"Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - The Ugly Swans" - читать интересную книгу автора (Strugatski Arkady)

at home there is suffering ... no, not necessarily suffering,
they're just waiting for him to return, and he's also waiting for
the curtain to fall and the lights to go out... and he's not even
an actor, he's an outsider, playing an actor who's playing an-
other outsider, this time a real one. Can't she feel it? This is
false. He's a mannequin. There's no closeness between them,
not a drop of seduction, not a shadow of desire. They're saying
something to one another, it's impossible to figure out what.
Chitter-chatter. 'Aren't you hot?' 'Yes, I've read it, it's mar-
velous '"
Then he saw Diana pushing aside the guests and running toward him.
"Let's dance," she shouted when she was still far away.
Someone barred her path, someone else grabbed her hand, and she tore herself free, laughing, but Victor
kept on looking for her sallow-faced companion. He couldn't find him, and that disturbed him.
Diana finally reached him, hooked her fingers in his sleeves, and dragged him into the circle.
"Come on, come on! They're all oursтАФboozers, whoozers, losers. Show them how to do it! That fledgling
can't do a thing."
34 The Ugly Swans

She dragged him into the circle. Someone in the crowd shouted, "Hurrah for our writer Banev!" The
stereo, silent for a moment, once again groaned and clattered. Diana pressed against him and then moved
back; she smelled of perfume and wine, her body burned, and Victor was blind to everything but her face,
aroused and beautiful, and her streaming hair.
"Dance!" she shouted, and he started dancing. "I'm glad you came."
"Right."
"Why are you sober? You're always sober when you shouldn't be."
"I'll get drunk."
"Today I need you drunk."
"You'll have me."
"So I can do whatever I want to with you. Not you with me, but me with you."
"Right."
She laughed, satisfied, and they danced in silence, seeing nothing and not thinking about anything. As in a
dream. Or a battle. That's the way she was nowтАФlike a dream, like a battle. Diana in one of her moods.
Around them people were clapping and shouting, and somebody tried to cut in but Victor pushed him out of
the way, and Rosheper gave a drawn-out cry: "Oh, my poor drunken people!"
"He's impotent?"
"Completely. I give him his bath."
"Well?"
 "Nothing happens."
"Oh, my poor drunken city!" moaned Rosheper.
Victor took her by the hand and led her away. The boozers and whoozers made way for them, stinking
of liquor and garlic. At the door a thick-lipped punk with flushed cheeks said some-thing rude, itching for a
fight, but Victor told him, "Later, later," and the punk disappeared. Holding hands, they ran along the empty
corridor. Without letting go of her hand, Vic-
The Ugly Swans 35

tor opened the door, and, without letting go of her hand, locked it again from the inside. It was hot, it had
become unbearably hot and close. The room pulsated around them, and then it became narrow and
confining, and Victor got up and threw open the window. The damp black air poured onto his naked
shoulders and chest. He got back onto the bed, fumbled in the darkness for the bottle of gin, took a swig,