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

- I was remembering the time I found the air-raid warden in bed with my mother.
I remember her explaining it to my father. My father was a patient man.

- Is your father still alive?
- I don't know.

- You have a great deal to learn, yet.

What Would You Do? (3)
You are returning from the theatre after a pleasant evening with your
sweetheart. You are in the centre of the city and you want a taxi. You decide
to go to the main railway station and find a taxi there. As you come into a
side-entrance and approach a flight of steps you see an old man trying to
ascend. He is evidently incapably drunk. Normally you would help him up the
steps, but in this case there is a problem. His trousers have fallen down to
his ankles, revealing his filthy legs. From his bottom protrude several pieces
of newspaper covered in excrement. To help him would be a messy task, to say
the least, and you are reluctant to spoil the previously pleasant mood of the
evening. There is a second or two before you pass him and continue on your
journey.

4
Capetown Party: 1892: Butterflies In the meantime let us not forget that if
errors of judgment have been committed, they have been committed by men whose
zeal and patriotism has never been doubted. We cannot refrain, however, from
alluding here to the greatest of all lessons which this war has taught, not us
alone, but all the world - the solidarity of the Empire. And for that great
demonstration what sacrifice was not worth making.

WITH THE FLAG TO PRETORIA.

H. W. Wilson, Harmsworth Brothers 1900.

Karl emerges from the deep bath. Liquid drips from him. He stares in
bewilderment at himself in the wall mirror opposite.

- Why did you make me do that?
-I thought you'd like it. You said how much you admired my body.

-I meant your physique.

-Oh, I see.

- I look like something out of a minstrel show. Al Jolson...

- Yes, you do rather. But you could pass for what? An Eurasian? The black man
begins to laugh. Karl laughs, too. They fall into each other's arms.

- It shouldn't take long to dry, says the black man. Karl is nine. Is 1892.
He is at work now.