"L. Sprague De Camp - The Hostage of Zir" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Camp L Sprague)

anything."

Later, on one of the paths of the compound, Reith fell into talk with Magistrate
Keshavachandra. The judge was a slight, brown-skinned man, shorter than Reith,
with bushy grey eyebrows and a fringe of grey hair around his bald head.

"Judge," said Reith, "I'm discouraged. I must have done something pretty awful
in a previous incarnation to be put in this fix."

"How so?тАЭ

"I'm not an experienced tourist guide; yet, circumstances have dumped me into a

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situation where I need to be Hercules, d'Artagnan, and Talleyrand, all at once.
But I'm not. Heggstad has been training me physically, but it would take years to
make me into the kind of muscle man he is. I've been practicing Durou and
Gozashtandou with some help from Sivird. But all I can say is a few simple
things like 'Pour me a drink' and "Where is the toilet?" It's one thing to say 'Two
fried eggs, please,' in a foreign language, but quite another to carry on an
intelligent conversation. I have just the merest smattering of all the things I'm
supposed to know, and no time to master any of them.

"I feel doomed; but we've taken these yucks' money, so its up to me to give them
their tour if it kills me."

Keshavachandra asked: "Are you familiar with the Bhagavad Gita, Mr. Reith?"

Reith looked puzzled. "No. That's some Hindu legend, isn't it?"

It's much more than that Let me explain. The Bhagavad Gita is a section of the
Mahdbhdrata, the old Indian epic, sometimes called the world's longest poem.
As a scientific materialist, I don't believe the legends; but like your Bible it has
some useful philosophy.

The Bhagavad Gita tells how Prince Arjuna is about to fight in a great battle
between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Arjuna's charioteer is Krishna, an
incarnation of God. Arjuna gets qualms about fighting against some of his own
kinsmen. But Krishna tells him that, since God has made him a warrior, his job
is to be the best warrior he can and not to worry about who gets killed.

"So, young man, let me be your Krishna. You find yourself in a fix for which
you are not prepared. Well, make yourself prepared. What you don't know, learn.

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