"Asimov, Isaac - The Early Asimov - Volume 01" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asimov Isaac)

lication, and no one I knew had any idea either. I discussed
it with my father, whose knowledge of the real world was
scarcely greater than my own, and he had no idea either.

But then it occurred to me that, the month before, I had
gone to 79 Seventh Avenue merely to inquire about the non-
appearance of Astounding. I had not been struck by lightning
for doing so. Why not repeat the trip, then, and hand in the
manuscript in person?

The thought was a frightening one. It became even more
frightening when my father further suggested that necessary
preliminaries included a shave and my best suit. That meant I
would have to take additional time, and the day was already
wearing on and I would have to be back in time to make the
afternoon newspaper delivery. (My father had a candy store
and newsstand, and life was very complicated in those days
for a creative writer of artistic and sensitive bent such as my-
self. For instance, we lived in an apartment in which all the
rooms were in a line and the only way of getting from the
living room to the bedroom of my parents, or of my sister, or
of my brother, was by going through my bedroom. My bed-
room was therefore frequently gone through, and the fact that
I might be in the throes of creation meant nothing to anyone.)

I compromised. I shaved, but did not bother changing suits,
and off I went. The date was June 21, 1938.

I was convinced that, for daring to ask to see the editor of
Astounding Science Fiction, I would be thrown out of the
building bodily, and that my manuscript would be torn up and
thrown out after me in a shower of confetti. My father, how-
ever (who had lofty notions) was convinced that a writer—by
which he meant anyone with a manuscript—would be treated
with the respect due an intellectual. He had no fears at all—
but I was the one who had to go into the building.

Trying to mask panic, I asked to see the editor. The girl
behind the desk (I can see the scene in my mind's eye right
now exactly as it was) spoke briefly on the phone and said,
"Mr. Campbell will see you."

She directed me through a large, loftlike room filled with
huge rolls of paper and enormous piles of magazines and
permeated with the heavenly smell of pulp (a smell that, to
this day, will recall my youth in aching detail and reduce me
to tears of nostalgia). And there, in a small room on the
other side, was Mr. Campbell.

John Wood Campbell, Jr., had been working for Street &