"St Leibowitz - 02 - St Leibowitz And The Wild Horse Woman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Walter M)

"If he were an enemy of the Empire, things might be different for me, Torrildo."
"How?"
"Things might be different for everybody, if nobody here had ever compromised. And he dared talk to me about pearls before swine."
"I don't understand you, Brother."
"I don't expect you would. If my own cousins Wren and Singing Cow don't understand, how could you?" He placed his hand reassuringly over Torrildo's where it lay on the parapet. "It's enough that you care."
"I care, I really do." The postulant was looking at him with those gray-green eyes that so reminded him of his mother's soft and searching gaze. There was something feminine about it. Embarrassed by the intensity of the moment, Blacktooth removed his hand.
"Of course you do. Let's forget it. How is it with you and that difficult Memorabilium?"
"Maxwell's equations, they're called. I can say them forward and backward, but I don't know what they are or what they mean."
"Neither do I, but you're not supposed to know. I can tell you this, though: their meaning has been penetrated during the past century. They're supposed to be among the notes Thon Taddeo Pfardentrott took back to Texark with him about seventy years ago. Maxwell's equations are among the very great Memorabilia, so I've heard."
"Pfardentrott? Didn't he invent the telegraph? And dynamite?"
"I think so."
"Well, if the meaning has already been penetrated, why do I have to keep it memorized?"
"Tradition, I guess. No, it's more than that. Just keep running the words through your mind, as a prayer. Keep it up long enough, and God will enlighten you, so the old-timers say."
"If somebody's penetrated the meaning, maybe I could find out."
"That might spoil it for you, Brother. But you can try, if you want to. You can read what Brother Kornhoer wrote about the subject after Pfardentrott left, but I don't think you'll understand him."
"Brother who?"
"Kornhoer. He invented that old electricity machine down in the vaults."
"Which doesn't work."
"Oh, it worked when he built it, but it wasn't very practical here; and for some reason, his abbot would never let him teach anyone to fix it. Have you ever seen an electric light?"
"No."
"Neither have I, but the Palace of the Hannegans in Texark is full of them. And they've got some at the university there. Brother Kornhoer and Pfardentrott became friends, as I recall, but the Abbot Jerome didn't approve. Say, why don't you read that placard that hangs over Kornhoer's machine?"
"I've seen it, but I never read it. The machine is a nuisance to keep clean. So many cracks and crannies for dust." Torrildo was an underground janitor and warehouse clerk. "You never told me about your Memorabilium, Blacktooth."
"Well, it's a religious one. I don't think it has any secret scientific value. They call it 'Saint Leibowitz's Grocery List.' " He tried to suppress the flush of pride he felt at being given the Founder's Memorabilium, but Torrildo did not notice.
"Does anything special happen when you say it?"
"I wouldn't say yes, I wouldn't say no. Maybe I never worked at it hard enough. As Saint Leibowitz himself used to say, 'What you see is what you get, Wysiwyg.' "
"Where is that saying recorded? What does it mean?"
Blacktooth, who loved the cryptic "Sayings of Saint Leibowitz," was spared answering as the bell rang the hour of Sext, marking the resumption of the rule of silence, which the abbot had suspended for the morning of his departure. The monks on the parapet wall began to leave.
"Come see me in the basement, if you get a chance," Torrildo whispered in violation of the rule.

