"Ursula K. Leguin - Orsinian Tales" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

THEY knew, having given him cause, that Dr Kereth might attempt to seek
political asylum in Paris. Therefore, on the plane flying west, in the hotel, on the
streets, at the meetings, even while he read his paper to the Cytology section, he
was distantly accompanied at all times by obscure figures who might be explained
as graduate students or Croatian microbiologists, but who had no names, or faces.
Since his presence lent not only distinction to his country's delegation but also a
certain luster to his government—See, we let even him come—they had wanted
him there; but they kept him in sight. He was used to being in sight. In his small
country a man could get out of sight only by not moving at all, by keeping voice,
body, brain all quiet. He had always been a restless, visible man. Thus, when all at
once on the sixth day in the middle of a guided tour in broad daylight he found
himself gone, he was confused for a time. Only by walking down a path could one
achieve one's absence?
It was in a very strange place that he did so. A great, desolate, terrible house stood
behind him yellow in the yellow sunlight of afternoon. Thousands of many-
colored dwarfs milled on terraces, beyond which a pale blue canal ran straight
away into the unreal distance of September. The lawns ended in groves of chestnut
trees a hundred feet high, noble, somber, shot through with gold. Under the trees
they had walked in shadow on the riding-paths of dead kings, but the guide led

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them out again to sunlight on lawns and marble pavements. And ahead, straight
ahead, towering and shining up into the air, fountains ran.
They sprang and sang high above their marble basins in the light. The petty, pretty
rooms of the palace as big as a city where no one lived, the indifference of the
noble trees that were the only fit inhabitants of a garden too large for men, the
dominance of autumn and the past, all this was brought into proportion by the
running of water. The phonograph voices of the guides fell silent, the camera eyes
of the guided saw. The fountains leapt up, crashed down exulting, and washed
death away.
They ran for forty minutes. Then they ceased. Only kings could afford to run the
Great Fountains of Versailles and live forever. Republics must keep their own
proportion. So the high white jets shrank, stuttering. The breasts of nymphs ran
dry, the mouths of river-gods gaped black. The tremendous voice of uprushing and
downfalling water became a rattling, coughing sigh. It was all through, and
everyone stood for a moment alone. Adam Kereth turned, and seeing a path before
him went down it away from the marble terraces, under the trees. Nobody
followed him; and it was at this moment, though he was unaware of it, that he
defected.
Late-afternoon light lay warm across the path between shadows, and through the
light and shadows a young man and a young woman walked hand in hand. A long
way behind them Adam Kereth walked by himself, tears running down his cheeks.
Presently the shadows fell away from him and he looked up to see no path, no
lovers, only a vast tender light and, below him, many little round trees in tubs. He
had come to the terrace above the Orangerie. Southward from this high place one
saw only forest, France a broad forest in the autumn evening. Horns blew no
longer, rousing wolf or wild boar for the king's hunt; there was no great game left.