"Alexander Green - The Seeker Of Adventure" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Alexander)

particularly abstinent odour. Ammon noticed the absence of any old
people. An extraordinary silence, which was out of keeping with even the
concept of food, inspired the appetite of anyone coming in to be
prayerfully delicate and bodiless, like the very idea of herbivority. The
pious but ruddy faces of the health fanatics cast indifferent glances at
Ammon. He sat down. The dinner, served to him with a ceremonial and
somewhat accentuated solemnity, consisted of a repulsive gruel called
"Hercules", fried potatoes, cucumbers, and some insipid cabbage. Ammon
poked around with his fork in this gastronomical paltriness, ate a piece of
bread and a cucumber, and drank a glass of water; then he snapped open
his cigarette case, but he remembered that smoking was prohibited and
looked around gloomily. At the tables mouths were chewing sedately and
delicately in a death-like silence. Ammon was hungry and sensed
opposition welling up within him. He well knew that he could just as easily
have not stopped in here -- nobody had asked him to do so -- but' it was
hard for him to resist his chance whims. Staring at his plate, Ammon said
in a low voice, as though to himself, but clearly enough so that he could be
heard:
"What garbage. I'd love to have some meat now!" At the word "meat"
many people gave a start, and several dropped their forks; all pricked up
their ears and looked at the impudent visitor.
"I'd really like some meat!" Ammon repeated with a sigh.
Somebody coughed emphatically, and another person began to breathe
noisily in the corner.
 Ammon grew bored and went out into the foyer. A servant handed him
his coat.
"I'll send you a turkey," said Ammon, "eat to your heart's content."
"Oh, sir!" objected the emaciated old servant, sadly shaking his head. "If
only you were used to our regimen...."
Ammon went out without listening to him. "Now the day's been
spoiled," he thought, as he walked along the shady side of the street. "That
cucumber has stuck in my throat." He wanted to return home and did so.
Tonar was sitting in the living room at the open piano; he had finished
playing his favourite bravura pieces but was still under the spell of their
great liveliness. Tonar liked everything that was definite, absolute, and
clear: for example, milk and money.
"Admit that the article is stupid!" said Ammon as he entered. "I'd like
to give that minister of yours my boot in the ... but the police inspector is
an efficient fellow."
"We," retorted Tonar without turning around, "we businessmen look at
things differently. Loafers like you, corrupted by travels and a romantic
outlook, admire anyone who plays at being a Harun al-Rashid. To be sure,
instead of harassing the speculators who finagle us on the stock market, it
is much easier to don a false beard, hang around various dens, and booze
it up with petty thieves."
"But if somebody's an interesting person," said Ammon, "then I
appreciate him for that alone. You have to appreciate truly interesting
people. I've known a lot of them. One, a hermaphrodite, was wed to a man
and then, after getting divorced, married a woman. A second, who was
once a priest, invented a machine that sang bass; he grew rich, killed a