"Philip Jose Farmer - The Sliced Crosswise Only on Tuesday W" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

And if he did get to his goal, then what? She could reject him without giving him a
second chance.
It was unthinkable, but she could.
He caressed the door and then pressed his lips against it.
"Pygmalion could at least touch Galatea," he said. "Surely, the gods-the big dumb
bureaucrats-will take pity on me, who can't even touch you. Surely."
The psycher had said that he was incapable of a true and lasting bond with a
woman, as so many men were in this world of easy-come-easy-go liaisons. He had
fallen in love with Jennie Marlowe for several reasons. She may have resembled
somebody he had loved when he was very young. His mother, perhaps? No? Well,
never mind. He would find out in Wednesday-perhaps. The deep, the important, truth
was that he loved Miss Marlowe because she could never reject him, kick him out, or
become tiresome, complain, weep, yell, insult, and so forth. He loved her because she
was unattainable and silent.
"I love her as Achilles must have loved Helen when he saw her on top of the walls
of Troy," Tom said.
"I wasn't aware that Achilles was ever in love with Helen of Troy," Doctor Traurig
said drily.
"Homer never said so, but I know that he must have been! Who could see her and
not love her?"
"How the hell would I know? I never saw her! If I had suspected these delusions
would intensify тАж"
"I am a poet!" Tom said.
"Overimaginative, you mean! Hmmm. She must be a douser! I don't have anything
particular to do this evening. I'll tell you what тАж my curiosity is aroused тАж I'll come
down to your place tonight and take a look at this fabulous beauty, your Helen of
Troy."
Doctor Traurig appeared immediately after supper, and Tom Pym ushered him
down the hall and into the stoner room at the rear of the big house as if he were a
guide conducting a famous critic to a just-discovered Rembrandt.
The doctor stood for a long time in front of the cylinder. He hmmmed several times
and checked her vital-data plate several times. Then he turned and said, "I see what
you mean, Mr. Pym. Very well. I'll give the go-ahead."
"Ain't she something?" Tom said on the porch. "She's out of this world, literally
and figuratively, of course."
"Very beautiful. But I believe that you are facing a great disappointment, perhaps
heartbreak, perhaps, who knows, even madness, much as I hate to use that unscientific
term."
"I'll take the chance," Tom said. "I know I sound nuts, but where would we be if it
weren't for nuts? Look at the man who invented the wheel, at Columbus, at James
Watt, at the Wright brothers, at Pasteur, you name them."
"You can scarcely compare these pioneers of science with their passion for truth
with you and your desire to marry a woman. But, as I have observed, she is strikingly
beautiful. Still, that makes me exceedingly cautious. Why isn't she married? What's
wrong with her?"
"For all I know, she may have been married a dozen times!" Tom said. "The point
is, she isn't now! Maybe she's disappointed and she's sworn to wait until the right man
comes along. Maybe тАж"
"There's no maybe about it, you're neurotic," Traurig said. "But I actually believe
that it would be more dangerous for you not to go to Wednesday than it would be to