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

chain, began to unwind the windlass. The bucket, bouncing on the walls, went
down into the black depth. There was a splash, the chain growing tight. I
turned the crank, eyeing my car, which had a tired, dirty look, the
windshield plastered with bugs. I decided it would be a good idea to fill up
the radiator.
The bucket seemed inordinately heavy. When I stood it on the frame, a
huge pike's head poked out of the water, all green and mossy. I jumped back.
"Going to drag me off to the market again?" inquired the pike,
hiccuping strongly. Bewildered, I kept quiet. "Can't you let me be in peace?
Will you never have enough, biddy? How much can one stand? No sooner do I
quiet down, to relax and doze a bit, than I get hauled out again! After all,
I'm not young anymore-- older than you maybe. .. . The gills don't work so
well, either. . . ." It was quite funny to see how she talked, just like a
pike in the puppet theater. She opened and closed her toothy jaws with all
her might and with a disturbing lack of synchronization with the pronounced
sounds. She said the last phrase with the jaws convulsively clamped shut.
"Also the air is bad for me," she continued. "What are you going to do
when I croak? It's all the fault of your female and stupid miserliness. . .
. You save and save and don't even know what for. . . . Didn't you go bust
on the last reform-- well, didn't you? There you are! And what about the
Catherine notes? Trunk-fuls! And the Kerensky rubles-- didn't you fuel your
stove with them?"
"You see-" said I, somewhat regaining my composure.
"Oi-- who's that?" worried the pike.
"I . . . I am here just by chance. I was going to wash up a bit."
"Wash! And I thought it was the old hag again. Don't see so well--
getting old. Furthermore, the refraction coefficient with the air is quite
different. I ordered glasses for air, but I have lost them and can't find
them. And who would you be?"
"A tourist," I said briefly.
"Oh, a tourist. . . . And I thought it was that hag again. You can't
imagine what she does with me. First she catches me, then drags me off to
the market and sells me as an ingredient for a bouillabaisse. So what can I
do? I talk to the buyer: thus and thus, let me go back to my little ones--
though what little ones, I know not, as they are not children but
granddaddies by now. You let me go, and I will serve you well. Just say, ‘By
the pike's command, this wish of mine.' So they let me go. Some out of fear,
some out of the goodness of their hearts, and some out of greed. Then I swim
about in the river, but with my rheumatism, back to the warm well I go, and
back again is the crone with the bucket." The pike retreated under the
water, bubbled a bit, and came up again. "Well, what is your wish, my fine
one? But keep it simple, and not like some who want those new-fangled TV's
or transistor radios. . . . One lout went altogether ape: ‘Complete my
yearly plan at the sawmill for me.' Cutting logs at my age!"
"Aha," I said. "Can you still do the TV?"
"No," the pike owned up. "I can't do a television receiver. Also, I
can't do that automated combine with separator. I don't believe in them.
Think of something more simple. Let's say thousand-league boots or an
invisibility cloak. ... Well?"
My rising hope of escaping the greasing of the car began to fade.