"Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Probationers (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

bourgeois.
- Thanks.
- I didn't wish to offend you, - said Daugeh. - But it seemed to me,
that you wanted to offend us. Objectivity of thought... What objectivity of
thought could you hold?
She finished her drink.
- You speak very nicely today, dear, - she remarked, laughing
unsympathetically, - explaining everything so well. Then, please be so kind,
explain to me one more thing. You worked your entire life. Throughout your
whole life you developed your intellect, stepping over simple worldly
pleasures.
- I never denounced worldly pleasures, - said Daugeh. - I was quite
naughty, even.
- Let's not argue, - she said. - As I see it, you have been. And I have
been extinguishing intelligence my whole life. All my life I was busy
nurturing my lowly instincts. And which one of us is more fortunate r i g h
t n o w?
- Me, naturally, - said Daugeh.
She gave him a candid look and laughed.
- No, - she said. - I am! At worst both of us are equally unfortunate.
A talentless cuckoo bird - I believe that's what Volodya calls me? - or a
hard-working ant - the end is the same: old age, isolation, emptiness. I
gained nothing but you lost everything. What, then, is the difference?
- Ask Grisha Bykov, - Daugeh said calmly.
- Ah, t h e s e o n e's! - She scornfully waived her hand. - I know
what they shall say. No, I am interested what you will say! And not now,
when its sunny and people all around, but at night, when there's insomnia,
and the volumes that you are sick of looking at, and useless minerals from
useless planets, and a silent phone, and nothing, nothing ahead of you.
- True, that happens, - said Daugeh. - It happens to everyone.
He suddenly imagined all this - both the silent phone and nothing
waiting ahead - but not the written volumes and minerals, but flasks of
perfume, dead glow of golden jewellery and a merciless mirror. I am swine,
he thought with repentance. A self-assured indifferent swine. Indeed she
asking for help!
- Will you let me see you tonight? - he said.
- No. - She got up. Tonight I am having guests over.
Daugeh set aside his untouched glass and also stood up. She took him by
the elbow and they walked out into the foyer. Daugeh was trying his hardest
not to limp.
- Where are you off to now? - he asked.
She stopped in front of a mirror and straightened her hair, which did
not require straightening.
- Where to? - she asked. - Somewhere. Still, I am not fifty and my
world belongs to me for now.
They came down the white staircase onto a sun-lit square.
- I could give you a lift, - said Daugeh.
- Thank you, I have my own car.
Unhurriedly, he pulled on his helmet, checked whether his ears are
covered and buttoned up his coat.