The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy полностью

‘It’s this, Spiregrain. It’s this,’ said Splint, his eyes still on fire. He scratched at his jaw with a gravelly sound and took a step back from the bed. Then he held up his arms. ‘Listen, my friends. When I fell down those nine steps three weeks ago, and pretended that I felt no pain, I confess to you now that I was in agony. And now! And now that he is dead I glory in my confession, for I am afraid of him no more; and I tell you – I tell you both, openly and with pride, that I look forward to my next accident, however serious it may be, because I will have nothing to hide. I will cry out to all Gormenghast, “I am in agony!” – and when my eyes fill with tears, they will be tears of joy and relief and not of pain. Oh, brothers! colleagues! do you not understand?’

Mr Splint took a step forward in his excitement, dropping his hands, which he had kept raised all this time (and at once they were gripped on either side). Oh, what friendship, what an access of honest friendship, rushed like electricity through their six hands.

There was no need to talk. They had turned their backs on their faith. Professor Splint had spoken for the three of them. Their cowardice (for they had never dared to express a doubt when the old man was alive) was something that bound them together now more tightly than a common valour could ever have done.

‘Grief’s gravy was an overstatement,’ said Throd. ‘I only said it because, after all, he is dead, and we did admire him in a way – and I like saying the right thing at the right time. I always have. But it was excessive.’

‘So was “Death’s icicle” I suppose,’ said Spiregrain, rather loftily; ‘but it was a neat phrase.’

‘Not when he was burned to death,’ said Throd, who saw no reason why Spiregrain should not recant as fully as himself.

‘Nevertheless,’ said Splint, who found himself the centre of the stage, which was usually monopolized by Spiregrain, ‘we are free. Our ideals are gone. We believe in pain. In life. In all those things which he told us didn’t exist.’

Spiregrain, with the guttering candle reflected on his glassy nose, drew himself up and, in a haughty tone, inquired of the others whether they didn’t think it would be more tactful to discuss their dismissal of their dead master’s Beliefs somewhat further from his relics. Though he was doubtless out of earshot he certainly didn’t look it.

They left at once, and directly the door had shut behind them the candle flame, after a short, abortive leap into the red air, grovelled for a moment in its cup of liquid wax and expired. The little red box of a room had become, according to one’s fancy, either a little black box or a tract of dread, imponderable space.

Once away from the death-chamber and a peculiar lightness sang in their bones.

‘You were right, Splint, my dear fellow … quite right. We are free, and no mistake.’ Spiregrain’s voice, thin, sharp, academic, had a buoyancy in it that caused his confederates to turn to him.

‘I knew you had a heart under it all,’ wheezed Throd. ‘I feel the same.’

‘No more Angels to look forward to!’ yelled Splint, in a great voice.

‘No more longing for Life’s End,’ boomed Throd.

‘Come, friends,’ screamed the glass-faced Spiregrain, forgetting his dignity, ‘let us begin to live again!’ and catching hold of their shoulders, he walked them rapidly along the corridor, his head held high, his mortar-board at a rakish angle. Their three gowns streamed behind them, the tassels of their headgear also, as they increased their pace. Turning this way and that, almost skimming the ground as they went, they threaded the arteries of cold stone until, suddenly, bursting out into the sunshine on the southern side of Gormenghast, they found ahead of them the wide sun-washed spaces, the tall trees fringing the foothills, and the mountain itself shining against the deep blue sky. For a moment the memory of the picture in their late master’s room flashed through their minds.

‘Oh, lush!’ they cried. ‘Oh, lush it is, for ever!’ And, breaking into a run and then a gallop, the three enfranchised professors, hand in hand, their black gowns floating on the air, bounded across the golden landscape, their shadows leaping beside them.

FOURTEEN

It was in Bellgrove’s class, one late afternoon, that Titus first thought consciously about the idea of colour: of things having colours: of everything having its own particular colour, and of the way in which every particular colour kept changing according to where it was, what the light was like, and what it was next to.