Терри Пратчетт - Театр жестокости (Theater of Cruelty)

“All right… you can come out now,” he said, to the world at large. “I didn’t know there were any gnomes left in the world.”

The rubbish rustled. They trooped out—the little man with the red hat, the hunched back and the hooked nose, the little woman in the mob cap carrying the even smaller baby, the little policeman, the dog with the ruff around its neck, and the very small alligator.

Corporal Carrot sat and listened.

“He made us do it,” said the little man. He had a surprisingly deep voice. “He used to beat us. Even the alligator. That was all he understood, hitting things with sticks. And he used to take all the money the dog Toby collected and get drunk. And then we ran away and he caught us in the alley and started on Judy and the baby and he fell over and —”

“Who hit him first?” said Carrot.

“All of us!”

“But not very hard,” said Carrot. “You’re all too small. You didn’t kill him. I have a very convincing statement about that. So I went and had another look at him. He’d choked to death. What’s this?”

He held up a little leather disc.

“It’s a swozzle,” said the little policeman. “He used it for the voices. He said ours weren’t funny enough.”

“That’s the way to do it!” said the one called Judy.

It was stuck in his throat,” said Carrot. “I suggest you run away. Just as far as you can.”

“We thought we could start a people’s co-operative,” said the leading gnome.

“You know… experimental drama, street theatre, that sort of thing. Not hitting each other with sticks…”

“You did that for children?” said Carrot.

“He said it was a new sort of entertainment. He said it’d catch on.”

Carrot stood up, and flicked the swozzle into the rubbish.

“People’ll never stand for it,” he said. “That’s not the way to do it.”

[*] Which is flat and goes through space on the back of an enormous turtle (который плоский и плывет сквозь космос на спине огромной черепахи), and why not (а почему бы и нет)…

[*] Which is flat and goes through space on the back of an enormous turtle, and why not…