* * * *

 

STAR Short Novels

 

Edited By Frederik
Pohl

 

Proofed By
MadMaxAU

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Contents

 

LITTLE MEN
by Jessamyn West

 

FOR I AM A JEALOUS PEOPLE! by Lester del Rey

 

TO HERE AND THE EASEL by Theodore Sturgeon

 

* * * *

 

Introduction

 

 

this book had to be. There are stories in science fiction which cannot
be told in a few words, and yet will not fill a book; stories which, caught in
the limbo between short stories and full-length novels, may flicker briefly in
a magazine but are less than likely to manage the permanence of book
publication. And yetthey deserve to live.

 

For science fiction has much to
say to all of us; it is not merely a clutch of thrills (though it can have its
tingling excitement!), nor a literature of escape (though good reading is always
good fun). Science fiction, at its best, is a mirror in which we see our world,
our future, and ourselves. Like the diffraction grating of the physicists, it
reflects, and it analyzes. Turn it upon whatever subject you will; the image is
caught, torn apart, and returned to you, in neat spectroscopic bands. You may
not recognize your own face or your own home town in the picture at first
glance; but they are there, all the same, in aspects you perhaps had never
before seen.

 

For we know ourselves by our
extremes. We study the delusions of paranoia to understand what tiny tremors
disturb our dreams; the vegetable quiet of the catatonic helps explain our
slowness, sometimes, to respond to a challenge. Science fiction shows us
extremes. We do not expect, you and I, to find ourselves in a world where
Martians invade. But perhaps thinking about horn-skinned, bloodless aliens from
another planet will teach us something about getting along with the divergent
races, creeds, and sects who are our own human cousins.

 

Science fiction is the truthful
expansion of a lie. The science-fiction writer may start out with whatever
enormous lie he chooses to state; he may say that the Earth has been invaded by
Martians, or that it is possible to travel in time, or that a dog can be bred
to be smarter than a man. But once he has told his lie he is ruled by it as
tyrannically as the Civil War historian is ruled by Leełs surrender: For the
purposes of his story, that lie is true and incontrovertible, and cannot be
ignored.

 

Jessamyn West, in the present
volume, tells us a magnificent lie in her “Little Men." Having got off her
whopper, she shows what becomes of the worldif; and it would be a
courageous man who, granting the basic statement of the story, could find fault
with a single word of the things that follow. Theodore Sturgeonłs lie involves
a single man; the statement concerns only the man, and the story is the story
of the manłs life alone. And Lester del Rey ah, Lester del Rey. Read that
one for yourself. I shall not attempt to describe it, only to say that I can
imagine no more thought-provoking theme, nor can I imagine any way of writing
it but in a science-fiction story. . . .

 

I hope youłll like these stories;
I think you will. If so, thanks in large measure are due the authorsnot only
the three represented in this book, but the score or more of others who, for
one reason or another, could not be. Collectively, these men and women are
writing far more than their share of the most stimulating and satisfying
stories in the world today; and it is a great pleasure for me to unveil this
showcase of three pieces selected from the very top. 

 

Frederik Pohl

 

* * * *

 

Little Men

 

By
JESSAMYN WEST

 

 

When
I was a boy there were men who made appearances on school platforms as the last
survivor of the battle of Gettysburg, or as the last living man to have seen
Lincoln. I always felt sorry for them. It seemed a pity to have been born a
man, capable of having done something yourself, and then in the end be
remembered only because you once saw another man. I used to sit on a hard chair
and tilt my head at the old man on the platform and wonder how he would have
felt at twenty if some one had told him, “Sixty years from now youÅ‚ll be
remembered only because the image of another man once moved across your eyes.
They wonłt care who you were or are. Youłll just be a mirror reflecting someone
else." I thought then that the twenty-year-old would have been fighting mad to
hear those words and would have hit fist against palm and sworn to be a man in
his own right and be remembered for himself.

 

It is because I can remember so
clearly my feeling as a boy for those old men, that it seems doubly strange
now, and doubly bitter too, to be one of them myself, to be writing as a “last
survivor" and as an “eyewitness." But the likeness isnÅ‚t absolute. I didnÅ‚t
just “see Lincoln." The thing that happened, actually happened to me first and
not to another. If it wasnłt something I did, what I write of is at least not
something done by another or done to me. And now that I am myself an old man,
and have seen the changes that have come since that day sixty years ago, I am
convinced that we can not always be thinking of ourselves and the figure we
cut, but must have some concern for the wishes of other people.

