Davy (Edgar Pangborn) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги (ч. notes)

Footnotes

1

Davy means, no northern visitors. They have some commerce with the region known in Old Time as South America . In 296 a handful of refugees from some Misipan political tempest reached Penn overland, and gave this and other information before they died of malaria, infected wounds and dysentery. They spoke an English so barbarous that there has been argument ever since over much that they tried to say. I learned of this by listening in as a small boy on semi-formal conversations between my grandfather President Dion II and the Penn ambassador Wilam Skoonmaker. My poor uncle, later Morgan III, held me in his lap while he took notes on Skoonmaker’s stately talk and I admired his embroidered pants. — Dion Morgan Morganson of Nuin

2

Davy has asked Dion and me to ungoof the spelling here and there, but nobody could claim this one isn’t an improvement. — Miranda Nicoletta deMoha.

3

They have the Church’s grudging permission to exist, and rate a whole paragraph in the Church’s celebrated Doctrine of Necessary Evils. This monument of shrewd piety is believed by the public to have been devised by the disciple Simon at the supposed founding of the Church in 44. Actually the document they call the original is on a type of parchment that was developed in Nuin, not Katskil, and only about 50 years ago. I examined it myself on a visit to Nuber. No scholar can say exactly when the Holy Murcan Church began to exist, but it cannot have been a functioning institution for more than 200 years. — Dion M. M.

4

Anyone by paying a candle, a prayer and a dollar may enter the Murcan Museum in the cellar of the Cathedral at Old City and look at ancient fragments of automotive vehicles. In other words Davy knows perfectly well these mechanisms are not legendary, but must have his fun. — Dion M. M.

5

Matter of fact, dear, I was merely wondering if supper would stay down. — Miranda Nic etc.

6

Or if smart he marks it with the wheel-sign and sends it to one of the shops in the large cities that specialize in dudaddery for the sophisticated — that is, the suckers. One in Old City is famous for selling nothing the owner can’t guarantee to be totally useless — Carrie’s Auntie Shoppy, well I remember it. Because the Regent was expected to encourage commerce, I bought an Old-Time thingamy there, a small cylinder of pale gray metal with a tapered end. That end has a tiny hole, out of which pops a wee metal whichit if you push the other end; push it again and the thing pops back. One of my philosophic advisers suggests it may have been used in the phallic worship that we assume was practised privately along with the public breast-belly-thigh cult of ancient America: I don’t find this convincing. I believe you could use the gidget for goosing a donkey, but why wouldn’t any Goddamn pointed stick do just as well? There is need for more research. — Dion M. M.

7

That was easy — all I had to do was give you a bust in the face. — Dma. Miranda Nicoletta St. Clair-Levison de Moha.

8

Beast! No respect for Shakespeare. Classifies his wife with the rest of the livestock, no special privileges. Rips the veil from her most intimate deceptions. A beast. I’m going to walk home. — Nick.

9

Moha idiom. Davy means the type of anecdote known in Nuin as a “tickler” or, for some undecipherable reason, “smut.” — Dion M. M.

10

Any odd-shaped stone supposed to have medicinal powers, more often called vitamin-stone. I made quite a few for sale when I was with Rumley’s Ramblers; rubbing with wet sand gives them a nice weathered look. My own footnote, by damn! — D.

11

I dunno, Davy. I may form a Sisterly Protective Order of Phernale Women, myself president as well as founder if the salary is nght, for the constitutional purpose of taking you out somewhere and drowning you. After the historical event we’d hold commemorative meetings, and drink tea. — Miranda Nicoletta.

12

Notice he never pauses to consider how it feels to be married to an Irish bull. However, courage! Am I cowed by such a brute? Why, yes, now I think of it. — Nickie.

13

According to a famous paragraph in the Doctrine of Necessary Evils, war is a periodic outlet for man’s “natural” violence, unavoidable till the second coming of Abraham; thus it is a duty of the Church to allow a “limited amount” of violence, under proper control. It is interesting to note that this idea of the inevitability of violence was old in Old Time — not to say moldy — and the proponents of it were as well able then as now to overlook the history of some nations that had passed through many generations without war, to say nothing of the multitude of private lives that reject violence in favor of reason and charity. — Dion M.M.

14

I feel that Jed was entirely right about this. My own planned salvation involves getting in as much sin as possible in the next 70 years, so that what I give up at age 98 will amount to something. — Nick.

15

That’s my Davy. What other shape would get him started? — Nick.

16

The prohibition appears thus in the Book of Universal Law, 19th edition (the latest I believe) published at Nuber in 322: “It is and shall be utterly and forever forbidden on pain of death by whatever method the Ecclesiastical Court of the district shall decide, to manufacture, describe, discuss, create any written reference to, or in any manner whatsoever make use of the substance vulgarly known as Gunpowder, or any other substance that may by competent authorities of the Church be reasonably suspected of containing atoms.” — Dion M. M.

17

Any group of travelers who follow the roads and keep together for safety is called a caravan. The word seems to have been used a little differently in Old Time. — Dion M. M.

18

The Holy Murcan Church apparently adopted the fantasy of vicarious atonement from Old-Time Christianity with one curious modification. According to the modern creed, any saintly man, not only Christ or Abraham, can take on himself the sins of others if the Lord agrees to the deal. Like modern believers, the Christians of Old Time seem never to have felt anything repellent or atrocious in the doctrine that a man could get a free ride into heaven on the suffering and death of another. The parallel to primitive god-killing rituals was of course noted only by scholars. — Dion M. M.

19

I put him to bed, Nickie — he’ll be all right in the morning. — Dion.

20

I will praise my love for the honey of his words — honest, Spice, it’s simply a matter of keeping one’s mouth shut in a pleasant tone of voice. — Nick.

21

Out to lunch. — N. D.

22

Correction: the Universal Tithing Law, which took an annual dollar from every individual over sixteen, was repealed in 324. True, the Church replaced it with what they call the More Universal Tithing Law, costing everyone a buck and a half; but the first law was honestly repealed, no crud. — Dion M. M.

23

No, that wasn’t the reason for keeping it to myself. The reason is that I have not Davy’s open nature. He was able somehow to struggle for truth in autobiography even while “pursued by foot-notes” and with Miranda and me looking over his shoulder most of the time. I could never attempt that. For me the struggle must he in the dark, intensely private, doubtful of outcome. This note is written in May of 339, a full year after Davy’s departure with the Morning Star — (Barr intended to bring her back in four months). If Davy returns — (we still hope, but don’t talk about it any more) — I could perhaps show him what I have written about the years of the Regency, and maybe we could talk more frankly than we ever did in the old days. I would now, of course, give anything I possess for the corniest of his footnotes. — D.M.M.