"Jules Verne - In the Year 2889" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verne Jules)

inventor,
when by its aid he is able distinctly to see his wife despite her great
distance.
Mrs. Smith, weary after the ball or the visit to the theater the preceding
night, is still abed, though it is near noontime at Paris. She is asleep, her
head sunk in the lace-covered pillows. What? She stirs? Her lips move. She
dreams, perhaps? Yes. She is talking, pronouncing a name--his name--Fritz!
The
delightful vision gives a happier turn to Mr. Smith's thoughts. And now, at
the
call of imperative duty, he lightheartedly springs from his bed and enters
his
mechanical dresser.
Two minutes later the machine deposits him all dressed at the threshold of
his
office. The round of journalistic work begins. First he enters the hall of
novelists, a vast apartment crowned with an enormous transparent cupola. In
one
corner is a telephone, through which a hundred Earth Chronicle litterateurs
in
turn recount to the public in daily installments a hundred novels. Smith
addresses one of these authors awaiting his turn: "Capital! Capital, my dear
fellow, your last story. The scene where the village maid discusses
interesting
philosophical problems with her lover shows your acute power of observation.
Never have the ways of country folk been better portrayed. Keep on, my dear
Archibald, keep on! Since yesterday, thanks to you, there is a gain of 5000
subscribers."
"Mr. John Last," he begins again, turning to a new arrival, "I am not as
pleased
with your work. Your story is not a picture of life; it lacks the elements of
truth. And why? Simply because you run straight on to the end; because you do
not analyze. Your heroes do this thing or that from this or that motive,
which
you assign without ever a thought of dissecting their mental and moral
natures.
Our feelings, you must remember, are far more complex. In real life every act
is
the result of a hundred thoughts that come and go, and these you must study,
one
by one, if you would create a living character. 'But,' you will say, 'in
order
to note these fleeting thoughts one must know them, must be able to follow
them
in their capricious meanderings.' Why, any child can do that, as you know.
Simply make use of hypnotism, electrical or human, which gives one a twofold
being, setting free the witness-personality so it may see, understand and
remember the reasons which determine the personality that acts. Just study
yourself as you live from day to day, my dear Last. Imitate your associate who
I