 

* * * * * * * * Note

 

What
happened to me sixty years ago has since happened to almost every living man
and woman. Some now think that they see signs of a gradual change back to the
old way. I myself have seen none of these signs. But if there are signs of a
change it is all the more important that authentic records of the first days of
the Chileking Era be made. It is for these reasons that I am assenting to the
wishes of the Committee for the Commemoration of the First Sixty Years, and
setting down for them my memories of that first terrible hour and the scarcely
less terrible days that followed. And, as I have said, it is fitting that I
should do this since I not only saw with my own eyes the unbelievable and
indeed horrifying changes of that October morning, but I myself was the first
man on any continent to experience Subtraction.

 

[NOTE - Asterisks have been used
throughout this account to indicate a deletion of material. Two kinds of
material have been deleted: 1. Excessive and boring statements of the
narratorłs personal opinions, prejudices, complaints, and general homesickness
for life as it was lived when he was a boy. 2. Paragraphs and sometimes pages
either recounting events of which he was not an eyewitness or belaboring
matters which are of everyday familiarity to us all.

When possible I
have left enough of the narratorłs text to permit the reader to see the trend
of his thinkingor as is more often the casefeeling. In any case all cuts have
been made with an eye to increasing the pertinence and readability of the
manuscript.

If there are
those who would like to read the document in its entirety (it runs about half
again as long as the published manuscript), photostatic copies will be made
available for their perusal by the Committee for Commemoration.

S.L.H.,
EDITOR]

 

My son and daughter, were they
alive, should have their memories of that fateful day included with mine, for
what I experienced first as an adult, they experienced first as children. I do
not myself believe that Addition was for them as horrifying and shattering an
experience as Subtraction was for me but I suppose Addition has played, if
anything, a more substantial part in the world reversals which we have seen in
the past half century.

 

There is no need for me to write
of those reversals. We live among them. I had no hand in them, and more
frequently than not opposed them. I shall however try to keep my account
unbiased and factual and simply report what happened in those terrible days.
Those horrors I know as no one else can. I was then the first man, as I am now
one of the few survivors. I would not have chosen, as I said before, to be
remembered for this. It was not after all something I did, but something that
happened to me willy-nilly. I had thought my name in my old age would be
associated with memorable developments in military tactics, particularly with
those having to do with the use of guided missiles. But so far from my name
being remembered in that connection, there are today very few people who even
remember the enormous future the guided missile was thought to have in 1950.
That is being sanguine: few even remember the name, and those who do lump it
indiscriminately with the catapult or battering-ram. They forget that there are
those alive who, except for the events of that fateful October, would have
carried the guided missile to a point of perfection, few, even then, foresaw.
But I do not propose to sigh either for past glories or for enterprises of the
future which died stillborn.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

It
is my purpose to write of what happened, not of what did not happen. And I make
no apology for using in this account the phraseology of my youth. It is, in a
sense, appropriate that the facts of those days should be written in the
language then used. The Chilekings have authorized the use of many new, and
more often than not, fantastic terms for the description of those early events.
“Subtraction" is but one of many instances of this. I remember their shouts
during November, when they ranged up and down the streets crying, “DaddyÅ‚s been
Subtracted. DaddyÅ‚s been Subtracted." “Diminished" would have been a much more
exact and dignified word, but constant repetition has established the other. So
I shall employ the classic usage of my youth except where it is entirely lacking
in a suitable or understandable terminology.

 

I am an old man now, ninety-four
years of age, but I shall never, though my existence should be extended for
another century (and I most earnestly hope that this will not happen) lost my
constant awareness of even the minutiae of that October morning.

 

I was then, as you have doubtless
already deduced, thirty-four years old. I was a captain in the old army;
stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco, California, and living in San
Francisco. I was married. I had two children; a girl, Mary Frances, aged
eleven, and a boy, David, aged eight. My career to this point had been
unusually satisfying. I had published two books: The Use of the
Phipps-Viorsky Tank in Mountainous Terrain and Modern Co-ordination of
Tank and Artillery.

