"Rhys Hughes - The Folded Page" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Rhys)

Aguri was exasperated. "Why not?"

"Because the paper I used was relatively small," she explained. "Next time I might try the
experiment with a huge sheet. If the paper is wide enough I'm sure I can beat the limit. Nine,
ten or even eleven folds should be possible."

Aguri nodded slowly. It was clear he wanted to divulge a secret. Mikiko moved her ear closer
to his mouth and listened carefully as he told her the following story in breathless whispers. It
was the story she had been waiting to hear.

"There was a powerful lord," he began, "who once shared your opinion on this matter. Almost
a thousand years ago he decided to settle the argument with an improbable experiment. He
paid for the manufacture of the largest piece of paper in history. No blank page quite like it
has ever existed since. How big was it, you might ask? As wide as a misty dawn, as long as a
frosty road, that's my answer. The lord saw it and was very pleased.

"Surveyors in his employ calculated the halfway point and marked it with an inked brush. Then
servants and horses pulled on ropes to draw the paper back on itself. That was the first fold.
Again the surveyors ventured forth to make a new mark, again the men and beasts struggled
in their harnesses. Within a week the second fold was completed. As the apparent surface
area of the sheet diminished, so it grew thicker and harder to fold. Servants and horses
collapsed from exhaustion.

"But the lord was resolute. He urged them on with promises and threats. Months passed, the
seasons changed. First there was snow on the page, then cherry blossom, all swept away
with brooms. Eventually the eighth fold was made, then with great jubilation the ninth. Poets
wrote poems on the margins of the paper but their words were smudged and lost when the
tenth fold was completed. The sheet was now one thousand and twenty four layers thick.

"Still the lord was dissatisfied. He grew old and should have watched his children grow up, but
his attention was wholly directed at the onerous business of the eleventh, twelfth and
thirteenth folds. Finally he realised the foolishness of his obsession and announced that the
fourteenth fold would be the last one. When it was made he wept openly, for he had
simultaneously achieved his greatest dream and wasted his life.

"Despite his age and decrepitude he walked around the excessively folded page to examine it
and this circuit did not take long. Let me now reveal that the original sheet of paper was
approximately the same size as the Inland Sea, about eighty five kilometres long on each side.
Forget what I said earlier about misty dawns and frosty roads. After all that folding it was now
less than a third of one kilometre on each side.

"The fourteenth fold had increased its thickness to sixteen thousand three hundred and eighty
four layers. It occurred to the lord that it might be a good idea to build a new castle on the
summit of this implausible paper outcrop. It was his way of redeeming those wasted years, of
apologising to his servants by demonstrating a more practical result to his whimsical project.
And so they laboured for him again and one year later the castle was ready.

"It towered over the surrounding lands on its paper foundations and the lord felt very proud
when he took up residence with his family. He hobbled the ramparts and gazed far in every
direction and access to the door of the castle was possible only with a long ladder that was