"The Pyramid In The Desert" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Katherine)

УShe looked back, and her eyes widened slowly.

У СWhy youТre too young. YouТre notЧHeavens! IТm awfully sorry. I thought you were someone else. Silly of me, but you look just like a friend of mineЧwhen she was younger I mean. ItТs almost uncanny!

УI put on a slight western drawl, and answered politely, as a stranger should, and she went away shaking her head. Poor Lucy!

УI went in to see the movie. Alec, what happened next worries me. I stayed in that movie eight hours. It was an obnoxious movie, a hard-boiled detective story full of blood and violence and slaughter. I saw it three and a half times. You used to make critical remarks on the mental state of a public that battens on that sort of thud and blunderЧsomething about Roman circuses. I wish I could remember how you explained it, because I need that explanation. When the movie house closed for the night I went home in a taxi. It drove too fast but I got home all right. There was some meat stew contaminated with botulus in the icebox, but I tasted the difference and threw it out. I have to be very careful. People are too careless. I never realized it before, but they are.

УI had better go to bed now and see if I can get some sleep.Ф



Automatically Alec took the record off and slid it back into its envelope. The penciled triangle caught his eye, and his hands slowed and stopped. For a long time he looked at it without movingЧthe pyramids, the tombs of kings. An ancient religion that taught that one of manТs souls lived on in his mummy, a ghostly spark that vanished if the human form was lost. A whisper of immortality on earth. Cheops, spending the piled treasures of his kingdom and the helpless lives of slaves merely for a tomb to shield his corpse, building a pitiful mountain of rock to mock his name down the centuries. HopeЧand fear. Hope brings terror.

There are wells of madness in us never tapped.

Alec put away the record and stepped to the window. The brown towers of Columbia Medical Center showed in the distance. Cornell Medical was downtown, BellevueЧУHope,Ф said Alec. УWhen there is life there is hope,Ф said Alec, and laughed harshly at the pun. He knew now what he had to do. He turned away from the window, and picking up a classified telephone directory, turned to УHospitalsФ.



It was evening. The psychiatric resident doctor escorted him down the hall talking companionably.

УShe wouldnТt give her name. Part of the complex. A symptom for us, but pretty hard on you. It would have helped you to find her if she had some identifying marks I suppose, like scars I mean. It is unusual to find anyone without anyЧФ

УWhatТs her trouble?Ф asked Alec. УAnxiety? Afraid of things, germs, fallsЧ?Ф

УSheТs afraid all right. Even afraid of me! Says I have germs. Says IТm incompetent. ItТs all a symptom of some other fear of course. These things are not what she is really afraid of. Once we find the single repressed fear and explain it to herЧФ He checked AlecТs objection. УItТs not rational to be afraid of little things. Those little dangers are not what she is really afraid of anyhow. Now suppressionЧФ

Alec interrupted with a slight edge to his voice.

УAre you afraid of death?Ф

УNot much. There is nothing you can do about it, after all, so normal people must manage to get used to the idea. Now sheЧФ

УYou have a religion?Ф

УVedanta. What of it? Now her attitude in this case isЧФ

УEven a mouse can have a nervous breakdown!Ф Alec snapped. УWhere is the repression there? Vedanta you said? Trouble is, Helen is just too rational!Ф They had stopped. УIs this the room?Ф

УYeah,Ф said the doctor sullenly, making no move to open the door. УShe is probably still asleep.Ф He looked at his watch. УNo, she would be coming out of it now.Ф

УDrugs,Ф said Alec coldly. УI suppose you have been psychoanalyzing her, trying to trace her trouble back to some time when her mother slapped her with a lollypop, eh? Or shock treatment perhaps, burning out the powers of imagination, eh?Ф

The young psychiatrist let his annoyance show. УWe know our jobs, mister. Sedatives and analysis, without them she would be screaming the roof off. SheТs too suspicious to consciously confide her warp to us, but under scopolamine she seems to think she is a middle-aged woman. How rational is that?Ф With an effort he regained his professional blandness.

УShe has not said much so far, but we expect to learn more after the next treatment. Of course being told her family history will help us immeasurably. We would like to meet her father and mother.Ф

УIТll do everything in my power to help,Ф Alec replied. УWhere there is life there is hope.Ф He laughed harshly, on a note that drew a keen professional glance from the doctor. The young man put his hand to the knob, his face bland.