Рэй Бредбери - Золотые яблоки солнца (The Golden Apples of the Sun), 1953

• Название: Золотые яблоки солнца (The Golden Apples of the Sun), 1953
• Автор: Рэй Бредбери
• Жанр: Научная Фантастика

В этом сборнике писатель позволяет себе отойти от научной фантастики, публикуя реалистичные истории, сказки и детективы, а фантастические рассказы сводя к зарисовкам («Вышивание»). Отличная книга, в которой видны, пожалуй, все грани Брэдбери-прозаика. В 2005-м году был переиздан под названием «И грянул гром» в преддверии выхода экранизации этого рассказа.

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"Yes."

"Why did you come with me?"

"I didn't want to come," said Ann.

"Why, then?"

"Something made me."

"What?"

"I don't know." Ann's voice was faintly hysterical.

"Now, now, hush, hush," whispered Cecy. "Hush, that's it. Around, around."

They whispered and rustled and rose and fell away in the dark room, with the music moving and turning them.

"But you did come to the dance," said Tom.

"I did," said Cecy.

"Here." And he danced her lightly out an open door and walked her quietly away from the hall and the music and the people.

They climbed up and sat together in the rig.

"Ann," he said, taking her hands, trembling. "Ann." But the way he said the name it was as if it wasn't her name. He kept glancing into her pale face, and now her eyes were open again. "I used to love you, you know that," he said.

"I know."

"But you've always been fickle and I didn't want to be hurt."

"It's just as well, we're very young," said Ann.

"No, I mean to say, I'm sorry," said Cecy.

"What do you mean?" Tom dropped her hands and stiffened.

The night was warm and the smell of the earth shimmered up all about them where they sat, and the fresh trees breathed one leaf against another in a shaking and rustling.

"I don't know," said Ann.

"Oh, but I know," said Cecy. "You're tall and you're the finest-looking man in all the world. This is a good evening; this is an evening I'll always remember, being with you." She put out the alien cold hand to find his reluctant hand again and bring it back, and warm it and hold it very tight.

"But," said Tom, blinking, "tonight you're here, you're there. One minute one way, the next minute another. I wanted to take you to the dance tonight for old times' sake. I meant nothing by it when I first asked you. And then, when we were standing at the well, I knew something had changed, really changed, about you. You were different. There was something new and soft, something…" He groped for a word. "I don't know, I can't say. The way you looked. Something about your voice. And I know I'm in love with you again."

"No," said Cecy. "With me, with we."

"And I'm afraid of being in love with you," he said. "You'll hurt me again."

"I might," said Ann.

No, no, I'd love you with all my heart! thought Cecy. Ann, say it to him, say it for me. Say you'd love him with all your heart.

Ann said nothing.

Tom moved quietly closer and put his hand up to hold her chin. "I'm going away. I've got a job a hundred miles from here. Will you miss me?"

"Yes," said Ann and Cecy.

"May I kiss you good-bye, then?"

"Yes," said Cecy before anyone else could speak.

He placed his lips to the strange mouth. He kissed the strange mouth and he was trembling.

Ann sat like a white statue.

"Ann!" said Cecy. "Move your arms, hold him!"

She sat like a carved wooden doll in the moonlight.

Again he kissed her lips.

"I do love you," whispered Cecy. "I'm here, it's me you saw in her eyes it's me, and I love you if she never will."

He moved away and seemed like a man who had run a long distance. He sat beside her. "I don't know what's happening. For a moment there…"

"Yes?" asked Cecy.

"For a moment I thought -" He put his hands to his eyes. "Never mind. Shall I take you home now?"

"Please," said Ann Leary.

He clucked to the horse, snapped the reins tiredly, and drove the rig away. They rode in the rustle and slap and motion of the moonlit rig in the still early, only eleven o'clock spring night, with the shining meadows and sweet fields of clover gliding by.

And Cecy, looking at the fields and meadows, thought, 'It would be worth it, it would be worth everything to be with him from this night on.' And she heard her parents' voices again, faintly, "Be careful. You wouldn't want to lose your magical powers, would you – married to a mere mortal? Be careful. You wouldn't want that."

