"Bisson, Terry - England Underway" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bisson Terry)

England Underway
a short story by Terry Bisson

Mr. Fox was, he realized afterward, with a shudder of sudden recognition
like that of the man who gives a cup of water to a stranger and finds out
hours, or even years later, that it was Napoleon, perhaps the first to
notice. Perhaps. At least no one else in Brighton seemed to be looking at
the sea that day. He was taking his constitutional on the Boardwalk,
thinking of Lizzie Eustace and her diamonds, the people in novels becoming
increasingly more real to him as the people in the everyday (or "real")
world grew more remote, when he noticed that the waves seemed funny.
"Look," he said to Anthony, who accompanied him everywhere, which was not
far, his customary world being circumscribed by the Boardwalk to the
south, Mrs. Oldenshield's to the east, the cricket grounds to the north,
and the Pig & Thistle, where he kept a room--or more precisely, a room
kept him, and had since 1956--to the west.
"Woof?" said Anthony, in what might have been a quizzical tone.
"The waves, " said Mr. Fox. "They seem--well, odd, don't they? Closer
together?"
"Woof."
"Well, perhaps not. Could be just my imagination."
Fact is, waves had always looked odd to Mr. Fox. Odd and tiresome and
sinister. He enjoyed the Boardwalk but he never walked on the beach
proper, not only because he disliked the shifty quality of the sand but
because of the waves with their ceaseless back and forth. He didn't
understand why the sea had to toss about so. Rivers didn't make all that
fuss, and they were actually going somewhere. The movement of the waves
seemed to suggest that something was stirring things up, just beyond the
horizon. Which was what Mr. Fox had always suspected in his heart; which
was why he had never visited his sister in America.
"Perhaps the waves have always looked funny and I have just never
noticed," said Mr. Fox. If indeed funny was the word for something so odd.

At any rate, it was almost half past four. Mr. Fox went to Mrs.
Oldenshield's, and with a pot of tea and a plate of shortbread biscuits
placed in front of him, read his daily Trollope--he had long ago decided
to read all forty seven novels in exactly the order, and at about the
rate, in which they had been written--then fell asleep for twenty minutes.
When he awoke (and no one but he knew he was sleeping) and closed the
book, Mrs. Oldenshield put it away for him, on the high shelf where the
complete set, bound in morocco, resided in state. Then Mr. Fox walked to
the cricket ground, so that Anthony might run with the boys and their
kites until dinner was served at the Pig & Thistle. A whisky at nine with
Harrison ended what seemed at the time to be an ordinary day.
The next day it all began in earnest.
Mr. Fox awoke to a hubbub of traffic, footsteps, and unintelligible
shouts. There was, as usual, no one but himself and Anthony (and of
course, the Finn, who cooked) at breakfast; but outside, he found the
streets remarkably lively for the time of year. He saw more and more
people as he headed downtown, until he was immersed in a virtual sea of