 

I mention these books
particularly because I had been at work on a revision of the Phipps-Viorsky
manual on the evening of October thirtieth. Amy, my wife, was in Pacific Grove
for the evening, nursing her mother who was down with an attack of erysipelas.
Mary Frances and David had been busy all evening making a pumpkin jack-oł-lantern.
I helped them with the carving of the teeth, a bit of workmanship which
required more exactitude in the handling of a knife than they possessed. I let
them stay up a little past their bedtime in order that they might finish it.
They took it upstairs with them when they went to bed and put it on the newel
post in the hall, “so that weÅ‚ll all be scared when we wake up in the morning."
My God! Fright was something they never needed to plan for again.

 

After they went to bed I sat in
my own room for some time meditating upon the coming elections; turning over in
my mind a mechanical problem associated with the new Russian developments of
so-called “jet repulsors." I was not pleased with what my mind encountered in
either situation.

 

It had never been my habit to
waste time in any non-utilitarian perusal of the landscape, nor to permit the
loss of emotional energy in a sentimental identification with its transitory aspects.
It was not, then, according to any established custom that I sat until late
that night by my window, looking across the moonlit city. The night was mild as
fall nights in California always are, and it was fog-free. That is somewhat
unusual here by the Coast, but October, more than any other month, brings such
nights. We had had early rain that year and there was already a little smoke of
green on the hills, and a smell of this false spring in the air.

 

I remember these things so
clearly, I suppose, because I have so often gone back in my memory to those
first hours before my Smalfri transformation (to employ a Chileking word
usedas many have forgottenhumorously, at first and with no thought that it
would find universal acceptance). Gone back to them at first with an intensity
that I hoped might break the barriers of reality; for what happened to me that
night seemed then not only shocking, but degrading. You who will read this have
had that experience blunted for you by repetition. It is impossible for you to
remember a time when it was not. You have heard tell of how it was with your
grandfather, and his son, and how it will be with you. You were born with the
anticipation of it in your blood. It was not so with me. I was the first man.
My children were the first children. Try to think how it would be with you if
you came to that experience unprepared. But you cannot, no more than you can
imagine a world without death. But the first man who saw the rot of death? I
have thought some about him in the past sixty years. No, no, the fact that my
experience has since been shared by most human beings has never reconciled me
to it, nor changed my opinion of its essential character.

 

The world was not, on that
October night, in a state to inspire confidence or happiness; but I thought as
I looked out onto the moonlit waters that I at least was equipped to be of
service to my country in an emergency, and that on this very night, products of
my mind, both mechanical and theoretical, were being of assistance to more than
one nation in the maintenance of the status quo. Status quo! That is not
a word one hears nowadays either; and my concern for it at that particular time
is added proof of an irony that lies close to the very core of things.

 

I undressed slowly that night,
taking, as I have said, an unwonted pleasure in the moonlit landscape. Before
getting into bed I opened the door that separated my room from Davidłs so that
I would be able to hear him if he, by chance, called out to me in the night.
But it was he who heard my cries, and came to me!

 

The next morning I awakened after
a night of deep, heavy, unrefreshing sleep. I awakened while the light was
still gray against my closed lids, and with the sense of having just emerged
from some very disturbing and portentous dream. I lay with closed eyes trying
to work my way back into that dream, to discover what it had been to leave me
in this unwonted state of uneasiness and oppression. But the dream eluded me
completely; only the feeling of a heaviness, at once physical and psychical
remained, unchanging. I opened my eyes sufficiently to see that a particularly
heavy fog had come up in the night and that the screens were beaded and
dripping. This would account for the pressure I felt on my chest, this choking
fog that had come up in the night. I was still more than half-asleep and felt
overwhelmed by the weight and amount of bedclothes about me. My pajamas seemed
to have slipped from my shoulders so that my hands were engulfed in sleeves. I
managed to get my left hand free, and thrust it down beneath the covers to gain
some leverage in hoisting myself up. There it encountered a circular metallic
object almost as broad across as my palm. I let my hand close about it,
speculating as to what it could be and how it had gotten into my bed. I lay
with closed eyes amusing myself by trying to identify it by sense of touch
alone. I decided that it must be a bracelet belonging to Mary Frances; it would
slip over two or three of my fingers but not over my entire hand. When I had identified
it as best I could by the feel of it alone, I lifted it to have a look. As
chance would have it I raised it at such an angle that I saw first of all the
inscription engraved inside it. “AmyRobert" That was my wedding ring! What had
happened to me, or it, to cause it to lie in my hand as large as a napkin ring,
or a childłs bracelet?

