Библиотека одного автора

15 >

     'I specialise in black magic.'
     'Like hell you do! . . . ' thought Mikhail Alexandrovich.
     'And ... and you've been  invited here to give advice  on  that? ' he
asked with a gulp.
     'Yes,'  the professor  assured him, and went  on : ' Apparently  your
National   Library   has  unearthed   some   original  manuscripts  of   the
ninth-century necromancer  Herbert Aurilachs. I  have been asked to decipher
them. I am the only specialist in the world.'
     'Aha! So you're a historian? ' asked Berlioz in a tone of considerable
relief and respect.
     ' Yes,   I   am  a   historian,'   adding  with  apparently  complete
inconsequence, ' this evening a  historic event is going to take place  here
at Patriarch's Ponds.'
     Again  the editor and the poet showed signs of utter amazement, but the
professor beckoned to them and when both had bent their heads towards him he
whispered :
     'Jesus did exist, you know.'
     'Look, professor,'  said  Berlioz, with  a forced smile,  ' With  all
respect to you as a scholar we take a different attitude on that point.'
     'It's  not a question  of having  an attitude,' replied  the  strange
professor. ' He existed, that's all there is to it.'
     'But one must have some proof. . . . ' began Berlioz.
     'There's  no need  for any  proof,' answered  the professor. In a  low
voice, his foreign accent vanishing altogether, he began :
     'It's  very  simple--early in  the morning on the  fourteenth  of  the
spring month of  Nisan the Procurator of Judaea, Pontius Pilate,  in a white
cloak lined with blood-red...



2. Pontius Pilate



     Early in the morning on the fourteenth of the spring month of Nisan the
Procurator of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, in a white cloak lined with blood-red,
emerged with his shuffling cavalryman's walk into  the arcade connecting the
two wings of the palace of Herod the Great.

Следующая

15 >