"Ursula K. LeGuin - Solitude" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

marriage, for instance, or government, can be seen as an evil spell
woven by sorcerors. It is hard for her people to believe in magic.
The ship kept asking if we were all right, and every now and
then a Stabile would hook up the ansible to our radio and grill
Mother and us. She always convinced them that she wanted to
stay, for despite her frustrations, she was doing the work the First
Observers had not been able to do, and Borny and I were happy as
mudfish, all those first years. I think Mother was happy too, once
she got used to the slow pace and the indirect way she had to learn
things. She was lonely, missing other grown-ups to talk to, and told
us that she would have gone crazy without us. If she missed sex she
never showed it. I think, though, that her report is not very
complete about sexual matters, perhaps because she was troubled
by them. I know that when we first lived in the auntring, two of
the aunts, Hedimi and Behyu, used to meet to make love, and
Behyu courted my mother; but Mother didnтАЩt understand, because
Behyu wouldnтАЩt talk the way Mother wanted to talk. She couldnтАЩt
understand having sex with a person whose house you wouldnтАЩt
enter.
Once when I was nine or so, and had been listening to some of
the older girls, I asked her why didnтАЩt she go out scouting. тАЬAunt
Sadne would look after us,тАЭ I said, hopefully. I was tired of being
the uneducated womanтАЩs daughter. I wanted to live in Aunt SadneтАЩs
house and be just like the other children.
тАЬMothers donтАЩt scout,тАЭ she said, scornfully, like an aunt.
тАЬYes, they do, sometimes,тАЭ I insisted. тАЬThey have to, or how could
they have more than one baby?тАЭ
тАЬThey go to settled men near the auntring. Behyu went back to
the Red Knob Hill Man when she wanted a second child. Sadne goes
and sees Downriver Lame Man when she wants to have sex. They
know the men around here. None of the mothers scout.тАЭ
I realized that in this case she was right and I was wrong, but I
stuck to my point. тАЬWell, why donтАЩt you go see Downriver Lame
Man? DonтАЩt you ever want sex? Migi says she wants it all the time.тАЭ
тАЬMigi is seventeen,тАЭ Mother said drily. тАЬMind your own nose.тАЭ
She sounded exactly like all the other mothers.
Men, during my childhood, were a kind of uninteresting mystery
to me. They turned up a lot in the Before Time stories, and the
singing-circle girls talked about them; but I seldom saw any of
them. Sometimes IтАЩd glimpse one when I was foraging, but they
never came near the auntring. In summer the Downriver Lame
Man would get lonesome waiting for Aunt Sadne and would come
lurking around, not very far from the auntringтАФnot in the bush or
down by the river, of course, where he might be mistaken for a
rogue and stonedтАФbut out in the open, on the hillsides, where we
could all see who he was. Hyuru and Didsu, Aunt SadneтАЩs
daughters, said she had had sex with him when she went out
scouting the first time, and always had sex with him and never
tried any of the other men of the settlement.
She had told them, too, that the first child she bore was a boy,