"Robert Sheckley. Pilgrimage to Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора

as yourselves, who want value for their goods. So what else can old Earth
deal in, except the non-essentials that make life worth living?"

"Were you in love on Earth?" Simon asked.

"That I was," the vendor answered, with a certain grimness. "I was in
love, and now I travel. Friends, these books..."

For an exorbitant price, Simon bought an ancient poetry book, and
reading, dreamed of passion beneath the lunatic moon, of dawn glimmering
whitely upon lovers' parched lips, of locked bodies on a dark sea-beach,
desperate with love and deafened by the booming surf.

And only on Earth was this possible! For, as the vendor told, Earth's
scattered children were too hard at work wrestling a living from alien
soil. The wheat and corn grew on Kazanga, and the factories increased on
Detroit II and III. The fisheries of Alana were the talk of the Southern
start belt, and there were dangerous beasts on Moraica, and a whole
wilderness to be won on Doran V. And this was well, and exactly as it
should be.

But the new worlds were austere, carefully planned, sterile in their
perfections. Something had been lost in the dead reaches of space, and only
Earth knew love.

Therefore, Simon worked and saved and dreamed. And in his twenty-ninth
year he sold his farm, packed all his clean shirts into a serviceable
handbag, put on his best suit and a pair of stout walking shoes, and
boarded the Kazanga- Metropole flyer.

At last he came to Earth, where dreams must come true, for there is a
law against their failure.



He passed quickly through Customs at Spaceport New York, and was
shuttled underground to Times Square. There he emerged blinking into
daylight, tightly clutching his handbag, for he had been warned about
pickpockets, cutpurses and other denizens of the city.

Breathless with wonder, he looked around.

The first thing that struck him was the endless array of theaters, with
attractions in two dimensions, three or four, depending upon your
preference. And what attractions!

To the right of him a beetling marquee proclaimed: LUST ON VENUS! A
DOCUMENTARY ACCOUNT OF SEX PRACTICES AMONG THE INHABITANTS OF THE GREEN
HELL! SHOCKING! REVEALING!