"Dick, Philip K - Galactic Pot Healer - txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

GALACTIC POT HEALER
by Philip K. Dick


First Vintage Books Edition, June 1994

Copyright 1969 by Philip K. Dick

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Originally published by Berkley Medallion Books, New York, in 1969.

First Vintage Books Edition, June 1994

ISBN 0-679-75297-8






For Cynthia Goldstone






And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid,
But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

--D. H. Lawrence








1


His father had been a pot-healer before him. And so he, too, healed pots, in fact any kind of ceramic ware left over from the Old Days, before the war, when objects had not always been made out of plastic. A ceramic pot was a wonderful thing, and each that he healed became an object which he loved, which he never forgot; the shape of it, the texture of it and its glaze, remained with him on and on.
However, almost no one needed his work, his services. Too few ceramic pieces remained, and those persons who owned them took great care to see that they did not break.
I am Joe Fernwright, he said to himself. I am the best pot-healer on Earth. I, Joe Fernwright, am not like other men.