 

I held it near my wrist and saw
that my wrist was very little larger in circumference. A horrible throb of sick
apprehension beat through my whole body. If what I seemed to see existed
actually as I saw it, something horrible, something beyond the bounds of known
phenomena had taken place. If what I seemed to see did not actually exist as
seen, then I was mad, living in an hallucination. My mind flinched from either
conclusion. It lurched in a wounded way after some other, after any other,
conclusion. I tried to remember whether I had ever read of a person suffering
from an optical illusion which distorted for him the apparent size of objects.
But this was not, if it was illusion, optical alone. My hand, as well as my
eye, reported that either my hand had shrunk, or the ring increased in size.

 

It is useless to try to report in
cold logical sentences my first sensations that morning. My mind twitched; it
swung in nauseating arcs from one impossibility to another. I laid my hand on
my brow, I traced nose, chin and mouth. I felt my teeth, my ears. They felt to
my hand as they should. If then my hand had shrunk, so had they. I was in an
agony of apprehension and horror. I must get to the bottom of the matter, but
when I got there I would find myself either a madman or an appalling
monstrosity. I must go onand I could not. I cried. I sweat. I called out, and
my voice echoed in the room as thin as the squeak of a trapped rat.

 

Then I was calm, as a man who has
screamed for days in fear of death is somehow able at the last minute to face
the firing squad with honor and dignity. I struggled to sit up, uncover myself;
but I was so bound about with my pajamas, so weighed down with bedclothes that
I made little headway. I saw with horror the flailings of my feet far above
even the middle of the bed. Finally I worked myself free of the bedclothes with
infinite patience, undid the saucerlike buttons of my pajamas, untied the
ropelike belt, and sat mother-naked on my pillow. There could be no doubt about
it; I was a dwarf, a midget, a monstrosity, a hop-oł-my-thumb, no longer than
the pillow I sat on. Either that, or every material object in the room had
grown to six times its usual size. My body was not the body of a baby or a
child; it was a manłs body, hairy and sinewy. The feet were middle-aged feet,
calloused and warped by years of shoe-wearing; the legs bulged with the muscles
of my early soldiering days. This was myself, complete in every nick and scar
and pockmark, but diminished, diminished.

 

I looked over the edge of the
bedand drew back. I seemed to be perched on a scaffolding, so far away and
dwarfed was the floral jungle of the carpet below me. I was marooned on my own
bed. The realization was frightful and revolting. I was not only a man, but a
soldier and campaigner accustomed to bend circumstances to my own needs. Here
was a circumstance without flexibility. Nowhere would it give. And then as I
examined again that attenuated, that hideously minimized body, which could not
and yet must be mine if I existed at all, I cried out again and again in that
tormented bird whistle, that thin marionette wail which was the only voice I
had.

 

The voice which echoed so shrilly
in my own ears evidently carried. I heard a great thud in my son Davidłs room,
and then my diminished ears seemed not large enough to contain the heavy,
flapping sounds of his bare feet as he came down the hall. I remember wondering
dully if I had shrunk in relation to everything: if all sounds but my own were
to be thunderous.

 

Then my son David, my
eight-year-old, stood in the door of my room.

 

“Daddy," he called, “Daddy, look!
IÅ‚ve grown up. I grew up in the night. IÅ‚m as big as you now."

 

And he hadhe had. He stood in
the doorway looking down at himself, not seeing me yet, and I thought, “This is
the final proof of my madness," for my son, David, my eight-year-old, filled
the doorway. He was stark-naked, pink, boyish, and unmuscled; over six feet,
and heavy of shoulder and arm.

 

We have now grown accustomed to
big babies and little men, and this reversal no longer seems revolting. But
that morning, that first morning, it was a horrible thing to see that babyish
form so extended, that childish gap-toothed face above those heavy shoulders.
Surely, my feeling for my son did not hinge upon his being of a size I could
dandle, or toss upon my shoulders? Surely, fatherhood was more than the feeling
one has for small things? Yet, I did not feel fatherly toward that baby-faced
giant who stood in my doorway proudly punching his big pink thighs, even though
his face was that, though enlarged, of my son David.

