"Olaf Stapledon - Collected Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stapledon Olaf)

Hood green with wide-brimmed hats. On their hips large-hilted cutlasses and neat pistol holsters
combined the medieval and the modern.

The language of all these strange people was recognisably English, but of a grotesque and, I judged, a
somewhat archaic type. Words of Japanese origin occurred, but not frequently. Most technical words, it
seemed, were English translations of Japanese or Chinese originals. On a minute concrete building, which
turned out to be a telephone call box, I noticed the phrase "Public Lightning Speaker," and under it in
Japanese characters the Japanese word "Denwa."

Motors there were in plenty; but horse-drawn vehicles also, and a number of sedan chairs. Out at sea I
saw a small, high-pooped, antique sailing vessel, and on the horizon a great ocean liner, trailing her black
smoke.

At a certain point I turned off the Parade and passed along the shop-lined streets. The windows were all
veiled for the Sabbath. Many of the large shops displayed Chinese or Japanese signs as well as English
ones. I passed a small Asiatic building which I took to be a Buddhist temple. Examining the printed
notices displayed at its entrance, I judged that it catered not only for Asiatic visitors but for English
converts. My course now led me into the poorer quarter, and I was shocked to note the overcrowding
and filth of this part of the town. Swarms of ragged urchins in native English dress played in every gutter.
They had an unpleasant tendency to flee as I approached, though a few stood their ground and sullenly
touched their forelocks. Many were also rickety, or covered with festering sores. In the heart of this poor
district I came upon an old Gothic church. It turned out to be the parish church, and Roman Catholic. A
constant stream of the devout, mostly rather shabby, flowed in at one door and out at another.

After a while the streets began to improve, and presently I emerged upon a great avenue bordered by
gardens and opulent-looking houses of the sort which I now recognized as both Asiatic and modern.

One of these pocket-mansions was apparently my own, for I entered it without permission. It was a
delightful, even a luxurious building, and I reflected that changing my world I had also "gone up in the
world."

At the sound of my entry a manservant appeared in a vaguely "Beefeater" kind of livery. Flinging him my
bathers and towel, I opened a door out of the entrance hall and went into a sitting room. Before I had
time to study it, a woman rose from some cushions on the floor and caught me in her arms.

"Tom! Base Tom," she said, smiling gaily. "'Tis but a month since we wed, and already thou art entarded
for thy Sunday dinner! Foolish me to let thee practice thy Asiatic water-vice unkeepered!"

A bachelor, I might have shown some confusion at this reception, but I found myself embracing her with
proprietary confidence and zestfully kissing her lips.

"Sweet Betty, let me envisage thee," I said, "to see if thou art worn with pining for me."

So this was my wife, and her name was Betty, and we had been married a month and were evidently still
very pleased about it. She was fair, superbly Nordic. Behind the sparkle of her laughing eyes I detected a
formidable earnestness. She was tall. Her green silk kimono veiled the contours of an Amazon. As she
broke from me and swept through the door, smiling over her shoulder, I wondered how I had ever
persuaded such a splendid creature to marry me.

The gong (a Chinese bronze) was sounding for our Sunday dinner. I rushed upstairs to wash, but on the