dripping rubbish.
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There was a metallic clash! and Howl appeared again, stumbling slightly, in the middle of the large
sheet of rusty iron that Sophie had been going to move next.
"Not here either," he said. "You are a terror, aren't you? Leave this yard alone. I know just where
everything is in it, and I won't be able to find the things I need for my transport spells if you tidy them
up."
So there was probably a bundle of souls or a box of chewed up hearts somewhere out here, Sophie
thought. She felt really thwarted. "Tidying up is what I'm here for!" she shouted at Howl.
"Then you must think of a new meaning for your life," Howl said. For a moment it seemed as it he was
going to lose his temper too. His strange, pale eyes all but glared at Sophie. But he controlled himself
and said, "Now trot along indoors, you overactive old thing, and find something else to play with before
I get angry. I hate getting angry."
Sophie folded her skinny arms. She did not like being glared at by eyes like glass marbles. "Of course
you hate getting angry!" she retorted. "You don't like anything unpleasant, do you? You're a
slitherer-outer, that's what you are! You slither away from anything you don't like!"
Howl gave a forced sort of smile. "Well now," he said. "Now we both know each other's faults. Now go
back into the house. Go on. Back." He advanced on Sophie, waving her toward the door. The sleeve on
his waving hand caught the edge of the rusty metal, jerked, and tore. "Damnation!" said Howl, holding
up the trailing blue-and-silver ends. "Look what you've made me do!"
"I can mend it," Sophie said.
Howl gave her another glassy look. "There you go again," he said. "How you must love servitude!" He
took his torn sleeve gently between the fingers of his right hand and pulled it through them. As the
blue-and-silver fabric left his fingers, there was no tear in it at all. "There," he said. "Understand?"
Sophie hobbled back indoors, rather chastened. Wizards clearly had no need to work in the ordinary
way. Howl had shown her he really was a wizard to be reckoned with. "Why didn't he turn me out?" she