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

that whatever it was, he didn't like it.
'Li'd dratinker wike of wit!' Tatarsky repeated meekly and tried to
smile.
He really wanted Gireiev to smile back at him; but Gireiev did
something strange - he got to his feet and backed away from Tatarsky, who
understood for the first time what was meant by the phrase 'a mask of
horror'. His friend's face was distorted into the most distinct possible
mask of precisely that kind. Gireiev took several faltering steps backwards,
then turned and ran. Tatarsky was offended to the depths of his soul.
Meanwhile the evening twilight had begun to thicken. As it flitted
through the blue haze between the trees, Gireiev's Nepalese waistcoat looked
like a large butterfly. Tatarsky found the idea of pursuit exciting. He
launched himself after Gireiev, bounding high in the air in order not to
stumble over some root or hummock. It was soon clear that he was running a
lot faster that Gireiev, quite incomparably faster, in fact. He overtook him
and turned back several times before he realised that he wasn't running
around Gireiev, but around the remnant of a dry tree-trunk the same height
as a man. That sobered him up a little, and he set off down the path in what
he thought was the direction of the railway station.
Along the way he ate several more fly-agarics that attracted his
attention among the trees, and soon he found himself on a wide dirt road
with a fence of barbed wire running along one edge of it.
Someone appeared ahead of him, walking along. Tatarsky went up to him
and asked politely: 'Stan gou thecation totet yell he mow? There trun
rewains?'
Glancing sharply at Tatarsky, the stranger took a quick step backwards,
then took to his heels. Everybody seemed to be reacting to him in the same
way today. Tatarsky remembered his Chechen employer and thought cheerfully
to himself:
'What if I met Hussein now, I wonder if he'd be scared?'
When Hussein promptly appeared at the edge of the road, it was Tatarsky
who was scared. Hussein was standing there silently in the grass and not
reacting in any way to Tatarsky's approach. But Tatarsky slowed his pace,
walked across to Hussein with meek, childish steps and stood there paralysed
with guilt.
'What did you want?' Hussein asked.
Tatarsky said something extremely inappropriate: 'I just need a second.
I wanted to ask you, as a representative of the target group: what
associations does the word "parliament" have for you?' In his fright he
didn't even notice whether he was speaking normally or not.
Hussein wasn't surprised at all. He thought for a moment and answered:
'Al-Ghazavi had this poem called "The Parliament of Birds". It's about how
thirty birds flew off in search of the bird that is called Semurg - the king
of all birds and a great master.'
'But why did they fly off in search of a king, if they had a
parliament?'
'You ask them that. And then, Semurg was not just a king, he was a
fount of great knowledge. That's more than you can say for a parliament.'
'How did it all end?' asked Tatarsky.
'When they had endureded thirty trials, they learned that the word