"Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Keyes Daniel)
Dr. Strauss and Dr. Nemur have asked me not to come to the lab any more. I know what theyТre thinking but I canТt accept it. I am going ahead with my plans to carry their research forward. With all due respect to both of these fine scientists, I am well aware of their limitations. If there is an answer, IТll have to find it out for myself. Suddenly, time has become very important to me.
May 29 I have been given a lab of my own and permission to go ahead with the research. IТm on to something. Working day and night. IТve had a cot moved into the lab. Most of my writing time is spent on the notes which I keep in a separate folder, but from time to time I feel it necessary to put down my moods and my thoughts out of sheer habit.
I find the calculus of intelligence to be a fascinating study. Here is the place for the application of all the knowledge I have acquired. In a sense itТs the Сproblem IТve been concerned with all my life.
May 31 Dr. Strauss thinks IТm working too hard. Dr. Nemur says IТm trying to cram a lifetime of research and thought into a few weeks. I know I should rest, but IТm driven on by something inside that wonТt let me stop. IТve got to find the reason for the sharp regression in Algernon. IТve got to know if and when it will happen to me.
June 4
LETrER TO DR. SmAuss (copy)
Dear Dr. Strauss:
Under separate cover I am sending you a copy of my report entitled, УThe Algernon.Gordon Effect: A Study of Structure and Function of Increased Intelligence,Ф which I would like to have you read and have published.
As you see, my experiments are completed. I have included in my
report all of my formulae, as well as mathematical analysis in the appendix. Of course, these should be verified.
Because of its importance to both you and Dr. Nemur (and need I say to myself, too?) I have checked and rechecked my results a dozen times in the hope of finding an error. I am sorry to say the results must stand. Yet for the sake of science, I am grateful for the little bit that I here add to the knowledge of the function of the human mind and of the laws governing the artificial increase of human inteffigence.
I recall your once saying to me that an experimental failure or the disproving of a theory was as important to the advancement of learning as a success would be. I know now that this is true. I am sorry, however, that my own contribution to the field must rest upon the ashes of the work of two men I regard so highly.
Yours truly,
Charles Gordon
encL: rept.
June 5 I must not become emotional. The facts and the results of my experiments are clear, and the more sensational aspects of my own rapid climb cannot obscure the fact that the tripling of intelligence by the surgical technique developed by Drs. Strauss and Nemur must be viewed as having little or no practical applicability (at the present time) to the increase of human intelligence.
As I review the records and data on Algernon, I see that although he is still in his physical infancy, he has regressed mentally. Motor activity is impaired; there is a general reduction of glandular activity; there is an accelerated loss of co-ordination.
There are also strong indications of progressive amnesia.
As will be seen by my report, these and other physical and mental deterioration syndromes can be predicted with statistically significant results by the application of my formula.
I feel that this, in itself, is an important discovery.
As long as I am able to write, I will continue to record my thoughts in these progress reports. it is one of my few pleasures. However, by all indications, my own mental deterioration will be very rapid.
I have already begun to notice signs of emotional instability and forgetfulness, the first symptoms of the burnout.
June 10 Deterioration progressing. I have become absentminded. Algernon died two days ago. Dissection shows my predictions were right. His brain had decreased in weight and there was a general smoothing out of cerebral convolutions as well as a deepening and broadening of brain fissures.
I guess the same thing is or will soon be happening to me. Now that itТs definite, I donТt want it to happen.
I put AlgernonТs body in a cheese box and buried him in the back yard. I cried.
June 15 Dr. Strauss came to see me again. I wouldnТt open the door and I told him to go away. I want to be left to myself. I have become touchy and irritable. I feel the darkness closing in. ItТs hard to throw off thoughts of suicide. I keep telling myself how important this introspective journal will be.
ItТs a strange sensation to pick up a book that youТve read and enjoyed just a few months ago and discover that you donТt remember it. I remembered how great I thought John Milton was, but when I picked up Paradise Lost I couldnТt understand it at all. I got so angry I threw the book across the room.
IТve got to try to hold on to some of it. Some of the things IТve learned. Oh, God, please donТt take it all away.
June 19 Sometimes, at night, I go out for a walk. Last night I couldnТt remember where I lived. A policeman took me home. I have the strange feeling that this has all happened to me beforeЧa long time ago. I keep telling myself IТm the only person in the world who can describe whatТs happening to me.
June 21 Why canТt I remember? IТve got to fight. I lie in bed for days and I donТt know who or where I am. Then it all comes back to me in a flash. Fugues of amnesia. Symptoms of senilityЧsecond childhood. I can watch them coming on. ItТs so cruelly logical. I learned so much and so fast. Now my mind is deteriorating rapidly. I wonТt let it happen. IТll fight it. I canТt help thinking of the boy in the restaurant, the blank
expression, the silly smile, the people laughing at hini. NoЧplease-Ч not that again.
June 22 IТm forgetting things that I learned recently. It seems to be following the classic patternЧthe last things learned are the first things forgotten. Or is that the pattern? IТd better look it up again.
I reread my paper on the Algernon-Gordon Effect and I get the strange feeling that it was written by someone else. There are parts I donТt even understand.
Motor activity impaired. I keep tripping over things, and it becomes increasingly difficult to type.
June 23 IТve given up using the typewriter completely. My co-ordination is bad. I feel that IТm moving slower and slower. Had a terrible shock today. I picked up a copy of an article I used in my research, KruegerТs Uber psychische Ganzheit, to see if it would help me understand what I had done. First I thought there was something wrong with my eyes. Then I realized I could no longer read German. I tested myself in other languages. All gone.
June 30 A week since I dared to write again. ItТs slipping away like sand through my fingers. Most of the books I have are too hard for me now. I get angry with them because I know that I read and understood them just a few weeks ago.
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