Читать книгу Wickford Point онлайн

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I had occupied the same room in the house at odd moments for most of my life. It was one of the least desirable rooms, but I had never cared to move out of it. When I awoke, a good many days after that evening when I had read the beginning of Allen Southby's novel, I could see the grooves which a tame squirrel of mine had once gnawed on the post of my bed. Looking at the ceiling I could see the same cracks, the directions of which I had learned by heart when I had lain there sick with scarlet fever. It had been predicted for the last twenty years that the ceiling was due to fall, but the cracks seemed no larger and no different. The ceiling was like the balance of power in Europe or like the tottering economic fabric of the nation and all of Wickford Point, ready to fall but never falling. In the meanwhile the cracks meandered toward the wall in the irrational outlines of rivers and continents, giving a good imitation of a slightly demented page in a geography. The whitewash had flaked off into deserts and mountain ranges. The corpses of occasional mosquitoes were like other geographic symbols. While lying in bed it was possible to embark on a voyage across that cracked ceiling. It got you nowhere, but the same might be said of other journeys.