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

УWhat if I come back?Ф
УYou wonТt be able to get back without a visa, and IТm not tattooing any visa on you. You wonТt be the first weТve had to transport if thatТs any consolation to you. There was a Japanese, I remember . .
УThen youТre going to send me somewhere in time? Permanently?Ф
УThatТs right. IТm really very sorry.Ф
УTo the future or the past?Ф
УYou can take your choice. Think it over while youТre getting undressed.Ф
УYou donТt have to act so mournful,Ф Addyer said. УItТs a great adventure. A high adventure. ItТs something IТve always dreamed.Ф
УThatТs right. ItТs going to be wonderful.Ф
УI could refuse,Ф Addyer said nervously.
Jelling shook his head. УWeТd only drug you and send you anyway. It might as well be your choice.Ф
УItТs a choice IТm delighted to make.Ф
УSure. ThatТs the spirit, Addyer.Ф
УEverybody says I was born a hundred years too soon.Ф
УEverybody generally says that. . . unless they say you were born a hundred years too late.Ф
УSome people say that too.Ф
УWell, think it over. ItТs a permanent move. Which would you prefer
the phonetic future or the poetic past?Ф
Very slowly Addyer began to undress as he undressed each night when he began the prelude to his customary fantasy. But now his dreams were faced with fulfillment and the moment of decision terrified him. He was a little blue and rather unsteady on his legs when he stepped to the copper disk in the center of the floor. In answer to JellingТs inquiry he muttered his choice. Then he turned argent in the aura of an incandescent glow and disappeared from his time forever.
Where did he go? You know. I know. Addyer knows. Addyer traveled to the land of our pet fantasy. He escaped into the refuge that is our refuge, to the time of our dreams; and in practically no time at all he realized that he had in truth departed from the only time for himself.
Through the vistas of the years every age but our own seems glamorous and golden. We yearn for the yesterdays and tomorrows, never realizing that we are faced with HobsonТs choice. . . that today, bitter or sweet, anxious or calm, is the only day for us. The dream of time is the traitor, and we are all accomplices to the betrayal of ourselves.

Can you spare price of one coffee, honorable sir? No, sir, I am not panhandling organism. I am starveling Japanese transient stranded in this so miserable year. Honorable sir! I beg in tears for holy charity. Will you donate to this destitute person one ticket to township of Lyonesse? I want to beg on knees for visa. I want to go back to year 1945 again. I want to be in Hiroshima again. I want to go home.