"Smith, Clark Ashton - Tales of Averoigne" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Clark Ashton)

always in silence, and scarcely heeding the food that was set before
him. Nor did he go that evening to visit his betrothed, as he had
promised; but, toward midnight, when a waning moon had arisen red
as from a bath of blood, he went forth clandestinely by the postern
door of the chateau, and followed an old, halfobliterated trail through
the woods, found his way to the ruins of the Chateau des
Faussesflammes, which stands on a hill opposite the Benedictine abbey
of Perigon.. я
Now these ruins (said the manuscript) are very old, and have long
been avoided by the people of the district; for a legendry of
immemorial evil clings about them, and it is said that they are the
dwelling-place of foul spirits, the rendezvous of sorcerers and succubi.
But Gerard, as if oblivious or fearless of their ill renown, plunged like
one who is devil-driven into the shadow of the crumbling walls, and
went, with the careful-groping of a man who follows some given
direction, to the northern end of the courtyard. There, directly between
and below the two centermost windows, which, it may be, looked forth
from the chamber of forgotten chatelaines, he pressed with his right
foot on a flagstone differing from those about it in being of a triangular
form. And the flagstone moved and tilted beneath his foot, revealing a
flight of granite steps that went down into the earth. Then, lighting a
taper he had brought with him, Gerard descended the steps, and the
flagstone swung into place behind him.
On the morrow, his betrothed, Eleanor des Lys, and all her bridal
train, waited vainly for him at the cathedral of Vyones, the principal
town of Averoigne, where the wedding had been set. And from that
time his face was beheld by no man, and no vaguest rumor of Gerard
de Venteillon or of the fate that befell him has ever passed among the
living...
Such was the substance of the forbidden manuscript, and thus it
ended. As I have said before, there was no date, nor was there anything
to indicate by whom it had been written or how the knowledge of the
happenings related had come into the writer's possession. But, oddly
enough, it did not occur to me to doubt their veridity for a moment;
and the curiosity I had felt concerning the contents of the manuscript
was now replaced by a burning desire, a thousandfold more powerful,
more obsessive, to know the ending of the story and to learn what
Gerard de Venteillon had found when he descended the hidden steps.
In reading the tale, it had of course occurred to me that the ruins of
the Chateau des Faussesflammes, described therein, were the very
same ruins I had seen that morning from my chamber window; and
pondering this, I became more and more possessed by an insane fever,
by a frenetic, unholy excitement. Returning the manuscript to the
secret drawer, I left the library and wandered for awhile in an aimless
fashion about the corridors of the monastery. Chancing to meet there
the same monk who had taken my horse in charge the previous
evening, I ventured to question him, as discreetly and casually as I
could, regarding the ruins which were visible from the abbey windows.
He crossed himself, and a frightened look came over his broad,
placid face at my query.. Ѕ