 

He looked up finally from his
delighted examination of his own body.

 

“Daddy," he said, “isnÅ‚t it
wonderful?"

 

Then he saw me. There was fear
and loathing in his face. He started to run. Then he turned back. “Get out of
my daddyłs bed, you nasty little man. Get out. My daddy will come back and
throw you out of the window."

 

“David," I said. “David, my boy."

 

“IÅ‚m not your boy. You canÅ‚t make
me your boy."

 

Then it suddenly came to him,
that he neednłt wait for his father to come to throw me out of the window. He
was himself strong enough to do with me as he liked. He couldnłt put his
loathing from him, but he came menacingly toward me. “IÅ‚ll throw you out the
window and smash you in a thousand pieces. Wherełs my daddy?"

 

I thought he would do it. I
couldnÅ‚t but admire the child. I thought, “He is my son after all." But at the
final second he couldnłt bring himself to touch me. I was like a spider he had
cornered but couldnłt kill. He turned and flung himself on the floor and lay
there naked and sobbing, “I want my daddy. I want my daddy."

 

I was suddenly shaking with cold.
I was still sitting cross-legged and unclothed on my bed, and fog wisps were
still blowing clammily through the window. But I was calm now; my sonłs
outbreak had quieted my own hysteria.

 

“David," I said, “David, youÅ‚ll
take cold there. Get up and put something on. Get up and stop that crying."

 

The boy stopped crying and stood
up. “Go to my closet, get my dressing gown and put it on." He obeyed me in a
sullen, dazed way. The dressing gown left his wrists and ankles bare. He was
three or four inches taller than I wasthan I had been. He stood by the door
looking at me fearfully and incredulously.

 

I pulled my pajama top about my
shoulders and leaned back against the headboard of the bed.

 

“David, I am your father. You can
see that, surely. I helped you carve your jack-oł-lantern last night. Something
very strange and terrible has happened to us. While we slept you have grown as
big as a man and I have shrunk as small as a baby. But you are still my son and
Iłm your father. See, herełs where I cut my thumb last night making your jack-oł-lantern.
You can see Iłm your father, canłt youonly smaller?"

 

“Yes," he hiccuped, “you look
like my daddy, but my daddy is a big man. You look like a Halloween goblin. You
look-" and he threw his arm over his face and began to cry again.

 

“David," I cried sharply. “I know
thatI look horrible, awful, but I am your father and we must help each other."
But I was repelled by the sight of those heavy, heaving shoulders, and those
childish gulps and sniffles coming from behind that big pink hand.

 

“David," I shouted. “Stop it,
stop it, I say. Something terrible has happened and we must get the doctor here
at once. Perhaps he can do something for us. Make us as we were last night."

 

My son looked up, “I like to be
big. I donłt want to be little again. Only have Dr. Hinch give you something so
you wonłt look so awful."

 

The phone was in the hall. “David,"
I said, “I want you to carry me to the hall and put me on the chair by the
telephone table. IÅ‚m going to talk to Dr. Hinch. And while IÅ‚m talking to Dr.
Hinch, I want you to tiptoe down to Mary Francesł room. If shełs asleep donłt
waken her, but seesee what size she is."

 

The boy was beginning to get hold
of himself, but it took a good deal of effort for him to be able to touch me, or
for me to endure that touch. He lifted me easily, but clumsily, wadding my
pajama coat about my waist so that my legs dangled bare. It was not until I
attempted to dial Hinch that I realized that I had lost in strength as in
stature. The dial barely rotated beneath my pygmy finger. It took all the
strength of my wrist and forearm to budge it. At last the six figures were
dialed. Dr. Hinch himself answered the phone from his bed.

 

“Hinch," I said, “this is Phipps
speaking. Captain Phipps."

 

“Speak up, speak up," Hinch
roared sleepily. “I canÅ‚t hear you."

 

“Hinch," I cried, “this is
Phipps. Something ghastly has happened! Something ghastly. Get here at once.
Come right up to my room, and in Godłs name, hurry."

 

“All right, David," he said at
last, “IÅ‚ll be right over."

 

As I hung up the receiver David
came down the hall to me.

 

“Is she asleep?" I asked.

 

David nodded.

 

“Is she bigor little, David?"

 

“Big," he whispered.

 

Poor Mary Frances. Poor Mary
Frances.

