 119 
(From Man and woman, by Erskine Caldwell)
The folder was like most travel folders inside – there were pictures and text. And it was beautifully printed; the pictures looked real. What I mean is, you've seen colour stereopticon pictures? Well, that's what these were like only better, far better. In one picture you could see dew glistening on the grass, and it looked wet. In another, a tree trunk seemed to curve out of the page, in perfect detail, and it was a shock to touch it and feel smooth paper instead of rough actuality of Bark. Miniature human faces, in a third picture, seemed about to speak, the lips moist and alive, the eyeballs shining, the actual texture of skin right there on paper: and it seemed impossible, as you stared, that the people wouldn't move and speak. I studied a large picture spreading across the tops of two open pages. It seemed to have been taken from the top of a hill; you saw the land dropping away at your feet far down into a valley, then rising up again, way over on the other side. The slopes of both hills were covered with forest, and the colour was beautiful, perfect: there were miles of green, majestic trees, and you knew as you looked that this forest was virgin, almost untouched. Curving through the floor of the valley, far below, ran a stream, blue from the sky in most places: here and there, where the current broke around massive boulders, the water was foaming white: and again it seemed that if you'd only look closely enough you'd be certain to see that stream move and shine in the sun. In clearings beside the stream there were cabins, some of logs, some of brick or adobe. The caption under the picture simply said: «The Colony». ...I don't know how you knew this, but you realized, staring at that forest-covered valley, that this was very much the way America once looked when it was new. And you knew this was only a part of a whole land of unspoiled, unharmed forests, where every stream ran pure; you were seelngwhat peopl, the last of them dead over a century ago, had once looked at in Kentucky and Wisconsin and the old Northwest: And you knew that if you could breathe in that air you'd feel it flow into your lungs sweeter than it's been anywhere on earth for a hundred and fifty years. 119 |
Рекомендуем / We recommend
Настя Мишарина
|
|
|
|
Последние статьи
http://comtutor.ru - Семейство онлайн курсов для изучения английского языка