"Ursula K. LeGuin - The Island of the Immortals" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

my part at least, set foot on this isle reputed to hold the secret of ETER-NAL
LIFE.тАЭ
I think I shall abbreviate Postwand; heтАЩs long-winded, and besides, heтАЩs
always sneering at Vong, who seems to do most of the work and have none of the
in-describable emotions. So he and Vong trudged around the town, finding it all very
shabby and nothing out of the way, except that there were dreadful swarms of flies.
Everyone went about in gauze clothing from head to toe, and all the doors and
windows had screens. Postwand assumed the flies would bite savagely, but found
they didnтАЩt; they were annoying, he says, but one scarcely felt their bites, which
didnтАЩt swell up or itch. He wondered if they carried some disease. He asked the
islanders, who disclaimed all knowledge of disease, saying nobody ever got sick
except mainlanders.
At this, Postwand got excited, naturally, and asked them if they ever died. тАЬOf
course,тАЭ they said.
He does not say what else they said, but one gathers they treated him as yet
another idiot from the mainland asking stupid questions. He becomes quite testy,
and makes comments on their backwardness, bad manners, and execrable cookery.
After a disagreeable night in a hut of some kind, he explored inland for several miles,
on foot since there was no other way to get about. In a tiny village near a marsh he
saw a sight that was, in his words, тАЬproof positive that the islandersтАЩ claim of being
free from disease was mere boastfulness, or something yet more sinister: for a more
dreadful example of the ravages of udreba I have never seen, even in the wilds of
Rotogo. The sex of the poor victim was indistinguishable; of the legs, nothing
remained but stumps; the whole body was as if it had been melted in fire; only the
hair, which was quite white, grew luxuriantly, long, tangled, and filthyтАФa crowning
horror to this sad spectacle.тАЭ
I looked up udreba. ItтАЩs a disease the Yendians dread as we dread leprosy,
which it resembles, though it is far more immediately dangerous; a single contact
with saliva or any exudation can cause infection. There is no vaccine and no cure.
Postwand was horrified to see children playing close by the udreb. He apparently
lectured a woman of the village on hygiene, at which she took offense and lectured
him back, telling him not to stare at people. She picked up the poor udreb тАЬas if it
were a child of five,тАЭ he says, and took it into her hut. She came out with a bowl full
of something, muttering loudly. At this point Vong, with whom I sympathize,
suggested that it was time to leave. тАЬI acceded to my companionтАЩs ground-less
apprehensions,тАЭ Postwand says. In fact, they sailed away that evening.
I canтАЩt say that this account raised my enthusiasm for visiting the island. I
sought some more modern information. My librarian had drifted off, the way
Yendians always seemed to do. I didnтАЩt know how to use the subject catalogues, or
it was even more incomprehensibly organized than our electronic subject catalogues,
or there was singularly little information concerning the Island of the Immortals in the
library. All I found was a treatise on the Diamonds of AyaтАФa name sometimes given
the island. The article was too technical for the translatomat. I couldnтАЩt understand
much except that apparently there were no mines; the diamonds did not occur deep
in the earth but were to be found lying on the surface of it, as I think is the case in a
southern African desert. As the island of Aya was forested and swampy, its
diamonds were exposed by heavy rains or mudslides in the wet season. People went
and wandered around looking for them. A big one turned up just often enough to
keep people coming. The islanders apparently never joined in the search. In fact,
some baffled diamond hunters claimed that the natives buried diamonds when they