"Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - Monday begins on Saturday" - читать интересную книгу автора (Strugatski Arkady)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION copyright ┬й 1977
by DAW Books, INC.
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Bob Pepper.

Originally published in Russian by the Young Guard
Publishing House, Moscow, 1966.
Translation by Leonid Renen.

FIRST PRINTING, NOVEMBER 1977 PRINTED IN U.S.A.
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"But what is the strangest, the most incomprehensible of all, is the
fact that authors can undertake such themes-- I confess this is altogether
beyond me, really... No, no, I don't understand it at all."

N.V. Gogol

* THE FIRST TALE. Run Around a Sofa *

Chapter 1

Teacher: Children, write down the proposition:
"The fish was sitting in a tree."
Pupil: But is it true that fish sit in trees?
Teacher: Well . . . it was a crazy fish.

School Joke

I was approaching my destination. All around, pressing up against the
very edge of the road, the green of the forest yielded now and then to a
meadow overgrown with yellow sedge. The sun had been setting for an hour and
still couldn't make it, hanging low on the horizon. The car rolled along,
crunching on a gravel surface. I steered around the bigger rocks, and each
maneuver caused the empty canisters to rattle and clang in the trunk.
A couple of men came out of the woods on the right and stopped on the
shoulder, looking in my direction. One of them raised his hand. I took my
foot off the gas, scrutinizing the pair. They seemed to be hunters, young,
and maybe a bit older than myself. Deciding I liked their looks, I stopped.
The one who had raised his hand stuck his swarthy, hawk-nosed face
through the window and asked, grinning, "Could you give us a lift to
Solovetz ?"
The second man, with a reddish beard and without a moustache, peering
over his shoulder, was also smiling. These were positively nice people.
"Sure thing. Get in," I said. "One in the front and one in the back,
тАШcause I have some junk on the rear seat."
"A true philanthropist," pronounced the hawk-nosed one joyfully as he
slid the gun off his shoulder and sat down next to me.
The bearded one was looking through the rear door in a quandary of
indecision and said, "Eh, could you maybe move it a little?"