"Avram Davidson - The Golem" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

"All mankind—" the stranger began.
"Shah! I'm talking to my husband … He talks eppis kind of funny, Gumbeiner, no?"

"Probably a foreigner," Mr. Gumbeiner said complacently.

"You think so?" Mrs. Gumbeiner glanced fleetingly at the stranger. "He's got a very bad color in his face,
nebbich, I suppose he came to California for his health."

"Disease, pain, sorrow, love, grief—all are nought to—"

Mr. Gumbeiner cut in on the stranger's statement.

"Gall bladder," the old man said. "Guinzburg down at the shule looked exactly the same before his
operation. Two professors they had in for him, and a private nurse day and night."

"I am not a human being!" the stranger said loudly.

"Three thousand seven hundred fifty dollars it cost his son, Guinzburg told me. 'For you, Poppa, nothing
is too expensive—only get well,' the son told him."

"I am not a human being!"

"Ai, is that a son for you!" the old woman said, rocking her head. "A heart of gold, pure gold." She
looked at the stranger. "All right, all right, I heard you the first time. Gumbeiner! I asked you a question.
When are you going to cut the lawn?"

"On Wednesday, odder maybe Thursday, comes the Japaneser to the neighborhood. To cut lawns is his
profession. My profession is to be a glazier—retired."

"Between me and all mankind is an inevitable hatred," the stranger said. "When I tell you what I am, the
flesh will melt—"

"You said, you said already," Mr. Gumbeiner interrupted.

"In Chicago where the winters were as cold and bitter as the Czar of Russia's heart," the old woman
intoned, "you had strength to carry the frames with the glass together day in and day out. But in California
with the golden sun to mow the lawn when your wife asks, for this you have no strength. Do I call in the
Japaneser to cook for you supper?"

"Thirty years Professor Allardyce spent perfecting his theories. Electronics, neuronics—"

"Listen, how educated he talks," Mr. Gumbeiner said admiringly. "Maybe he goes to the University
here?"

"If he goes to the University, maybe he knows Bud?" his wife suggested.

"Probably they're in the same class and he came to see him about the homework, no?"

"Certainly he must be in the same class. How many classes are there? Five in ganzen: Bud showed me