Читать книгу Pelican Pool. A Novel онлайн

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A moment had brought Power face to face with the great experience of his life. The girl's beauty was beyond any imagining. He sat astride the mare with dropped reins, staring at her.

There, in a broken tent, in that forgotten place by the river, was one of those women who have commanded the tears and prayers of men since the world began to turn. The girl stood with the light of the lantern falling about her, with that in the carriage of her head for which a sage would forget his learning, with that in her eyes for which a saint would forego his hope of Paradise, with that in her form for which a poet would break the strings of his lyre. To look a moment on her was to grow hungry, to look long on her was to banish peace.

For that most cunning work of a great craftsman was a chalice holding the poisoned potion of desire; that rich body was an altar whereon burned the fires of longing; that loveliness was doomed to linger as midwife to men's tears. The spirit of all that is untamed made home in that form, and beside it dwelt the spirit of all that shall not find rest. And sight of that fairness brought taste of what man reaches for and may not touch, of what man climbs after to fall from with bruised knees.