"viktor_pelevin_-_sigmund_in_a_cafe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pelevin Viktor)

around. She thoroughly dusted his coat, took the lightbulb from his hand,
breathed on it and stroked it a few times with the palm of her hand. She
moved to the ladder, put her foot on the lower step, waited until the waiter
firmly held the ladder from aside, and started climbing up.
The burnt lightbulb was fitted inside a narrow glass lampshade which
hung on a long string, and she didn't have to climb too high. She went five
or six steps up, reached with her hand inside the lampshade and tried to
turn the bulb, but it was screwed in too tightly, and the lampshade started
turning with it. Then the hostess took the new bulb into her mouth,
cautiously holding it with her lips, lifted her other hand and held the
lampshade by its rim; this way it went much easier. She unscrewed the burnt
bulb, put it into a pocket in her apron, and started fitting in the new one.
The waiter's attention was riveted to the movements of her plump palms, as
he was holding the ladder in his strong hands and moistening his lips with
the tip of his tongue. Suddenly the light broke out of the matted lampshade,
the waiter shuddered, blinked and loosened his grip for a moment. The sides
of the folding ladder started to come apart; the hostess waved her hands and
almost fell on the floor, but the waiter managed to hold the ladder at the
last moment; with incredible speed the hostess, pale from fright, made it
over the three or four steps to the parquet floor and stood weak and
motionless in the calming embrace of her companion.
-- Aha! Aha! -- Sigmund said aloud and stared at the couple at the
table.
The lady with the chignon was already having dessert: in her hand was
an oblong tube with cream, and she nibbled at it from the wider side. When
Sigmund looked at her, she was just about to take a larger bite: she put the
tube in her mouth and pressed with her teeth, but the thick white cream
broke through the thin gilded box at its rear end. The whiskered gentleman
reacted instantly, and the ejected protuberance of cream fell into his hand
instead of slumping onto the table-cloth. The lady broke out laughing. The
gentleman brought his hand with a pile of cream to his mouth and licked it
off, which made his companion laugh even more, so that she even gave up her
cookie and dropped it on the plate with the remains of the fish. After
licking the cream, the gentleman caught the lady's hand and gave it a
heart-felt kiss, to which she took his glass of golden wine and took a few
small sips. Thereafter, the gentleman lighted another cigarette: he put it
into his conical red cigarette-holder, quickly inhaled a few times, and
started to blow smoke rings.
He was doubtlessly a master of that complicated art. At first he blew
out one large blue-grey ring with a wavy brim, then another, smaller ring,
which went through the first one without touching it. He waved his hand in
the air, destroyed the smoke construction and made two new rings, now of the
same size, which hung one above the other in an almost perfect figure-eight.
His companion looked at it with interest, perfunctorily picking at the fish
head with a thin wooden stick.
Having gotten a lungful of smoke once again, the gentleman blew out two
thin long spurts, one of which went through the upper ring and the other
through the lower, where they touched and converged into a muddy bluish
cloud. The lady applauded.
-- Aha! -- exclaimed Sigmund, and the gentleman turned and eyed him