"The Days Before the Invention of Tono Benguet"
1. About Bladesover House and my mother, and the structure of society
Most people seem to play out some role in life. In theatrical terms, each of them has his own role. Their lives have a beginning, a middle and an end, and in each of these closely interconnected periods, they act as the nature of the role they perform dictates. You can talk about them as people of one type or another. They belong to a certain class, occupy a certain place in society, know what they want and what is due to them, and when they die, an appropriately sized tombstone shows how well they played their role.
But there is a different kind of life, when a person does not so much live as experience all the diversity of life. For one, this happens due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances; the other goes astray from his usual path and spends the rest of his life not living as he would like, enduring one trial after another.
This is the life that befell me, and it prompted me to write something like a novel. My memory stores many unusual impressions, and I can’t wait to tell them to the reader as soon as possible.
I became quite closely acquainted with the life of the most diverse strata of society. People at various levels of the social ladder considered me one of their own. I was an uninvited guest of my great uncle, a baker, who later died in a Chatham hospital. I satisfied my hunger with pieces that were secretly brought to me by lackeys from the master's kitchen. I was despised for my lack of external polish by the daughter of a gas plant clerk. She married me and then divorced me. Once (if we talk about the other pole of my career) I was - oh brilliant days! - at a reception in the countess's house. True, she acquired this title with money, but still, you know, she was a countess. I have seen these people in a wide variety of circumstances. I have sat at the dinner table not just with titled persons, but even with great people. Once (this is my most precious memory), in the heat of mutual admiration, I knocked over a glass of champagne on the trousers of the greatest statesman of the empire - I will not mention his name, so as, God forbid, I would not be branded a braggart.
And once (although this was a pure accident) I killed a man...
2. I enter the world and see Bladesover for the last time
After what was supposed to be my final expulsion from Bladesover, my angry mother first sent me to her cousin Nicodemus Frepp, and when I escaped from his supervision back to Bladesover, apprenticed me to Uncle Pondervaux.
My uncle Nicodemus Frepp was a baker, he lived in a back street, in a real slum, near a broken, narrow road on which Rochester and Chatham are located, like beads on a string. Frepp was under the thumb of his wife - a young, curvaceous, surprisingly fertile and pretentious person - and, I must admit, struck me unpleasantly. He was a bent, lethargic, gloomy and withdrawn person. His clothes were always covered in flour; there was flour in his hair, and on his eyelashes, and even in the wrinkles of his face. I did not have to change my first impression of him, and Frepp remained in my memory as a funny, weak-willed simpleton. He was deprived of self-esteem, wearing good suits was “not to his liking,” he did not like to comb his hair, and his wife, who was not at all a master of this matter, from time to time somehow cut his hair; He wore his nails to such an extent that they caused a grimace even in a person who was not too squeamish. He was not proud of his work and never showed much initiative. Frepp's only virtue was that he did not indulge in vices and did not disdain the hardest work. “Your uncle,” my mother said (in the Victorian era, it was customary for middle-class people to call all older relatives uncles out of politeness), “is not very pleasant to look at, and there is nothing to talk about with him, but he is a good, hard-working man.” . In the Bladesover system of morality, where everything was topsy-turvy, the concept of the honor of a working person was also unique. One of her demands was to get up before dawn and stay somewhere until evening. However, it was not considered reprehensible if a “good, hard-working person” did not have a handkerchief.
Poor old Frepp - the trampled, mangled victim of Bladesover! He did not protest, did not fight the established order of things, he floundered in small debts, however, how small are they after all, since they eventually overcame him. If he had a particularly hard time and needed his wife’s help, she would begin to complain about pain and her “situation.” God sent them many children, but most of them died, giving Frepp and his wife a reason, every time the children were born and died, to repeat their submission to fate. These people explained everything by submission to the will of God: extraordinary circumstances and their actions in certain cases.
There were no books in the house. I doubt whether my uncle and aunt were able to sit through reading for one or two minutes. Their dining table was always in chaotic disorder, with pieces of stale bread lying around, and more and more being added to the untidy scraps day by day.
