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

my drinking a glass or two of good wine and partaking of a light
repast.

"I think you are going to be all right now," he said cheerily. "I
should not have taken so abrupt a means to convince you of your
position if your course, while perfectly excusable under the
circumstances, had not rather obliged me to do so. I confess," he
added laughing, "I was a little apprehensive at one time that I
should undergo what I believe you used to call a knockdown in
the nineteenth century, if I did not act rather promptly. I
remembered that the Bostonians of your day were famous
pugilists, and thought best to lose no time. I take it you are now
ready to acquit me of the charge of hoaxing you."

"If you had told me," I replied, profoundly awed, "that a
thousand years instead of a hundred had elapsed since I last
looked on this city, I should now believe you."

"Only a century has passed," he answered, "but many a
millennium in the world's history has seen changes less extraordinary."

"And now," he added, extending his hand with an air of
irresistible cordiality, "let me give you a hearty welcome to the
Boston of the twentieth century and to this house. My name is
Leete, Dr. Leete they call me."

"My name," I said as I shook his hand, "is Julian West."

"I am most happy in making your acquaintance, Mr. West,"
he responded. "Seeing that this house is built on the site of
your own, I hope you will find it easy to make yourself at
home in it."

After my refreshment Dr. Leete offered me a bath and a
change of clothing, of which I gladly availed myself.

It did not appear that any very startling revolution in men's
attire had been among the great changes my host had spoken of,
for, barring a few details, my new habiliments did not puzzle me
at all.

Physically, I was now myself again. But mentally, how was it
with me, the reader will doubtless wonder. What were my
intellectual sensations, he may wish to know, on finding myself
so suddenly dropped as it were into a new world. In reply let me
ask him to suppose himself suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye,
transported from earth, say, to Paradise or Hades. What does
he fancy would be his own experience? Would his thoughts
return at once to the earth he had just left, or would he, after
the first shock, wellnigh forget his former life for a while, albeit