"Damon Knight - The Last Word" - читать интересную книгу автора (Knight Damon)

THE LAST WORD



by




Damon Knight


The first word, I like to think, was “Ouch.” Some cave man, trying to knock a stone into better shape
with another stone, slipped, hit his thumb – and there you are. Language.

I have an affection for these useless and unverifiable facts. Take the first dog. He, I feel sure, was an
unusually clever but cowardly wolf, who managed to terrorise early man into throwing him a scrap. Early
man himself was a terrible coward. Man and wolf discovered that they could hunt together, in their
cowardly fashion, and there you are again. ‘Domesticated animals.’

I admit that I was lax during the first few thousand years. By the time I realised that Man needed closer
supervision, many of the crucial events had already taken place. I was then a young – well, let us say a
young fallen angel. Had I been older and more experienced, history would have turned out very
differently.

There was that time when I happened across a young Egyptian and his wife sitting on a stone near the
bank of theNile. They looked glum; the water was rising. A hungry jackal was not far away, and it
crossed my mind that if I distracted the young people’s attention for a few minutes, the jackal might
surprise them.

“High enough for you?”I asked agreeably, pointing to the water.

They looked at me rather sharply. I had put on the appearance of a human being, as nearly as possible,
but the illusion was no good without a large cloak, which was odd for the time of year.

The man said, “If it never got any higher, it would suit me.”

“Why, I’m surprised to hear you say that,” I replied. “If the river didn’t rise, your fields wouldn’t be so
fertile – isn’t that right?”
 “True,” said the man, “but also if it didn’t rise, my fields would still be my fields.” He showed me where
the water was carrying away his fences. “Every year we argue over the boundaries, after the flood, and
this year my neighbour has a cousin living with him. The cousin’s a big, unnecessarily muscular man.”
Broodingly, he began to draw lines in the dirt with a long stick.

These lines made me a little nervous. The Sumerians, up north, had recently discovered the art of writing,
and I was still suffering from the shock.

“Well, life is a struggle,” I told the man soothingly. “Eat or be eaten. Let the strong win, and the weak go
to the wall.”