"Robert Anton Wilson - Masks of the Illuminati" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Robert Anton)

Engine whistle shrieks.
 Full orchestra: the Merry Widow Waltz.




When the Z├╝rich express left Basel on the night of June 26, 1914, a distinctly odd
trio found themselves sharing compartment 23, and two of them very soon found
themselves suspecting the third of being deranged.
"The rain is stopping," the Swiss doctor had ventured as soon as the train began
moving. It was an announcement of the obvious, but the intent was clearly to open a
friendly conversation.
"Ja," the Russian said in a cold curt tone, clearly uninterested in idle chatter.
"No more rain," the Englishman agreed amiably, but his polite smile went no
farther than his mouth. His eyes were as remote from humanity as a mummy's.
The doctor looked at that empty smile for a moment and then tried another
direction. "The Archduke Ferdinand seems to be enjoying a cordial reception on his
tour," he said. "Perhaps the Balkan situation will cool down now."
The Russian made a skeptical noise, not even offering a word this time.
"Politics is all a masquerade," the Englishman said with the same polite smile not
reaching his vacant, evasive eyes.
The Russian ventured a whole sentence. "There is one key to every masquerade,"
he pronounced with the ghoulish cheerfulness of those who plot apocalypse in a garret,
"and the old Romans knew it: Cui bono?"
" 'Who profits?' " The Englishman translated the Latin into the German all three
were speaking. "Who else but the Devil?" he answered rhetorically, giving vent to the
kind of unwholesome laugh that makes people move away uncomfortably.
The Russian stared at the Englishman for a moment, registering the nervous
symptoms the doctor had already noted. "The Devil," he pronounced firmly, "is a
convenient myth invented by the real malefactors of the world." And with that he opened
a newspaper and retreated behind it, clearly indicating that any further conversation
directed at him would be an invasion of his privacy.
The doctor remained cordial. "Few people these days believe in the Devil," he
said, thinking privately: Nine out of ten schizophrenics have a Devil obsession, and eight
out of ten will produce some variation on that masquerade metaphor.
"Few people these days," the Englishman responded with a grin that had grown
mechanical and ghastly, "can see beyond the end of their own nose."
"You have reason to know better, eh?" prodded the doctor.
"Are you an alienist?" the Englishman asked abruptly.
There it is again, the doctor thought: the astonishing intuition, or extrasensory
perception, these types so often exhibit. "I am a physician," he said carefully, "and I do
treat mental and nervous disorders -- but not from the position of the traditional alienist."
"I do not need an alienist," the Englishman said bitterly, ignoring the doctor's
refusal to accept that label.
"Who said that you did?" asked the doctor. "My father was a minister of the
gospel. In fact, I am interested merely in why you are so vehemently convinced of the
existence of the Devil, in an age when most educated men would agree with the opinion
of our cynical companion behind the newspaper there."
 A skeptical sound came from behind the newspaper.
"Have you ever seen a man vanish into thin air, right in front of your eyes?" the