"Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky. The Time Wanderers (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Without any preamble, he asked me if the investigation of the
circumstances of the death of Dr. Bromberg was considered closed.

With a certain amount of surprise, I replied that there had been no
investigation, in effect, just as there had not been any special
circumstances in the death of the hundred-and-fifty-year-old man.

Then where, in that case, were Dr. Bromberg's notes on the Monocosm?

I explained that there probably had never been any notes. Dr.
Bromberg's letter, I had to assume, was an improvisation. Dr. Bromberg had
been a brilliant improviser.

Then should he deem it an accident that Dr. Bromberg's letter and the
announcement of his death, sent by Maxim Kammerer to the President, were
next to each other?

I looked at him, his thin lips set in a determined line, his low brow
with a strand of white hair across it, and it was perfectly clear to me.
What he wanted to hear from me. "Yes, Toivo, my lad," he wanted to hear. "I
think just as you do. Bromberg had guessed much, and the Wanderers got rid
of him and stole his precious papers." But naturally, I didn't think
anything of the sort and I didn't say anything of the sort to my lad Toivo.
Why the documents were next to each other, I didn't know myself. Most
likely, it really was by accident. And that's what I told him.

Then he asked me if Bromberg's ideas had gone into practical
development.

I replied that the question was being examined. All eight models,
proposed by the experts, were very open to criticism. As for Bromberg's
ideas, circumstances were not right for a serious attitude toward them.

Then he mustered his courage and asked me straight on if I, Maxim
Kammerer, head of the department, intended to take up the development of
Bromberg's ideas. And here, finally, I had the opportunity to make him
happy. He heard exactly what he wanted to hear.

"Yes, my lad," I said. "That's why I brought you into the department."

He left feeling ecstatic. Neither he nor I had any idea then, of
course, that it was at that very moment that he took his first step toward
the Big Revelation.

I am a practicing psychologist. When I am dealing with a person, I can
say without false modesty that I feel his spiritual state at every moment,
the direction of his thoughts, and I'm quite good at predicting his actions.
However, if I were asked to explain how I do it, and on top of that asked to
draw or explain in words the image - that is created in my mind, I would