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

His words recalled to me the feminine voices which I had
heard whispering about me as I was coming back to conscious
life; and, most curious to learn what the ladies of the year 2000
were like, I assented with alacrity to the proposition. The
apartment in which we found the wife and daughter of my host,
as well as the entire interior of the house, was filled with a
mellow light, which I knew must be artificial, although I could
not discover the source from which it was diffused. Mrs. Leete
was an exceptionally fine looking and well preserved woman of
about her husband's age, while the daughter, who was in the first
blush of womanhood, was the most beautiful girl I had ever
seen. Her face was as bewitching as deep blue eyes, delicately
tinted complexion, and perfect features could make it, but even
had her countenance lacked special charms, the faultless luxuriance
of her figure would have given her place as a beauty among
the women of the nineteenth century. Feminine softness and
delicacy were in this lovely creature deliciously combined with
an appearance of health and abounding physical vitality too
often lacking in the maidens with whom alone I could compare
her. It was a coincidence trifling in comparison with the general
strangeness of the situation, but still striking, that her name
should be Edith.

The evening that followed was certainly unique in the history
of social intercourse, but to suppose that our conversation was
peculiarly strained or difficult would be a great mistake. I believe
indeed that it is under what may be called unnatural, in the
sense of extraordinary, circumstances that people behave most
naturally, for the reason, no doubt, that such circumstances
banish artificiality. I know at any rate that my intercourse that
evening with these representatives of another age and world was
marked by an ingenuous sincerity and frankness such as but
rarely crown long acquaintance. No doubt the exquisite tact of
my entertainers had much to do with this. Of course there was
nothing we could talk of but the strange experience by virtue of
which I was there, but they talked of it with an interest so naive
and direct in its expression as to relieve the subject to a great
degree of the element of the weird and the uncanny which
might so easily have been overpowering. One would have supposed
that they were quite in the habit of entertaining waifs
from another century, so perfect was their tact.

For my own part, never do I remember the operations of my
mind to have been more alert and acute than that evening, or
my intellectual sensibilities more keen. Of course I do not mean
that the consciousness of my amazing situation was for a
moment out of mind, but its chief effect thus far was to produce
a feverish elation, a sort of mental intoxication.[1]