"Arkadi and Boris Strugatsky. Monday begins on Saturday (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

springs as she tossed in her bed, grumbling and complaining. Then she
started singing softly to some barbarous tune: "I'll roll and I'll wallow,
fed up on Ivash's meat."
Cold night air drew from the window. Shivering, I got up to return to
the sofa, and it dawned on me that I had locked the door before retiring.
Discomfited, I approached the door and reached out to check the bolt, but no
sooner had my hand touched the cold iron, than everything began to swim
before my eyes. I was, in fact, lying on the sofa, facedown in the pillow,
my finger feeling the cool logs of the wall.
I lay there for some time in a state of shock, slowing growing aware
that the old hag was snoring away somewhere nearby, and a conversation was
in progress in the room. Someone was declaiming tutorially in a quiet tone:
"The elephant is the largest of all the animals on earth. On his face
there is a large lump of meat, which is called a trunk because it's empty
and hollow like a pipe. He bends and stretches it every which way and uses
it in place of a hand. .."
Growing icy cold and curious, I turned over gingerly on my right side.
The room was as empty as before. The voice continued, even more didactic.
"Wine, used in moderation, is exceedingly salutary for the stomach; but
when drunk to excess, it produces vapors that debase the human to the level
of dumb animals. You have seen drunks on occasion, and still remember the
righteous indignation that welled up in you.. .
I sat up with a jerk, lowering my feet to the floor. The voice stopped.
It was my impression that it was coming from somewhere behind the wall.
Everything in the room was as before; even the coat rack, to my
astonishment, hung in its proper place. And to my further surprise, I was
again very hungry.
"Tincture, ex vitro of antimony," announced the voice abruptly. I
shivered. "Magiphterium antimon angelii salae. Bafllii oleum vitri antimonii
elixiterium antimoiale!" There was the sound of frank tittering. "What a
delirium!" said the voice and continued, ululating. "Soon these eyes, not
yet defeated, will no longer see the sun, but let them not be shut ere being
told of my forgiveness and salvation. .
This be from The Spirit or Moral Thoughts of the Renowned Jung.
Extracted from his Nighttime Meditations. Sold in Saint Petersburg and Riga,
in the bookstore of Sveshnikov for two rubles in hard cover." Somebody
sobbed. "That, too, is delirium," said the voice, and declaimed with
expression:
"Titles, wealth, and beauty,
Life's total booty.
They fly, grow weaker, disappear
O, ashes! and happiness is fakel
Contagion gnaws the heart
And fame cannot be kept..."
Now I understood where they were talking. The voice came from the
corner, where the murky mirror hung.
"And now," said the voice, "the following: ‘Everything is the unified
I: this I is cosmic. The union with disunion, arising from the eclipse of
enlightenment, the I sublimates with spiritual attainment.'"
"And where is that derived from?" I said. I was not expecting an