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

4 The Ugly Swans

"A boarding school," said Victor. "Yes, of course. An orphan-
age _ No, I'm not serious. It's worth thinking about."
"What's there to think about? Most people would be glad to put their children in a good boarding school
or special insti-tute. Our boss's wifeтАФ"
"Listen, Lola," said Victor. "It's a good idea, I'll try and do something. But it's not that simple, it takes
time. Of course I'll writeтАФ"
 "You'll write! That's just like you. It's not writing you have to do, you have to go there, ask in person,
beat down doors. You're not doing anything anyway! All you do is drink and hang out with sluts. Is it really
that difficult, for the sake of your own daughter?"
"Oh, damn," thought Victor, "try and explain things to her." He lit another cigarette, stood, and walked
around the room. Outside it was getting dark. As before, the rain was coming down in large drops, heavy
and patient. There was a lot of it and it clearly wasn't hurrying anywhere.
"God, am I sick of you," said Lola with unexpected spite. "If only you knew how sick I am of you."
"Time to go," thought Victor. "It's starting inтАФsacred ma-ternal wrath, the fury of the abandoned, and so
forth. At any rate, I can't give her an answer today. And I'm not making any promises."
"I can't count on you for anything," she was saying. "A worthless husband, a talentless fatherтАФone of
your popular writers. Couldn't bring up his own daughter. Any peasant un-derstands people better than you
do. Just what am I supposed to do now? You're no help. I'm knocking myself out all alone, and I can't get
anywhere. To her I'm a nothing, a zero; any slimy is a hundred times more important to her than I am.
Never mind, you'll find out. And if you don't teach her, then they will. Pretty soon, she'll be spitting in your
face the way she does with me."
"Drop it, Lola," said Victor, wincing. "Somehow, you know,
The Ugly Swans 5

you're _ I'm her father, true, but, after all, you're her mother.
You're throwing the blame on everybody else."
"Get out," she said.
"Look," said Victor. "I have no intention of quarreling with you. But I also have no intention of making
rash decisions. I'll think it over. And youтАФ"
She was standing stiffly erect, all but trembling, savoring the intended rebuke and anticipating her
entrance into the fray.
"And you," he said quietly, "try not to worry. We'll think up something. I'll call you."
He walked out into the foyer and put on his raincoat. The raincoat was still wet. Victor went into Irma's
room to say good-bye, but she wasn't there. The window was wide open, and rain beat down on the
windowsill. A sign in big red letters was hanging on the wall: "Please don't ever close the win-dow." The
sign was wrinkled, with dark stains on it and frayed edges, as if it had been torn down more than once and
trampled underfoot. Victor closed the door softly.
"Good-bye, Lola," he said. Lola didn't answer.
Outside it was already dark. Rain drummed on his shoulders and the hood of his raincoat. Victor bent
over and dug his hands deeper into his pockets. "This is the park where we kissed for the first time," he
thought. "This house wasn't built yet, there was just an empty lot, and behind the lot was a gar-bage
dumpтАФwe used to go after cats there with slingshots. There used to be a hell of a lot of cats in this town
and now for some reason I never see any at all. In those days we never opened a goddamned book, and
now Irma has a roomful of them. What was a twelve-year-old girl in my time? A freckled giggler. Snow
White, ribbons and dolls, pictures of bunnies, whispering in twos and threes, paper cones full of candy, bad
teeth. Goody-goodies and tattletales, but the best of them were like us: scraped knees, wild bobcat eyes,
masters of kicks in the shin.
"So the times have finally changed, have they? No," he