TheIllustratedMan - (EPUB全文下载)

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The Illustrated Man
The Illustrated Man
The Illustrated Man
The Fire Balloons
 
FIRE exploded over summer night lawns. You saw sparkling faces of uncles and aunts. Skyrockets fell up in the brown shining eyes of cousins on the porch, and the cold charred sticks thumped down in dry meadows far away.
The Very Reverend Father Joseph Daniel Peregrine opened his eyes. What a dream: he and his cousins with their fiery play at his grandfather’s ancient Ohio home so many years ago!
He lay listening to the great hollow of the church, the other cells where other Fathers lay. Had they, too, on the eve of the flight of the rocket Crucifix, lain with memories of the Fourth of July? Yes. This was like those breathless Independence dawns when you waited for the first concussion and rushed out on the dewy sidewalks, your hands full of loud miracles.
So here they were, the Episcopal Fathers, in the breathing dawn before they pinwheeled off to Mars, leaving their incense through the velvet cathedral of space.
“Should we go at all?” whispered Father Peregrine. “Shouldn’t we solve our own sins on Earth? Aren’t we running from our lives here?”
He arose, his fleshy body, with its rich look of strawberries, milk, and steak, moving heavily.
“Or is it sloth?” he wondered. “Do I dread the journey?”
He stepped into the needle-spray shower.
“But I shall take you to Mars, body.” He addressed himself. “Leaving old sins here. And on to Mars to find new sins?” A delightful thought almost. Sins no one had ever thought of.
Oh, he himself had written a little book: The Problem of Sin on Other Worlds, ignored as somehow not serious enough by his Episcopal brethren.
Only last night, over a final cigar, he and Father Stone had talked of it.
“On Mars sin might appear as virtue. We must guard against virtuous acts there that, later, might be found to be sins!” said Father Peregrine, beaming. “How exciting! It’s been centuries since so much adventure has accompanied the prospect of being a missionary!”
“I will recognize sin,” said Father Stone bluntly, “even on Mars.”
“Oh, we priests pride ourselves on being litmus paper, changing color in sin’s presence,” retorted Father Peregrine, “but what if Martian chemistry is such we do not color at all! If there are new senses on Mars, you must admit the possibility of unrecognizable sin.”
“If there is no malice aforethought, there is no sin or punishment for same—the Lord assures us that,” Father Stone replied.
“On Earth, yes. But perhaps a Martian sin m ............

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