"Jo Walton - The Rebirth of Pan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Walton Jo)

the basic requirements of hospitality, she raised a quizzical brow. Pappa Andros smiled.

"To you it is all simple, isn't it? There are all these things to store, and nobody can agree about
where they should be kept. Spiro is squabbling with Costa over plans and everyone who has a
warehouse wants to offer it." Dafni nodded, waiting, not relaxing. She smoothed her black dress over her
lap. "Very well. But the other thing to be remembered is Pappa Thomas. He's not going to be happy
about this. Not at all." Pappa Andros frowned, sighed unhappily and absent-mindedly ate a date. "He's
been asking people what is going on. He's asked me. I just couldn't think what to tell him. Dafni, you're a
sensible woman, the mother of grown-up children, a grandmother, you must realize that Pappa Thomas
won't understand any of this. He's not one of us. He's from Athens. He's young and clever, but also
foolish. He wants everything to be logical and make sense."

"He will have to learn that life isn't like that." Dafni frowned. "But even though I don't like him much
either, he is a priest. Are you saying he doesn't believe?"

"I'm saying he's not going to believe this. He's going to call it superstition and blasphemy.
Superstition is what he calls everything that is not explained. Fortunate for him that he lives after the days
of Ag. Pavlos and those wise fathers of the church Origen and Thomas Aquinas who managed to explain
so much so cleverly, or he could not be a priest at all. He won't be able to explain this unless he is
cleverer than I think. He is trying to find out what is going on. As soon as he does, or as soon as he has a
real suspicion or proof of anything at all he's going to write to the new bishop. He's done that before
about various customs of ours, and the old bishop always took the very sensible position that traditions
are traditional and ought to be upheld. I don't know what the new bishop will say. He can't say that about
this, anyway. Nobody could say that it is traditional to make children's shoes for Great Pan."

Dafni grinned, and took another date. "It may be one day. Like Easter eggs and Christmas
stockings." Pappa Andros groaned. "Go on," said Dafni, reaching over and patting his arm.

"Well. In any case, the bishop is in Nafplia, and he's not due to come here for months yet. I don't
think he'll take Pappa Thomas seriously, not at first. He won't believe it either, and he'll have a file of
letters so he can see that Pappa Thomas complains quite often. But sooner or later he will start to pay
attention. Or he'll think that Pappa Thomas has gone mad, or that I have. He'll write to both of us, I
expect, and I shall have to think what to say. Whatever I say, he will come then, I think. He is a good
man and a wise man, the new bishop—"

Dafni laughed. "I hear he's too fond of figs and spiced meatballs to be a truly holy man."

"The same could be said of me," said Pappa Andros, taking a pale brown date from the plate and
turning it in his hand. "I am fond of food and wine, and of my wife. But also I love Christ and Ag.
Nikolaos and all the Holy Saints and I do my best not to be a bad priest to all of you on the island."

Dafni nodded. "That is true, Pappa, you're right. You are a good priest, and a good man. It is
Pappa Thomas who would set the church apart from the world."

"That is the Roman way but it has never been our way in Greece. I wonder sometimes if Pappa
Thomas thinks too much of Rome. But, well, in any case," Pappa Andros ate the date in two swift snaps
and tossed the stone through the open door. "The bishop is not a fool, and I am bound to tell him the
truth. Anything could happen then. But he is not likely to be happy, I don't think. Change is a frightening
thing to a lot of people. A great change like this especially. All the world will be different, and we can't
say for sure how. All we can do is our best to make it a good place, as always."