"Colin Wilson - The Philospher's Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Colin)

what meaning could they have for me, or for any other human being? What was the point of science, the
study of the indifference of the universe? One could understand why men should study to make their lives
more comfortable - but why study mere facts for their own sake? What had they to do with us? I began
to suspect that all science is an absurd misunderstanding.
LyellтАЩs solicitor contacted me. I had to go to London on business connected with the will. Up to this
point, I had never expected that he intended to leave me so much money; I knew he meant to leave me
something - тАШI assumed it would be a small income or settlement of some kind. The truth surprised me -
but even so, I felt almost nothing. It seemed irrelevant. By this time, the very fact that I was alive seemed
irrelevant.
His solicitor - John Foster Howard - was a kind old man. He invited me home for dinner, and I accepted
out of indifference. In the same spirit of indifference, I accepted several whiskies before dinner, and then
drank a great deal of wine with the meal. I had often drunk wine at Sneinton - Lyell was a great
connoisseur - but never took any interest the subject. I felt about wine as I felt about sex - that it was an
irrelevancy, of no concern to the scientist. Now I found, for the first time in two weeks, that I was feeling
human again. I ended by getting drunk, and talking to Howard at length about Lyell; at two in the
morning, they made up a bed for me, and I slept heavily until late the next morning.
I left HowardтАЩs after breakfast, and wandered around Hyde Park for an hour - he lived off the Edgware
Road. Then I did something that I had never done before; I went into a pub in Soho and ordered a
double whisky. When the barman asked me what kind, I looked at him blankly, then said: тАШScotch.тАЩ I
drank several of these, sitting in a corner of the bar, then ate a sandwich and got into conversation with
an old man who said he was a peddler of jewellery. Two women friends joined him; I bought them all
drinks. Suddenly, they seemed the friendliest and pleasantest people I had ever met. I went on drinking
until closing time, and then realised that I could hardly walk. I hailed a taxi and told the driver to take me
to Liverpool Street Station. My case was still in my hotel room, and I hadnтАЩt paid the bill, but I suddenly
wanted to be back in the cottage. I slept on the journey and woke up with a headache and a thirst. At
Rochford, I went into the nearest hotel and ordered sandwiches and beer. After my third beer, the
headache went away. I fell into conversation with a boy of about twenty. He told me he was a farm
labourer who worked for twelve pounds a week, and that he intended to get married soon because his
girlfriend was pregnant. Suddenly, I felt a great interest in him, a desire for insight into his life. I got him to
talk about himself at length, while I bought him drinks -we were soon both drinking whisky. (He went on
to mix his drinks in a manner that even I knew must be disastrous.) He told me about his family, his
brothers and sisters and cousins, and I remember listening to every word with deep attention. Finally, he
remembered that he was supposed to meet his girlfriend, and that he was an hour late. He went off,
saying that he would bring her back, because I had to meet her. He left, and I sat alone, staring at the
coal fire and sipping whisky. I was surprisingly clear headed considering how much IтАЩd drunk - perhaps
because I was unused to it. And as I sat there, thinking about the life that Frank - the farm labourer - had
been describing to me, a thought suddenly came into my head: тАШI am rich, and free to do whatever I like.тАЩ
I looked around at the bar - the working men playing darts and drinking pints - and it suddenly seemed
clear that I had been ignoring what life was really about. These people wanted to live fuller lives, but they
were trapped in an economic machine. I had been lucky. I would be stupid not to seize my luck with
both hands, Life was to be lived; science was a fraud. I suddenly remembered authors I had read without
much sympathy at the time - Pater, Oscar Wilde, Maupassant. I remembered JaneтАЩs French maid
Juliette, remembered her shapely legs in black stockings, and wished that she was here with me - or,
better still, waiting back at the cottage. When I thought about Lyell, I experienced no pangs of
conscience about my present state of mind; after all, he was dead. He had been taken in by the fraud too,
and now he was dead. But at least I could try to do some of his living for him. I remembered his
happiness in those early days with Lady Jane. Of course... he must have known the secret. Why didnтАЩt
he tell me? Why did we go on, living in our absurd, dehydrated, sterilised world of ideas and aesthetic
emotions?
By ten oтАЩclock, Frank still hadnтАЩt returned. I rang for a taxi, and got home towards midnight. I ate cold