-I? — Mr. cloak and hat, and took it, holding it behind his back, along the deserted street. — I was a sorcerer, a young man, a magician, if you want. And this is my craft to know everything about everyone.
-Why then am I to you?
-I want to make you happy!
-Happy? surprised Gladyshev. — But how?
"I will help you.
-Help? But how?
-You want to become famous? Thou shalt them with my help.
My most treasured dream — confessed suddenly Gladyshev, разоткровенничавшись with the magician, — become the most prominent writer of the century.
-Well, I know about it and help you. You'll be the most famous writer not only of the century and Millennium. No, the two millennia! I'll do it! Only one condition: you will need so that you're completely surrendered to me, obey my will.
-But...
Gladyshev wanted to protest, a little taken aback from the last words, but he stopped his hard gesture that is not subject to objection. Lips of a magician stood in the pink line.
-No "but". No "but". I will behold thy way to glory. Only my will. You must suppress all their motives. They will disturb you. Only I will bring you where you never go without me.
Gladyshev listened, fascinated, not more daring to say a word.
-Was such Gogol — lips of a magician came into motion, twitched and started злорадной, a cruel smile. "You've heard about it. He thought it was possible to achieve something in his miserable жизненке without the participation of the higher forces. Naive smerd! Haha, how many manuscripts he had to burn, when he saw that no one reads that his feeble-minded поэмишки and рассказишки no need. I spotted it at the beginning, before all his torments, were on the way to St. Petersburg, where he drove inspired empty hope not only print as well, but the fame almost instantly. I had to offer him like this to make him famous, but he горделивец, rejected me as a beggar старикашку that came to him to ask for mercy. He thought that the talent is already all. And I made him brutally then pay for his arrogance. Having lost almost all, after testing needs and oblivion, after the disappointment in his abilities and thousands of sheets of manuscripts turned into ashes, he called me. He wrung his hands, dark nights, was riding in a frenzy on the floor and did things even more shameful, which to say something unpleasant, and I, invisibly present, waited until the bowl of his madness and despair filled to the brim. And then appeared to him one night. He hasn't left me. How could he pass by me, if you wanted fame, if hungry wealth, wanted to sell talent, if the spirit is translated in the flesh. He betrayed whom betray all from the times of Judas Iscariot, enticed metal. He still did not have a road differently than me. But, rejecting me for the first time, he drank the Cup of Woe to the brim. I handed him the Cup, I put it in his Rui, ready to take everything that comes up, I made him drink it.
Gladysheva exactly cold water poured.
-How? You and then lived? — could finally say.
Рыжеусый magician, apparently, he thought better of it:
-No, of course not, not I. This was my ancestor. The thing is, what I say is from his face as though he himself was there, because everything that happened with him and with thousands before lived my family, invested in my head as if I lived a thousand years.
Гладышеву wanted to much to ask this strange face pale and red moustaches, but suddenly he was very afraid of obscure words, failing to get through to his затуманенному consciousness, however, sowed in the soul of anxiety.
-You are not a magician — backed back, removing the cold hand, Gladyshev. — You are not a magician! I'm afraid of you!
He was about to turn around and take flight, but in этусамую second, thunderous voice stopped him just nailed in place:
-Stand by, boy!!! I'm not a magician! I'm not really a magician! I'm more of a magician! I'm a master of white and black magic. But mostly black!
Рыжеусый approached him, and Гладышеву seemed that he growls wild and bloodthirsty beast:
-How do you want?!! How would you want?!! Nothing is given for so, especially in this life! Here to pay, pay me!!! I am the master of the world!!! My power is in it's unlimited!!!
At this moment Гладышеву thought he dies. Something like a spring, was broken inside, somewhere in the region of the abdomen. He even thought that this psycho stabbed him with a knife in the solar plexus, but he stood and continued to shout something in two steps away from him. In the eyes of Gladysheva ran a spark spun colored circles and rings. "Apparently it from fear, he thought, before falling onto the sidewalk. Consciousness, like a flash, brightened for a moment, as if in a dream he heard the last words рыжеусого:
-I will come back and we'll talk! In another time...
