"The Fox Woman And Other Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt Abraham)

"Sister!"
She looked up. A woman's face was bending over her. An exquisite face . . . with sea-green, slanted eyes under a broad white brow . . . with hair of russet-red that came to a small peak in the center of that brow ... a lock of silvery white shaped like the flame of a candle wavering in the wind ... a nose long but delicate, the nostrils slightly flaring, daintily ... a mouth small and red as the royal coral, heart-shaped, lips full, archaic.
Over that exquisite face, like a veil, was faint mockery, a delicate malice that had in them little of the human. Her hands were white and long and slender.
They touched Jean Meredith's heart . . . soothing her, strengthening her, drowning fear and sorrow.
She heard again the sweet voice, lilting, faintly amused-with the alien, half-malicious amusement of one who understands human emotion yet has never felt it, but knows how little it matters:
"You shall have your vengeance-Sister!" The white hands touched her eyes . . . she forgot. . . and forgot . . . and now there was nothing to remember ... not even herself...
It seemed to Jean Meredith that she lay cushioned within soft, blind darkness-illimitable, impenetrable. She had no memories; all that she knew was that she was. She thought: I am I. The darkness that cradled her was gentle, kindly. She thought: I am a spirit still unborn in the womb of night. But what was night . . . and what was spirit? She thought: I am content-I do not want to be born again. Again? That meant that she had been born before ... a word came to her-Jean. She thought: I am Jean . . . but who was Jean?
She heard two voices speaking. One a woman's, soft and sweet with throbbing undertones like plucked harp strings. She had heard that voice before . . . before, when she had been Jean. The man's voice was low, filled with tranquillity, human . . . that was it, the voice held within it a humanness the sweet voice of the woman lacked. She thought: I, Jean, am human. . . .
The man said: "Soon she must awaken. The tide of sleep is high on the shore of life. It must not cover it."
The woman answered: "I command that tide. And it has begun to ebb. Soon she will awaken."
He asked: "Will she remember?"
The woman said: "She will remember. But she will not suffer. It will be as though what she remembers had happened to another self of hers. She will pity that self,
but it will be to her as though it died when died her husband. As indeed it did. That self bears the sorrow, the pain, the agony. It leaves no legacy of them to her -save memory."
And now it seemed to her that for a time there was a silence . . . although she knew that time could not exist within the blackness that cradled her . . . and what was-time?
The man's voice broke that silence, musingly: "With memory there can be no happiness for her, long as she lives."
The woman laughed, a tingling-sweet mocking chime: "Happiness? I thought you wiser than to cling to that illusion, priest. I give her serenity, which is far better than happiness. Nor did she ask for happiness. She asked for vengeance. And vengeance she shall have."
The man said: "But she does not know who-"
The woman interrupted: "She does know. And I know. And so shall you when you have told her what was wrung from the Tibetan before he died. And if you still do not believe, you will believe when he who is guilty comes here, as come he will-to kill the child."
The man whispered: "To kill the child!"
The woman's voice became cold, losing none of its sweetness but edged with menace: "You must not let him have it, priest. Not then. Later, when the word is given you. ..."
Again the voice grew mocking ... "I contemplate a journey ... I would see other lands, who so long have dwelt among these hills . . . and I would not have my plans spoiled by precipitancy. . . ." Once more Jean Meredith heard the tingling laughter. "Have no fear, priest. They will help you-my sisters."
He said, steadily: "I have no fear."
The woman's voice became gentle, all mockery fled. She said:
"I know that, you who have had wisdom and courage to open forbidden doors. But I am bound by a threefold cord-a promise, a vow, and a desire. When a certain time comes, I must surrender much-must lie helpless, bound by that cord. It is then that I shall need you, priest, for this man who will come. ..."
The voices faded. Slowly the blackness within which she lay began to lighten. Slowly, slowly, a luminous greyness replaced it. She thought, desperately: I am. going to be born! I don't want to be born! Implacably, the light increased. Now within the greyness was a nimbus of watery emerald. The nimbus became brighter, brighter...
She was lying upon a low bed, in a nest of silken cushions. Close to her was an immense and ancient bronze vessel, like a baptismal font. The hands of thousands of years had caressed it, leaving behind them an ever deepening patina like a soft green twilight. A ray of the sun shone upon it, and where the ray rested, the patina gleamed like a tiny green sun. Upon the sides of the great bowl were strange geometric patterns, archaic, the spirals and meanders of the Lei-wen-the thunder patterns. It stood upon three legs, tripodal . . . why, it was the ancient ceremonial vessel, the Tang font which Martin had brought home from Yunnan years ago . . . and she was back home ... she had dreamed that she had been in China and that Martin . . . that Martin...
She sat up abruptly and looked through wide, opened doors into a garden. Broad steps dropped shallowly to an oval pool around whose sides were lithe willows trailing green tendrils in the blue water, wisterias with drooping ropes of blossoms, white and pale azure, and azaleas like flower flames. Rosy lilies lay upon the
pool's breast. And at its far end was a small pagoda, fairy-like, built all of tiles of iridescent peacock blue and on each side a stately cypress, as though they were its ministers . . . why, this was their garden, the garden of the blue pagoda which Martin had copied from that place in Yunnan where lived his friend, the wise old
priest...
But there was something wrong. These mountains were not like those of the ranch. They were conical, their smooth bare slopes of rose-red stone circled with trees . . . they were like huge stone hats with green brims...
She turned again and looked about the room. It was a wide room and a deep one, but how deep she could not see, because the sun streaming in from a high window struck the ancient vessel and made a curtain, veiling it beyond. She could see that there were beams across its ceiling, mellow with age, carved with strange symbols. She caught glimpses of ivory and of gleaming lacquer. There was a low altar of what seemed green jade, curiously carved and upon which were ceremonial objects of unfamiliar shape, a huge ewer of bronze whose lid was the head of a fox.. ..
A man came toward her, walking out of the shadows beyond the ancient Tang vessel. He was clothed from neck to feet in a silken robe of silvery-blue upon which were embroidered, delicately as though by spiders, Taoist symbols and under them, ghostly in silver threads, a fox's head. He was bald, his face heavy, expressionless, skin smooth and faded yellow as some antique parchment. So far as age went he might have been sixty-or three hundred. But it was his eyes that held Jean Meredith. They were large and black and, liquid, and prodigiously alive. They were young eyes, belying the agelessness of the heavy face; and it was as though the face was but a mask from which the eyes
had drawn all life into themselves. They poured into her strength and calmness and reassurance, and from her mind vanished all vagueness, all doubts, all fears. Her mind for the first time since the ambush was clear, crystal clear, her thoughts her own.
She remembered-remembered everything. But it was as though all had happened to another self. She felt pity for that self, but it had left no heritage of sorrow. She was tranquil. The black, youthful eyes poured tranquillity into her.
She said: "I know you. You are Yu Ch'ien, the wise priest my husband loved. This is the Temple of the Foxes."


