"Arthur C. Clarke. The fountains of paradise" - читать интересную книгу автора

superstructure had vanished.
"The usual relic chamber set in the foundations was empty, obviously
robbed of its contents centuries ago. But the students had tools of which
the old-time treasure-hunters never dreamed; their neutrino survey disclosed
a second relic chamber, much deeper. The upper one was only a decoy, and it
had served its purpose well. The lower chamber still held the burden of love
and hate it had carried down the centuries - to its resting-place today, in
the Ranapura Museum."

Morgan had always considered himself, with justification, reasonably
hard-headed and unsentimental, not prone to gusts of emotion. Yet now, to
his considerable embarrassment -he hoped that his companions wouldn't notice
- he felt his eyes brim with sudden tears. How ridiculous, he told himself
angrily, that some saccharine music and a maudlin narration could have such
an impact on a sensible man! He would never have believed that the sight of
a child's toy could have set him weeping.
And then he knew, in a sudden lightning flash of memory that brought
back a moment more than forty years in the past, why he had been so deeply
moved. He saw again his beloved kite, dipping and weaving above the Sydney
park where he had spent much of his childhood. He could feel the warmth of
the sun, the gentle wind on his bare back - the treacherous wind that
suddenly failed, so that the kite plunged earthwards. It became snagged in
the branches of the giant oak that was supposed to be older than the country
itself and, foolishly, he had tugged at the string, trying to pull it free.
It was his first lesson in the strength of materials, and one that he was
never to forget.
The string had broken, just at the point of capture, and the kite had
rolled crazily away into the summer sky, slowly losing altitude. He had
rushed down to the water's edge, hoping that it would fall on land; but the
wind would not listen to the prayers of a little boy.
For a long time he had stood weeping as he watched the shattered
fragments, like some dismasted sailboat, drift across the great harbour and
out towards the open sea, until they were lost from sight. That had been the
first of those trivial tragedies that shape a man's childhood, whether he
remembers them or not.
Yet what Morgan had lost then was only an inanimate toy; his tears were
of frustration rather than grief. Prince Kalidasa had much deeper cause for
anguish. Inside the little golden cart, which still looked as if it had come
straight from the craftsman's workshop, was a bundle of tiny white bones.
Morgan missed some of the history that followed; when he had cleared
his eyes a dozen years had passed, a complex family quarrel was in progress,
and he was not quite sure who was murdering whom. After the armies had
ceased to clash and the last dagger had fallen, Crown Prince Malgara and the
Queen Mother had fled to India, and Kalidasa had seized the throne,
imprisoning his father in the process.
That the usurper had refrained from executing Paravana was not due to
any filial devotion but to his belief that the old king still possessed some
secret treasure, which he was saving for Malgara. As long as Kalidasa
believed this, Paravana knew that he was safe; but at last he grew tired of
the deception.