"Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. The Final Circle of Paradise (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

that moment when the Japanese noblewoman comes out of prison.
Her hair, in a high roller of blond hair, is ornamented with
precious combs..."
"Aah," I guessed. "It's a coiffure."
"Yes, it even became fashionable for a time last year.
Although a true bunkin could be made by a very few... even as a
real chignon, by the way. And, of course, no one could believe
that Dan, with his burned hands and half-blind .. Do you
remember how he was blinded?"
"It was overpowering," I said.
"Oh yes, Dan was a true Master. To make a bunkin without
electro-preparation, without biodevelopment... You know, I just
had a thought," he continued, and there was a note of
excitement in his voice. "It just struck me that Mirosa, after
she parts with that literary guy, should marry Dan and not
Levant. She will be wheeling him out on the veranda in his
chair, and they will be listening to the singing nightingales
in the moonlight - the two of them together."
"And crying quietly out of sheer happiness," I said.
"Yes," the voice of the Master broke, "that would be only
right. Otherwise I just don't know, I just don't understand,
what all our struggles are for. No... we must insist. I'll go
to the union this very day...."
I kept quiet, again. The Master was breathing uneasily by
my ear.
"Let them go and shave at the automates," he said suddenly
in a vengeful tone, "let them look like plucked geese. We let
them have a taste once before of what it's like; now we'll see
how they appreciate it."
"I am afraid it won't be simple," I said cautiously, not
- having the vaguest idea of what this was about.
"We Masters are used to the complicated. It's not all that
simple - when a fat and sweaty stuffed shirt comes to you, and
you have to make a human being out of him, or at the very best,
something which under normal circumstances does not differ too
much from a human being... is that simple? Remember what Dan
said: 'Woman gives birth to a human being once in nine months,
but we Masters have to do it every day.' Aren't those
magnificent words?"
"Dan was talking about barbers?" I said, just in case.
"Dan was talking about Masters. 'The beauty of the world
rests on our shoulders,' he would say. And again, do you
remember: 'In order to make a man out of an ape, Darwin had to
be an excellent Master.'"
I decided to capitulate and confess.
"This I don't remember."
"How long have you been watching 'Rose of the Salon'?"
"Well, I have arrived just recently."
"Aah, then you have missed a lot. My wife and I have been
watching the program for seven years, every Tuesday. We missed