If they were not looking for consolation, one could argue that they like this miserable, hopeless existence. But they sought consolation and found it on Sundays - not in strong wine and foul language, but in the imaginary quenching of spiritual thirst. They and a dozen other pitiful, unscrupulous people, dressed in all dark so that the dirt on their clothes would not be so obvious, gathered in a small brick chapel, where a broken harmonium wheezed, and consoled themselves with the thoughts that everything was beautiful and free in life. , everything that is capable of daring and creating, that makes life proud, honest and beautiful, is irrevocably condemned to eternal torment. They arrogated to themselves the right of God to mock his own creations.
3. Apprenticeship at Wimblehurst
I survived all the events described, with the exception of my mother’s funeral, quite easily. With childish carelessness, I parted with my old world, forgot about the school routine and pushed aside the memories of Bladesover to return to them later. I entered the new world of Wimblehurst, the center of which became for me the pharmacy, took up Latin and medicines and devoted myself to my studies with all the ardor. Wimblehurst is a very quiet and boring town in Sussex, where most of the houses are built of stone, which is rare in Southern England. I liked its picturesque, clean streets, paved with cobblestones, unexpected intersections and back streets, and a cozy park adjacent to the city.
This entire area was owned by the Istri family. It was due to her high position and influence that the railway station was built just two miles from Wimblehurst. Eastrey House, located outside the city limits, overlooks Wimblehurst. You cross the market, where there is an ancient prison building and a pillory, pass a huge church, built before the Reformation and resembling an empty shell or a lifeless skull, and you find yourself in front of a massive cast-iron gate. If you look into them, at the end of a long yew alley you will see the stately facade of a beautiful house. Eastry Manor was considerably larger than Bladesover and was even more representative of the social structure of the eighteenth century. The Istri family ruled not just two villages, but an entire constituency, and their sons and relatives easily entered parliament until the system of such “pocket constituencies” was abolished. In these places, everyone and everyone depended on Istri, with the exception of my uncle. He stood apart and... expressed dissatisfaction.
My uncle struck the first blow, which made a hole in the majestic facade of Bladesover, which was my whole world as a child. The chats could not be called a breach; they fully confirmed the existence of the Bladesover world. Uncle did not have the slightest respect for either Bladesover or Eastry, He did not believe in them. They simply didn't exist for him. He expressed himself very vaguely about Eastry and Bladesover, developing some new, incredible ideas, and willingly expanded on this topic.
This little town needs to be woken up,” said the uncle on a quiet summer day, standing on the threshold of his pharmacy and looking out onto the street. At this time I was sorting out patent medicines in the corner.
It would be nice to send a dozen young Americans at him,” he added. - Then we should have looked!
Part two
"Tono Benguet on the Rise"
1. How I became a London student and lost my way
I moved to London when I was almost twenty-two. From now on, Wimblehurst begins to seem to me like a tiny, distant place, and Bladesover emerges in my memory as just a pink speck among the green hills of Kent. The stage expands to infinity, everything around me begins to move.
For some reason I remember my second visit to London and the impressions associated with it worse than the first; I only remember that on that day the gray masses of houses were flooded with the soft amber rays of the October sun and that my soul this time was completely calm.
It seems to me that I could write a rather fascinating book about how I began to comprehend London, how I discovered new and unexpected sides in it, how this vast city captured my consciousness. Every day enriched me with new impressions. They were layered on top of each other, some were remembered forever, others slipped from memory. I began to get acquainted with London during my first visit and now I have a complete understanding of it, but even now I have not fully explored it and am constantly discovering something new.
At first I saw in it only a confusing labyrinth of streets, a jumble of buildings, crowds of aimlessly scurrying people. I did not try at all costs to understand it, I did not study it systematically; I was guided only by simple curiosity and keen interest in this city. And yet, over time, I developed my own theory. I think I can imagine how London arose and gradually developed. This process was not due to random reasons, but to some important circumstances, although they cannot be called normal and natural.
