"Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Worlds of If" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

"Yes," I responded dully. "But who'd want to read my autobiography? That's all right for you."

"Autobiography? Oh! I remember. No, I have abandoned that. History itself will record the life and
works of van Manderpootz. Now I am engaged in a far grander project."

"Indeed?" I was utterly, gloomily disinterested.

"Yes. Gogli has been here, Gogli the sculptor. He is to make a bust of me. What better legacy can I leave
to the world than a bust of van Manderpootz, sculptured from life? Perhaps I shall present it to the city,
perhaps to the university. I would have given it to the Royal Society if they had been a little more
receptive, if theyтАФifтАФif!" The last in a shout.

"Huh?"

"If!" cried van Manderpootz. "What you saw in the subjunctivisor was what would have happened if you
had caught the ship!"

"I know that."

"But something quite different might really have happened! Don't you see? SheтАФsheтАФ Where are those
old newspapers?"

He was pawing through a pile of them. He flourished one finally. "Here! Here are the survivors!"

Like letters of flame, Joanna Caldwell's name leaped out at me. There was even a little paragraph about
it, as I saw once my reeling brain permitted me to read:
At least a score of survivors owe their lives to the bravery of twenty-eight-year-old Navigator Orris Hope, who
patrolled both aisles during the panic, lacing lifebelts on the injured and helpless, and carrying many to the port. He
remained on the sinking liner until the last, finally fighting his way to the surface through the broken walls of the
observation room. Among those who owe their lives to the young officer are: Patrick Owensby. New York City; Mrs.
Campbell Warren, Boston; Miss Joanna Caldwell, New York CityтАФ
I suppose my shout of joy was heard over in the Administration Building, blocks away. I didn't care; if
van Manderpootz hadn't been armored in stubby whiskers, I'd have kissed him. Perhaps I did anyway; I
can't be sure of my actions during those chaotic minutes in the professor's tiny office.

At last I calmed. "I can look her up!" I gloated. "She must have landed with the other survivors, and they
were all on that British tramp freighter the Osgood, that docked here last week. She must be in New
YorkтАФand if she's gone over to Paris, I'll find out and follow her!"
Well, it's a queer ending. She was in New York, butтАФyou see, Dixon Wells had, so to speak, known
Joanna Caldwell by means of the professor's subjunctivisor, but Joanna had never known Dixon Wells.
What the ending might have been ifтАФifтАФ But it wasn't; she had married Orris Hope, the young officer
who had rescued her. I was late again.

The End