"Jack Finney - Of Missing Persons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finney Jack)

more than that, you knew they'd been happy, day after day after day for a long, long time, and that they
always would be, and they knew it.


I wanted to join them. The most desperate longing roared up in me from the bottom of my soul to be
there on that beach, after breakfast, with those people in the sunny morningтАФand I could hardly stand it.
I looked up at the man behind the counter and managed to smile. "This isтАФvery interesting."

"Yes." He smiled back, then shook his head in amusement. "We've had customers so interested, so
carried away, that they didn't want to talk about anything else." He laughed. "They actually wanted to
know rates, details, everything."

I nodded to show I understood and agreed with them. "And I suppose you've worked out a whole
story to go with this?" I glanced at the folder in my hands.

"Oh, yes. What would you like to know?"

"These people," I said softly, and touched the picture of the group on the beach. "What do they do?"

"They work; everyone does." He took a pipe from his pocket. "They simply live their lives doing what
they like. Some study. We have, according to our little story," he added, and smiled, "a very fine library.
Some of our people farm, some write, some make things with their hands. Most of them raise children,
andтАФwell, they work at whatever it is they really want to do."

"And if there isn't anything they really want to do?"

He shook his head. "There is always something, for everyone, that he really wants to do. It's just that
here there is so rarely time to find out what it is." He brought out a tobacco pouch and, leaning on the
counter, began filling his pipe, his eyes level with mine, looking at me gravely. "Life is simple there, and it's
serene. In some ways, the good ways, it's like the early pioneering communities here in your country, but
without the drudgery that killed people young. There is electricity. There are washing machines, vacuum
cleaners, plumbing, modern bathrooms, and modern medicine, very modern. But there are no radios,
television, telephones, or automobiles. Distances are small, and people live and work in small
communities. They raise or make most of the things they use. Every man builds his own house, with all
the help he needs from his neighbors. Their recreation is their own, and there is a great deal of it, but
there is no recreation for sale, nothing you buy a ticket to. They have dances, card parties, weddings,
christenings, birthday celebrations, harvest parties. There are swimming and sports of all kinds. There is
conversation, a lot of it, plenty of joking and laughter. There is a great deal of visiting and sharing of
meals, and each day as well filled and well spent. There are no pressures, economic or social, and life
holds few threats. Every man, woman, and child is a happy person." After a moment he smiled. "I'm
repeating the text, of course, in our little joke"тАФhe nodded at the folder.

"Of course," I murmured, and looked down at the folder again, turning a page. "Homes in The
Colony," said a caption, and there, true and real, were a dozen or so pictures of the interiors of what
must have been the cabins I'd seen in the first photograph, or others like them. There were living rooms,
kitchens, dens, patios. Many of the homes seemed to be furnished in a kind of Early American style,
except that it lookedтАФauthentic, as though those rocking chairs, cupboards, tables, and hooked rugs had
been made by the people themselves, taking their time and making them well and beautifully. Others of
the interiors seemed modern in style; one showed a definite Oriental influence.