"Heinlein, Robert A - The Worlds Of Robert A Heinlein" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

The lady of the house answers. You recognize her Ч your own grandmother,
Mrs. Middleclass. She is almost as plump as you remember her, for she "put
on some good, healthy flesh" after she married.

She welcomes you and offers coffee cake, fresh from her modern kitchen
(running water from a hand pump; the best coal range Pittsburgh ever
produced). Everything about her house is modern Ч hand-painted china,
souvenirs from the Columbian Exposition, beaded portieres, shining
baseburner stoves, gas lights, a telephone on the wall.

There is no bathroom, but she and Mr. Middleclass are thinking of putting
one in. Mr. Middleclass's mother calls this nonsense, but your grandmother
keeps up with the times. She is an advocate of clothing reform, wears only
one petticoat, bathes twice a week, and her corsets are guaranteed rust
proof. She has been known to defend female suffrage Ч but not in the
presence of Mr. Middleclass.

Nevertheless, you find difficulty in talking with her. Let's jump back to
the present and try again.

The automatic elevator takes us to the ninth floor, and we pick out a door
by its number, that being the only way to distinguish it.

"Don't bother to ring," you say? What? It's your door and you know exactly
what lies beyond it Ч

Very well, let's move a half century into the future and try another middle
class home.

It's a suburban home not two hundred miles from the city. You pick out your
destination from the air while the cab is landing you Ч a cluster of
hemispheres which makes you think of the houses Dorothy found in Oz

You set the cab to return to its hangar and go into the entrance hall. You
neither knock, nor ring. The screen has warned them before you touched down
on the landing flat and the autobutler's transparency is shining with:
PLEASE RECORD A MESSAGE.

Before you can address the microphone a voice calls out, "Oh, it's you!
Come in, come in." There is a short wait, as your hostess is not at the
door. The autobutler flashed your face to the patio Ч where she was reading
and sunning herself Ч and has relayed her voice back to you.

She pauses at the door, looks at you through one-way glass, and frowns
slightly, she knows your old-fashioned disapproval of casual nakedness. Her
kindness causes her to disobey the family psychiatrist; she grabs a robe
and covers herself before signaling the door to open.

The psychiatrist was right; you have thus been classed with strangers,
tradespeople, and others who are not family intimates. But you must swallow