"Aldiss, Brian - Saliva Tree, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldiss Brian W)

Gregory struck his friend playfully on the shoulder.
"No need for your jealousy, Bruce! I go to see the father, not
the daughter. Though the one is female, the other is
progressive, and that must interest me more just yet. Nancy has
beauty, true, but her fatherah, her father has electricity!"
Laughing, they cheerfully shook hands and parted for the
night.
On Grendon's farm, things were a deal less tranquil, as
Gregory was to discover.
Gregory Rolles rose before seven next morning as was his
custom. It was while he was lighting his gas mantle, and
wishing Mr. Fenn (the baker in whose house Gregory lodged)
would install electricity, that a swift train of thought led him to
reflect again on the phenomenal thing in the previous night's
sky. He let his mind wander luxuriously over all the possibilities
that the "meteor" illuminated. He decided that he would ride
out to see Mr. Grendon within the hour.
He was lucky in being able, at this stage in his life, to please
himself largely as to how his days were spent, for his father was
a person of some substance. Edward Rolles had had the
fortune, at the time of the Crimean War, to meet Escoffier, and
with some help from the great chef had brought onto the
market a baking powder, "Eugenol," that, being slightly more
palatable and less deleterious to the human system than its
rivals, had achieved great commercial success. As a result,
Gregory had attended one of the Cambridge colleges.
Now, having gained a degree, he was poised on the verge of
a career. But which career? He had acquiredmore as a result of
his intercourse with other students than with those officially
deputed to instruct himsome understanding of the sciences;
his essays had been praised and some of his poetry published,
so that he inclined toward literature; and an uneasy sense that
life for everyone outside the privileged classes contained too
large a proportion of misery led him to think seriously of a
political career. In Divinity, too, he was well-grounded; but at
least the idea of Holy Orders did not tempt him.
While he wrestled with his future, he undertook to live away
from home, since his relations with his father were never
smooth. By rusticating himself in the heart of East Anglia, he
hoped to gather material for a volume tentatively entitled
"Wanderings with a Socialist Naturalist," which would assuage
all sides of his ambitions. Nancy Grendon, who had a pretty
hand with a pencil, might even execute a little emblem for the
title page . . . Perhaps he might be permitted to dedicate it to
his author friend, Mr. Herbert George Wells. . .
He dressed himself warmly, for the morning was cold as well
as dull, and went down to the baker's stables. When he had
saddled his mare, Daisy, he swung himself up and set out along
a road that the horse knew well.
The land rose slightly towards the farm, the area about the