...
She raised one hand and flexed its fingers and wondered, as she had sometimes before, how this thing, this machine for gripping, this fleshy spider on the end of her arm, came to be hers, entirely at her command. Or did it have some little life of its own?...
A second thought always followed the first, one mystery bred another: was anyone else really as alive as she was?.. If the answer is yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two million voices, and everyone's thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone's claim on life as instense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was. one could drown in irrelevance. But if the answer is no, then Briony was surrounded by machines, intelligent and pleasant enough on the outside, but lacking the bright and private inside feeling she had. This was sinister and lonely, as well as unlikely. For though it offended her sense of order, she knew it was overwhelmingly probable that everyone else had thoughts like hers. She knew this, but only in a rather arid way; she didn't really feel it.
(c) Ien McEwan "Atonement"
Я прекрасно помню тот момент, когда меня посетили подобные мысли. Это, как ни странно, было во сне. Мне тогда было около 5-6 лет. Снился до боли знакомый пейзаж близлежащего магазина, расплывавшийся от нестерпимой жары. Земля (не асфальт, а именно земля) была пыльной, и светлая воздушная масса предательски застилала глаза. Мимо проходили люди, люди без лиц. Первый вопрос. Кто они?
Помню, что мне стало очень страшно. Страшно от жутчайшего одиночества от мысли, что я осталась совсем одна. Гм, жуть.
A second thought always followed the first, one mystery bred another: was anyone else really as alive as she was?.. If the answer is yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two million voices, and everyone's thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone's claim on life as instense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was. one could drown in irrelevance. But if the answer is no, then Briony was surrounded by machines, intelligent and pleasant enough on the outside, but lacking the bright and private inside feeling she had. This was sinister and lonely, as well as unlikely. For though it offended her sense of order, she knew it was overwhelmingly probable that everyone else had thoughts like hers. She knew this, but only in a rather arid way; she didn't really feel it.
(c) Ien McEwan "Atonement"
Я прекрасно помню тот момент, когда меня посетили подобные мысли. Это, как ни странно, было во сне. Мне тогда было около 5-6 лет. Снился до боли знакомый пейзаж близлежащего магазина, расплывавшийся от нестерпимой жары. Земля (не асфальт, а именно земля) была пыльной, и светлая воздушная масса предательски застилала глаза. Мимо проходили люди, люди без лиц. Первый вопрос. Кто они?
Помню, что мне стало очень страшно. Страшно от жутчайшего одиночества от мысли, что я осталась совсем одна. Гм, жуть.