"Henry Kuttner - Mimsy Were The Borogoves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

the toys in private. Not obviously, of courseтАФbut the more intricate experiments were never performed under the eye
of an adult.
Scott was learning fast. What he now saw in the crystal cube had little relationship to the original simple problems.
But they were fas-cinatingly technical. Had Scott realized that his education was being guided and
supervisedтАФthough merely mechanicallyтАФhe would prob-ably have lost interest. As it was, his initiative was never
quashed.
Abacus, cube, doll and other toys the children found in the box.
Neither Paradine nor Jane guessed how much of an effect the con-tents of the time machine were having on the
kids. How could they? Youngsters are instinctive dramatists, for purposes of self-protection. They have not yet fitted
themselves to the exigenciesтАФto them partially inexplicableтАФof a mature world. Moreover, their lives are complicated
by human variables. They are told by one person that playing in the mud is permissible, but that, in their excavations,
they must not uproot flowers or small trees. Another adult vetoes mud per se. The Ten Com-mandments are not carved
on stoneтАФthey vary; and children are help-lessly dependent on the caprice of those who give them birth and feed and
clothe them. And tyrannize. The young animal does not resent that benevolent tyranny, for it is an essential part of
nature. He is, however, an individualist, and maintains his integrity by a subtle, passive fight.
Under the eyes of an adult he changes. Like an actor on stage, when he remembers, he strives to please, and also to
attract attention to him-self. Such attempts are not unknown to maturity. But adults are less obviousтАФto other adults.
It is difficult to admit that children lack subtlety. Children are differ-
ent from mature animals because they think in another way. We can more or less easily pierce the pretenses they set
up, but they can do the same to us. Ruthlessly a child can destroy the pretenses of an adult. Iconoclasm is a childтАЩs
prerogative.
Foppishness, for example. The amenities of social intercourse, exag-gerated not quite to absurdity. The gigolo .

тАЬSuch savoir-faire! Such punctilious courtesy!тАЭ The dowager and the blonde young thing are often impressed.
Men have less pleasant com-ments to make. But the child goes to the root of the matter.
тАЬYouтАЩre silly!тАЭ
How can an immature human being understand the complicated system of social relationships? He canтАЩt. To him, an
exaggeration of natural courtesy is silly. In his functional structure of life patterns, it is rococo. He is an egotistic little
animal who cannot visualize himself in the position of anotherтАФcertainly not an adult. A self-contained, almost perfect
natural unit, his wants supplied by others, the child is much like a unicellular creature floating in the bloodstream,
nutriment carried to him, waste products carried away.
From the standpoint of logic, a child is rather horribly perfect. A baby must be even more perfect, but so alien to an
adult that only super-ficial standards of comparison apply. The thought processes of an infant are completely
unimaginable. But babies think, even before birth. In the womb they move and sleep, not entirely through instinct. We
are conditioned to react rather peculiarly to the idea that a nearly viable embryo may think. We are surprised, shocked
into laughter and re-pelled. Nothing human is alien.
But a baby is not human. An embryo is far less human.
That, perhaps, was why Emma learned more from the toys than did Scott. He could communicate his thoughts, of
course; Emma could not, except in cryptic fragments. The matter of the scrawls, for example.
Give a young child pencil and paper, and he will draw something which looks different to him than to an adult. The
absurd scribbles have little resemblance to a fire engine, but it is a fire engine, to a baby. Per-haps it is even
three-dimensional. Babies think differently and see dif-ferently.

Paradine brooded over that, reading his paper one evening and watching Emma and Scott communicate. Scott was
questioning his sister. Sometimes he did it in English. More often he had resource to gibberish and sign language.
Emma tried to reply, but the handicap was too great.
Finally Scott got pencil and paper. Emma liked that. Tongue in
cheek, she laboriously wrote a message. Scott took the paper, examined it and scowled.
тАЬThat isnтАЩt tight, Emma,тАЭ he said.
Emma nodded vigorously. She seized the pencil again and made more scrawls. Scott puzzled for a while, finally