Arkadi Strugatsky - The Ugly Swans

"Shame!" muttered Dr. R. Quadriga. "Scales. And gills."

"A double cognac," Pavor shouted to the waiter.

His face was wet from the rain. His thick hair hung in clumps, and shining rivulets flowed down from his temples along his smoothly shaven cheeks. "Another hard face," thought Victor. "A lot of people must envy him. How did a health inspector get a face like that? A hard face. I can see it. The rain is pouring, there are searchlights. Shadows flash along the wet trains and break off. Everything is dark and glittering, nothing but darkness and glitter. No discussions, no bullshit, only orders, and everyone obeys. It doesn't have to be a train, maybe an airplane, the airfield, and later nobody knows where he came from. Girls are falling over backwards, and men feel like doing something manly. Like straightening their shoulders and pulling in their stomachs. Take Golem. It wouldn't hurt Golem to pull in his stomach. But it won't work, where could he pull it, there's no room left. Or Dr. R. Quadriga. But he wouldn't be able to straighten his shoulders, he's been bent over for a long time, forever. In the evening he's bent over the table, in the morning he's bent over a basin, and during the day he's bent over because his liver hurts him. So I'm the only one capable of pulling in my stomach and straightening my shoulders. But I think I'll direct my manliness toward this glass of gin."

"Nymphomaniac," moaned Dr. R. Quadriga to Pavor. "Mermaidomaniac. And seaweed."

"Pipe down, Doctor," said Pavor. He was wiping his face with paper napkins, which he then crumpled up and threw on the floor. Then he started to wipe his hands.

"You've been fighting," said Victor. "Who with?"

"Raped by a slimy," remarked Dr. R. Quadriga, trying desperately to focus his pupils which had wandered off toward his nose.

"Not with anyone yet," answered Pavor. He gave the doctor a long look. The doctor failed to notice it.

The waiter brought the cognac. Pavor slowly drained his glass and stood up.

"I think I'll go get washed," he said in an even voice. "Nothing but mud in the country, I've got shit all over me." He left, colliding with the chairs.

"Something is happening to my inspector," said Golem. He flicked a wet napkin off the table. "Something of universal proportions. You wouldn't happen to know what exactly?"

"You should know better than I do," said Victor. "He's inspecting you, not me. And then you know everything. Incidentally, Golem, how did you get to know everything?"

"Nobody knows anything," objected Golem. "Some people have their suspicions. Very few -- those who want to. But you can't ask how they have their suspicions. Where is it raining to? What does the sun come up with? Would you forgive Shakespeare if he wrote something like that? Actually, you probably would. We can forgive Shakespeare a lot, he's not Banev. But listen, my dear man of letters, I've got an idea. I'll polish off my cognac, and you finish this gin. Or are you already plowed?"

"Golem," said Victor, "did you know I'm a man of iron?"

"I suspected as much."

"And what follows from that?"

"You're afraid of rusting."

"Well, okay," said Victor. "But that's not what I mean. I mean that I can drink a lot and at length without losing my moral equilibrium."

"Oh, I see," said Golem, pouring himself cognac from a decanter. "We'll take up this topic again."

"I can't seem to recall," said Dr. R. Quadriga suddenly in a clear voice. "Have I introduced myself to you gentlemen? My pleasure: Rem Quadriga, artist, doctor honoris causae, honorable associate... . You I remember," he said to Victor. "We were in school together, etc., etc. As for you, excuse me"

"My name is Yul Golem," said Golem carelessly.

"S'my pleazhure. A sculptor?"

"No. Physician."

"Surgeon?">

"The chief physician of the leprosarium," Golem explained patiently.

"Oh, yes," said Dr. R. Quadriga, shaking his head like a horse. "Of course. Sorry, Yul. Only why the big front? You're no doctor. You're breeding slimies. I'll get you an introduction. We need people like you. Excuse me," he said suddenly. "I'll be right back."

He got out of his armchair and wandered off toward the exit through a maze of empty chairs. A waiter hurried over to him, and Quadriga threw his arms around his neck.

"It's the rain," said Golem. "We're breathing water. This city has been breathing water for three years. But we're not fish, and either we're going to die, or we're going to get out of here." He looked at Victor seriously and sadly. "And the rain will fall on an empty city, it will wash the pavements, soak through the roofs, the rotting roofs. Then it will wash everything away, the city will dissolve into primordial earth, but it still won't stop, it will keep falling and falling."

"The apocalypse," said Victor, in order to say something.

"Yes, the apocalypse. It will rain and rain and the earth will drink its fill. The earth will be sown anew and as never before, and there shall be no weeds among the grain. But we won't be around to enjoy it."

"If only he didn't have those gray bags under his eyes," Victor thought, "and that soft sagging belly. If only his great Semitic nose looked a little less like a topographical map. Only, if you think for a minute, prophets have always been drunkards, because it's so depressing: you know everything, and nobody believes you. If we made a government position out of it, then our state prophet would have to have a rank no less than Secret Councilor in order to strengthen his authority. And still it probably wouldn't help."

"For his systematic pessimism," Victor said aloud, "which has subverted professional discipline and undermined faith in a rational future, I hereby order Secret Councilor Golem to be stoned in the executing chamber."

Golem snorted.

"I'm only a collegiate councilor," he said. "And then, what kind of prophets do we have nowadays? I don't know a single one. A lot of false prophets and not a single real one. In our times you can't predict the future -- it's a linguistic impossibility. What would you say if you saw in Shakespeare something like 'predict the present? Can you predict a bureau in your own bedroom? But I believe that's my inspector coming. How are you this evening, inspector?"

"Wonderful," said Pavor, taking a seat. "Waiter, a double cognac! Our artist is in the lobby surrounded by four big men. They're trying to tell him where the entrance to the restaurant is. I decided not to intrude. He doesn't believe anyone and he's in a fighting mood. But what bureaus were you talking about?"

He was dry, elegant, fresh; he smelled of cologne.

"We were speaking about the future," said Golem.

"What sense does it make to talk about the future?" objected Pavor. "The future isn't talked about, the future is made. Here's a glass of cognac. The glass is full. I will make it empty. Like this. A wise man once said that you can only invent the future, you can't predict it."

"Another wise man," observed Victor, "said that the future doesn't exist, there's only the present."

"I don't like nineteenth century philosophy," said Pavor. "Those people couldn't and wouldn't do anything. They just liked to sit around and reason, in the same way as Golem likes to sit around and drink. The future is just a thoroughly cleaned up present."

"I always feel funny," said Golem, "when I hear a civilian reasoning like a soldier."

"Soldiers don't reason," objected Pavor. "All they have are reflexes and a little bit of emotion."

"You could say the same thing about most civilians," said Victor, stroking the back of his head.

"Right now nobody has time for reasoning," said Pavor. "Neither soldiers nor civilians. We barely have time to cope. If you're interested in the future, then invent it quickly, on the run, according to your reflexes and emotions."