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

8 The Ugly Swans

"I think I'd better call someone," said Bol-Kunats.
"Why should you?"
"The truth is, Mr. Banev, I don't like the way your face is twitching."
"Really?" Victor felt his face. It wasn't twitching. "It just seems that way to you. So. Now we're going to
get up. What is essential in order to get up? In order to get up, it is essential to pull your feet in under you."
He pulled in his feet, which did not quite seem to belong to him. "Next, moving slightly away from the wall,
shift the center of gravity in the following manner." He couldn't manage to shift his center of gravity;
something was holding him back. "How did they do it?" he thought. "A good job, really."
"You're stepping on your raincoat," the boy offered, but Victor had already unraveled the mysteries of his
arms, his legs, his raincoat, and the orchestra under his skull. He stood up. At first he had to support himself
against the wall, but then it got better.
"Aha," he said. "So you pulled me over here, up to the pipe. Thanks."
The streetlight was still there, but the car and the four-eyes were gone. Everybody was gone. Only little
Bol-Kunats was carefully stroking his cut with a wet hand.
"Where could they have gone?" asked Victor.
The boy didn't answer.
"Was I here by myself?" asked Victor. "Nobody else was around?"
"Let me accompany you," said Bol-Kunats. "Where would you prefer to go? Home?"
"Wait," said Victor. "Did you see how they wanted to make off with that four-eyes?"
"I saw someone hit you."
 "Who did it?"
"I couldn't tell. His back was to me."
"And where were you?"
"The truth is, I was lying there around the corner."
The Ugly Swam 9

"I don't get it," said Victor. "Or maybe it's my head. What were you doing lying around the corner? You
live there?"
"The truth is, I was lying there because they got me even before they got you. Not the same one that got
you; another one."
"The four-eyes?"
They were walking slowly, trying to keep to the roadway and avoid the runoff from the roofs.
"N-no," said Bol-Kunats, thinking. "I don't think any of them were wearing glasses."
"Oh, God," said Victor. He put his hand under his hood and felt his lump. "I'm talking about the lepers,
people call them four-eyes. You know, from the leprosarium? SlimiesтАФ"
"I don't know," said Bol-Kunats shortly. "In my opinion they were all perfectly healthy."
"Come on," said Victor. He felt a little uneasy and even stopped. "Are you trying to convince me that
there wasn't a leper there? Wearing a black bandage, dressed all in black?"
"That's no leper!" said Bol-Kunats with unexpected vehe-mence. "He's healthier than you are."
For the first time, something boyish had appeared in him. It disappeared immediately.
"I don't quite understand where we're going," he said after a short silence, in his former serious, almost
impassive tone. "At first it seemed as though you were going home, but now I see that we're walking in the
opposite direction."
Victor was still standing in place, looking down at him. "Two peas in a pod," he thought. "He made his
calculations, completed his analysis, but decided not to communicate the results. So he's not going to tell me
what happened. I wonder why not. Was it a crime? No, not likely. But maybe it was? Times have changed,
you know. Nonsense, I know what crim-inals are like nowadays."
"Everything is under control," he said and started walking. "We're going to the hotel, I live there."