Blacktooth's Nomadic ancestors had always placed a high value on ecstatic magical or religious experience, and this heritage, while pagan, was not incongruent with the traditional mystical quest which he had found so attractive and natural in the life of the monastery. But as his feeling of unity with his professed brethren gradually waned, he found himself less captivated by the formal worship of the community. Processions and the chanting of psalms no longer elevated his spirits and sent them soaring. Even the reception of the Eucharist during Mass failed to entrance his heart. He felt this as a distinct loss, in spite of his doubts about his vocation to the Order. He tried to recover by his solitary devotional practice what he was losing in the public worship.
A monk's time alone in his cell was limited to seven hours a night, of which at least an hour and a half was to be spent in meditative, affective, or contemplative prayer. Some of this prayer time was devoted to the reading of those parts of the divine office which his daily work at the abbey prevented him from singing in choir at the regular hours, but Blacktooth rarely needed more than twenty minutes to finish his breviary, and the rest of the time he gave to Jesus and Mary. In his sleep, however, his dreams were often colored by the myths of his childhood and of the Wild Horse Woman whom he had seen.
His confessor and spiritual adviser had sharply warned him, more than once, against taking seriously any seemingly supernatural manifestation that came to him during the contemplative work, such as a vision or a voice, for such things were usually either the work of the Devil or simply the spurious side effects of the intense concentration demanded by meditative or contemplative prayer. When the visions began coming to him one night in his cell, he attributed them to fever, for he had fallen ill the previous day, and was excused from the scriptorium.
He knelt on a thinly padded block of wood beside his cot and gazed unwaveringly at a small picture of the Immaculate Heart that hung on the wall. When his mind strayed, or a thought arose, he brought his attention back to the picture. The painting was undistinguished, lacking in detail, and hardly more than a symbol. The prayer was a wordless, thoughtless fixation of the mind on the image and the heart of the Virgin. He was a bit dizzy from fever, and a numbness came over him as he knelt there. Occasionally his field of vision darkened. The heart began to pulsate, and then expand. He could no longer focus his eyes on it. His mind seemed to be plunging into a dark corridor toward emptiness.
And then, there it was: a living heart suspended before him in the blackness of space, beating in cadence with his own pulse. It was complete in every detail. A puncture of the left ventricle leaked small spurts of blood. For a time he felt neither fear nor surprise, but continued to gaze in complete absorption. He knew, beyond words, that it was not the heart of Mary, but not until later reflection did this puzzle or perplex him. He simply accepted what came to him, at the time it happened.
A rap at the door dissolved the trance. His skin crawled at the sharp change in his consciousness.
"Benedicamus domino," he answered after a moment.
'Deo gratias," came a muffled voice from the corridor. It was Brother Jonan, arousing everyone for Matins. The footsteps receded.
He arose and made himself ready for his usual routine, but he carried the spell cast over him by the vision all that day and the next. It was very puzzling, even after his fever passed.

When Prior Olshuen had not summoned him by the third day of Dom Jarad's absence, Blacktooth sought him out. Olshuen was an old friend; he had been Blacktooth's teacher and confessor in the days before he was made prior, but just now the appearance of his old student at his office doorway evoked no smile of welcome.
"Oh, well, I did tell you to come see me, didn't I?" said Olshuen. "You might as well sit down." He returned to his chair, put his elbows on the desktop, pressed his fingertips together, and at last smiled thinly at Blacktooth. He waited.
Blacktooth sat on the edge of his chair, eyebrows raised. He also waited. The prior began flipping opposed fingertips apart, a pair at a time, and flipping them back together. Blacktooth always found this habit fascinating. His coordination was perfect.
"I came to ask—"
"Dom Jarad told me to throw you out if you came to ask for anything more than a blessing, unless you're through with Boedullus, and I know you're not. I don't throw you out, because I had already invited you." He punctuated each phrase with a pause and a flip of the fingertips. He did this only when nervous. "So what do you want, my son?"
"A blessing."
Easily disarmed, the gentle Olshuen lowered his hands, leaned forward, and laughed his relief.
"On my petition to be released from my vows."
The smile vanished. He leaned back, pressed fingertips together again, and said in a mild tone, "Blacktooth, my son. What a dirty rotten little Nomad kid you are!"
"You've obviously spoken to Dom Jarad about me, Father Prior." Blacktooth risked a rueful grin.
"He said nothing you'd want to hear, and he said a few things you're better off not hearing. He spent at least half a minute on the subject, talking fast. Then he told me to throw you out, and he left."