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

surprised to see that I seemed so little agitated after the
experience.

"Your stroll could scarcely have failed to be a very interesting
one," said Mrs. Leete, as we sat down to table soon after. "You
must have seen a good many new things."

"I saw very little that was not new," I replied. "But I think
what surprised me as much as anything was not to find any
stores on Washington Street, or any banks on State. What have
you done with the merchants and bankers? Hung them all,
perhaps, as the anarchists wanted to do in my day?"

"Not so bad as that," replied Dr. Leete. "We have simply
dispensed with them. Their functions are obsolete in the
modern world."

"Who sells you things when you want to buy them?" I
inquired.

"There is neither selling nor buying nowadays; the distribution
of goods is effected in another way. As to the bankers,
having no money we have no use for those gentry."

"Miss Leete," said I, turning to Edith, "I am afraid that your
father is making sport of me. I don't blame him, for the
temptation my innocence offers must be extraordinary. But,
really, there are limits to my credulity as to possible alterations
in the social system."

"Father has no idea of jesting, I am sure," she replied, with a
reassuring smile.

The conversation took another turn then, the point of ladies'
fashions in the nineteenth century being raised, if I remember
rightly, by Mrs. Leete, and it was not till after breakfast, when
the doctor had invited me up to the house-top, which appeared
to be a favorite resort of his, that he recurred to the subject.

"You were surprised," he said, "at my saying that we got along
without money or trade, but a moment's reflection will show
that trade existed and money was needed in your day simply
because the business of production was left in private hands, and
that, consequently, they are superfluous now."

"I do not at once see how that follows," I replied.

"It is very simple," said Dr. Leete. "When innumerable
different and independent persons produced the various things
needful to life and comfort, endless exchanges between individuals