When Gladyshev woke up, everything around him seemed too white. He looked around and realized that is a special room with painted a pale green color panels white-washed walls and ceiling. "Where am I?" he asked himself, barely шевельнув from навалившегося him impotence lips. Now he begin to see that he is lying on something hard, and, with difficulty turning his head. Saw is a hospital nearby. Near stood several more such. Them people lay, covered with sheets.
"In the morgue I? thought Gladyshev. — But why?! I'm still alive!"
He tried to stand, but his hands and feet were heavy and powerless. "What's the matter with me?" — scared he then moved his fingers. They obeyed. He tried to call someone to aid him, to scream, but his throat was heard only wheezing.
However, approached him. As if through a veil of sleep he saw the face of a nurse in a white kerchief. She said something, but her voice did not reach his ear. Ушие cs was like a stuffed with cotton.
Gladyshev saw that the first nurse came second. In their hands they had capsules, syringes, cotton wool. A moment later, he felt a little stab in the thigh, then a leg heat and fell asleep.
He had a GOD. He was a great, all-round, big and kind. Much like both Golden cloud and on an enormous pile of dough with a silver-gray beard. He sat surrounded by a blooming garden of Eden and tore themselves from small lumps, would roll them in Golden balls, the balls and shot down on the Ground where other balls, just something different from the first, that only made to return to the Heavens with him. God carefully scrutinised them, and then, or attach them to himself, and then they vanish in his huge, Golden body, or... there were some that God, having considered, stripped from myself away with anger and disgust, barely showed on the tranquil face, and then these balls like carrion crows, selected fluttering also near the black angels and carried them down somewhere...
When Gladyshev woke up, I saw that are already painted with white paint iron bed, in the room in which lay a few people. He tried to recall what happened to him and how he got here, and remembered how putting a pistol on fuse, shot in Jora.
The horror of the incident filled it with its freezing their hearts cold. Gladyshev hid under the blanket and, pretending to be asleep so, lay in таколм position half a day. When he was approached by a nurse and her blanket, was to Wake him for lunch. He has matured a decision: to immediately leave the place. He is healthy, doesn't feel that bad. Besides, it is necessary to warn Veronica and do something to find Hippopotamus or, at least, know that with him.
Gladyshev could not good to remember how he was left yesterday Hippo one. It just happened by itself. I remember he rushed to call somebody to help, but then got scared. Frightened for themselves, but not only for fear of being prosecuted for murder. For some reason he was indescribably afraid to go there, at the entrance of an abandoned house. After this shot Gladyshev was. Feeling of reality had left him, and he wandered, and not to call for help, somewhere, winding through the streets of a huge crowded city...
"I need to get away from here!" he said, rising from the bed and was surprised considering her red hospital pajamas.
After lunch, he knew where to find his clothes, descended in the emergency Department. However clothing, as he asked, he was not given. He would have gone, but he had not even money, which would be enough to take the other end of Moscow, where in the hotel remained Veronica.
Gladyshev предствил him in his pajamas will make in broad daylight it's a journey through the capital. And he felt. He knew that he could not do it. Anyway, happy. Remained night. Under its cover, if not detained by the police, he gets to be carried to the hotel, and there he will learn and be allowed. Gladyshev decided to wait for the evening.
The day passed slowly. He was summoned to the doctor to fill out a medical history, measure temperature and pressure. He tried again to prove that is completely healthy, and it should be made out, but the doctor and would not hearken to his, and his arguments answered the impenetrable silence, not forgetting to demand from him that raised their hands that hold your breath, or something else.
After this inspection, Gladyshev out in the public garden on the territory of the hospital. It was quiet in the yard of her прогуливалось and sat on a bench a few patients. The evening was a while and Sunny, but cool, steam coming out of his mouth, and Gladyshev запахиваясь tight into heavy hospital gown, thought that the night had to be quite cold, so make an escape without a coat does not.
He walked to and fro for the sick скверику, looking occasionally eyes blackened from moisture, almost lost their foliage, trees, waited until the evening and thought about his somber fate and about what happened yesterday misfortune that he does not want to say a crime, especially murder. For the hundredth time, he thought, how it happened, and for the hundredth time, and prayed to God that his shot was still not fatal. Then he was scared of Hippo, staying alive, now terribly angry with him for what he Gladyshev, run away, as the last coward, and meeting them will be terribly uncomfortable and maybe even dangerous. But this was still better for him than if George was killed them. "I'll try not to come across his eyes the first time, he thought. "If only he was alive".