CHAPTER II

"I AM Yu CH'IEN, my daughter." His voice was the man's voice which she had heard when cradled in the darkness.
She tried to rise, then swayed back upon the bed, weakness overcoming her.
He said: "A night and a day, and still another night and half this day you have slept, and now you must eat." He spoke the English words slowly, as one whose tongue had long been stranger to them.
He clapped his hands and a woman slipped by the great vase through the bars of the sunlight. She was ageless as he, with broad shrewd face and tilted sloeblack eyes that were kindly yet very wise. A smock covered her from full breasts to knees, and she was sturdy and strong and brown as though she had been carved from seasoned wood. In her hands was a tray upon which was a bowl of steaming broth and oaten cakes.
The woman sat beside Jean Meredith, lifting her head, resting it against her deep bosom and feeding her like a child, and now Jean saw that herself was naked except for a thin robe of soft blue silk and that upon it was the moon-silver symbol of the fox.
The priest nodded, his eyes smiled upon her. "Fienwi will attend you. Soon you will be stronger. Soon I shall return. Then we shall talk."
He passed out of the wide doors. The woman fed her the last of the broth, the last of the little cakes. She left her, and returned with bowls of bronze in which was water hot and cold; undressed her; ministered to her, bathed her and rubbed her; dressed her in fresh silken robes of blue; strapped sandals to her feet, and smiling, left her. Thrice Jean essayed to speak to her, but the woman only shook her head, answering in a lisping dialect, no sound of which she recognized.
The sun had moved from the great Tang font. She lay back, lazily. Her mind was limpidly clear; upon it was reflected all through which she had passed, yet it was tranquil, untroubled, like a woodland pool that reflects the storm clouds but whose placid surface lies undisturbed. The things that had happened were only images reflected upon her mind. But under that placid surface was something implacable, adamant-hard, something that would have been bitter did it not know that it was to be satisfied.
She thought over what Martin had told her of Yu Ch'ien. A Chinese whose forefathers had been enlightened rulers ten centuries before the Man of Galilee had been raised upon the cross, who had studied Occidental thought both in England and France, and had found little in it to satisfy his thirst for wisdom; who had gone back to the land of his fathers, embraced at last the philosophy of Lao-Tse, and had withdrawn from the world to an ancient fane in Yunnan known as the Temple of the Foxes, a temple reverenced and feared and around which strange legends clustered; there to spend his life in meditation and study.
What was it Martin had called him? Ah, yes, a master of secret and forgotten knowledge, a master of illusion. She knew that of all men, Martin had held Yu Ch'ien in profoundest respect, deepest affection ... she wondered if the woman she had seen upon the steps had been one of his illusions ... if the peace she felt came from him ... if he had made sorrow and pain of soul illusions for her . . . and was she thinking the thoughts he had placed in her mind-or her own . . . she wondered dreamily, not much caring. . . .
He came through the doors to her, and again it was as though his eyes were springs of tranquillity from which her soul drank deep. She tried to rise, to greet him; her mind was strong but through all her body was languor. He touched her forehead, and the languor fled. He said: