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

our cats and dogs. As a rule, science, in which we have faith (and often,
blind faith), prepares us well in advance for the coming miracles, so that a
psychic shock occurs in us only when we collide with something unpredicted--
some hole into a fourth dimension, or biological radio communication, or a
living planet. . . . Or, say, a cottage on hen's legs. Anyway, that
hawk-nosed Roman was right with a vengeance; it's very, very, and very
fascinating here with them.
I came out on the square and stopped by the soft-drink kiosk. I
remembered that I didn't have any change and that I would have to break a
bill. I was formulating an ingratiating smile, knowing full well that the
girls who sold the drinks couldn't stand changing bills, when I felt a
fivekopeck piece in my jeans pocket. I was both astonished and delighted,
but more the latter. I drank up my soda water with fruit syrup, accepted a
wet kopeck in change, and chatted with the girl about the weather. Next I
set out homeward with great determination so as to finish with the DC and
the TS and be free to continue with my dialectic and rationalistic
explanations. I shoved the kopeck down into my pocket and stopped,
discovering that there was another five-kopeck piece already in it. I took
it out and studied it. It was somewhat damp and on it was stamped 5 kopecks,
1961, and the numeral 6 was marred with a small gouge. It may be that even
then I would not have paid this little incident any attention, except for
that instant feeling, with which I was already familiar, that I was
simultaneously standing in the Prospect of Peace and sitting on the sofa
looking at the wardrobe. And just as before the feeling disappeared when I
shook my head.
For a while I kept on walking slowly, absentmindedly tossing the piece
(it kept landing heads-up in my palm) and attempting to focus my thoughts.
Then I saw the food store where I had fled from the kids in the morning, and
entered. Holding the coin between two fingers, I went up to the counter and
drank, this time without any pleasure at all, a glass of plain seltzer.
Next, gripping the change in my hand, I went aside and checked the pocket.
It was one of those cases where there was no psychic shock. More likely
I would have been surprised if the piece had not been in my pocket. But it
was-- damp, 1961, and with a gouge in the numeral 6. Someone bumped into me
and inquired as to whether I was taking a nap. Apparently I was standing in
the line for the cashier. I said I wasn't and punched a ticket for three
boxes of matches. Standing in line for the matches, I verified that the
piece was back again in my pocket. I was absolutely calm. Having received my
three boxes of matches, I returned to the square and proceeded to
experiment.
The experiment took about an hour. During this hour, I circumnavigated
the square ten times, swelled up from the seltzer, accumulated match boles
and newspapers, got acquainted with all the clerks, male and female, and
arrived at a series of interesting conclusions. The five-kopeck piece came
back if you paid with it. If you just simply threw it away, or dropped it,
it stayed where it fell. The coin returned to pocket at the moment when the
change moved from the hands of the seller to the hands of the buyer. If you
kept your hand in one pocket, it appeared in the other. It never appeared in
a zippered pocket. If you kept a hand in each pocket, and accepted the
change with your elbow, the coin appeared anywhere on your body. (In my