"Bester, Alfred - Hobson's Choice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bester Alfred)

УIt would make a big difference,Ф Jelling said, Уbecause youТd find that living is the sum of conveniences. You might think plumbing is pretty unimportant compared to ancient Greek philosophers. Lots of people do. But the fact is, we already know the philosophy. After a while you get tired of seeing the great men and listening to them expound the material you already know. You begin to miss the conveniences and familiar patterns you used to take for granted.Ф
УThat,Ф said Addyer, Уis a superficial attitude.Ф
УYou think so? Try living in the past by candlelight, without central heating, without refrigeration, canned foods, elementary drugs. . . . Or, f uturewise, try living with Berganlicks, the Twenty-Two Commandments, duodecimal calendars and currency, or try speaking in meter, planning and scanning each sentence before you talk . . . and damned for a contemptible illiterate if you forget yourself and speak spontaneously in your own tongue.Ф
УYouТre exaggerating,Ф Addyer said. УIТll bet there are times where I could be very happy. IТve thought about it for years, and I .
УTcha!Ф Jelling snorted. УThe great illusion. Name one.Ф
УThe American Revolution.Ф
УPfui! No sanitation. No medicine. Cholera in Philadelphia. Malaria in New York. No anesthesia. The death penalty for hundreds of small crimes and petty infractions. None of the books and music you like best. None of the jobs or professions for which youТve been trained. Try again.Ф
УThe Victorian Age.Ф
УHow are your teeth and eyes? In good shape? TheyТd better be. We canТt send your inlays and spectacles back with you. How are your ethics? In bad shape? TheyТd better be or youТd starve in that cutthroat era. How do you feel about class distinctions? They were pretty strong in those days. WhatТs your religion? YouТd better not be a Jew or Catholic or Quaker or Moravian or any
minority. WhatТs your politics? If youТre a reactionary today the same opinions would make you a dangerous radical a hundred years ago. I donТt think youТd be happy.Ф
УIТd be safe.Ф
УNot unless you were rich; and we canТt send money back. Only the flesh. No, Addyer, the poor died at the average age of forty in those days. . . worked out, worn out. Only the privileged survived, and you wouldnТt be one of the privileged.Ф
УNot with my superior knowledge?Ф
Jelling nodded wearily. УI knew that would come up sooner or later. What superior knowledge? Your hazy recollection of science and invention? DonТt be a damned fool, Addyer. You enjoy your technology without the faintest idea of how it works.Ф
УIt wouldnТt have to be hazy recollection. I could prepare.Ф
УWhat, for instance?Ф
УOh . . . say, the radio. I could make a fortune inventing the radio.Ф
Jelling smiled. УYou couldnТt invent radio until youТd first invented the hundred allied technical discoveries that went into it. YouТd have to create an entire new industrial world. YouТd have to discover the vacuum rectifier and create an industry to manufacture it; the seif-heterodyne circuit, the nonradiating neutrodyne receiver and so forth. YouТd have to develop electric power production and transmission and alternating current. YouТd have toЧ but why belabor the obvious? Could you invent internal combustion before the development of fuel oils?Ф
УMy God!Ф Addyer groaned.
УAnd another thing,Ф Jelling went on grimly. УIТve been talking about technological tools, but language is a tool too; the tool of communication. Did you ever realize that all the studying you might do could never teach you how a language was really used centuries ago? Do you know how the Romans pronounced Latin? Do you know the Greek dialects? Could you learn to speak and think in Gaelic, seventeenth-century Flemish, Old Low German? Never. YouТd be a deaf-mute.Ф
УI never thought about it that way,Ф Addyer said slowly.
УEscapists never do. All theyТre looking for is a vague excuse to run away.Ф
УWhat about books? I could memorize a great book and . .
УAnd what? Go back far enough into the past to anticipate the real author? YouТd be anticipating the public too. A book doesnТt become great until the publicТs ready to understand it. It doesnТt become profitable until the publicТs ready to buy it.Ф
УWhat about going forward into the future?Ф Addyer asked.
УIТve already told you. ItТs the same problem only in reverse. Could a medieval man survive in the twentieth century? Could he stay alive in street traffic? Drive cars? Speak the language? Think in the language? Adapt to the tempo, ideas and coordinations you take for granted? Never. Could someone from the twenty-fifth century adapt to the thirtieth? Never.Ф
УWell, then,Ф Addyer said angrily, Уif the past and future are so uncomfortable, what are those people traveling around for?Ф
УTheyТre not traveling,Ф Jelling said. УTheyТre running.Ф
УFrom what?Ф
УTheir own time.Ф
УWhy?Ф
УThey donТt like it.Ф
УWhy not?Ф
УDo you like yours? Does any neurotic?Ф
УWhere are they going?Ф
УAny place but where they belong. They keep looking for the Golden Age. Tramps! Time stiffs! Never satisfied. Always searching, shifting . . . bumming through the centuries. Pfui! Half the panhandlers you meet are probably time bums stuck in the wrong century.Ф
УAnd those people coming here ... they think this is a Golden Age?Ф
УThey do.Ф
УTheyТre crazy,Ф Addyer protested. УHave they seen the ruins? The radiation? The war? The anxiety? The hysteria?Ф
УSure. ThatТs what appeals to them. DonТt ask me why. Think of it this way:
you like the American Colonial period, yes?Ф
УAmong others.Ф
УWell, if you told Mr. George Washington the reasons why you liked his time, youТd probably be naming everything he hated about it.Ф
УBut thatТs not a fair comparison. This is the worst age in all history.Ф
Jelling waved his hand. УThatТs how it looks to you. Everybody says that in every generation; but take my word for it, no matter when you live and how you live, thereТs always somebody else somewhere else who thinks you live in the Golden Age.Ф
УWell, IТll be damned,Ф Addyer said.
Jelling looked at him steadily for a moment. УYou will be,Ф he said sorrowfully. УIТve got bad news for you, Addyer. We canТt let you remain. YouТll talk and make trouble, and our secretТs got to be kept. WeТll have to send you out one-way.Ф
УI can talk wherever I go.Ф
УBut nobodyТll pay attention to you outside your own time. You wonТt make
sense. YouТll be an eccentric . . . a lunatic . . . a foreigner . . . safe.Ф