"Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. The snail on the slope" - читать интересную книгу автора

glance at me and drop his eyes at once.
Pepper rose, gripped his case and wandered off, following his nose. His
nose led nowhere. Not that there was anywhere to lead to along these dark
empty streets. He kept stumbling, the dust made him sneeze, and he fell a
time or two. The suitcase was incredibly heavy and somehow ungovernable. It
rubbed its.bulk against his leg then swung out to one side and then,
returning from the dark, struck his kneee a tremendous clout. In the park's
dark alley where there was no light at all and only the statues, like the
warden, glimmered shakily in the gloom, the case got caught up in a thread
of his trouser-leg and Pepper abandoned it in despair. The hour of despair
had arrived. Weeping and blind with tears, Pepper struggled through dry,
dusty, spiky hedges, rolled down steps, fell, painfully striking his back,
and finally drained of strength and gasping with exasperation and self-pity,
went down on his knees at the edge of the cliff.
The forest, however, remained indifferent. So indifferent that it was
invisible. Below the edge was inky blackness. Only on the far horizon
something layered, gray, and formless lazily reflected the rays of the moon.
"Wake up," asked Pepper. "Look at me just this once, while we're alone,
don't worry, they're all asleep. Surely you need at least one of us? Or
don't you understand what a need is? It's when you can't do without . . .
when you think all the time about . . . when all your life you've been
striving toward. ... I don't know what you are. Nor do those who are dead
sure they know. You are what you are, but I can hope that you're what I've
wanted to see all my life: kind, intelligent, indulgent, and considerate,
perhaps even grateful. We've dissipated all that, we've no energy or time
for it, all we do is construct historical monuments, ever higher, ever
cheaper, but consideration is something we can't manage. But you're
different, because from a long way off I came to you, not believing you
actually existed. So you really don't need me? No, I won't lie. I'm afraid I
don't need you either. We've caught sight of each other, but came no closer.
It shouldn't have been that way. Perhaps they stand between us? There are
plenty of them and only one of me, but I'm--one of them, you, probably can't
pick me out in the crowd, maybe it isn't worth the trouble.
Maybe I invented those human characteristics that would appeal to you
myself, to you that is, not as you are, but as I had imagined you to be. ...
Suddenly from beyond the horizon, bright white puffs of light slowly
swam up and hung, dissipating and at once to the right under the cliff,
under the overhanging rocks, searchlight beams began hunting wildly, haring
about the sky and encountering massed banks of fog. The light balls above
the horizon continued to thin out and disperse and turned into silvery
clouds before extinguishing. A minute later the searchlights went out.
"They're afraid," said Pepper. "I am too. I'm afraid for myself but I'm
afraid for you as well. You don't know them after all, yet. Even I don't
know them at all well. All I know is they're capable of any extreme, the
furthest extremes of stupidity and wisdom, cruelty and pity, fury and
restraint. There's only one thing they lack--understanding. They always
substituted some sort of surrogate for understanding, be it faith,
disbelief, indifference, or neglect. That always turned out to be the
simplest way. Easier to believe than comprehend. Easier to become
disenchanted than to comprehend. I'm leaving tomorrow, by the way, not that