2. Dawn comes and uncle appears in a new top hat
3. How we made Tono Benge famous
4. Marion
Thinking back to those days when, on the foundation of human hopes and with the help of loans for the purchase of bottles, rent and printing costs, we created the huge business of Tono Benguet, I see my life as if divided into two parallel columns: one - the wider one - continues to expand and full of all kinds of events - this is my business life; the other - narrower - is covered in darkness, in which only occasional glimmers of happiness flash - this is my life with Marion. Of course I married her.
I married Marion only a year after Tono Benge went downhill, and after many unpleasant arguments and clashes. I was then twenty-four years old, but now it seems to me that at that time I was barely out of childhood. In some respects, we were both extremely ignorant and naive, had completely different characters, did not and could not have a single common thought. Marion was young and very ordinary, stuffed with the concepts and prejudices of her class and never had her own thoughts. I was young and full of skepticism, enterprising and passionate. I was irresistibly attracted to her beauty, and Marion understood how much she meant to me; that was the only thing that connected us. Yes, I was passionate about her. She was the embodiment of the woman I longed for so much... I will not forget the nights when I lay until the morning, without closing my eyes, when I was burned with a fever of desire and I bit my hands...
I have already talked about how I bought a top hat and a black frock coat, wanting to please her on Sunday (and incurred ridicule from fellow students who met by chance), and how our engagement took place. Our disagreements were just beginning then. We occasionally exchanged tender words, and sometimes kisses, and Marion carefully kept this small and rather pleasant secret. Such a relationship did not in the least prevent her from working and gossiping in Smithy's workshop, and, perhaps, Marion would not have minded if it had dragged on for many more years. I connected with them the hope for our complete spiritual and physical merger in the very near future...
It is possible that “the reader will find it strange that I so solemnly begin the story of my ill-considered love interest and my unsuccessful marriage. But the fact is that I intend to touch upon much more important problems than our small, personal matter. I have reflected a lot on this period of my life and have tried more than once in recent years to extract at least a grain of wisdom from it. What seems especially remarkable to me is the frivolity and carelessness with which we connected ourselves with each other. Our marriage with Marion is not so accidental in a society entwined with a web of false concepts, absurd prejudices and outdated conventions that take possession of a person like a poisonous dope. We shared the fate of many people. Love not only occupies an important place in the life of every individual - it should be the focus of attention of the entire society. After all, the fate of the people depends on how representatives of the younger generation choose their life partners. All other matters are secondary compared to this. And we leave it to our timid and ignorant youth to grope their way to this truth. Instead of guiding the youth, we cast surprised glances at them, force them to listen to our sentimental chatter and ambiguous whispers, and set them an example of hypocrisy.
In the previous chapter I tried to tell you something about my sexual development. No one has ever spoken to me truthfully and frankly on this topic. None of the books I read explained to me what life really is and how to act. Everything I knew from this area was vague, vague, mysterious, all the laws and traditions known to me were in the nature of threats and prohibitions. No one warned me about the possible dangers - I learned about them from shameless conversations with my peers at school and Wimblehurst. My knowledge was formed partly from what instinct and romantic imagination told me, partly from all kinds of hints that accidentally reached me. I read a lot and randomly. “Vatek”, Shelley, Tom Paine, Plutarch, Carlyle, Haeckel, William Morris, the Bible, “Freethinker”, “Clarion”, “The Woman Who Did It” - these are the first titles and names that came to mind. I had the most contradictory ideas mixed up in my head, and no one helped me sort them out. I believed that Shelley, for example, was a heroic, bright personality and that anyone who disregarded conventions and gave himself entirely to sublime passion is worthy of the respect and admiration of all honest people.
H.G. Wells
TONO BENGE
Part one
"The Days Before the Invention of Tono Benguet"
1. About Bladesover House and my mother, and the structure of society
Most people seem to play out some role in life. In theatrical terms, each of them has his own role. Their lives have a beginning, a middle and an end, and in each of these closely interconnected periods, they act as the nature of the role they perform dictates. You can talk about them as people of one type or another. They belong to a certain class, occupy a certain place in society, know what they want and what is due to them, and when they die, an appropriately sized tombstone shows how well they played their role.
