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- Нил Гейман
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- Стр. 5/82
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Three
years
in
London
had
not
changed
Richard
,
although
it
had
changed
the
way
he
perceived
the
city
.
Richard
had
originally
imagined
London
as
a
gray
city
,
even
a
black
city
,
from
pictures
he
had
seen
,
and
he
was
surprised
to
find
it
filled
with
color
.
It
was
a
city
of
red
brick
and
white
stone
,
red
buses
and
large
black
taxis
,
bright
red
mailboxes
and
green
grassy
parks
and
cemeteries
.
It
was
a
city
in
which
the
very
old
and
the
awkwardly
new
jostled
each
other
,
not
uncomfortably
,
but
without
respect
;
a
city
of
shops
and
offices
and
restaurants
and
homes
,
of
parks
and
churches
,
of
ignored
monuments
and
remarkably
unpalatial
palaces
;
a
city
of
hundreds
of
districts
with
strange
names
—
Crouch
End
,
Chalk
Farm
,
Earl
’
s
Court
,
Marble
Arch
—
and
oddly
distinct
identities
;
a
noisy
,
dirty
,
cheerful
,
troubled
city
,
which
fed
on
tourists
,
needed
them
as
it
despised
them
,
in
which
the
average
speed
of
transportation
through
the
city
had
not
increased
in
three
hundred
years
,
following
five
hundred
years
of
fitful
road
-
widening
and
unskillful
compromises
between
the
needs
of
traffic
,
whether
horse
-
drawn
,
or
,
more
recently
,
motorized
,
and
the
needs
of
pedestrians
;
a
city
inhabited
by
and
teeming
with
people
of
every
color
and
manner
and
kind
.
When
he
had
first
arrived
,
he
had
found
London
huge
,
odd
,
fundamentally
incomprehensible
,
with
only
the
Tube
map
,
that
elegant
multicolored
topographical
display
of
underground
railway
lines
and
stations
,
giving
it
any
semblance
of
order
.
Gradually
he
realized
that
the
Tube
map
was
a
handy
fiction
that
made
life
easier
but
bore
no
resemblance
to
the
reality
of
the
shape
of
the
city
above
.
It
was
like
belonging
to
a
political
party
,
he
thought
once
,
proudly
,
and
then
,
having
tried
to
explain
the
resemblance
between
the
Tube
map
and
politics
,
at
a
party
,
to
a
cluster
of
bewildered
strangers
,
he
had
decided
in
the
future
to
leave
political
comment
to
others
.
He
continued
,
slowly
,
by
a
process
of
osmosis
and
white
knowledge
(
which
is
like
white
noise
,
only
more
useful
)
,
to
comprehend
the
city
,
a
process
that
accelerated
when
he
realized
that
the
actual
City
of
London
itself
was
no
bigger
than
a
square
mile
,
stretching
from
Aldgate
in
the
east
to
Fleet
Street
and
the
law
courts
of
the
Old
Bailey
in
the
west
,
a
tiny
municipality
,
now
home
to
London
’
s
financial
institutions
,
and
that
that
was
where
it
had
all
begun
.
Two
thousand
years
before
,
London
had
been
a
little
Celtic
village
on
the
north
shore
of
the
Thames
,
which
the
Romans
had
encountered
,
then
settled
in
.
London
had
grown
,
slowly
,
until
,
roughly
a
thousand
years
later
,
it
met
the
tiny
Royal
City
of
Westminster
immediately
to
the
west
,
and
,
once
London
Bridge
had
been
built
,
London
touched
the
town
of
Southwark
directly
across
the
river
;
and
it
continued
to
grow
,
fields
and
woods
and
marshland
slowly
vanishing
beneath
the
flourishing
town
,
and
it
continued
to
expand
,
encountering
other
little
villages
and
hamlets
as
it
grew
,
like
Whitechapel
and
Dept
-
ford
to
the
east
,
Hammersmith
and
Shepherd
’
s
Bush
to
the
west
,
Camden
and
Islington
in
the
north
,
Battersea
and
Lambeth
across
the
Thames
to
the
south
,
absorbing
all
of
them
,
just
as
a
pool
of
mercury
encounters
and
incorporates
smaller
beads
of
mercury
,
leaving
only
their
names
behind
.
London
grew
into
something
huge
and
contradictory
.
It
was
a
good
place
,
and
a
fine
city
,
but
there
is
a
price
to
be
paid
for
all
good
places
,
and
a
price
that
all
good
places
have
to
pay
.
After
a
while
,
Richard
found
himself
taking
London
for
granted
;
in
time
,
he
began
to
pride
himself
on
having
visited
none
of
the
sights
of
London
(
except
for
the
Tower
of
London
,
when
his
Aunt
Maude
came
down
to
the
city
for
a
weekend
,
and
Richard
found
himself
her
reluctant
escort
)
.
But
Jessica
changed
all
that
.
Richard
found
himself
,
on
otherwise
sensible
weekends
,
accompanying
her
to
places
like
the
National
Gallery
and
the
Tate
Gallery
,
where
he
learned
that
walking
around
museums
too
long
hurts
your
feet
,
that
the
great
art
treasures
of
the
world
all
blur
into
each
other
after
a
while
,
and
that
it
is
almost
beyond
the
human
capacity
for
belief
to
accept
how
much
museum
cafeterias
will
brazenly
charge
for
a
slice
of
cake
and
a
cup
of
tea
.
"
Here
’
s
your
tea
and
your
éclair
,
"
he
told
her
.
"
It
would
have
cost
less
to
buy
one
of
those
Tintorettos
.
"
"
Don
’
t
exaggerate
,
"
said
Jessica
cheerfully
.
"
Anyway
,
there
aren
’
t
any
Tintorettos
at
the
Tate
.
"
