***

[Addeson]

Мне кажется, я постоянно говорю одно и то же, что вскоре начнет - если давно не начало - сначала утомлять, а после раздражать, но с каждым новым проявлением врага или врагов хочется вновь бороться с ними, хоть бы и словесно) Не поддерживая деструктивные системы взглядов, в частности, фрейдизм, я была несколько удивлена, но и разочарована тем, что К. Ньюман в своей книге объяснил распространение имени "Джеймс" в семействе Мориарти столь банально, что эта же идея пришла ко мне самой, - и в то же время наделяя бедного профессора очередным тягостным штампом в виде не благоволящего к нему отца, трудного детства и прочих радостей, которые давно уж приняли за некий суррогат психологизма, посчитав, что тоннами классификаций и выборкой статистики можно проникнуть в тайну человека глубже, чем это делали, к примеру, классики литературы. Впрочем, как я и говорила, уровень и понимания, и осмысления мира и человечества у авторов бульварщины близится к неким заученным ответам на все вопросы, предоставленным им то ли прессой, то ли фильмом, - согласитесь, везде одно и то же, Гитлер, феминизм, кишки и шлюхи: впрочем, ввиду того, что книга была допущена к прочтению, в первую очередь, из-за загадки имени профессора и прочих членов его семьи, делюсь отдельно этим познавательным куском.

Jameses

***
‘Moriarty,' I said. ‘Why did your parents give their three sons the same name? Why are you all James?'
‘It was our father's name. He wished to pass it on.'
‘To all of you?'
‘To a son who pleased him. It is my understanding that, upon my birth, he was pleased. In the nursery, as I began to show aptitude... with sums... he continued to be pleased. My mother also, I believe, though she never said as much. She never said much of anything, I recall. Father would review each week with me and declare himself pleased. Then, when I reached the age of six, he found himself less pleased. Then, not pleased at all. I went over my sums again and could find no error in my workings. So I reasoned that the failing was not in me, but in Father. I did not tell him as much, for I knew he would not see it that way.
‘Then, when I was seven, my brother was born. My brother James. Father was pleased with James. From the day of my brother's birth, I believe my father spoke not one word to me. I was fed and clothed and schooled, but in the house, I was a ghost. My brother did not know who I was, but eventually gathered he would not be punished if he visited trifling nuisances and afflictions on me. Father was still pleased with James. In the nursery, and for some while after, he continued to be. My brother was James. He would not believe that was my name too. He only truly realised who I was, what my name was, when our brother was born. Our brother James. I was fourteen and James was seven. He lost the name too.
‘Young James was the only James. We were ghosts separately, James and I. Not together. That was not possible after what had passed between us when I was the only ghost. Young James was the James and Father was pleased with him. In the nursery, and afterward... He never became a ghost, and - as you can tell - lacks firmness of character, if not craft and cunning. Had Father and Mother not been lost at sea, they might have had another child, another James. That might have been the making of Young James.'
‘How did your parents come to be "lost at sea", Moriarty?'
The Professor paused, and said, ‘Mysteriously, Moran.'
I drank my coffee. Remember I said the Professor wasn't the worst of his family. Wasn't the worst James in his family. Neither were his brothers. The worst, so far as I could see, was James the first.
‘James, James and I have taken different paths,' Moriarty said. ‘We have never been fond, but we are family. I am not given to calculations with no outcome. But I have considered the question of how things might have differed if I'd been the only James born to my parents' union, or if my brothers were named, say, Robert and Stuart. Then, might I - the sole James Moriarty - have been different? Much of what I might have been was taken away, taken back with my name, and failed to survive successive attempts to transplant it to my brothers. James and James, also, are not whole, have had to share with me something that should be one man's alone. But there is a strength in that. Some qualities, some possessions, are distractions.
‘Young James had a comfortable settlement from our parents, but it did him little good and is all gone now. He will never be more than a functionary. A poor one at that. James went into the army, to find an order, system and path. He is respectable. My first inclination was to join the clergy. That I see no mathematical proof whatsoever for the existence of God is no drawback. Rather, atheism is likely to help advance in the Church of England. No distracting beliefs. Then, I saw what could be done with numbers and have made my life's work the business which employs you and so many others. Had I been the only James Moriarty, I would not be what you see before you.'
(с)

@темы: Очевидное-загадочное, Птичий мозг, Вавилонская библиотека, Я обвиняю, ШХ