"Mike Resnick - Beibermann's Soul" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

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BEIBERMANN'S SOUL by Mike Resnick

When Beibermann woke up on Wednesday morning, he discovered that his soul was
missing. "This can't be," he muttered to himself. "I know I had it with me
when I went to bed last night." He thoroughly searched his bedroom and his
closet and his office, and even checked the kitchen (just in case he had left
it there when he got up around midnight for a peanut butter sandwich), but it
was nowhere to be found. He questioned Mrs. Beibermann about it, but she was
certain it had come back from the cleaner's the previous day. "I'm sure it
will turn up, wherever it is," she said cheerfully. "But I need it _now_," he
protested. "I am a literary artist, and what good is an artist without a
soul?" "I've always thought that some of the most successful writers we know
had no souls," offered Mrs. Beibermann, thinking of a number of her husband's
colleagues. "Well, _I_ need it," he said adamantly. "I mean, it's all very
well to remove it when one is taking a shower or working in the garden, but I
absolutely must have it before I can sit down to work." So he continued
searching for it. He went up to the attic and looked for it amid a lifetime's
accumulation of memorabilia. He took his flashlight down to the basement and
hunted through a thicket of broken chairs and sofas which he planned someday
to give to the Salvation Army. Then, just to be on the safe side, he called
the restaurant where he and his agent had eaten the previous evening to see if
he had inadvertantly left it there. But by midday he was forced to admit that
it was indeed lost, or at least very thoroughly misplaced. "I can't wait any
longer," he told his wife. "It's not as if I am a best-selling author. I have
deadlines to meet and bills to pay. I must sit down to work." "Shall I place a
notice in the classified section of the paper?" she asked. "We could offer a
reward." "Yes," he said. "And report it to the police as well. They must
stumble across lost and mislaid souls all the time." He walked to his office
door, turned to his wife, and sighed dramatically. "In the meantime, I suppose
I'll have to try to make do without it." So he closed the office door, sat
down, and began to work. Ideas (though not entirely his own) flowed freely,
concepts (slightly tarnished but still workable) easily manifested themselves,
characters (neatly labeled and ready to perform) popped up as he needed them.
In fact, the ease with which he achieved his day's quota of neatly-typed pages
surprised him, although he had the distinct feeling that there was something
_missing_, some element that could only be supplied by his misplaced soul.
Still, he decided, staring at what he had thus far accomplished, a lifetime's
mastery of technique could hide a lot of faults. So he did a little of this,
and a little of that, made a correction here, inserted some literary
pyrotechnics there. He imbued it with a certain fashionable eroticism to
impress his audience and a certain trendy obtuseness to bedazzle the critics,
and finally he emerged and showed the finished product to his wife. "I don't
like it," said Mrs. Beibermann. "I thought it was rather good," said
Beibermann petulantly. "It _is_ rather good," she agreed. "But you never
settled for rather good before." Beibermann shrugged. "It's got a lot of style
to it," he said. "Maybe no one else will see what's missing." And indeed, no
one else _did_ see what was missing. His agent loved it, his public loved it,
and most of all, his editor loved it. He deposited an enormous check in his
bank account and went back to work. "But what about your soul?" asked his