"Fritz Leiber - The Hound" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

fingering dusty books in uneasy fascination, but what he had read
made them seem innocuous and without significanceтАФdead
superstitionsтАФin comparison with this thing that was part and
parcel of the great sprawling cities and chaotic peoples of the
twentieth century, so much a part that he, David Lashley, winced at
the endlessly varying howls and growls of traffic and industryтАФ
sounds at once animal and mechanical; shrank back with a start
from the sight of headlights at nightтАФthose dazzling, unwinking
eyes; trembled uncontrollably if he heard the scuffling of rats in an
alley or caught sight in the evenings of the shadowy forms of lean
mongrel dogs looking for food in vacant lots. "Sniffling and
snuffling," his mother had said. What better words would you want
to describe the inquisitive, persistent pryings of the beast that had
crouched outside the bedroom door all night in his dreams and then
finally pushed through to plant its dirty paws on his chest. For a
moment, he saw superimposed on the yellow ceiling and garish
advertising placards of the street car, its malformed muzzleтАж the
red eyes like thickly scummed molten metalтАж the jaws slavered
with thick black oilтАж
Wildly he looked around at his fellow-passengers, seeking to blot
out that vision, but it seemed to have slipped down into all of them,
infecting them, giving their features an ugly canine castтАФthe slack,
receding jaw of an otherwise pretty blond, the narrow head and
wide-set eyes of an unshaven mechanic returning from the night
shift. He sought refuge then in the open newspaper of the man
sitting beside him, studying it intently without regard for the
impression of rudeness he was creating. But there was a wolf in the


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The Hound


cartoon, and he quickly turned away to stare through the dusty pane
at the stores sliding by. Gradually the sense of oppressive menace
lifted a little. But the cartoon had established another contact in his
brainтАФthe memory of a cartoon from the First World War. What
the wolf or hound in that earlier cartoon had representedтАФwar,
famine, or the ruthlessness of the enemyтАФhe could not say, but it
had haunted his dreams for weeks, crouched in corners, and waited
for him at the head of the stairs. Later he had tried to explain to
friends the horrors that may lie in the concrete symbolisms and
personifications of a cartoon if interpreted naively by a child, but
had been unable to get his idea across.
The conductor growled out the name of a downtown street, and
once again he lost himself in the crowd, finding relief in the never-
ceasing movement, the brushing of shoulders against his own.
But as the time-clock emitted its delayed musical bong! and he
turned to stick his card in the rack, the girl at the desk looked up and
remarked, "Aren't you going to punch in for your dog, too?"