Читать книгу The Complete Short Stories: The 1960s - Brian Aldiss - Страница 6

A Difficult Age

Various rumours have been circulating about Imago, the first robot ever to commit suicide. I’m in a position to end those rumours. Imago was our family robot.

I remember clearly how he revealed the way his thoughts were tending. My wife and I had given a dinner for my father, to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday; our eighteen-year-old son Anthony was also present. As guests, we had invited father’s youngest brother, Eddy, who was fifty, and his daughter Vera. Imago waited on us during the meal and brought us drinks out on to the air-conditioned terrace afterwards.

Following an idle line of conversation, Eddy exclaimed, ‘Well, I wish I was thirty years younger, anyhow!’

‘Nonsense, uncle, you’d feel foolish being younger than your daughter!’ I said, and everyone laughed.

‘It’s a pity we can’t all stay at a favoured age,’ my father said. ‘I don’t know why you want to be younger, Eddy – I’d say fifty is the golden age. You have reached the pinnacle of your career – without going downhill, like me! You still have your health and your wits. Your career is stable, your prosperity is assured. You don t have the worry of growing children, like a younger man, or the vexation of grandchildren, like an older man.’

‘Nonsense, fifty’s the worst possible age,’ said Eddy. ‘You can’t yet sit back and enjoy a pension and delicate health as you do, nor can you still chase women like a man of forty.’ (He had the tact not to look at me, perhaps remembering I was thirty-nine.) ‘At fifty, you see all too clearly the things you hoped to do and now never will. No, for preference, I’d be – if not Anthony’s age – Vera’s age.’

Vera laughed. ‘Daddy, you’re an old misery! And I assure you that the mid-twenties are not as comfortable as you may sentimentally recollect they were.’

‘They sit very well on you, my dear,’ my wife said. ‘What do you find to object to? You have such a marvellous supply of adoring young men. What more do you want?’

Imago handed Vera a coffee. She took it, stared at it as if to hide her embarrassment, and said, ‘Well, take those young men. Honestly, you can’t imagine how silly they are, most of them. They either treat me as if I was still a little girl or as if I were already past it.’ At this, I noticed my son Anthony colour slightly. ‘And – I must admit – I do sometimes feel just a kid and at other times absolutely past it. The truth is, twenty-six is a very uncomfortable age. You don’t have the fun of being teenage or the pleasure of being regarded as a responsible person. If I could choose my ideal age, I’d be – oh, thirty-five, say!’

‘It’s not a bad age,’ I admitted. ‘At least, each succeeding year is worse. Every age has its snags. I remember feeling worst when I was twenty-nine and some idiot called me “sir.” At that moment, I knew youth had fled.’

‘Each age has its snags,’ agreed my wife, ‘and also its benefits.’

I could see she was going to say something more, but at that moment Anthony gave voice. He was at an awkward age, the poetry writing age, the age – as a friend of mine once said – when you have the hairs but not the airs of a man. He seemed always moody and generally silent, except when silence would have been the better policy. He was, in short, terrible company, and had my full sympathy, which I never dared express.

He said, ‘Some ages have no benefits! I notice all of you naturally want to be younger but none of you are fool enough to plump for eighteen. At eighteen no one likes your music, no one will publish your poetry, your clothes never suit your personality! You’re really a man but nobody believes it, not even yourself!’

‘Nonsense, Anthony, you’ve all life before you!’ exclaimed Eddy firmly.

‘But you don’t know what to do with it! At eighteen, you see every-thing with painful clarity before age starts its merciful task of dulling the brain. And you realise for the first time at eighteen how short life is, how much of it has scudded by without your having done a damned thing about it! By the time you’re twenty-five it’ll be too late – sorry, Vera! What is there but death and old age ahead?’

His grandfather said, ‘You express precisely why I was not foolish enough to say I wished I was eighteen again, Anthony. I agree that it is a very painful age. I too was obsessed with death – more so than I am now. We can only assure you that your perspectives will change in a very few years.’

‘It’s easy enough to talk!’ Anthony said, and walked out of the terrace, leaving his coffee untouched.

When the others had gone home, my wife and I sat chatting and gazing into the night. Imago was clearing away the coffee cups. Unexpectedly, he said, ‘Sir!’

‘What is it, Imago?’

‘Subject, evening’s discussion, sir. Discussion revealed clearly marvellous variety and complexity of human existence. My deduction is correct, sir?’

My wife and I looked at each other.

‘I don’t think any of us would have regarded it in that light, Imago,’ she said – I thought a little uneasily.

‘Every few years, madam, irrespective of other factors, for humans different quality of experience. Is so? Different view of self? Correct deduction?

Somehow, I didn’t want to admit as much. So I said, ‘Certainly, one experiences such things as the passage of time differently at different periods of one’s life.’

‘Of one’s human life, sir. Exactly. Not only different quality of experience, also different quality of time-enjoyment.’

‘Take the cups, Imago, please.’

He stood his ground, against all robotic programming. ‘Robots, sir. Imago just realises: their only source of pride, that they are made in man’s image. But is not so. Are too simple. Are more made in image of dumb things like elevators, traffic lights, automobiles, clockwork acrobats. No enjoyment of time’s passage at all.’

‘What follows?’ my wife asked in a whisper.

Imago dropped a cup. ‘The poetry I secretly write can be no good. Am just – machine!’

He ran from the room, out into the night. We stood and saw him go, speeding towards the river, his head-light flickering. Even as he flung himself in, we noticed Anthony standing moodily on the bank. Maybe he was thinking of doing the same thing.

He entered the room with a dull air of triumph, waving a hand. ‘Remember when you bought Imago, on the day I was born? If you check on his guarantee, you’ll see he was eighteen too. It’s a difficult age.’

So that’s the truth and the end to rumours. Now you tell me what the truth means.