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

George had lost ten pounds because he couldn't digest anything, not even if he seasoned his food with
powderedEquanil instead of salt. Mrs.McCardle had gained fifteen pounds by nervous gobbling during
the moments when the Toddler left her unoccupied. The picture window was boarded up. On George's
salary, and with glaziers' wages what they were, he couldn't have it replaced twice a day.

Not unnaturally, he met his next-door neighbor, Jacques Truro, in a bar.

Truro was rye and soda, he was dry martini; otherwise they were identical.

"It's the little whimper first that gets me, when you know the bigscreaming's going to come next. I could
jump out of my skin when I hear that whimper."

"Yeah.The waiting.Sometimes one second, sometimes five. I count."

"I forced myself to stop. I was throwing up."

"Yeah.Me too.And nervous diarrhea?"N тАв

"All the time.Between me and thatgoddam thing the house is awash. Cheers." They drank and shared
hollow laughter.

"My stamp collection.Down the toilet."

"My fishing pole.Three clean breaks and peanut butter in the reel."

"One thing I'll never understand, Truro.Whatdecided you two to have a baby?"

"Wait a minute,McCardle ," Truro said. "Marguerite told me thatyouwere going to have one, soshehad
to have oneтАФ"

They looked at each other in shared horror.

"Suckered," saidMcCardle in an awed voice.

"Women," breathed Truro.

They drank a grim toast and went home.

"It's beginning to talk," Mrs.McCardle said listlessly, sprawled in a chair, her hand in a box of
chocolates."Called me 'old pig-face' this afternoon." She did look somewhat piggish with fifteen
superfluous pounds.

George put down his briefcase. It was loaded with work from the office which these days he was unable
to get through in time. He had finally got the revised court-martial scene from Blount, and would now
have to transmute it into readable prose, emending the author's stupid lapses of logic, illiterate blunders of
language andraspingly ugly style.

"I'll wash up," he said,

"Don't use the toilet.Stopped up again."