 

“Help me to the floor, David. I
want to walk."

 

You accept that dollłs pace now.
And you say, perhaps, as you read, “The old man takes it pretty hard," or “The
old fellow doesnÅ‚t let the story lose anything in the telling," or maybe, “It
gets sadder every time he tells it."

 

All right. All right. You have
your say; then Iłll have mine. Itłs easy enough in these after days when all
has been explained, rationalized, accepted. You toddle happily enough now. But
then! That morning, when for the first time I stood in my own hall on those
pitiful baby feet and started to walk to my own roommy own and my wifełs room.
Step, step, step, and less than a yard covered. Walking along with my nose a
foot and a half above the floor boards, and with the furniture hanging over my
head like wooden precipices. Come to your own bed, and need a ladder to get
into it, and have your own chair as inaccessible as a tree top, and crouch
finally on your hassock like a toad. Do that for the first time with no blanket
of rationalization to shield you from the sharp reality!

 

David spent a good deal of the
time while we awaited Dr. Hinchłs coming looking at himself in the mirror. It
was curiously repellent to see in that big body those childish attitudesas if
my son were a half wit. I knew this wasnłt fair. The boy was eight years old,
but you can not after a lifetime yours and the universełsassociate
intelligence and adulthood with stature, and have that association broken
suddenly without some bleeding.

 

Dr. Hinch was an experienced,
hard-bitten army surgeon; and you may read, perhaps have read, in his own
memoirs of his sensations that October morning. While we waited for him I kept
thinking that this was perhaps something doctors knew aboutbut kept hushed up.
Iłd never been sick then, and still had a laymanłs faith in a doctorłs ability
to be able to do something.

 

When Dr. Hinch stood in the door
of my room and saw me sitting on the hassock, and David standing over me, he
fainted; he went down like a bombed building, wavering a minute, then
collapsing with legs and arms sprawled confusedly like broken cornices, smashed
facades. I saw how bad it was with us then.

 

David fetched water from the
bathroom, and between us we brought him round. He lay there for a long time,
though, with his biscuit-colored face in a pool of water. I was close enough to
see clearly the look in his eyes when at last he opened them: it was the look
of a man who fears he is mad.

 

I think Hinch in his memoirs
misrepresents that morningłs happenings, though no doubt unconsciously. He was
after all a physician and I have yet to meet the physician who is able to confess
having made a mistake. Hinch was no exception. In the first place he fails to
mention that the first thing he did on entering my room that morning was to
faint. This omission alone gives an entirely false air of capability and
resourcefulness to his account. In addition he fails to say that such plans as
were made that morning were mine; and worst of all he definitely suggests that
he, on that morning, anticipated the approaching universality of the change I
had experienced. If he did, it was only with hindsight.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

But,
as I have said, we brought him around finally and David got him onto his feet
and into a chair. He sat there with his hand over his eyes saying, “My God, my
God," and occasionally peeping out at us from between his fingers. David began
to whimper again at his strange actions.

 

I talked to him collectedly
enough I think, the circumstances being considered, and finally had him
sufficiently calm to give his attention to our problem. But I could see that,
though he listened to me, he could not escape feeling that a diminution in
brain had accompanied my physical diminution. He talked to me as if I were a
child, as though my years, experience, training had dropped from me with my
lost inches. He talked in a loud, slow, patient voice using small words. It was
unendurable.

 

“Look here, Hinch," I said at
last, “nothingÅ‚s happened to my mind. Get that straight and donÅ‚t talk baby
talk to me. If you have any doubt concerning my mental processes, give me any
test you like and youłll find my power of thought undiminished. Pull yourself
together, man. God knows this is awful enough as it is without your reading
into it changes that havenłt occurred. All I want to know is whether or not you
as a medical man have any knowledge of whatłs happened to me and David and Mary
Frances. Itłs a simple yes or no situation. Has medical history records of such
cases? Have you yourself ever encountered any such thing?"

 

He said this and that but the
upshot of it was that he knew nothing of such a happening either through study
or experience. There had been cases where men had lost a few inches probably
as the result of a calcium deficiency; and as a young practitioner in southern
Kentucky he had taken care of a child, much dwarfed, whose parents said it had
the “little-growth." The child had died, though, before he himself had observed
any shrinkage in it.