But there is a different kind of life, when a person does not so much live as experience all the diversity of life. For one, this happens due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances; the other goes astray from his usual path and spends the rest of his life not living as he would like, enduring one trial after another.
This is the life that befell me, and it prompted me to write something like a novel. My memory stores many unusual impressions, and I can’t wait to tell them to the reader as soon as possible.
I became quite closely acquainted with the life of the most diverse strata of society. People at various levels of the social ladder considered me one of their own. I was an uninvited guest of my great uncle, a baker, who later died in a Chatham hospital. I satisfied my hunger with pieces that were secretly brought to me by lackeys from the master's kitchen. I was despised for my lack of external polish by the daughter of a gas plant clerk. She married me and then divorced me. Once (if we talk about the other pole of my career) I was - oh brilliant days! - at a reception in the countess's house. True, she acquired this title with money, but still, you know, she was a countess. I have seen these people in a wide variety of circumstances. I have sat at the dinner table not just with titled persons, but even with great people. Once (this is my most precious memory), in the heat of mutual admiration, I knocked over a glass of champagne on the trousers of the greatest statesman of the empire - I will not mention his name, so as, God forbid, I would not be branded a braggart.
And once (although this was a pure accident) I killed a man...
Yes, I saw life in all its diversity and met a lot of different people. Both great and small are a very curious people; in essence they are surprisingly similar to each other, but curiously different in appearance. I regret that, having made so many acquaintances, I did not rise to the highest spheres and did not descend to the lowest. It would be great fun, for example, to get close to members of the royal house. However, my acquaintance with the princes was limited only to the fact that I saw them at public celebrations. Nor can I call my communication close with those dusty but nice people who wander along the big roads in the summer, drunk, but en famille (thus atoning for their little sins), with baby carriages, a bunch of tanned children, with suspicious bundles, the appearance of which suggests for some thoughts, and sell lavender. The diggers, farm laborers, sailors, stokers and other regulars of the pubs remained out of my sight, and I think I will never recognize them now. My relations with persons of the ducal rank were also of a casual nature. I once went hunting with a duke and, in all likelihood, in a fit of snobbery, tried my best to shoot him in the leg. But he missed. I regret, however, that my acquaintance was limited to only this episode, although...
By what personal virtues, you may ask, was I able to penetrate into such diverse strata of society and to see the cross-section of the British social organism? Thanks to the environment in which I was born. This is always the case in England. However, this happens everywhere, if I can allow myself such a broad generalization. But that's by the way.
I am my uncle's nephew, and my uncle is none other than Edouard Pondervaux, who, like a comet, appeared on the financial horizon - yes, now ten years ago! Do you remember Pondervo's career - I mean, Pondervo's glory days? Perhaps you even had some trifling contribution to one of his grandiose enterprises? Then you know him very well. Having mounted Tono Benguet, he, like a comet or, rather, like a giant rocket, took off into the heavenly expanse, and the investors began to speak with awe of the new star. Having reached its zenith, it exploded and crumbled into a constellation of amazing new enterprises. What a time it was! In this area he was downright Napoleon!..
I was his beloved nephew and confidant, and throughout my uncle’s fantastic journey I held tightly to the coattails of his coat. Before he began his meteoric career, I helped him make pills in an apothecary's shop in Wimblehurst. You can consider me the springboard from which his rocket rushed upward. After our lightning-fast takeoff, after my uncle played with millions and golden rain fell from the heavens, after I had a chance to view the entire modern world from a bird's eye view, I found myself on the banks of the Thames - in the kingdom of the scorching heat of furnaces and the roar of hammers, among genuine iron reality; I fell here, youthless, twenty-two years older, perhaps a little frightened and shocked, but enriched by life experience, and now I intend to reflect on all that I have experienced, sort out my observations and jot down these quick notes. Everything I write about takeoff is not just a figment of my imagination. The apogee of my and my uncle’s career, as you know, was our flight across the English Channel on the Lord Roberts Beta.