Gladyshev not going neither except ззавязывать Dating in hospital. Perhaps, later, when he would come and see her, and suddenly all is well, Zhora will be alive. Then he will agree to come back here and lie here for a week or two, and at the same time and make some campaign for a pastime. But now it was no good. However, now and then came up any types in hospital gowns, asked for a cigarette, or tried to strike up a conversation. It was nasty. In the end, he was just forced to return to the chamber and to lie on his bed with his face to the wall, until supper.
Over dinner at the hospital dining room rose before him childhood memories, and he therefore did not pay absolutely no attention to the neighbors at the table and talk, and, if handled the matter, then posted something vague and incomprehensible. If he does come on memory, as in early childhood, at the age of three years-four he had to lie in a hospital with dysentery. It then детсик епереживания surfaced in the memory like yesterday's, and was sad when a mother brought him to the emergency Department of the hospital and is now leave егоо strangers, strangers aunt in white coats, very angry and relating to it without love, without love, to which, as to the air gets used and, as in the air, needs реббенок. He clearly remembered how melancholy-тоскливы for him were those short minutes. Lady in white coats took him from the mother in the house, where there were many strangers children, возившихся with toys, not обращавших no attention to him, led to the crib in the corner, covered with a rope net, but he wanted to see the mother. Then they led him to the window and put on the wide windowsill. At the bottom it was my mother. She smiled and tried to calm him, promised to pick up through the week. But this is not consoled him. Tears from the eyes. He cried, widely, childish and opening the mouth and letting drooling. Even one day in the hospital seemed to him then eternity, although he was willing to endure it. But the week was the infinity, from the overpowering which his childish heart заходилось bitter tears...
Gladyshev sighed and glanced at the window, through which it was already dark. Autumn evening came into their law, but to run it was still early. We had to wait for at least half the night, when the streets of the big city quite empty.
Because in the Department extinguished the light, he guessed that already eleven, he lay there with his eyes open, ворочаясь to stay awake for another hour, then stood up and looked out of the chamber. In the dark corridor was no one, but at the door at the table, in the muted iron shade light from the Desk lamp nurse was setting, дежурившая night. Watching her from the door of the chamber of glimpsing, he stood still for an hour, until finally, he waited, that the nurse got up and went for some reason in the distant chamber at the other end of the corridor.
Not wasting a minute, he grabbed with Bathrobe and clothes hangers on tiptoe, springy step, himself wondering how it got so deftly and quickly turns out, jumped up to the door, turned the key in the keyhole and gently slipped slightly opening the fold, into a narrow slit, which meet with the flight of stairs powerfully as in a wind tunnel, blew cold air. On the stairs was quiet and empty, and he ran down, skipping through two steps to the third so that hospital Slippers almost slipped from his feet, clapping created on the heels.
Once at the bottom, he stopped and listened. The rumble of his steps stiffened somewhere at the top, and on the stairs again there was silence. For him, no one was chasing. "So to see who would have thought: "Crazy!" — smiled to myself Gladyshev and went outside. This мысльнемного really cheered him and lifted her mood, and it is not immediately noticed how cold wind blows here.
The hospital's courtyard he crossed without adventure, and went out to the roadway, saw nowhere взявшуюся поливальную machine. Ride was still better than walking, even if slowly. Especially in his position, and he voted. The driver slowed and motioned for him in the cabin. Gladyshev ran onto the road, jumped on the bandwagon and the next moment was beside him on the seat.
-Br-R-R! Cold, " he said, wrapping floors robe.
-Are you nuts? — with a smile asked the young moustached driver, adding gas and again including pumps брандспойнта.
"No, " he shook his head Gladyshev.
-And why then the night in Moscow in one coat run?
-Yes, I'm from the hospital. My wife should be. Got a chance to hospital, she in the hotel for the day, as one, and not know where I am. I doctors say: release, the fiends. And they are not in any. Here himself, and had gone to give — justified Gladyshev.
