"S. P. Somtow - Absent Thee From Felicity Awhile.." - читать интересную книгу автора (Somtow S. P)

We got up and had breakfast. She wore her ominous
dishevelled look, strands of black hair fishnetting her startling blue
eyes.
“John?”
“Umm?”
 “John, I’m leaving you.”
“What for, who with?”
“Francis FitzHenry has asked me to stay with him—in his
suite at the Plaza!”
I lifted my hand, then willed with every ounce of strength I
could dredge up from every hidden source.
I didn’t slap her face.
A look of utter bewilderment crossed her face, just for one
split second, and I looked at her and she looked at me, her
emotions unfathomable; and then the whole thing swung
grotesquely back to the original track, and she said quietly,
dangerously, “You’re too petty, John. That’s why you’re going to be
a Guildenstern for the rest of your life.” As though nothing were
different. That hurt.
Then she walked out of my life.
But I had changed something! And we had communicated;
for a split second something had passed between us!
The buzzing became a roar. I walked slowly to the theater,
bathed in the glow of a hundred diaphanous wisps of light




5

It was a couple of minutes before 8 when the phone rang in
my apartment. I decided to make a run for it, so I made for the
kitchenette in the nude.
“Yeah?”
 “This is Michael, John.” Michael played Horatio. He was
sobbing, all broken up. I didn’t know him very well, so I played it
cool. “John, I’m going to do something terrible! I can’t stand it,
you’re the first person I could get through to this morning, I’m
going to try and—”
I woke up around 11 o’clock. Gail stirred uneasily. We had
breakfast, and I didn’t slap her face.
It seemed too natural. I realized that I had changed the
pattern. This is the way it would always be from now on.
I had never slapped her face.
A look of utter bewilderment… but it was no longer a
communication, it was just a reflex, part of the pattern, and then
she said quietly, dangerously, “You’re too petty, John. That’s why
you’re going to be a Guildenstern for the rest of your life.”
That hurt. Then she walked out of my life.
I went to the theater. There was Sir Francis, making his final