"C M Kornbluth - Everybody Knows Joe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

As usual he thought that would be fine since he was so beat after a hard day. As usual I told him,
"You're a louse, Joe. You know all she wants is a husband and you know it isn't going to be you, so why
don't you let go of the girl so she can find somebody who means business?"



The usual answers rolled out automatically and we got that out of the way.



Maybe Maggie isn't very bright but she seemed glad to see him. She's shooting for her Doctorate in
sociology at N.Y.U., she does part-time case work for the city,she has one of those three-room
Greenwich Villageapartments with dyed burlap drapes and studio couches and home-made mobiles. She
thinks writing is something holy and Joe's careful not to tell her different



They drank somerhine wine and seltzer while Joe talked about the day's work as though he'd won the
Nobelprize for biochemistry. He got downright brutal about Maggie being mixed up in such an
approximateunquantitative excuse for a science as sociology and she apologized humbly and eventually
he forgave her.Big-hearted Joe.
 But he wasn't so fried that he had to start talking about a man wanting to settle down—"not this year but
maybe next Thirty's a dividing point that makes you stop and wonder what you really want and what
youVe really got out of life, Maggiedarlin '." It was as good as telling her that she should be a good girl
and continue to keep open house for him and maybe some day... maybe.



As I said, maybe Maggie isn't very brightBut as I also said, Thursday was the day Joe picked to outdo
himself.



"Joe," she said with this look on her face, "I got a new LP of the Brahms Serenade Number One. It's on
top of the stack. Would you tell me what you think of it?"



So he put it on and they sat sippingrhine wine and seltzer and he turned it over and they sat sippingrhine
wine and seltzer until both sides were played. And she kept watching him. Not adoringly.



"Well," she asked with this new look, "what did you thinkofitr



He told her, of course. There was some comment on