I want to warn the reader that my book will not be distinguished by its harmoniousness and consistency of presentation. I set out to trace the trajectory of my (and also my uncle’s) flight across the horizon of our society, and since this is my first novel (and almost certainly the last), I intend to include in it everything that amazed and amused me, all my motley impressions, although they are not directly related to the story. I also want to tell you about my love experiences, even if they were somewhat strange, because they brought me a lot of anxiety, depressed me, and made me quite worried; I still find a lot of absurd and controversial things in them, and it seems to me that they will become clearer if I put everything on paper. Perhaps I will take the liberty of describing people with whom I met only in passing, since I find it interesting to remember what they said and did for us, and especially how they behaved during the brief but dazzling days of Tono Benguet and his even more brilliant offspring . I can assure you that some of these people were illuminated from head to toe by the brilliance of Tono Benge!
A masterpiece of world literature, where a man of the modern world is shown in a simple plot in a typically Wellsian satirical and pessimistic manner. Although Wells tried to show what, in his opinion, England had come to at the beginning of the twentieth century, in reality he painted an image of the modern world. The plot is very simple and memorable for a long time, the style of presentation is refined and extremely witty, the translation is excellent. The book tells about a young, intelligent and educated Englishman who grew up in a rich noble house, but only among the servants (his mother seemed to be a housekeeper or something like that), then as a punishment for his childhood “life-meaning” conflict and as a punishment for the first childish, but not allowed by traditions love, he was sent for re-education to his uncle. The uncle turned out to be a good, modern man, but very frivolous and spent all the capital intended for the main character. Why did he have a moral sin on his conscience? -that energy drink with the catchy name “Tono Benge” (like Coca-Cola, Red Bull or a similar mixture). And so successfully that in a matter of years they became the richest people in England, but not for long, because little by little the uncle began to play on the stock exchange, got into debt, started building a house and went broke. A very typical story about a modern rich man, whose name is “legion”, a story about an ordinary uncultured rogue who suddenly got lucky, and he felt and began to behave as if it was no accident. This is a general plot, but the most interesting, of course, is written between the lines, in descriptions, sketches, in sharp, witty psychological characteristics, and when you read about love, it seems that everything has been copied from you one by one. A MUST READ!!! Whether you like it or not doesn’t matter, the main thing is to touch Wells’s genius.
Rating: 10
Tono Benge is one of Wells' social novels. In my opinion, they are literary superior to his fiction. It’s unlikely that anyone will remember the name of the hero of “War of the Worlds” or “The Time Machine”. (And do they have names? I don’t remember.) It’s just that the average Englishman, almost unchanged, wanders from novel to novel. And in Tono Benge, this average Englishman finds his own life story, unique, like every person. At times he is cute, at times unpleasant, sometimes you feel sorry for him. He has his own face, his character appears, his intelligence is revealed. He expresses non-trivial ideas, not always following the author's prompt. Instead of an adventure-philosophical treatise - literature as such.
The plot of “Tono Benge” is based on the promotion of another universal healing elixir, created on the basis of water and some chemistry. The harm from the elixir is moderate, it can be worse. It seems like a story about crooks, but I don’t want to call them crooks. Everything is more complicated, just like in life. You can remain an engineer or a pharmacist and struggle all your life to feed your family, or you can solve this problem with some damage to others and at the same time help revive the economy. Everyone chooses for themselves. Subjectively, the characters in the book consider their business quite worthy, although their conscience worries them.
Actually, Tono Benge is a typical pseudo-need. Nowadays, this is generally the main business - the creation and satisfaction of new pseudo-needs. At the end of the 19th century, this industry was gaining power, and by the 21st it had acquired the scale of a planetary catastrophe. Business is like business, even if not the most necessary one. Tono Benge is still not the worst of pseudo-needs.
Rating: 8
One of Wells's very bright books, for some reason deprived of the attention of the general public. That is, when we say Wells, War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, etc. come to mind, but his purely social things (such as Blapington of Blup, Rampole Island and Tono-Bange) are forgotten.
The books, however, are very good - they just focus on social science fiction (or rather, not even science fiction, but viewing and extrapolating current trends). By the way, he was very wrong about this - that’s why the relevance of Tono-Bange is higher than that of his purely “sci-fi” things.
