"Richard Matheson - I Am Legend" - читать интересную книгу автора (Matheson Richard)

He wished he’d had time to soundproof the house. It wouldn’t be so bad if
it weren’t that he had to listen to them. Even after five months, it got on
his nerves.

He never looked at them any more. In the beginning he’d made a peephole in
the front window and watched them. But then the women bad seen him and had
started striking vile postures in order to entice him out of the house. He
didn’t want to look at that.

He put down his book and stared bleakly at the rug, hearing Verklärte Nacht
play over the loud-speaker. He knew he could put plugs in his ears to shut
off the sound of them, but that would shut off the music too, and he didn’t
want to feel that they were forcing him into a shell.

He closed his eyes again. It was the women who made it so difficult, be
thought, the women posing like lewd puppets in the night on the possibility
that he’d see them and decide to come out.

A shudder. ran through him. Every night it was the same. He’d be reading
and listening to music. Then he’d start to think about soundproofing the
house, then he’d think about the women.


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Deep in his body, the knotting heat began again, and be pressed his lips
together until they were white. He knew the feeling well and it enraged him
that he couldn’t combat it. It grew and grew until he couldn’t sit still
any more. Then he’d get up and pace the floor, fists bloodless at his
sides. Maybe he’d set up the movie projector or eat something or have too
much to drink or turn the music up so loud it hurt his ears. He had to do
something when it got really bad.

He felt the muscles of his abdomen closing in like frightening coils. He
picked up the book and tried to read, his lips forming each word slowly and
painfully.

But in a moment the book was on his lap again. He looked at. the bookcase
across from him. All the knowledge in those books couldn’t put out the
fires in him; all the words of centuries couldn’t end the wordless,
mindless craving of his flesh.

The realization made him sick. It was an insult to a man. All right, it was
a natural drive, but there was no outlet for it any more. They’d forced
celibacy on him; he’d have to live with it. You have a mind, don’t you? he
asked himself. Well, use it? .

He reached over and turned the music still louder; then forced himself to