"C M Kornbluth - The Education Of Tigress Mccardle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

taking care of a two-room city apartment kept her occupied ... so she thoughtfully said, "George?" and
they moved to the suburbs. *

George happened to be a rising young editor in the Civil War Book-of-the-Week Club. He won his
spurs when he gotmightier than thesword:Astudy of pens and pencils in the army of the potomac,
1863-1865 whipped into shape for the printer. They then assigned him to the infinitely more difficult and
dSfcate job of handling writers. A temperamental troll named Blount was his special trial. Blount was
writing a novelized account of Corporal Piggott's Raid, a deservedly obscure episode which got
Corporal Piggott of the 104th New York (Provisional) Heavy Artillery Regiment deservedly court-
martialledin the summer of '63. It was George's responsibility to see that Blount novelized the verdict of
guilty into a triumphant acquittal followed by an award of the Medal of Honor, and Blount was being
unreasonable about it.

It was after a hard day of screaming at Blount, and being screamed back at, that George dragged his
carcass off the Long Island Rail Road and into the family car. "Hi, dear," he said to Mrs.McCardle ,
erstwhile tigress-Diana, and off they drove, and so far it seemed like the waning of another ordinary day.
But in the car Mrs.McCardle said thoughtfully: "George . . ."

She told him what was on her mind, and he refrained from striking her in the face because theywe?e in
rather tricky traffic and she was driving.

She wanted a child.

It was necessary to have a child, she said. Inexorable logic dictated it. For one thing, it was absurd for
just the two of them to live in a great barn of a six-room house.

For another thing, she needed a child to fulfill her womanhood. For a third, the brains and beauty of the
Moone-McCardle strain should not die out; it was their duty to posterity.

(The students in Columbia's Chronoscope History Seminar 201 retched as one man at the words.)

For a fourth, everybody was having children.

George thought he had her there, but no. The statement was perfectly correct if for "everybody" you
substituted "Mrs. Jacques Truro," their next-door neighbor.

By the time they reached their great six-room barn of a place she was consolidating her victory with a
rapid drumfire of simple declarative sentences which ended with "Don't you?" and "Won't we?" and "Isn't
it?" to which George, hanging onto the ropes, groggily replied: "We'll see . . . we'll see . . . we'll see ..."

A wounded thing*uisidehim was soundlessly screaming:youth!joy !freedom !gone beyond recall, slain by
wedlock, coffined by a mortgage, now to be entombed beneath a reeking Everest of diapers!

"I believe I'd like a drink before dinner," he said. "Had quite a time with Blount today," he said as the
Martini curled quietly in his stomach. He was pretending nothing very bad had happened."Kept talking
about his integrity. Writers! They'll never learn. . . .Tigress? Are you with me?"

His wife noticed a slight complaining note in his voice, so she threw herself on the floor, began to kick
and scream, went on to hold her breath until her face turned blue, and finished by letting George know
that she had abandoned her Career to assuage his bachelor misery, moved out to this dreary wasteland