"Paul McAuley - Doctor Pretorius and the Lost Temple" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

"permanent" pencil at every other letter, so that his lips were soon stained quite
blue. I watched with growing impatience and dissatisfaction, already suspecting that
I had squandered a florin to no good purpose. There was nothing of the matter of
the dead here; only shabby showmanship and cheap spectacle. The swells passed
around a silver flask and nudged each other; the olive-complexioned young man
impatiently consulted a pocket watch; the white-haired man and I exchanged a
glance, and his smirk grew a fraction, as if he had detected in me some impropriety.

The married couple with the ghost child were the last to murmur into the old man's
ear. He licked and wrote, then tucked the pencil behind his ear and struck the floor
with his stick. A corner of the red drapery was lifted to admit, with a great swirl of
sweet-smelling white smoke, two burly men in collarless shirts and braces, escorting
a plump girl of fourteen or fifteen in a plain black dress. She was endeavouring to
seem calm, but I saw how her gaze darted around the room, and how she flinched
when one of the men took her arm and led her to the chair.

I told the little ghost to go and stand before the lady, and when she showed
reluctance to let go of her father said, "Be brave now," and gave her the tiniest
pinch of compulsion to thrust her through the crowd.

The remaining candle went out as soon as the plump girl sat down. A woman
gasped; the swells tittered. Then someone uncovered a lantern and a ray of light
shot across the room, transfixing the gypsy girl's face. Her eyes were rolled back,
showing only crescents of white behind flickering eyelashes, but I did not for a
moment believe that was why she did not see the little ghost who stood in front of
her. Bells rang here and there in the darkness and pale shapes flew through the air.
The swells cheered; several of the women emitted muffled shrieks. The gypsy girl's
arms and then her whole upper body began to quake. Foam dripped from a corner
of her mouth and she suddenly bent double, as if punched in the stomach, and
began to chokingly regurgitate into her lap yards of white stuff. The little ghost
watched this calmly, once or twice glancing back at me. The smoke grew thicker,
defining the angled beam of the lantern. When she had spat out the last of what
was clearly meant to be ectoplasm, the girl raised her face to the smoky light, like a
burlesque of a blind Pietà, and asked in a croaking, thickly accented voice if there
was any spirit who would speak with the living.

I could no longer contain my impatience and disgust, and said loudly, "There is a
ghost already here, madam. Perhaps you could point it out."

The audience stirred, trying to discover who amongst them had spoken. The girl
repeated her question, like an actor insisting on the script after someone else
botches a line or a piece of scenery falls over, and the old man said, "Let the
unbeliever leave now, for the sake of those who want to speak with the dead."

My anger was a hot pulse behind my eyes. I said, "If you know anything about the
matter of the dead, sir, you would have your daughter describe the poor shade who
stands before her."

My eyes were adapting to the darkness. I could see that the two toughs on either
side of the girl were looking this way and that, trying to locate me. The little ghost