"China Mieville - Details" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mieville China)

I don't want to be a lawyer, I told her carefully. I spoke out of
loyalty to my mother, who periodically received crisp letters that

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made her cry or smoke fiercely, and swear at lawyers, bloody
smartarse lawyers.
Mrs. Miller was delighted.
"Good boy!" she snorted. "We know all about lawyers. Bastards,
right? With the small print! Never be tricked by the small print! It's
right there in front of you, right there in front of you, and you can't
even see it and then suddenly it makes you notice it! And I tell you,
once you've seen it it's got you!" She laughed excitedly. "Don't let
the small print get you. I'll tell you a secret." I waited quietly, and
my head slipped nearer the door.
"The devil's in the details!" She laughed again. "You ask your
mother if that's not true. The devil is in the details!"
I'd wait the twenty minutes or so until Mrs. Miller had finished
eating, and then we'd reverse our previous procedure and she'd
quickly hand me out an empty bowl. I would return home with the
empty container and tell my mother the various answers to her
various questions. Usually she would nod and make notes.
Occasionally she would cry.
After I told Mrs. Miller that I did not want to be a lawyer she started
asking me to read to her. She made me tell my mother, and told me
to bring a newspaper or one of a number of books. My mother
nodded at the message and packed me a sandwich the next
Wednesday, along with the Mirror. She told me to be polite and do
what Mrs. Miller asked, and that she'd see me in the afternoon.
I wasn't afraid. Mrs. Miller had never treated me badly from behind
her door. I was resigned and only a little bit nervous.

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Mrs. Miller made me read stories to her from specific pages that she
shouted out. She made me recite them again and again, very
carefully. Afterward she would talk to me. Usually she started with
a joke about lawyers, and about small print.
"There's three ways not to see what you don't want to," she told me.
"One is the coward's way and too damned painful. The other is to
close your eyes forever which is the same as the first, when it comes
to it. The third is the hardest and the best: You have to make sure
only the things you can afford to see come before you."
One morning when I arrived the stylish Asian woman was
whispering fiercely through the wood of the door, and I could hear
Mrs. Miller responding with shouts of amused disapproval.