The Demolished Man (1952)

Sorti aux USA de janvier 1952 à mars 1952 dans le magazine Galaxy Science Fiction.
Sorti aux USA en 1953 chez DOUBLE DAY US (grand format).
Sorti en France en 1955 chez DENOEL FR (poche, traduction Jacques Papy).
Sorti en France le 7 octobre 2011 chez FOLIO SF (poche, traduction Patrick Marcel).

De Alfred Bester.

Résumé à venir.

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(traduction du texte original du magazine, 1952)

Sur Sol Double-3 (car l'oeil cosmique considère la Terre et sa Lune comme un système planétaire double) en janvier 2103, Edward Turnbul de l'Université Coates pour Enseignants décida d'explorer l'Enigme Hystérèse pour les besoins de sa thèse. Les Variations de Réaumur sur les équations posthumes de Einstein avait suggéré un paradoxe que personne ne s'était soucié d'explorer. La recherche atomique était passé outre; et qu'est-ce que sont les culs de sac de la Science sinon une source d'occupation sans conséquence pour les étudiants de dernière année? Turnbul étudia les travaux originaux, parcourut quelques rééditions et puis bricola le dispositif.

Voyez cela: un jeune homme grave, gras, maladif, un authentique barbant... Un Phi Beta Kappa anesthésiant ses frustrations dans un laboratoire...

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(texte original du magazine, 1952)

ON Sol Double-3 (for the cosmic eye sees Earth and her moon as a planetary binary) in January of 2103, Edward Turnbul of Coates Teachers College decided to explore the Hysterisis Enigma for his research thesis. The Reamur Variations on the Einstein post-mortem Equations had suggested a paradox which no one had bothered to explore. Atomic research had bypassed it; and what are the dead ends of science for if not to provide harmless occupation for graduate students? Turnbul studied the original research, ran a few duplications and then tinkered with the apparatus.

Get the picture: a serious young man, fat, sallow, a genuine bore... A Phi Beta Kappa anesthetising his frustrations in a laboratory...

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(texte original du roman)

1

Explosion! Concussion! The vault doors burst open. And deep inside, the money is racked ready for pillage, rapine, loot. Who's that? Who's inside the vault? Oh God! The Man With No Face! Looking. Looming. Silent. Horrible. Run... Run...

Run, or I'll miss the Paris Pneumatique and that exquisite girl with her flower face and figure of passion. There's time if I run. But that isn't the Guard before the gate. Oh Christ! The Man With No Face. Looking. Looming. Silent. Don't scream. Stop screaming...

But I'm not screaming. I'm singing on a stage of sparkling marble while the music soars and the lights burn. But there's no one out there in the amphitheater. A great shadowed pit... empty except for one spectator. Silent. Staring. Looming. The Man With No Face.

And this time his scream had sound.

Ben Reich awoke.

He lay quietly in the hydropatlhic bed while his heart shuddered and his eyes focused at random on in the room, simulating a calm he could not feel. The walls of green jade, the nightlight in the porcelain mandarin whose head nodded interminably if you touched him, the multi-clock that radiated the time of three planets and six satellites, the bed itself, a crystal pool flowing with carbonated glycerine at ninety-nine point nine Fahrenheit.

The door opened softly and Jonas appeared in the gloom, a shadow in puce sleeping suit, a shade with the face of a horse and the bearing of an undertaker.

"Again?" Reich asked.

"Yes, Mr. Reich."

"Loud?"

"Very loud, sir. And terrified."

"God damn your jackass cars," Reich growled. "I'm never afraid."

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(traduction de Jacques Papy, 1955)

1

Explosion ! Fracas ! Ebranlement ! La porte de la chambre forte de la banque s'ouvre sous l'effet de la déflagration. Et, tout au fond, l'argent est entassé...

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