Из книги Айне кляйне арифметика русской литературы   ::   Битов Андрей

Мы этих слов не пишем. Поначалу мне достался компьютер без кириллицы. Раздражение по поводу этого, а так же собственной неумелостью обращения с заморским аппаратом находило себе устное выражение. Я попробовал эти слова записать латиницей. Как тупо! Что можно начертать без "ж", без "з", без "х"? И я не заметил, как написал следующее...

THE FIRST PRAY ON IBM

Performed on the 5th of November 1992 in Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin

...We'll suggest you not to try to develop yourself but just to understand to what greater part of knowledge you are really belonging. That's it. The question how to start is not the same as to be or not to be. Your feeling of perfectness of everything you don't know is just a rudiment of your beleiving, that part of it, which everybody is still receiving from the very birth. Don't be afraid of the stop because here is the entrance. You don't need to search for the kee - the door is never locked. The question whether it's just opened or partly opened or there is another... all these are not your questions, at least now. Just enter because you are the kee. Just enter and then you'll see. And we can ensure that the landscape will be good. It will resemble you something you've already seen but forgotten. Let's say in your early childhood or night dream or previous birth. And please don't hesitate in any kind of reality. It's not yet your turn to know that there is no door and landscape is just the same you are standing now in. That's why it's looking so alike... as if you've already seen it already. Just look at your screen you are looking at. There is no mirror but there is a window. And that's the stop we started with, deceiving you that you have not to be afraid of it.

УГОЛЬНОЕ УШКО, ИЛИ СТРАСБУРГСКАЯ СОБАКА

Речь на симпозиуме "Набоковский треугольник"

14 июля 1993 года в Берлине

Переводчики - почтовые лошади просвещения.

Пушкин. Table-talk.

Посвящается R. Tietze,

S. Brownsberger.

Когда в семье ожидают ребенка, множество беременных выходит на улицы; когда он уже родился - то множество колясок.