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

stand in line and take one of the parachutes which the crew hands out to you.
There is one problem. The people ahead of you on the line are already jumping
out. But you have a four-month-old baby with you and it is too large to button
into your clothing. Yet you must have both hands free in order to (a) pull the
emergency ripcord in the event of the parachute failing to open, (b) guide the
chute to safety if you see danger below. The baby is crying. The people behind
you are pressing forward. Someone helps you struggle into the harness and hands
you back your baby. Even if you did hold the baby in both hands and pray that
you had an easy descent, there is every possibility he could be yanked from your
grip as you jumped.

There are a few more seconds to go before you miss your chance to get out of the
plane.

2
In The Commune: 1871:A Smile Not only France, but the whole civilized world, was
startled and dismayed by the sudden success of the Red Republicans of Paris.
The most extraordinary, and perhaps the most alarming, feature of the movement,
was the fact that it had been brought about by men nearly all of whom were
totally unknown to society at large. It was not, therefore, the influence,
whether for good or evil, of a few great names which might be supposed to
exercise a species of enchantment on the uneducated classes, and to be capable
of moving them, almost without thought, towards the execution of any design
which the master-minds might have determined on - it was not this which had
caused the convulsion. The outbreak was clearly due less to individual
persuasion, which in the nature of things is evanescent, than to the operation
of deep-rooted principles such as survive when men depart. The ideas which gave
rise to the Commune were within the cognizance of the middle and upper classes
of society; but it was not supposed that they had attained such power, or were
capable of such organized action. A frightful apparition of the Red Republic
had been momentarily visible in June, 1848; but it was at once exercised by the
cannon and bayonets of Cavaignac. It was again apprehended towards the close of
1851, and would probably have made itself once more manifest, had not the coup
d'etat of Louis Napoleon prevented any such movement, not only at that time, but
for several years to come. Every now and then during the period of the Second
Empire, threatenings of this vague yet appalling danger came and went, but the
admirable organization of the Imperial Government kept the enemies of social
order in subjection, though only by a resort to means regrettable in themselves,
against which the Moderate Republicans were perpetually directing their most
bitter attacks, little thinking that they would soon be obliged to use the same
weapons with still greater severity. Nevertheless, although the Emperor
Napoleon held the Red Republic firmly down throughout his term of power, the
principles of the extreme faction were working beneath the surface; and they
only awaited the advent of a weaker Government, and of a period of social
disruption, to glare upon the world with stormy menace.

HISTORY OF THE WAR BETWEEN FRANCE AND GERMANY
Anonymous. Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1872.

- There you are, Karl. The black man strokes his head.