"David Lindsey - A Voyage to Arcturus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lindsay David)

She held her red, dripping hands away from her draperies, and uttered a delicious, clashing laugh.
"You think I am half a man?"
"Answer my question."
"I'm a woman through and through, Maskull - to the marrowbone. But that's not to say I have never
absorbed males."
"And that means ..
"New strings for my harp, Maskull. A wider range of passions, a stormier heart ..."
"For you, yes - But for them ... ?"
"I don't know. The victims don't describe their experiences. Probably unhappiness of some sort - if
they still know anything."
"This is a fearful business!" he exclaimed, regarding her gloomily. "One would think Ifdawn a land of
devils."
Oceaxe gave a beautiful sneer. as she took a step toward the river. "Better men than you - better in
every sense of the word - are walking about with foreign wills inside them. You may be as moral as you
like, Maskull, but the fact remains, animals were made to be eaten, and simple natures were made to be
absorbed."
"And human rights count for nothing!"
She had bent over the river's edge, to wash her arms and hands, but glanced up over her shoulder to
answer his remark. "They do count. But we only regard a m an as human for just as long as he's able to
hold his own with others."
The flesh was soon cooked, and they breakfasted in silence. Maskull cast heavy, doubtful glances
from time to time toward his companion. Whether it was due to the strange quality of the food, or to his
long abstention, he did not know, but the meal tasted nauseous, and even cannibalistic. He ate little, and
the moment he got up he felt defiled.
"Let me bury this drude, where I can find it some other time," said Oceaxe. "On the next occasion,
though, I shall have no Maskull with me, to shock.... Now we have to take to the river."
They stepped off the land onto the water. It flowed against them with a sluggish current, but the
opposition, instead of hindering them, had the contrary effect - it caused them to exert themselves, and
they moved faster. They climbed the river in this way for several miles. The exercise gradually improved
the circulation of Maskull's blood, and he began to look at things in a far more way. The hot sunshine, the
diminished wind, the cheerful marvellous cloud scenery, the quiet, crystal forests-all was soothing and
delightful. They approached nearer and nearer to the gaily painted heights of Ifdawn.
There was something enigmatic to him in those bright walls. He was attracted by them, yet felt a sort
of awe. They looked real, but at the same time very supernatural. If one could see the portrait of a ghost,
painted with a hard, firm outline, in substantial colors, the feelings produced by such a sight would be
exactly similar to Maskull's impressions as he studied the Ifdawn precipices.
He broke the long silence. "Those mountains have most extraordinary shapes. All the lines are
straight and perpendicular - no slopes or curves."
She walked backward on the water, in order to face him. "That's typical of Ifdawn. Nature is all
hammer blows with us. Nothing soft and gradual."
"I hear you, but I don't understand you."
"All over the Marest you'll find patches of ground plunging down or rushing up. Trees grow fast.
Women and men don't think twice before acting. One may call Ifdawn a place of quick decisions."
Maskull was impressed. "A fresh, wild, primitive land."
"How is it where you come from?" asked Oceaxe.
"Oh, mine is a decrepit world, where nature takes a hundred years to move a foot of solid land. Men
and animals go about in flocks. Originality is a lost habit."
"Are there women there?"
"As with you, and not very differently formed."
"Do they love?"