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

"Madness", I said forthrightly.
"Such is the price of beauty," he explained. "You came
here as an ordinary tourist, and you are leaving a king of this
domain."
"An impersonator is what I am leaving as," I muttered,
extracting the money.
"No, no, not that bad!" he said confidentially. "Even I
don't know that for sure. And even you are not convinced of it
entirely.... Two more dollars, please. Thank you. Here is 50
pfennigs change. You don't mind pfennigs?"
I had nothing against pfennigs. I wanted to leave as fast
as possible.
I stood in the lobby for a while, becoming myself again,
and gazing at the metallic figure of Vladimir Sergeyevitch.
After all, all this is not new. After all, millions of people
are not what they pass themselves for. But the damnable barber
had made me over into an empiriocritic. Reality was masked with
gorgeous hieroglyphics. I no longer believed what I saw in this
city. The plaza covered with stereo-plastic was probably in
reality not beautiful at all. Under the elegant contours of the
autos lurked ominous and ugly shapes. And that beautiful
charming woman is no doubt in fact a repulsive malodorous
hyena, a promiscuous dull-witted sow. I closed my eyes and
shook my head. The old devil!
Two meticulously groomed oldsters stopped nearby and began
to debate heatedly the relative merits of baked pheasant
compared with pheasant broiled with feathers. They argued,
drooling saliva, smacking their lips and choking, snapping
their bony fingers under each other's noses. No Master could
help these two. They were Masters themselves and they made no
bones about it. At any rate, they restored my materialist
viewpoint. I went to a porter and inquired about a restaurant.
"Right in front of you," said he and smiled at the arguing
oldsters. "Any cuisine in the world."
I could have mistaken the entrance to the restaurant for
the gates to a botanical garden. I entered, parting the
branches of exotic trees, stepping alternately on soft grass
and coral flagstones. Unseen birds twittered in the luxuriant
greenery, and the discreet clatter of utensils was mixed with
the sound of conversation and laughter. A golden bird flew
right in front of my nose, barely able to carry the load of a
caviar tartine in its beak.
"I am at your service," said the deep velvety voice.
An imposing giant of a man with epaulettes stepped toward
me cut of a thicket.
"Dinner," I said curtly. I don't like maitres-d'hotel.
"Dinner," he said significantly. "In company? Separate
table?"'
"Separate table. On second thought..."
A notebook instantaneously appeared in his hand.