"Karl Glogaver - 02 - Breakfast In The Ruins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

They dashed down the next side street and had to wade through piles of garbage
to enter a ruined building, an earlier victim of the first Siege. His mother
hid behind a quaking wall as the soldiers ran past. When they had gone she sat
down on a slab of broken stone and began to cry. Karl stroked her hair, wishing
that he could share her grief.

"Your father should not have deserted us," she said.

"He had to fight, mother," said Karl. It was what she had said to him when his
father joined the Guard. "For France."
"For the Reds. For the fools who brought all this upon us!"
Karl did not understand.

Soon his mother was sleeping in the ruins. He curled up beside her and slept,
too.

When they awakened that afternoon there was much more smoke. It drifted
everywhere. On all sides buildings burned. Karl's mother staggered up.
Without looking at him or speaking to him, she seized his hand in a grip which
made him wince. Her boots slipping on the stones, her skirts all filthy and
ragged at the hem, she dragged him with her to the street. A young girl stood
there, her face grave. "Good day," she said.

"Are they still fighting?"
The girl could hardly understand his mother's accent, it had become so thick.
The girl frowned.

"Are they still fighting?" his mother asked again, speaking in a peculiar, slow
voice.

"Yes." The girl shrugged. "They are killing everyone. Anyone."
"That way?" Karl's mother pointed towards the Seine. "That way?"
"Yes. Everywhere. But more that way." She pointed in the general direction of
the Boulevard du Montparnasse. "Are you a petrol-woman?"
"Certainly not!" Madame Glogauer glared at the girl. "Are you?"
"I wasn't allowed," said the girl regretfully. "There isn't much petrol left."
Karl's mother took him back the way they had come. The fires which had been
started earlier were now out. It appeared that they had done little damage.
Not enough petrol, thought Karl.

With her sleeve over her mouth, his mother picked her way through the corpses
and crossed the ruins of the barricade. The other men and women who were
searching for dead friends or relatives ignored them as they went by.

Karl thought there were more dead people than living people in the world now.

They reached the Boulevard St.-Germaine, hurrying towards the Quai d'Orsay. On
the far side of the river monstrous sheets of flame sprang from a dozen
buildings and smoke boiled into the clear May sky.