"Gene Wolfe - Long Sun 1 - Nightside the long sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

"And after that," Horn continued, "there will be others, new boys. And men."

Silk nodded again, gravely reflecting that Horn was al-

16 Gene Wolfe

NlGHTSIDE THE LoNG SUN

17

ready a grown man in every way that mattered, and a man far better educated than most

"And I don't want you to think I'm mad about it-- knocking me over like that, Patera. You hit me
hard, but that's the fun of the game."

Silk shook his head. "That's merely how the game is played. The fun comes when someone small
knocks down someone larger."

"You were their best player, Patera. It wouldn't have been fair to them if you hadn't played as
well as you can." Horn glanced over his shoulder at Maytera Rose's open door. "I have to go now.
Thanks, Patera."

There was a line in the Writings that applied to the game and its lessons--lessons more important,



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Silk felt, than any Maytera Rose might teach; but Horn was already almost to the doorway. To his
back, Silk murmured, " 'Men build scales, but the gods blow upon the lighter pan.' "

He sighed at the final word, knowing that the quotation had come a second too late, and that Horn,
too, had been too late; that Horn would tell Maytera Rose that he, Patera Silk, had detained him,
and that Maytera Rose would punish him nevertheless without bothering to find out whether it was
true.

Silk turned away. There was no point in remaining to listen, and Horn would fare that much worse
if he tried to intervene. How could the Outsider have chosen such a bungler? Was it possible that
the very gods were ignorant of his weakness and stupidity?

Some of them?

The manteion's rusty cash box was bare, he knew; yet he must have a victim, and a fine one. The
parents of one of the students might lend him five or even ten bits, and the humiliation of having
to beg such poor people for a loan would certainly be beneficial. For as long as it took him to

close the unwilling door of the palaestra and start for the market, his resolution held; then the
only-too-well-imag-ined tears of small children deprived of their accustomed supper of milk and
stale bread washed it away. No. The sellers would have to extend him credit.