"Dennis Danvers - Circuit of Heaven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Danvers Dennis)

and laid them on the podium, rubbed his enormous eyes. When he opened them, he was looking directly
at Justine—
I have only one more thing to say before we change the world, forever—for that’s what we’re
doing, you know. I’d hoped that one of the other speakers, more qualified than myself, would’ve
said it first, and let me off the hook. But it’s only fair that it should be me, since I’m the one who
got us here.
There are those who have said that by ending death, by eating from the tree of Life, we sin by
presuming to be gods. I confess I sympathize with their views. I can only pray that God grants us
a godlike wisdom to match our cleverness.
There are more—like the other speakers here today—who seem to think that with the end of
death, the human task is finished; that with the end of death, comes the easy life of Olympians;
that with the end of death, comes the end of God—for who needs Him anymore, now that we’ve
built our own heaven? To these people, I would like to quote from the Book of Job—
Is not God in the height of heaven?
And behold the height of the stars, how high
they are!
And thou sayest, How doth God know?
Can he judge through the dark cloud?
Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he
seeth not;
and he walketh in the circuit of heaven.
The story goes that he muttered, “Turn the damn thing on,” as he left the podium, but if he did, it wasn’t
recorded on this holograph. It flickered and began again: Newman Rogers noisily spreading his notes on
the podium, his hair blowing across his face, waiting for the applause to die down so that he might speak,
looking, Justine decided, sadder than any man she’d ever seen.

She searched the faces of the crowd, one by one, not sure what she hoped to find there. There were
others, like her, who were crying, but she couldn’t tell whether they were crying for him or for his
sentiments. She lowered her head and pushed through the crowd, brushing tears from her eyes.

SHE SET OUT IN NO PARTICULAR DIRECTION, HURRYING AT first, then slowing her pace.
She was here now. This was home. She should take in the spring, enjoy walking down streets free of
wild dogs and wild men. She didn’t remember much of her life before she came in. That must be part of
the disorientation Winston mentioned. It’s probably not anything I want to remember, she thought.

It was still hours before she was to meet Winston at the hotel. She took one side street, then another,
trying to get away from the buzz of so many people. Pretty soon, she was wandering through a residential
neighborhood of nineteenth-century rowhouses, neatly trimmed hedges, and flower beds lining the
sidewalk. She imagined herself opening one of the little iron gates and mounting the steps to knock on
one of the heavy wooden doors framed in stained glass. Hi, my name’s Justin, she’d say, I’m new here
.

And they would say, Why come in, dear, and have a cup of tea.

She closed her eyes and let the daydream dissolve. When she opened them, she noticed a wooden sign
hanging over a narrow brick stairway that descended to a basement shop:

WARREN G. MENSO
Books on All Subjects
Ancient and Modern