"R. A. MacAvoy - Damiano's Lute" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacAvoy R A)

was difficult to get along with, and he accepted that Damiano was not.
Therefore he considered it Damiano's responsibility to get along with him, as
it is the responsibility of a hale man to support a lame companion, or a
sighted man to see for a bund.
And this last tirade, in which the boy had accused Damiano of exactly nothing,
had been built on a bizarre foundation of humility. For by letting the
lutenist know how disappointed in him Gaspare was, he also let him know how
much he had expected of him.
Damiano's head drooped. Grass-broken road swept by below the cracked
footboard. His fine anger dissolved with the shreds of clouds, leaving a
puddle of shame.
The truth was he didn't really like Gaspare. Not wholeheartedly, except when
the music gave them a half-hour's unity, or during the rare moments when they
were both rested and fed. Gaspare was simply not very likable.
But the problem was Damiano didn't like anyone else wholeheartedly either,
except of course one glorious angel of God. And that took no effort.
Gaspare had been right, Damiano admitted to himself. He had failed the boy. He
had given him very little, on a human level, since the beginning of winter.
Aside from his music, Damiano had felt he had nothing to give.
And wasn't the lute enough? Damiano rubbed his face with both hands. God knew
it was work to study and play as hard as he had done for the past year. It
required concentration, which was the hardest of works, as well as the best.
But no. Damiano might be a madman about his Instrument, but he was not so
deluded as all that. One could not pass off a bourree as an act of friendship,
any more than one could disguise as human warmth what was mere good manners
and a dislike of conflict.
And what had he taken from Gaspare in exchange for that counterfeit
friendship? Rough loyalty, praise, energy, enthusiasm....
Once Damiano had had his own enthusiasm. Enthusi-jism and a dog. The dog died,
and then the enthusiasm, and he had had only Gaspare.
Eyes gone blind to the spirit, ears gone deaf to the natural world: it seemed
to Damiano he had given as
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Damiano's Lute
much as a man ought to be asked to give, for the sake of right. He ought to be
allowed some peace now, for as long as he had left.
But how could he say that to Gaspare, who had never possessed what Damiano had
now lost?
Suddenly it occurred to him to wonder which way the boy had gone. Surely he
would continue to Avignon, to Evienne. Damiano raised his eyes.
A minute later and Gaspare would have been out of sight, or at least out of
the lutenist's poor sight. But he was visible in the far distance ahead, a
bobbing splotch of modey, jogging along fester than the horse's amble.
Frowning, Damiano tossed his hair from his face. Gaspare's physical endurance
inspired awe. Doubtless he would make it to the city alone, and probably he
would go quicker and plumper than he would have in the lutenist's company.
Then truth stung Damiano's black eyes. Beloved or no, Gaspare was necessary to
him. In a manner totally removed from the question of like or dislike, Damiano
Delstrego needed Gaspare because the boy believed in him—as a lutenist, as a
composer.