"Olaf Stapledon - A Man Divided" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stapledon Olaf)

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A Man Divided




water, or floating on its surface. The image breaks down, but perhaps you see what I mean. In the dream-life I am the sport of
those creatures (or at least of some of them) that come nosing up through the opaque water, pushing me hither and thither with
the swirl of their lashing tails, and sometimes threatening to swallow me, my real self. In fact, they do sometimes completely
swallow my real self. Over and over again I have simply been completely identified with one or other of those brutes. Do you see
what I mean?"

"Partly," I said; and again I asked if the waking state happened often.

"Not often, but more frequently as time goes on. And it tends to last longer, and also to be more thorough." He sighed, and said,
"Perhaps some day I shall be permanently awake. But I hardly dare hope for that. For the present, full waking comes seldom, and
never lasts long, just long enough to get me into the most distressing scrapes, and then, let the wretched dreamer suffer for it.
Once, when I was about seventeen, I woke when I was persecuting some miserable fag. I was taking a high moral line with him
over some very small crime of his, and leading sadistically up to a thrashing. Suddenly I saw the kid as a live human person, and
at the same time I caught a terrifying glimpse of myself as the cad I was. I saw as clear as daylight what was happening in my
own mind. The affair with the Head of my prep. school had roused an ugly monster from some dark cranny at the bottom of the
river, and this creature had been ranging about ever since, devouring a lot of harmless small-fry, and growing fat and strong,
unseen under the muddy water. The sudden waking seemed to be due to the commotion caused by this brute even on the surface
of my mind. The danger woke me, and in a flash I saw right down into the depths. I can remember the unendurable shame of
waking to find myself behaving so disgustingly. I forget exactly what happened in consequence. But I can remember being so
upset that I said, 'Gosh I How you must hate me, Johnson minor, and quite right too!' Then I actually wrote a note telling him if
ever he saw me being a cad again he must remind me how, when I did it before, I woke up and was sorry. I signed the thing and
gave it him. Naturally the kid was bewildered by my sudden change, and frightened, I think. But he took the note: Well, a few
days later he had an excellent opportunity of using it, and he did use it. In my somnolent, doltish phase, I couldn't remember a
thing about the earlier, awake phase. When he showed me the note I had written and signed, I was confident it was a forgery. Of
course I was furious. And of course I regarded his behaviour as insufferable cheek. With great gusto I whacked him. Naturally
this incident was soon known to the whole school. I used to be frightfully popular, being good at games and correct about school
etiquette. But this affair broke my popularity completely. Everyone despised and distrusted me. And as popularity was my ruling
passion (though I didn't know it), I went through agonies trying to restore my position. Sometimes I half succeeded. But always,
just when everything seemed going well, I would wake up for a few minutes and do something outrageous, so that the fat was in
the fire all over again."

Victor fell silent, gazing down into the stream, with folded arms on the rail of the bridge. Suddenly he stood upright, with a laugh
that was also a sigh, stretching himself as though in relief after some kind of bondage. We moved along the path. "Tell me," I
said, "when you say you saw the kid as a live human person, what do you really mean? Telepathy?"




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A Man Divided