One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest / Пролетая над гнездом кукушки. Кен КизиЧитать онлайн книгу.

      At two o’clock the group meeting is over.The nurse looks at her watch and tells us to bring the tables back into the room and we’ll resume this discussion again at one tomorrow. The Acutes click out of their trance, look for an instant in Harding’s direction. Their faces burn with shame; they feel that they have woken up to the fact that they have been played for fools again. They all are avoiding Harding. They’ve been maneuvered again into grilling one of their friends as if he was a criminal and they were all prosecutors and judge and jury. For forty-five minutes they have been cutting a man to pieces, almost as if they enjoyed it, asking him: What’s he think is the matter with him that he can’t please the little lady; why’s he insist that she has never had anything to do with another man; how’s he expect to get well if he doesn’t answer honestly? – questions and insinuations till now they feel bad about it.

      McMurphy’s eyes follow all of this. He doesn’t get out of his chair. He looks puzzled again. He sits in his chair for a while, watching the Acutes.Then finally he stands up from his arm chair, yawns and stretches, and walks over to where Harding is off by himself.

      McMurphy looks down at Harding a minute.Then he takes a nearby chair and straddle sit like a tiny horsein front of Harding. Harding is staring straight ahead, humming to himself, trying to look calm. But he isn’t calm at all.

      McMurphy lights a cigarette, puts his cigarette between his teeth and looks at Harding for a while, then starts talking with that cigarette wagging up and down in his lips.

      “Well say, buddy, is this the usual procedure for these Group Ther’py meetings?”

      “Usual procedure?” Harding’s humming stops. He still stares ahead, past McMurphy’s shoulder.

      “Flock of chickens at a peckin’ party?”

      Harding’s head turns with a jerk and his eyes find McMurphy. He sits back in his chair and tries to look relaxed.

      “A ’pecking’ party?” I fear I have not the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

      “Why then, I’ll just explain it to you.” McMurphy raises his voice. He doesn’t look at the other Acutes behind him, but he’s talking specially to them. “The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peck at it, see, till they tear the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and feathers. But usually a couple of the flock gets spots in the process, then it’s their turn. And a few more get spots and get pecked to death, and more and more. Oh, a peckin’ party can wipe out the whole flock in a matter of a few hours, buddy, I’ve seen it. A mighty awesome sight. The only way to prevent it – with chickens – is to put blinders on them. So’s they can’t see.”

      Harding leans back in the chair. “A pecking party. That certainly is a pleasant analogy, my friend.”

      “And that meeting, buddy, if you want to know the dirty truth, reminded me of a flock of dirty chickens.”

      “So that makes me the chicken with the spot of blood, friend?”

      “That’s right, buddy.”

      “And you want to know somethin’ else, buddy? You want to know who pecks that first peck?”

      Harding doesn’t answer and waits.

      “It’s that old nurse, that’s who.”

      Harding is trying to act calm.

      “So,” he says, “it’s as simple as that, as stupidly simple as that. You’re on our ward six hours and have already simplified all the work of Freud, Jung, and Maxwell Jones and summed it up in one analogy: it’s a ’peckin party’.”

      “I’m not talking about Fred Yoong and Maxwell Jones, buddy, I’m just talking about that meeting and what that nurse and those other bastards did to you.”

      “Did to me?”

      “That’s right. It seems that you have done something to make some enemies here in this place, buddy.”

      “It seems that you don’t understand that any question or discussion raised by Miss Ratched is done solely for therapeutic reasons? I see that you haven’t understood a word of Doctor Spivey’s theory of the Therapeutic Community. I’m disappointed in you, my friend, oh, very disappointed. This morning I thought that you were more intelligent. But I was mistaken.”

      “The hell with you, buddy.”

      “Oh, yes; I forgot to add that I noticed your primitive brutality also this morning. Psychopath with definite sadistic tendencies, probably motivated by an egomania. Yes. As you see, all these natural talents certainly make you a competent therapist quite capable of criticizing Miss Ratched’s meeting procedure, in spite of the fact that she is an experienced psychiatric nurse with twenty years in the field. Yes, with your talent, my friend, you could work subconscious miracles, soothe the aching identity and heal the wounded superego. You could probably cure the whole ward, Vegetables and all, in six short months.”

      McMurphy asks him calmly, “And you really think that these meetings are to cure you?”

      “The staff desires our cure as much as we do. They aren’t monsters. Miss Ratched may be a strict middle-aged lady, but she’s not some kind of giant monster of the poultry clan, sadistically pecking out our eyes.”

      “No, buddy, not that. She isn’t peckin’ at your eyes. She’s peckin’ at your balls, buddy, at your everlovin’ balls.”

      Harding tries to grin, but his face and lips are so white that the grin is lost. He stares at McMurphy. McMurphy takes the cigarette out of his mouth and repeats what he said.

      “Right at your balls. No, that nurse isn’t some kind of monster chicken, buddy, she is a ball-cutter. I’ve seen a thousand of ’em, old and young, men and women. Seen ’em all over the country and in the homes – people who try to make you weak so that they can make you follow their rules, live according to their rules. And the best way to do this, to make you knuckle under, is to weaken you by gettin you where it hurts the worst. If you’re in a fight against a guy who wants to win by making you weaker, then watch for his knee, he’s gonna go for your balls. There’s nothing worse. It makes you sick, it takes every bit of strength you got. And that’s what that old buzzard is doing, going for your balls, your vitals.”

      “Our dear Miss Ratched? Our sweet, smiling, tender angel of mercy, Mother Ratched, a ball-cutter? Why, friend, that’s most unlikely.”

      “Buddy, don’t give me that tender little mother crap. She may be a mother, but she’s tough as knife metal. She fooled me with that kindly little old mother bit for maybe three minutes when I came in this morning, but no longer. I don’t think she’s really fooled any of you guys for any six months or a year, neither. Hooowee, I’ve seen some bitches in my time, but she takes the cake.”

      “A bitch? But a moment ago she was a ball-cutter, then a buzzard – or was it a chicken? Your metaphors are bumping into each other, my friend.”

      “The hell with that; she’s a bitch and a buzzard and a ball-cutter, and don’t kid me, you know what I’m talking about.”

      Harding continues to argue.

      “Why, look here, my friend Mr. McMurphy, our Miss Ratched is a real angel of mercy, and everyone knows it. She works hard for the good of all, day after day, five long days a week. That takes heart, my friend, heart. In fact, she even further serves mankind on her weekends by doing generous volunteer work about town. She prepares various canned goods, cheese, soap and presents it to some poor young couple having a difficult time financially.” His hands fly in the air, making the picture he is describing. “Ah, look: There she is, our nurse. Her gentle knock on the door. The ribboned basket. The young couple overjoyed to the point of speechlessness. The husband open-mouthed, the wife weeping openly. She places the basket in the center of the floor. And when our angel leaves – throwing kisses, smiling – she is so full of human kindness within her large bosom, that she is beside herself with generosity. Be-side herself, do you hear? Pausing at the door, she draws the young wife to one side and offers her twenty dollars of her own: