Читать книгу Dracula Unbound - Brian Aldiss - Страница 7

Gondwana Ranch

Texas 75042

USA

18 August 1999

Dearest Mina,

Soon we’ll be living in a new century. Perhaps there we shall discover ill-defined states of mind, at present unknown. You, who have returned from the dead, will be better able to face them than I.

For my own part, I am better prepared than I was to acknowledge that many people spend periods of their lives in more unusual mental states – not neurotic or psychotic – than science is at present inclined to allow. I also know those nameless psychic states valued by many rebels of society. They are not for me. In the account that follows – in which we both feature – there’s terror, horror, wonder, and something that has no name. A kind of nostalgia for what has never been experienced.

Did all this happen? Was I mad? Did you pass through those dreadful gates at the end of life? I still see, with shut eyes but acute mental vision, those unhallowed things that appeared. And I believe that I would rather be mad than that they should run loose on the world.

Have patience and hope. We still have a long way to go together, dearest.

Your loving Joe