"Dahl, Roald - Beware of the Dog" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dahl Roald)

to white again, and the white stayed for a long time, but the black lasted only for a few seconds.
He got into the habit of going
to sleep during the white periods, and of waking up just in time to see the world when it was
black. But the black was very
quick. Sometimes it was only a flash, like someone switching off the light, and switching it on
again at once, and so whenever it
was white, he dozed off.
One day, when it was white, he put out a hand and he touched something. He took it between his
fingers and crumpled it. For a
time he~lay there, idly letting the tips of his fingers play with the thing which they had touched.
Then slowly he opened his eyes,
looked down at his hand, and saw that he was holding something which was white. It was the
edge of a sheet. He knew it was
a sheet because he could see the texture of the material and the stitchings on the hem. He
screwed up his eyes, and opened
them again quickly. This time he saw the room. He saw the bed in which he was lying; he saw
the grey walls and the door and
the green curtains over the window. There were some roses on the table by his bed.
Then he saw the basin on the table near the roses. It was a white enamel basin, and beside it there
was a small medicine glass.
This is a hospital, he thought. I am in a hospital. But he could remember nothing. He lay back on
his pillow, looking at the ceiling
and wondering what had happened. He was gazing at the smooth greyness of the ceiling which
was so clean and gray, and then
suddenly he saw a fly walking upon it. The sight of this fly, the suddenness of seeing this small
black speck on a sea of gray,
brushed the surface of his brain, and quickly, in that second, he remembered everything. He
remembered the Spitfire and he
remembered the altimeter showing twenty-one thousand feet. He remembered the pushing back
of the hood with both hands,
and he remembered the bailing out. He remembered his leg.
It seemed all right now. He looked down at the end of the bed, but he could not tell. He put one
hand underneath the
bedclothes and felt for his knees. He found one of them, but when he felt for the other, his hand
touched something which was
soft and covered in bandages.
Just then the door opened and a nurse came in.
BEWARE OF THE DOG
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5
"Hello," she said. "So you've waked up at last."
She was not good-looking, but she was large and clean. She was between thirty and forty and she
had fair hair. More than that
he did not notice.
"Where am I?"
"You're a lucky fellow. You landed in a wood near the beach. You're in Brighton. They brought
you in two days ago, and now
you're all fixed up. You look fine."
"I've lost a leg," he said.
"That's nothing. We'll get you another one. Now you must go to sleep. The doctor will be coming