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

the devil or a magician could be successfully
replaced by a skillful exploitation of the postulates of science.

H. G. Wells




The phone kept ringing. I rubbed my eyes, gazed through the window (the
oak was in its place), studied the coat hanger (it, too, was in place). The
telephone kept on. Behind the wall it was quiet in the old woman's room. So
I leaped to the floor, opened the door (the bolt was shot), and came out in
the entry. The telephone rang insistently. It stood on a shelf above a large
water cask-- a quite modern white plastic phone, such as I have seen in the
movies and the director's office. I picked up the receiver.
"Hello."
"Who's this?" asked a piercing female voice.
"Whom do you want?"
"Is that Izbakurnozh?"
"What?"
"I am saying-- is it the Izba on Hen's Legs or not? Who is talking?"
"Yes," I said. "It's the Izba. Whom do you want?"
"Oh, hell," said the voice. "Take this telephonogram."
"Let's have it."
"Write it down."
"One minute," I said. "I'll get pencil and paper."
I brought over a notebook and a pencil.
"I am listening."
"Telephonogram number two hundred and six," said the female voice, "to
Citizeness Gorynitch, Naina Kievna.
"Not so fast. . . . Kievna. . . . Next?"
"You are hereby requested . . . to appear today the twenty-eighth of
July . . . of this year . . . at midnight . . . at the annual all-union
fly-in. ... Have you got that down?"
"I have."
"The first meeting will take place . . . on Bald Mountain. Formal
dress. Employment of mechanized transport at your own expense. Signed . . .
Department Manager...Eich ... Em... Viy..."*
"Who?"
"Viy! Eich Em Viy."
"I don't understand."
"Viy! Khron Monadovitch. Don't you know the department manager?"
"I don't know him," I said. "Spell it."
"Hell's bells! All right: Vampire, incubus, yang-yin... Have you got it
down?"
"I think so," I said. "It comes out: Viy."
"Who?"
"Do you have polyps or something? I can't understand you."
"Vladimir, Ivan, Yakov."
"Right. Repeat the telephonogram." I repeated it.