reading data from a file



Sorry for this question but 
have tried "describe" with
file, load, read, open, etc...
and could not file
anything useful.

I need to read some data from an ascii file
and put it into some Maxima variables.

For example from a file containing a some lines
seperated by CR and each containing some 
numbers separated by spaces.

Writing into a file is easy in Maxima 
(for example "with_stdout" does it)
but I can't find a way to read from a file.

  Fabrizio