"Alfred Bester - Galatea Galante" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bester Alfred)

famously with Claudia's two sons and brought them to Manwright's house to demonstrate a new dance which she'd devised called: "The Anthro Hustle." It was performed to a song she'd composed entitled: "Who Put the Snatch on Gorilla Baby?" which she banged out fortissimously on the harpsichord.
"Bring back the tuning fork," Manwright muttered.
Corque was applauding enthusiastically. "Music's her surprise kink, Reg."
"Call that music?"
Corque took her to his Saturn Circus, where she mesmerized him into letting her try riding bareback and leaping through burning hoops, acting as target for a knife thrower, trapeze aerobatics, and thrusting her auburn head into a lion's mouth. He couldn't understand how she'd persuaded him to let her take such horrifying risks.
"Perhaps cajolery's her mystery quality," he suggested. "But she did miraculously well, Reg. My heart was in my mouth. Gally never turned a hair. Pure aplomb. She's a magnificent creation. You've generated a Super-Popsy for Valera."
"Guh."
"Could her unexpected kink be psychic?"
"The redskins have got me surrounded," Manwright fretted. He seemed strangely disoriented.
What disturbed him most were the daily tutoring sessions with the young lady. Invariably they degenerated into bickering and bitching, with the Dominie usually getting the worst of it.
"When our last session ended in another bitch we both steamed for the library door," he told Corque. "I said, `Age before beauty, my dear,' which you must admit was gracious, and started out. That red Popsy snip said, `Pearls before swine,' and swaggered past me like a gladiator who's


wiped an entire arena."
"She's wonderful!" Corque laughed.
"Oh, you're insanely biased. She's been twisting you around her fingers since the moment she was poured."
"And Igor and Claudia and her two boys and the CB repair and the plumber and the electronics and the gardener and the laundry and E & A Chemical and half my circus? All insanely biased?"
"Evidently I'm the only sanity she can't snow. You know the simple psychological truth, Charles; we're always accusing others of our own faults. That saucebox has the impudence to call me intransigent, stubborn, know-it-all, conceited. Me! Out of her own mouth. QED."
"Mightn't it be the other way around, Reg?"
"Do try to make sense, Charles. And now that the Grand Teton breastworks are making her top-heavy (I think maybe I was a little too generous with my Egyptian programming) there'll be no living with her vanity. Women take the damned dumbest pride in the thrust of the boozalums."
"Now Reg, you exaggerate. Gally knows we'd all adore her even if she were flatchested."
"I know I'm doing a professional job, and I know she has too much ego in her cosmos. But next week we start schlepping her to parties, openings, talk-ins, routs, and such to train her for Valera. That ought to take her down a peg. The Red Indians have got me tied to a stake," he added gloomily.
"Canapes?"
"'Pa evah so. Lahvely pahty, Ms. Galante."
"Thank you, Lady Agatha. Canapes?"
"Grazie, Signorina."
"Prego, Commendatore. Canapes?"
"A dank, meyd'1. Lang leb'n zolt it."
"Nito far vus, General. Hot canapes, dear Professor Corque?"
"Thank you, adorable hostess. Igor's?"
"Mine."
"And perfection. Don't be afraid of the Martian counsul. He won't bite."
"Canapes, M'sieur Consul?"
"Ah! Mais oui! Merci, Mademoiselle Gall6e. Que pensezvous du lumineux Dominie Manwright?"
"C'est un type tres competent."
"Oui. Romanesque, mais formidablement competent."
"Quoi? Manwright? Romanesque? Vous me genez, mon cher consul."
"Ma foi, oui, romanesque, Mademoiselle Gallee. C'est justement son cote romanesque qui lui cause du mal a se trouver une femme."
"These damn do's are a drag, Charles."
"But isn't she wonderful?"
"And they're making my nightmares worse. A sexy Indian squaw tore my clothes off last night."
"Mi interesso particolarmente ai libri di fantascienza, magia-orrore, umorismo, narrativa, attualita, filosofia, socialogia,a cattivo, putrido Regis Manwright."
"Charles, this is the last literary talk-in I ever attend."
"Did you see how Gally handled those Italian publishers?"
"Yes, gibes at my expense. She put iron claws on her hands."
"My dear Reg, Gally did no such thing."
"I was referring to that sexy squaw."
"Entao agora sabes dander?"
"Sim. Danqo, falo miseravelmente muchas linguas, es-