"Bruce Holland Rogers - A Common Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rogers Bruce Holland)

Darkness of Nightfall,

Beautiful, beautiful Dark!
 He realized, suddenly, that the branches were no longer urging him forward, though he'd kept on
walking.
Julian stopped.
"You might go a little further," said a voice.
"Contrariwise, you might stop where you are," said a voice much like the first. "It hardly matters to us.
You be the judge."
"He is the judge," said the first.
"I don't suppose," said Julian, "that you would have a light?"
"If you suppose we did, then we may not," said the first voice.
"Contrariwise," said the second, "if you supposed we didn't, we might yet. And if you didn't suppose
at all, we could still. That's logic."
Suddenly, the sun was blazing overhead, and Julian found that he was standing on the edge of a cloud.
If he only took a step to the left, he'd go plummeting toward the distant ground.
The speakers, not to Julian's surprise at all, turned out to be wearing identical outfits, and stood, each
with an arm around the other's neck, a little higher up on the cloud. Julian could see "DUM" embroidered
on one of the collars, and "DEE" on the other. Of course, round the back of each collar would be
"TWEEDLE."
What did surprise Julian was that Tweedledum and Tweedledee were not fat. In fact, they were
almost skeletal.
"Bring on the Ace!" said Tweedledum, and four playing cards entered through a door in the cloud.
Two of the cards walked on either side of the Ace of Spades, who was struggling heroically against
them.
The fourth card, walking behind, carried a large axe on his shoulder.
"I won't! I won't!" said the struggling Ace. "I positively refuse! Never! Never!"
"What's this about?" said Julian.
"It's about over," said Tweedledee.
The soldier cards dragged the struggling Ace behind a screen that was just short enough to show the
axe rise a moment before it fell with a great CHOP!
Three cards emerged from behind the screen and exited.
"What do you think?" said Tweedledum.
"Ghastly!" Julian said.
"Quite," said Tweedledee.
"Contrariwise," said Tweedledum, "it was heroic. But is it the best?"
"The best?"
"That's right," said Tweedledee. "He's only seen one."
"The Deuce! The Deuce!" cried Tweedledum.
Four cards emerged from the door in the cloud. This time, the prisoner was the Deuce of Spades.
"He's not struggling," observed Julian.
"Why should I?" said the Deuce. "The thing to do is accept what's coming. There's nothing to be done,
anyway."
The cards went behind the screen. The axe rose and fell with a CHOP!
As the surviving cards left, Tweedledum said, "Well?"
"Horrid!" Julian said.
"I was thinking philosophical," said Tweedledee.
"Better than the first?" asked his brother of Julian.
"You're asking me to compare them?"
"He's right," said Tweedledee. "He has to see them all before he can decide."