"Kurt Vonnegut - Harrison Bergeron" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vonnegut Kurt)

HARRISON BERGERON
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
This excellent short story was originally published in Fantasy and Science
Fiction Magazine in 1961.
It was reprinted in Welcome To The Monkey House


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THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal
before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than
anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger
or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and
213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents
of the United States Handicapper General.

Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance,
still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy
month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son,
Harrison, away.

It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very
hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think
about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was
way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required
by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every
twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep
people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel's cheeks,
but she'd forgotten for the moment what they were about.

On the television screen were ballerinas.

A buzzer sounded in George's head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from
a burglar alarm.

"That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did," said Hazel.

"Huh" said George.

"That dance-it was nice," said Hazel.

"Yup," said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They
weren't really very good-no better than anybody else would have been, anyway.
They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were
masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face,
would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague
notion that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped. But he didn't get very far
with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.