"Theodore Sturgeon - Some Of Your Blood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sturgeon Theodore)

the constant, grinding, overriding necessity for quality. Some men in tank factories turned down each
bolt really tight; some welders really cared about the joints they ran. Some doctors, then, belonged with
these, and never stopped caring about what they did, whether it was dull, whether it was difficult,
whether, even, the whole world suddenly turned enemy and fought back, said quit, said skip it, it doesn’t
matter.
So perhaps the value of these folders, and their secrecy lies in their ability to remind. Open one,
relive it. Say, here was a triumph. Say, here is a tragedy. Say, here is a terrible blunder for which
atonement can never be made... but which, because it was made, will never be made again. Say, here is
the case which killed me; though I have not died, yet when I do I shall die of it. Say, here was my great
insight, my inspiration, one day my book and my immortality. Say, here is failure; I think it would be
anyone’s failure, I—I pray God I never discover that someone else could succeed with something, some
little thing I should have done and did not. Say... there is something to be said for each of these folders,
guarded once by a lock, again by concealment, and at last by the declaration of privacy.
But open your eyes now and look at the folder before you. On the index tab at its edge is lettered

“GEORGE SMITH”

The quotation marks are heavily and carefully applied, almost like a 66 and a 99.
Go ahead.
Open it.
You know the way. You have the key. And it is your privilege. Would you like to know why? It is
because you are The Reader, and this is fiction. Oh yes it is, it’s fiction. As for Dr. Philip Outerbridge, he
is fiction too, and he won’t mind. So go on—he won’t say a thing to you. You’re quite safe.
It is, it is, it really is fiction...



2

Here is a typewritten letter written on paper showing signs of having been torn across the top with a
straight-edge, as if to remove a letterhead. The letters O-R over the date are in ink, printed by hand,
large and clear.

Base Hospital HQ,
Portland Ore. : otherwise known as—
Office of the Understaff O-R
Freudsville, Oregon. 12 Jan.

Dear Phil:

First and foremost notice the O-R notation above. That means off the record, and I mean altogether. If


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and when you see it in future you don’t need explanations. Anything which can be gotten across by
abbreviation and in code is a blessing to me, especially since they gave me this nut factory to administer
without relieving me of that bedlam of yours. You’ll excuse the layman’s vulgarisins, dear doctor; believe
me, they do me good.