"Adam Roberts - Balancing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Robert)

'That is the second time you have said that,' said the Devil. 'Only this
time I suppose you mean it more particularly. Well, you are an intelligent
man, and it is not hard. Try to determine the amount of pleasure you have
caused; the happiness, the delight, the bliss. Every pleasurable sensation
you have ever prompted in every person you have ever met. Now try to work
out how much pain: how much disappointment, misery, suffering, again in
every person your life has touched. Which quantity is the larger? Subtract
the smaller from the larger and are you left with a residue. Of pain? Or
of pleasure? Accept my offer and you will find out, because you will
experience, actually experience in yourself, precisely that difference,
precisely that amount of pleasure. Or of pain. Perhaps you have lived a
good life and have caused little pain but a great deal of pleasure. Well,
then, accept my offer and you will be given the combined pleasurable
sensations from all the people you have ever pleasured. Not merely one
person's bliss, but perhaps hundreds, or thousands -- less only the
amounts of pain you have caused. All the people you have ever helped, all
the lovers you have given good sensations to; all of it at once,
experienced by you simultaneously. I could be offering you the most
intensely blissful experience available to a human being.'
'Or,' said Allen, 'the most painful.'
'That, of course, depends upon you, upon the life you have led. But if
that is what you suspect, then I would advise you not to accept my offer.'
Allen sucked in his lower lip, contemplating.
'The pleasure I have caused,' he said. 'How do you work that out?'
'The pleasure and the pain. And it is something very easy for a person in
my position to determine, believe me. Explaining to you precisely how
would be rather hard.'
'When you say the pleasure I have caused,' said Allen, still pondering.
'Do you mean to people I have actually met? Friends, lovers, that sort of
thing?'
Again the Devil made his dismissive gesture with one hand. 'Human being
relations are not, alas, so easily reducible to a tight group of personal
contacts. The sum is derived from all the people touched by your life,
whether you have met them or not. But, as I am sure you appreciate, that
only increases the pool of pleasure -- or pain -- from which I am giving
you the chance to draw. Let us say your accountancy firm has helped out a
company on the other side of the Atlantic, perhaps saved it from
bankruptcy. Well, then, all the feelings of gratitude and security
experienced by those workers, even though you have never met them
personally, would be added to your account: divided, I suppose, between
the various of you who worked on the account.'
'Divided how?' asked Allen, his accountant's instincts intrigued.
'Divided by a complex spiritual algorithm that would be of little interest
to you. But you understand the principle upon which my offer is based?'
'When would I, uh, experience this pay-off you are talking about?'
'How many questions you ask,' exclaimed the Devil in a level tone of
voice. 'Of course you would experience it as soon as you agree. But I am
not asking you to agree straight away. Shall we say three days? That has a
certain chime to it, doesn't it? Three days from now is Sunday.'
'Saturday,' said Allen, automatically.