Yes, yes, thought Cecy, even that I'd give up, here and now, if he would have me. I wouldn't need to roam the spring nights then, I wouldn't need to live in birds and dogs and cats and foxes, I'd need only to be with him. Only him. Only him.

The road passed under, whispering.

"Tom," said Ann at last.

"What?" He stared coldly at the road, the horse, the trees, the sky, the stars.

"If you're ever, in years to come, at any time, in Green Town, Illinois, a few miles from here, will you do me a favour?"

"Perhaps."

"Will you do me the favour of stopping and seeing a friend of mine?" Ann Leary said this haltingly, awkwardly.

"Why?"

"She's a good friend. I've told her of you. I'll give you her address. Just a moment." When the rig stopped at her farm she drew forth a pencil and paper from her small purse and wrote in the moonlight, pressing the paper to her knee. "There it is. Can you read it?"

He glanced at the paper and nodded bewilderedly.

"Cecy Elliott, 12 Willow Street, Green Town, Illinois," he said.

"Will you visit her someday?" asked Ann.

"Someday," he said.

"Promise?"

"What has this to do with us?" he cried savagely. "What do I want with names and papers?" He crumpled the paper into a tight ball and shoved it in his coat.

"Oh, please promise!" begged Cecy.

"… promise…" said Ann.

"All right, all right, now let me be!" he shouted.

I'm tired, thought Cecy. I can't stay I have to go home. I'm weakening. I've only the power to stay a few hours out like this in the night, travelling, travelling. But before I go…

"… before I go," said Ann.

She kissed Tom on the lips.

"This is me kissing you," said Cecy.

Tom held her off and looked at Ann Leary and looked deep, deep inside. He said nothing, but his face began to relax slowly, very slowly, and the lines vanished away, and his mouth softened from its hardness, and he looked deep again into the moonlit face held here before him.

Then he put her off the rig and without so much as a good night was driving swiftly down the road.

Cecy let go.

Ann Leary, crying out, released from prison, it seemed, raced up the moonlit path to her house and slammed the door.

Cecy lingered for only a little while. In the eyes of a cricket she saw the spring night world. In the eyes of a frog she sat for a lonely moment by a pool. In the eyes of a night bird she looked down from a tall, moon-haunted elm and saw the light go out in two farmhouses, one here, one a mile away. She thought of herself and her family, and her strange power, and the fact that no one in the family could ever marry any one of the people in this vast world out here beyond the hills.

"Tom?" Her weakening mind flew in a night bird under the trees and over deep fields of wild mustard. "Have you still got the paper, Tom? Will you come by someday, some year, sometime, to see me? Will you know me then? Will you look in my face and remember then where it was you saw me last and know that you love me as I love you, with all my heart for all time?"

She paused in the cool night air, a million miles from towns and people, above farms and continents and rivers and hills. "Tom?" Softly.

Tom was asleep. It was deep night; his clothes were hung on chairs or folded neatly over the end of the bed. And in one silent, carefully upflung hand upon the white pillow, by his head, was a small piece of paper with writing on it. Slowly, slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time, his fingers closed down upon and held it tightly. And he did not even stir or notice when a blackbird, faintly, wondrously, beat softly for " moment against the clear moon crystals of the windowpane, then, fluttering quietly, stopped and flew away toward the east, over the sleeping earth.

The April Witch 1952( Апрельское колдовство)

Переводчик: Лев Жданов

Высоко-высоко, выше гор, ниже звезд, над рекой, над прудом, над дорогой летела Сеси. Невидимая, как юные весенние ветры, свежая, как дыхание клевера на сумеречных лугах… Она парила в горлинках, мягких, как белый горностай, отдыхала в деревьях и жила в цветах, улетая с лепестками от самого легкого дуновения Она сидела в прохладной, как мята, лимонно-зеленой лягушке рядом с блестящей лужей. Она бежала в косматом псе и громко лаяла, чтобы услышать, как между амбарами вдалеке мечется эхо. Она жила в нежной апрельской травке, в чистой, как слеза, влаге, которая испарялась из пахнущей мускусом почвы.

