"Victor Pelevin. Babylon (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

possible outcomes were success and death. Certain bold spirits actually
decided to ascend the ziggurat without any tablet to prompt them.
Yet another interpretation has it that the three questions oflshtar
were not riddles, but rather symbolic reference points indicative of
specific life-situations. The Babylonian had to pass through them and
present proofs of his wisdom to the guard on the ziggurat in order to make
it possible for him to meet the goddess. (In this case the ascent of the
ziggurat described above is regarded rather as a metaphor.) There was a
belief that the answers to the three questions oflshtar were concealed in
the words of the market songs that were sung every day in the bazaar at
Babylon, but no information about these songs or this custom has survived.
Tatarsky wiped the dust off the folder and hid it away again in the
closet, thinking that some time he would definitely read it all the way
through.
He never did find his diploma dissertation on the history of Russian
parliamentarianism in the closet; but by the time his search was over
Tatarsky had realised quite clearly that the entire history of
parliamentarianism in Russia amounted to one simple fact - the only thing
the word was good for was advertising Parliament cigarettes, and even there
you actually could get by quite well without any parliamentarianism at all.

CHAPTER 4. The Three Riddles of Ishtar


The following day Tatarsky, still absorbed in his thoughts about the
cigarette concept, ran into his old classmate Andrei Gireiev at the
beginning of Tverskaya Street. Tatarsky hadn't had any news of him for
several years, and he was astounded at the style of the clothes he was
wearing - a light-blue cassock with a Nepalese waistcoat covered in
embroidery worn over the top of it. In his hands he had something that
looked like a large coffee-mill, covered all over with Tibetan symbols and
decorated with coloured ribbons. He was turning its handle. Despite the
extreme exoticism of every element of his get-up, in combination they
appeared so natural that they somehow neutralised each other. None of the
passers-by paid any attention to Gireiev. Just like a fire hydrant or an
advertisement for Pepsi-Cola, he failed to register in their field of
perception because he conveyed absolutely no new visual information.
Tatarsky first recognised Gireiev's face and only afterwards began to
pay attention to the rich details of his appearance. Looking attentively
into Gireiev's eyes, he realised he was not quite himself, although he
didn't seem to be drunk. In fact he was calm and in control, and he inspired
confidence.
He said he was living just outside Moscow in the village of Rastorguevo
and invited Tatarsky to visit him. Tatarsky agreed, and they went down into
the metro, then changed to the suburban train. They travelled in silence;
Tatarsky occasionally turned away from the view through the window to look
at Gireiev. In his crazy gear he seemed like the final fragment of some lost
universe - not the Soviet universe, because that didn't contain any
wandering Tibetan astrologers, but some other world that had existed in
parallel with the Soviet one, even in contradiction of it, and had perished