Arkadi Strugatsky - The Ugly Swans

Translated from the Russian by

Alice Stone Nakhimovsky and Alexander Nakhimovsky

COLLIER BOOKS A Division of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

New York

COLLIER MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS

London

Copyright (c) 1979 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

Text Copyright (c) 1966 by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

866 Third Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022

Collier Macmillan Canada, Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data:

Strugatsky, Arkadii Natanovich, Boris Natanovich. The Ugly Swans.

Translation of 'Gadkie Lebedi'

Arkadii Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky, joint author.

PZ4.S9i9Ug 1980 [PG3476.S78835] 891.7Y44 ISBN 0020072406 7921366

First Collier Books Edition 1980 Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Irma left the room, carefully closing the door behind her. She was a thin, long-legged girl with a wide mouth and her mother's red lips; she smiled politely, like an adult. When she had gone, Victor attacked his cigarette. "That's no child," he thought, stunned. "Children don't talk like that. It's not even rudeness, it's cruelty, no, not even cruelty -- she simply doesn't care. You'd think she was proving some theorem to us. She made her calculations, completed her analysis, and duly communicated the results. And then she left, serenely swinging her pigtails."

Victor got over his uneasiness and looked at Lola. Her face had broken out in red spots. Her red lips trembled as if she were about to cry, but of course she had no intention of crying; she was furious.

"You see," she said in a high voice. "A little snot-nosed bitch. Nothing's sacred to her, every word is an insult -- as if I weren't her mother but a doormat for her to wipe her feet on. I can't face the neighbors. The little brat."

"Right," thought Victor. "I lived with this woman. I went for walks with her in the mountains, I read Baudelaire to her, I trembled when I touched her, I remembered her fragrance. I even got into fights over her. To this day I don't understand what was going through her mind when I read her Baudelaire. No, it's just amazing that I managed to get away from her. It boggles the mind -- how did she let me? No doubt I wasn't any prize myself. No doubt I'm still no prize, but in those days I drank even more than I do now, and, what's worse, I considered myself a great poet".

"Of course, this wouldn't mean anything to you, how could it?" Lola was saying. "Big city life, ballerinas, actresses ... I know everything. Don't think that people here don't know. Your money, and your mistresses, and the constant scandals. If you want to know the truth, I'm completely indifferent to all of it. I haven't bothered you, you lived the way you wanted to."

"... the thing that spoils her is that she talks a lot. When she was younger she was quiet, reticent, mysterious. There are women who know from birth how to carry themselves. She knew. In fact, she's not so bad now, either. When, for example, she sits on the couch holding a cigarette, silent, her knees on display. ... Or when she suddenly puts her hands behind her head and stretches. A provincial lawyer would be terribly impressed by it." Victor imagined a comfortable tete-a-tete: an end table next to the couch, a bottle, champagne fizzing in crystal glasses, a box of chocolates tied up with a ribbon, and the lawyer himself, all starched up and wearing a bow tie. Everything just as it's supposed to be, and then Irma walks in. "Awful," thought Victor. "She must be really unhappy."

"I shouldn't have to explain to you," Lola was saying, "that it's not a matter of money. Money won't help now." She had already calmed down; the red spots had disappeared. "I know in your own way you're an honest man, capricious and disorganized, but not mean. You've always helped us financially and in this respect I'm not making any demands on you. But now I need a different sort of help. ... I can't say I'm happy, but you never succeeded in making me unhappy either. You have your life, and I have mine. I'm still young, you know, I still have a lot ahead of me."

"I'll have to take the child," thought Victor. "Apparently she's already decided everything. If Irma stays here, it'll be sheer hell. All right, but what will I do with her? Let's be honest," he said to himself. "You have to be honest here, these aren't toys we're playing with." He very honestly recalled his life in the capital. "Bad," he thought. "Of course, I can always get a housekeeper. That means renting an apartment. But that's beside the point. She has to be with me, not with a housekeeper. They say that the best children are the ones brought up by their fathers. And I like her, even though she's very strange. And anyway, it's my duty. As an honest man, as a father. And I feel guilty about her. But all this is playacting. What if I'm really honest? If I'm really honest, then I have to admit that I'm frightened. Because she's going to stand in front of me, smiling like an adult with her wide mouth, and what will I be able to tell her? Read, read more, read every day, you don't have to do anything else, just read. She knows that without me, and I have nothing else to say to her. Which is why I'm frightened. But that's not completely honest either. I don't feel like it, that's what it is. I'm used to being alone. I like being alone. I don't want it any other way. That's the way it looks, if I'm honest. It looks disgusting, like any other truth. It looks cynical, egotistical, and low. If I'm honest."

"Why aren't you saying anything?" asked Lola. "Are you planning to just sit there and not say anything?"

"No, no, I'm listening," said Victor, hastily.

"Listening to what? I've been waiting half an hour for you to deign to respond. After all, I'm not her only parent...."

"Do I have to be honest with her too?" thought Victor. "She's about the last person in the world I want to be honest with. Apparently she's decided that I can settle that sort of question right here, not leaving my seat, between cigarettes."

"Get it into your head," said Lola, "I'm not saying that you should take her. I'm well aware that you wouldn't, and thank God you wouldn't, you're no good at it. But you have connections, friends, you've still got a name. Help me set her up somewhere. There are exclusive schools, boarding schools, special institutes. After all, she's talented; she's got a gift for languages, and math, and music."

"A boarding school," said Victor. "Yes, of course. An orphanage _ No, I'm not serious. It's worth thinking about."

"What's there to think about? Most people would be glad to put their children in a good boarding school or special institute. Our boss's wife -- "

"Listen, Lola," said Victor. "It's a good idea, I'll try and do something. But it's not that simple, it takes time. Of course I'll write -- "

"You'll write! That's just like you. It's not writing you have to do, you have to go there, ask in person, beat down doors. You're not doing anything anyway! All you do is drink and hang out with sluts. Is it really that difficult, for the sake of your own daughter?"

"Oh, damn," thought Victor, "try and explain things to her." He lit another cigarette, stood, and walked around the room. Outside it was getting dark. As before, the rain was coming down in large drops, heavy and patient. There was a lot of it and it clearly wasn't hurrying anywhere.