"Весна… – думала Сеси. – Сегодня ночью я побываю во всем, что живет на свете"

Она вселялась в франтоватых кузнечиков на пятнистом гудроне шоссе, купалась в капле росы на железной ограде. В этот неповторимый вечер ей исполнилось ровно семнадцать лет, и душа ее, поминутно преображаясь, летела, незримая, на ветрах Иллинойса.

– Хочу влюбиться, – произнесла она.

Она еще за ужином сказала то же самое. Родители переглянулись и приняли чопорный вид.

– Терпение, – посоветовали они. – Не забудь, ты не как все. Наша семья вся особенная, необычная. Нам нельзя общаться с обыкновенными людьми, тем более вступать в брак. Не то мы лишимся своей магической силы. Ну скажи, разве ты захочешь утратить дар волшебных путешествий? То-то… Так что будь осторожна. Будь осторожна!

Но в своей спальне наверху Сеси чуть-чуть надушила шею и легла, трепещущая, взволнованная, на кровать с пологом, а над полями Иллинойса всплыла молочная луна, превращая реки в сметану, дороги – в платину.

– Да, – вздохнула она, – я из необычной семьи. День мы спим, ночь летаем по ветру, как черные бумажные змеи. Захотим – можем всю зиму проспать в кротах, в теплой земле. Я могу жить в чем угодно – в камушке, в крокусе, в богомоле. Могу оставить здесь свою невзрачную оболочку из плоти и послать душу далеко-далеко в полет, на поиски приключений. Лечу!

И ветер понес ее над полями, над лугами.

И коттеджи внизу лучились ласковым весенним светом, и тускло рдели окна ферм.

"Если я такое странное и невзрачное создание, что сама не могу надеяться на любовь, влюблюсь через кого-нибудь другого", – подумала она.

Возле фермы, в весеннем сумраке, темноволосая девушка лет девятнадцати, не больше, доставала воду из глубокого каменного колодца. Она пела.

Зеленым листком Сеси упала в колодец. Легла на нежный мох и посмотрела вверх, сквозь темную прохладу. Миг – и она в невидимой суетливой амебе, миг – и она в капле воды. И уже чувствует, как холодная кружка несет ее к горячим губам девушки. В ночном воздухе мягко отдались глотки.

Сеси поглядела вокруг глазами этой девушки.

Проникла в темноволосую голову и ее блестящими глазами посмотрела на руки, которые тянули шершавую веревку. Розовыми раковинами ее ушей вслушалась в окружающий девушку мир. Ее тонкими ноздрями уловила запах незнакомой среды Ощутила, как ровно, как сильно бьется юное сердце. Ощутила, как вздрагивает в песне чужая гортань.

"Знает ли она, что я здесь?" – подумала Сеси.

Девушка ахнула и уставилась на черный луг.

– Кто там?

Никакого ответа.

– Это всего-навсего ветер, – прошептала Сеси.

– Всего-навсего ветер. – Девушка тихо рассмеялась, но ей было жутко.

Какое чудесное тело было у этой девушки! Нежная плоть облекала, скрывая, остов из лучшей, тончайшей кости. Мозг был словно цветущая во мраке светлая чайная роза, рот благоухал, как легкое вино. Под упругими губами – белые-белые зубы, брови красиво изогнуты, волосы ласково, мягко гладят молочно-белую шею. Поры были маленькие, плотно закрытые. Нос задорно смотрел вверх, на луну, щеки пылали, будто два маленьких очага. Чутко пружиня, тело переходило от одного движения к другому и все время как будто что-то напевало про себя. Быть в этом теле, в этой голове – все равно что греться в пламени камина, поселиться в мурлыканье спящей кошки, плескаться в теплой воде ручья, стремящегося через ночь к морю.

"А мне здесь славно", – подумала Сеси.

– Что? – спросила девушка, словно услышала голос.

– Как тебя звать? – осторожно спросила Сеси.

– Энн Лири. – Девушка встрепенулась. – Зачем я это вслух сказала?

– Энн, Энн, – прошептала Сеси. – Энн, ты влюбишься.