"Judith Merril - Auction Pit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

But courtesan; she has no choice, most feminine of women,
But to mould her rich
Endowment of nuance to what price buys her.

She sells suggestion:
of cleverness to carry off
The chic complexity of social stipend.
intelligence to build a sounding
Board, if she accept the bid of brain-prestige.
self-centered grace to shower on black
And silver service in a rich man's home.
of sensual calculation to fulfill
Desire, if admiration is her wage.

Love, money, home, adventure, intellect,
Society, fine clothes, fine words, or eminence ...
Some few or all of these White Tie must bid ...
And heavily, for now the price runs high.
All things to all these men, she waits to learn
What butcher, bravo, prince, or puritan
Will top the offers and command
Her being. A chimera, she changes shape to suit
Each bid, and as the price soars so her charms increase.

White Tie, impatient at the boorish crowd,
Spurning the men unworthy of this creature,
Always a spender and a self-willed man,
Must have the woman, and he crowns
Each bid with casual grace and smiling scorn.
She will be his; she was ordained for him.

Epilogue:

Off in a corner of the market place
a curious creature stands
in some confusion at the furious trading:
nor buyer, nor seller,
not engaged in commerce:
clearly untrained to perform although
just as clearly in the shape of woman.

Men brushing by, stop,
finding it beautiful
and pleasing among them.

From time to time the curious creature
falls into conversation with such men
—timid or haughty, too poor or too rich
to buy hastily—as bid infrequently
and can enjoy such strangely-neutral