Rating: 8
A long time ago, as a child at school, under the impression of “The Island of Doctor Moreau,” I literally snatched “Tono Benguet,” written in a tattered brochure, from the hands of a classmate in the children’s (!) library. Even then, I, a 3rd grade high school student (approximately 10-11 years old in today’s times) understood that if a book is very dirty and dirty, then it is worth it. God, what a disappointment it was!!! Probably, the Queen of Great Britain (I don’t remember which one) experienced the same feelings when, instead of Carroll’s fairy tales, they brought her a bunch of textbooks on higher mathematics. Some tongue-tied bastard is foisting a potion on people... and not only is the potion not even a placebo, but in general the devil knows what... I, who had just joined the pioneers, was completely incomprehensible why it was necessary to buy it, if the nearest pharmacy has exactly what you need, and it’s guaranteed by the state. And in general, why buy it if it doesn’t cure? I was so upset that I forgot to return the book to the library, then I played it somewhere and then was punished for this with the amount of 1 ruble 15 kopecks. My father, I remember, was very dissatisfied... But the Master already then (!) foresaw this current global scam on the subject of “I cure all diseases.” Alas, the Master did not have time to foresee that states would deal with this... he died, may he rest in peace over the English Channel.
H.G. Wells
TONO BENGE
Part one
"The Days Before the Invention of Tono Benguet"
1. About Bladesover House and my mother, and the structure of society
Most people seem to play out some role in life. In theatrical terms, each of them has his own role. Their lives have a beginning, a middle and an end, and in each of these closely interconnected periods, they act as the nature of the role they perform dictates. You can talk about them as people of one type or another. They belong to a certain class, occupy a certain place in society, know what they want and what is due to them, and when they die, an appropriately sized tombstone shows how well they played their role.
But there is a different kind of life, when a person does not so much live as experience all the diversity of life. For one, this happens due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances; the other goes astray from his usual path and spends the rest of his life not living as he would like, enduring one trial after another.
This is the life that befell me, and it prompted me to write something like a novel. My memory stores many unusual impressions, and I can’t wait to tell them to the reader as soon as possible.
I became quite closely acquainted with the life of the most diverse strata of society. People at various levels of the social ladder considered me one of their own. I was an uninvited guest of my great uncle, a baker, who later died in a Chatham hospital. I satisfied my hunger with pieces that were secretly brought to me by lackeys from the master's kitchen. I was despised for my lack of external polish by the daughter of a gas plant clerk. She married me and then divorced me. Once (if we talk about the other pole of my career) I was - oh brilliant days! - at a reception in the countess's house. True, she acquired this title with money, but still, you know, she was a countess. I have seen these people in a wide variety of circumstances. I have sat at the dinner table not just with titled persons, but even with great people. Once (this is my most precious memory), in the heat of mutual admiration, I knocked over a glass of champagne on the trousers of the greatest statesman of the empire - I will not mention his name, so as, God forbid, I would not be branded a braggart.
And once (although this was a pure accident) I killed a man...
Yes, I saw life in all its diversity and met a lot of different people. Both great and small are a very curious people; in essence they are surprisingly similar to each other, but curiously different in appearance. I regret that, having made so many acquaintances, I did not rise to the highest spheres and did not descend to the lowest. It would be great fun, for example, to get close to members of the royal house. However, my acquaintance with the princes was limited only to the fact that I saw them at public celebrations. Nor can I call my communication close with those dusty but nice people who wander along the big roads in the summer, drunk, but en famille (thus atoning for their little sins), with baby carriages, a bunch of tanned children, with suspicious bundles, the appearance of which suggests for some thoughts, and sell lavender. The diggers, farm laborers, sailors, stokers and other regulars of the pubs remained out of my sight, and I think I will never recognize them now. My relations with persons of the ducal rank were also of a casual nature. I once went hunting with a duke and, in all likelihood, in a fit of snobbery, tried my best to shoot him in the leg. But he missed. I regret, however, that my acquaintance was limited to only this episode, although...
By what personal virtues, you may ask, was I able to penetrate into such diverse strata of society and to see the cross-section of the British social organism? Thanks to the environment in which I was born. This is always the case in England. However, this happens everywhere, if I can allow myself such a broad generalization. But that's by the way.
