"Adam Roberts - Balancing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Robert)

'Without obligation?'
'I know, of course,' said the Devil, smiling the faintest of smiles with
the corners of his mouth. 'I recognise the vulgarity of all this
salesman-talk. But it precisely describes the circumstance. I shall make
my offer. You can then either accept or decline. If you decline, you'll
hear nothing more from me. If you decide to accept, however,' and here the
Devil brushed imaginary crumbs from the corners of his upturned mouth.
'I'll lose my soul,' put in Allen, sharply.
'Dear me no,' said the Devil, as if richly amused. 'Not at all. How
medieval. Nothing of the sort.'
'What then?' asked Allen. 'Something for nothing?' He swallowed. Perhaps
he was indeed arguing with the Devil. It was almost exciting. 'I don't
believe it.'
'Whether you believe it or not, that's neither here nor there. But if you
accept my offer, then I shall simply give you what you ask for, and then I
will be gone. Turn me down, and I'm gone anyway. Either way you'll not be
troubled with me further. There are no catches, no tricks, and I require
nothing from you.'
Allen looked again at this man, looked in his face. His skin was, he saw,
unusually smooth. Only the edges of the eyes betrayed even the hint of a
wrinkle. 'I don't understand,' he said.
'What's not to understand?' said the Devil. 'Ah, but of course you don't
mean that. You mean you don't understand why.'
'I guess so.'
'Why is really neither here nor there. Now. Do you want to hear my offer
or not?'
'What if I say, uh, not?' Allen asked, looked around him. He was wondering
how he was going to get down from the roof. And what he would say if
anybody spotted him up here. What explanation could he offer?
'If you don't want to hear my proposal, then I shall simply go away,' said
the Devil. 'And, in case you're anxious, I will return you to the ground
without ill effects. But you will, I promise you, spend the rest of your
life wondering what my offer was going to be.'
Allen looked around again. 'What is this offer, then?' he said. Perhaps
playing along with the illusion would bring it to a swifter conclusion.
Perhaps he was still asleep, lying in his bed. It would not surprise him.
It could be that he was more anxious about meeting Kaufmann than he had
realised. Maybe the worry about that meeting had infected his dreams. And
yet there was something hard-edged about this experience that seemed to
remove it from the world of dreaming. Could he ever remember feeling cold
in any dream he had ever had before?
He was being stupid. Surely the duvet had slipped off him, and the open
bedroom-window was letting in a breeze, and that was registering in his
dream. He turned to the Devil. 'What is the offer then?' he repeated.
'I am glad you asked,' said the Devil. He put his fingers together in a
church-steeple, smiling thinly. He had a curiously unblinking stare, Allen
realised. 'It is simple enough. I offer to weigh in the scales the
pleasure you have caused in the world, and also the pain, and to pay you
the balance.'
'I don't understand,' said Allen.