"City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simak Clifford D.)

NOTES ON THE SEVENTH TALE

Several years ago an ancient literary fragment came to light. Apparently at one time it had been an extensive body of writing and although only a small part of it was discovered, the few tales that it contained were enough to indicate that it was a group of fables concerning the various members of the animal brotherhood. The tales are archaic and the viewpoints and manner of their telling sound strange to us today. A number of scholars who have studied the fragments agree with Tige that they may very well be of non-Doggish origin.

Their title is Aesop. The title of this tale likewise is Aesop and the tale's title has come down intact with the tale itself from dim antiquity.

What, ask the scholars, is the significance of this? Tige, quite naturally, believes it is yet another link in his theory that the present legend is human in its origin. Most of the other students fail to agree, but so far have advanced no explanation which would serve instead.

Tige points, too, to this seventh tale as proof that if there is no historic evidence of Man's existence it is because he was forgotten deliberately, because his memory was wiped out to assure the continuance of the canine culture in its purest form.

In this tale the Dogs have forgotten Man. In the few members of the human race existing among them they do not recognize Man, but call these queer creatures by the old family name of Webster. But the word, Webster, has become a common instead of a proper noun. The Dogs think of men as websters, while Jenkins still thinks of them with the capital W.

"What's men?" Lupus asks and Bruin, when he tries to explain, can't tell him.

Jenkins says, in the tale, that the Dogs must never know about Man. He outlines for us, in the body of the story, the steps that he has taken to wipe away the memory of Man.

The old fireside tales are gone, says Jenkins. And in this Tige sees a deliberate conspiracy of forgetfulness, perhaps not so altruistic as Jenkins makes it sound, to save Doggish dignity. The tales are gone, says Jenkins, and must stay gone. But apparently they weren't gone. Somewhere, in some far corner of the world, they still were told, and so today we have them with us yet.

But if the tales persisted, Man himself was gone, or nearly so. The wild robots still existed, but even they, if they ever were more than pure imagination, are gone now, too. The Mutants were gone and they are of a piece with Man. If Man existed, the Mutants probably existed too.

The entire controversy surrounding the legend can be boiled down to one question: Did Man exist? If, in reading these tales, the reader finds himself confused, he is in excellent company. The experts and scholars themselves, who have spent their lives in the study of the legend, may have more data, but are just as confused as you are.