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

over the intersections, and sweaty police cleared constantly
threatening jams with roaring bull horns. The cars moved
slowly, and the drivers stuck heads out of windows to light up
from each other, to yell, to talk and joke while furiously
blowing their horns. There was a instant screech of clashing
bumpers. Everyone was happy, everyone was good-natured, and
everyone glowed with savage glee. It seemed as though a heavy
load had just fallen from the soul of the city, as though
everyone was seized with an enviable anticipation. Fingers were
pointed at me and the other pedestrians. Several times I was
prodded with bumpers while crossing - the girls doing it with
the utmost good nature. One of them drove alongside me for
quite a while, and we got acquainted. Then a line of
demonstrators with sober faces walked by on the median,
carrying signs. The signs appealed to people to join the
amateur club ensemble Songs of the Fatherland, to enter the
municipal Culinary Art groups, and to sign up for condensed
courses in motherhood and childhood. The people with signs were
nudged by bumpers with special enthusiasm. The drivers threw
cigarette butts, apple cores, and paper wads at them. They
yelled such things as "I'll subscribe at once, just wait till I
put my galoshes on," or "Me, I'm sterile," or "Say, buddy,
teach me motherhood." The sign carriers continued to march
slowly in between the two solid streams of cars, unperturbed
and sacrificial, looking straight ahead with the sad dignity of
camels.
Not far from my house, I was set upon by a flock of girls,
and when I finally struggled through to Second Waterway, I had
a white aster in my lapel and drying kisses on my cheeks, and
it seemed I had met half the girls in town. What a barber! What
a Master!
Vousi, in a flaming orange blouse, was sitting in the
chair in my study. Her long legs in pointy shoes rested on the
table, while her slender fingers held a long slim cigarette.
With her head thrown back, she was blowing thick streams of
smoke at the ceiling, through her nose.
"At long last!" she cried, seeing me. "Where have you been
all this time? As you can see, I've been waiting for you."
"I've been delayed," I said, trying to recollect if I had
indeed promised to meet her.
Wipe off the lipstick," she demanded. "You look silly!
What's this? Books? What do you need books for?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"You are really quite a problem! Comes back late, hangs
around with books. Or are those pornos?"
"It's Mintz," I said.
"Let me have them!" She jumped up and snatched the books
out of my grasp. "Good God! What nonsense - all three are
alike. What is it? History of Fascism... are you a
Fascist?"