"Jack Vance - Assault on a City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

incongruous elements: Cloudhaven, the Old City, the working-class slums .
. ."
"Not to mention Jillyville, which is just below us," said Jade, "and
College Station, and the Alien Quarter."
"And Dipshaw Heights, and Goshen, and River Meadow, and Elmhurst,
and Juba Valley."
"Exactly," said Alice. "I wouldn't even try to generalize."
"Wise girl!" said Merwyn Tynnott. "In any event, generalization is a job
for the subconscious, which has a very capable integrating apparatus."
Alice found the idea interesting. "How do you distinguish between
generalization and emotion?"
"I never bother."
Alice laughed at her father's whimsy. "I use my subconscious whenever I
can, but I don't trust it. For instance, my subconscious insists that a
workman carefully dropped his wrench on my foot. My common sense
doesn't believe it."
"Your common sense isn't common enough," said Merwyn Tynnott. "It's
perfectly simple. He fell in love and wanted to let you know."
Alice, half amused, half embarrassed, shook her head. "Ridiculous! I'd
only just jumped aboard the boat!"
"Some people make up their minds in a hurry. As a matter of fact, you
were unusually cordial with Waldo Walberg last night."
"Not really," said Alice airily. "Waldo of course is a pleasant person, but
certainly neither of us has the slightest romantic inclination. In the first
place, I couldn't spare the time, and secondly, I doubt if we have anything
in common."
"You're right, of course," said Jade. "We're only teasing you because
you're so pretty and turn so many heads and then pretend not to notice."
"I suppose I could make myself horrid," mused Alice. "There's always
the trick Shikabay taught me."
"Which trick? He's taught you so many."
"His new trick is rather disgusting, but he insists that it works every
time."
"I wonder how he knows," said Jade with a sniff. "Wretched old
charlatan! And lewd to boot."
"In this connection," said Merwyn Tynnott, "I want to warn you: be
careful around this old city. The people here are urbanites. The city festers
with subjectivity."
 "I'll be careful, although I'm sure I can take care of myself. If I couldn't,
Shikabay would feel very humiliated ... I'll get it." She went in to answer
the telephone. Waldo's face looked forth from the screen: a handsome face,
the eyes stern, the nose straight, the droop of the mouth indicating
sensitivity, or charm, or self-indulgence, or impatience, or all, or none,
depending upon who made the appraisal and under what circumstances.
In accordance with the current mode, Waldo's hair had been shorn to a
stubble, then enameled glossy black, and carefully carved into a set of
rakish curves, cusps and angles. His teeth were enameled black; he wore
silver lip-enamel and his ears were small flat tabs, with a golden bauble
dangling from his right ear. To a person schooled in urban subtleties,
Waldo's costume indicated upper-class lineage and his mannerisms were