"Edward Bellamy. Lookimg Backward From 2000 to 1887" - читать интересную книгу автора

"Do you really think it necessary to ask me that?" I returned.

"Very well," replied my extraordinary host. "Since I cannot
convince you, you shall convince yourself. Are you strong
enough to follow me upstairs?"

"I am as strong as I ever was," I replied angrily, "as I may have
to prove if this jest is carried much farther."

"I beg, sir," was my companion's response, "that you will not
allow yourself to be too fully persuaded that you are the victim
of a trick, lest the reaction, when you are convinced of the truth
of my statements, should be too great."

The tone of concern, mingled with commiseration, with
which he said this, and the entire absence of any sign of
resentment at my hot words, strangely daunted me, and I
followed him from the room with an extraordinary mixture of
emotions. He led the way up two flights of stairs and then up a
shorter one, which landed us upon a belvedere on the house-top.
"Be pleased to look around you," he said, as we reached the
platform, "and tell me if this is the Boston of the nineteenth
century."

At my feet lay a great city. Miles of broad streets, shaded by
trees and lined with fine buildings, for the most part not in
continuous blocks but set in larger or smaller inclosures,
stretched in every direction. Every quarter contained large open
squares filled with trees, among which statues glistened and
fountains flashed in the late afternoon sun. Public buildings of a
colossal size and an architectural grandeur unparalleled in my
day raised their stately piles on every side. Surely I had never
seen this city nor one comparable to it before. Raising my eyes at
last towards the horizon, I looked westward. That blue ribbon
winding away to the sunset, was it not the sinuous Charles? I
looked east; Boston harbor stretched before me within its
headlands, not one of its green islets missing.

I knew then that I had been told the truth concerning the
prodigious thing which had befallen me.



Chapter 4


I did not faint, but the effort to realize my position made me
very giddy, and I remember that my companion had to give me
a strong arm as he conducted me from the roof to a roomy
apartment on the upper floor of the house, where he insisted on