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

. . mmm . . . well, anyway, it's really not all that important. Let's say .
. . me-eh . . . Polouekt. He had three sons. tsareviches. The first . . .
me-eh ... the third was an imbecile, but the first...?"
Bending down like a trooper under fire, I sneaked up to the window and
looked out. The oak was in its place. Tomcat Basil stood on his hind legs
with his back to it, immersed in deep thought. In his teeth, he clamped the
stem of a water lily. He kept looking down at his feet and sounding a
drawn-out "Me-eh-eh." Then he shook his head, put his front legs behind his
back, and, hunching over like a lecturing professor, glided smoothly away
from the oak.
"Very well," he enunciated through his teeth. "So, once upon a time
there lived a tsar and tsarina. And they had one son... me-eh.. . an
imbecile, naturally..."
Chagrined, he spit out the flower, and, frowning mightily, rubbed his
forehead.
"A desperate situation," he stated. "But I do remember this and that!
‘Ha-ha-ha! There'll be something to feast on: a stallion for dinner, a brave
lad for supper.' Now, where would that be from? But, Ivan, you can figure
out for yourself, the imbecile replies: ‘Hey, you, revolting monstrosity,
stuffing yourself before you caught the snow-white swan!' And later, of
course, the tempered arrow and off with all the three heads. Ivan removes
the three hearts and carts them home to his mother; the cretin. . . . Now,
how do you like that for a gift!" The cat laughed sardonically, and then
sighed. "Then there is that sickness-- sclerosis," he remarked.
Sighing again, he turned back toward the oak and began to sing. "Krou,
krou, my little ones! Krou, krou, my pigeonlets! I... me-eh... I slaked your
thirst with the dew of my eyes . . . more exactly-- watered you. .
He sighed for the third time and walked on silently for some time. As
he reached the oak, he yelled out abruptly in a very unmusical voice,
"Choice morsel she finished not!"
A massive psaltery suddenly appeared in his paws; I didn't notice at
all how he came by it. Desperately he struck with his paw, and, catching the
strings with his claws, bellowed even louder, as though trying to drown out
the music:

"Doss im tann void foster ist
Doss macht dos hoitz
Dass... me-eh ... mein shatz... or katz?"

He stopped and paced a while, banging the strings in silence; then he
sang in a low, uncertain voice:
"Oi, I been by that there garden That I'll tell as gospel truth:
Thus and snappy, They dug the poppy."
He returned to the oak, leaned the psaltery against it, and scratched
behind his ear with a hind leg.
"Work, work, work," he said, "and nothing but work!"
He placed his paws behind his back again and went off to the left of
the oak, muttering, "It has come to me, oh great tsar, that in the splendid
city of Baghdad, there lived a tailor, by the name . . ." He dropped to all
fours, arched his back, and hissed angrily. "It's especially bad with the