"Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. The snail on the slope" - читать интересную книгу автора

longer significant and now, at last, everyone would be required to
contribute all he was capable of.
"And whose might these shoes be?" said he, glancing about him.
"They're not shoes, they're sandals," said Pepper. "Indeed?"
Hausbotcher sneered and withdrew a large notepad from his pocket. "Sandals?
Ver-ry good. But whose sandals are they?"
He edged toward the brink, peeped cautiously down and stepped back
smartly.
"Man sits by the precipice," he said, "next to him, sandals. The
question inevitably raises itself: whose sandals are they and where is their
owner?" "They're my sandals," said Pepper. "Yours?" Hausbotcher looked
doubtfully at the large notepad. "You're sitting barefooted, then? Why?"
"Barefoot because I've no choice," explained Pepper. "Yesterday I
dropped my right shoe and decided from now on, I'll always sit barefoot." He
bent down and looked between his splayed knees. "There she lies. I can just
drop this pebble in. . "
Hausbotcher adroitly seized him by the arm and appropriated the pebble.
"It is indeed just a pebble," he said. "That, however, makes no
difference as yet. Pepper, it's incomprehensible why you're lying to me. You
can't possibly see the shoe from here--even if it's there, and whether it is
or not is another question, which will be gone into later--and if you can't
see the shoe, ergo you can't hit it with a stone, even if you possessed the
necessary accuracy and actually did wish to do that and only that. I mean
hitting. . . . But we'll sort all that out presently." He hitched up his
trousers and squatted down on his haunches.
"So you were here yesterday as well," he said. "Why? For what reason
have you come a second time to the precipice, where the other Directorate
personnel, not to mention temporary staff, only come to obey the call of
nature?"
Pepper slumped. This is just plain ignorance, he thought. No, no, it's
not a challenge, nor is it spite, no need to take it seriously. It's just
ignorance. No need to take ignorance seriously. Ignorance excretes itself on
the forest. Ignorance always excretes itself over something.
"You like sitting here, seemingly," Hausbotcher went on insinuatingly.
"You like the forest a lot, seemingly. You love it, don't you? Answer me!"
"Don't you?" asked Pepper.
"Don't you forget yourself," he said aggrieved and nipped open his
notepad. "As you very well know, I belong to the Eradication Group and
therefore your question, or rather your counterquestion is entirely devoid
of meaning. You understand perfectly well that my attitude to the forest is
defined by my professional duty; what defines your attitude to it is not
clear to me. That's bad, Pepper, you need to think about that. I'm advising
you for your own good, not for mine. You mustn't be so unintelligible. Sits
on the edge of the cliff in bare feet, throwing pebbles. . . . Why, one
asks? In your place I'd tell me everything straight out. Get everything
sorted out. Who knows, there could be extenuating circumstances. Nothing's
threatening you anyway. Is it, Pepper?"
"No," said Pepper, "that is, of course, yes." "There you are.
Simplicity disappears at once and never comes back. Whose hand? we ask.
Whither the cast? Or, perhaps, to whom? Or, as it may be, at whom? And why?