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

"Semurg" means "thirty birds".'
'Who from?'
'The voice of God told them.'
Tatarsky sneezed. Hussein immediately fell silent and turned away his
glowering face. Tatarsky waited for a continuation for quite a long time
before he realised that Hussein was actually a post with a sign nailed to it
saying: 'Campfires forbidden!' that he could scarcely make out in the
semi-darkness. That upset him - so Gireiev and Hussein were in league now!
He'd liked Hussein's story, but now it was clear that he'd never leam all
the details, and in the form he'd heard it, it wasn't even fit for a
cigarette concept. Tatarsky walked on, wondering what it was that had made
him stop in such a cowardly fashion by a Hussein-post that hadn't even asked
him to.
The explanation was not a very pleasant one: it was a relict of the
Soviet era, the slave mentality he still hadn't completely squeezed out of
himself. Tatarsky thought for a while and came to the conclusion that the
slave in the soul of Soviet man was not concentrated in any particular
sector, but rather tinged everything that happened in its twilit expanses in
a shade of chronic psychological peritonitis, which meant there was no way
to squeeze this slave out drop by drop without damaging precious spiritual
qualities. This thought seemed important to Tatarsky in the light of his
forthcoming collaboration with Pugin, and he rummaged in his pockets for a
long time to find a pen to note it down, but couldn't find one.
Another passer-by appeared, coming towards him; this time it was
definitely no hallucination. That much became clear after Tatarsky's attempt
to borrow a pen - the passer-by took to his heels, running with genuine
speed and not looking back.
Tatarsky simply couldn't figure out what it was in his behaviour that
had such a terrifying effect on the people he met. Perhaps they were
frightened by the strange disorder of his speech, the way the words he tried
to pronounce fell apart into syllables that then re-attached themselves to
each other in a random order. Even so, there was something rather flattering
in such an extreme reaction.
Tatarsky was suddenly struck so forcibly by a certain thought that he
stopped dead and slapped his palm against his forehead. 'Why, of course,
it's the Tower of Babel!' he thought. 'They probably drank that mushroom tea
and the words began to break apart in their mouths, just like mine.
Later they began to call it a confusion of tongues. It would be better
to call it a confusion of language ...'
Tatarsky could sense that his thoughts were filled with such power that
each one was a stratum of reality, just as important in every respect as the
forest he was walking through this evening. The difference was that the
forest was a thought he couldn't stop thinking, no matter how much he wanted
to. On the other hand, there was almost no will whatsoever involved in what
was going on in his mind. As soon as he had the thought about the confusion
of tongues, it became clear to him that the memory of Babylon was the only
possible Babylon: by thinking about it, he had summoned it to life; and the
thoughts in his head were like trucks loaded with building materials,
rushing towards Babylon, making it more and more substantial.
'They called the confusion of tongues the Tower of Babel/ he thought.