I am my uncle's nephew, and my uncle is none other than Edouard Pondervaux, who, like a comet, appeared on the financial horizon - yes, now ten years ago! Do you remember Pondervo's career - I mean, Pondervo's glory days? Perhaps you even had some trifling contribution to one of his grandiose enterprises? Then you know him very well. Having mounted Tono Benguet, he, like a comet or, rather, like a giant rocket, took off into the heavenly expanse, and the investors began to speak with awe of the new star. Having reached its zenith, it exploded and crumbled into a constellation of amazing new enterprises. What a time it was! In this area he was downright Napoleon!..
I was his beloved nephew and confidant, and throughout my uncle’s fantastic journey I held tightly to the coattails of his coat. Before he began his meteoric career, I helped him make pills in an apothecary's shop in Wimblehurst. You can consider me the springboard from which his rocket rushed upward. After our lightning-fast takeoff, after my uncle played with millions and golden rain fell from the heavens, after I had a chance to view the entire modern world from a bird's eye view, I found myself on the banks of the Thames - in the kingdom of the scorching heat of furnaces and the roar of hammers, among genuine iron reality; I fell here, youthless, twenty-two years older, perhaps a little frightened and shocked, but enriched by life experience, and now I intend to reflect on all that I have experienced, sort out my observations and jot down these quick notes. Everything I write about takeoff is not just a figment of my imagination. The apogee of my and my uncle’s career, as you know, was our flight across the English Channel on the Lord Roberts Beta.
I want to warn the reader that my book will not be distinguished by its harmoniousness and consistency of presentation. I set out to trace the trajectory of my (and also my uncle’s) flight across the horizon of our society, and since this is my first novel (and almost certainly the last), I intend to include in it everything that amazed and amused me, all my motley impressions, although they are not directly related to the story. I also want to tell you about my love experiences, even if they were somewhat strange, because they brought me a lot of anxiety, depressed me, and made me quite worried; I still find a lot of absurd and controversial things in them, and it seems to me that they will become clearer if I put everything on paper. Perhaps I will take the liberty of describing people with whom I met only in passing, since I find it interesting to remember what they said and did for us, and especially how they behaved during the brief but dazzling days of Tono Benguet and his even more brilliant offspring . I can assure you that some of these people were illuminated from head to toe by the brilliance of Tono Benge!
Essentially, I want to write about almost everything in my book. I see the novel as something all-encompassing...
Numerous billboards still shout about Tono Benge, rows of bottles with this balm still flaunt on the shelves of pharmacy stores, it still soothes the cough of old people, lights the fire of life in the eyes and makes old people witty, as in their youth, but its universal fame, its financial shine has faded forever. And I, the only person, albeit severely scorched, who still survived the fire, am sitting here, in the never-ending clang and roar of machines, at a table covered with drawings, parts of models, notes with calculations of speeds, air and water pressure and trajectories, but all this no longer has anything to do with Tono Benga.
After re-reading what I have written, I ask myself the question: have I correctly stated everything I am going to say? Doesn't it seem like I intend to make something like a vinaigrette out of anecdotes and my memories, with my uncle being the most tempting piece? I admit that only now, having begun my narrative, did I understand what an abundance of vivid impressions, violent experiences, and ingrained points of view I would have to deal with and that my attempt to create a book would be, in a certain sense, hopeless. I believe that what I am really trying to describe is nothing more, nothing less than Life itself, life seen through the eyes of one person. I want to write about myself, about my impressions, about life in general, to tell how keenly I perceived the laws, traditions and habits prevailing in society, about how we, unfortunate loners, are driven by force or lured to wind-swept shallows and tangled channels, and then abandoned to their fate. I believe that I have entered that period of life when the environment ceases to be just material for dreams, but begins to acquire a certain reality and becomes interesting in itself. I have reached that age when a person reaches for a pen, when a critical spirit awakens in him, and so I took up a novel, writing my own novel, without having that experience that, it seems to me, helps a professional writer to accurately avoid repetition and unnecessary details .