 

There is something hateful about
always having to look up at a manat anyone. It is not only that the neck tires
and the eyes glaze, but that there is implicit in the attitude some deference,
some recognition of superiority. It is an association pattern without intrinsic
truth, but centuries of use has made the mental response slavish that
accompanies the curved neck, the uplifted eye. The rulers of men stand on
balconies, ride horseback; the crucified Christ hangs above us on his cross.
When the man comes who can dig himself a pit and, standing below us, yet lead
us, then there will be true leadership. What the Chilekings have done has had
its roots in our uplifted eyes.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

My
first perceptions of all this came to me that October morning as I sat on the
hassock looking up into Hinchłs pale, puffy face. I called to David sharply to
help me up on to the bed. But the boy had gone to sleep. He was lying face down
across the bed breathing audibly. The fog had cleared away; the sun filled the
room with warm yellow light. It was getting on toward midmorning. None of us
had eaten and David and I had had a shattering experience.

 

“David," I called, “David, wake
up, boy."

 

He roused himself bewilderedly,
sat up, and said, “Daddy, IÅ‚m hungry."

 

“Hinch," I said, “go downstairs
and tell Maria we want coffee and toast and scrambled eggs up here at once.
Enough for four. Mary Frances had as well be awakened."

 

I remember David asked to have
some of his “Muscleo," a breakfast food popular at the time. He was saving
coupons and wanted to use boxes as quickly as possible. It seemed intolerably
half-witted to have this young giant crying for “Muscleo" and coupons for model
airplanes.

 

“YouÅ‚ll have scrambled eggs," I
said sharply.

 

“What am I to tell Maria?" Hinch
asked.

 

“Tell her anything you like
except the truth. Tell her we all have scarlet fever and are quarantined and
shełs not to put a foot abovestairs. My God! Man, you donłt want every newsreel
cameraman in California in here, do you?"

 

Hinch hadnłt thought of that. As
he went into the hall the phone rang. It was his wife. I listened to him tell
her that we were all down with scarlet fever, and that he would be with us the
rest of the morning. Then at my suggestion he called Headquarters and my wife,
giving them the same story. He told Amy he would keep in touch with her, that
we were seriously but not dangerously ill, and that she should make no attempt
to see us. I was glad to have that matter attended to. I tried to keep my mind
off Amy and our future relationship.

 

While Hinch was downstairs
getting our breakfast, David and I washed and dressed. He helped me onto a
chair so that I could reach the lavatory. I didnłt attempt shaving that
morning. David got into a sweater and a pair of old slacks of mine. My shoes
were too small for him but he managed to get his toes into a pair of
espadrilles.

 

I put on an outworn play suit of
his. For a minute as I stood on the hassock in that ridiculous blue-frilled
garment I was tempted to plunge out the window, let the concrete below put an
end to this pitiful travesty. There on the table lay the notes I had made the
night before for the revision of the Phipps-Viorsky manual. I saw clearly, as I
stood there looking out into the sunlit morning, that never again would I be
accepted as the man who wrote that: I would be hereafter simply the man who had
shrunk, the monstrosity.

 

Hinch came back upstairs with our
breakfast. I left the awakening of Mary Frances to him. The poor child had none
of Davidłs delight in the change. She came into the room wrapped about in a
negligee of her motherłs, a great, strapping, sexless figure carrying her doll
and crying passionately. She was taller than Hinch who was a little, pursy man,
and it was ridiculous to see him pat her and murmur, “There, there, my child:
Now, now. Donłt take on so, donłt take on."

 

“DonÅ‚t take on!" It was too late
to ask that, but Hinch, as those who have read his memoirs will remember, had
no humor in him.

 

* * * * * * * * Note

 

I had to face again in Mary
Frances all the horror and disgust I had seen in Davidłs eyes. It was a strange
breakfast party, an unequaled one, I dare say. There wasnłt much said beyond
attempts to reassure Mary Frances. David ate most of the food. I found myself
watching with deep disgust the clumsy, greedy way he piled great forkfuls of
eggs into his gap-toothed mouth. And there was something loutish and
overbearing in the way he disregarded my suggestions that hełd had enough. And
Mary Frances pressing her doll to her big, flat chest and saying, “DonÅ‚t you
want a bite, dollie, dear?" and Hinch breaking out, “Lord, what a paper I can
write on this!" No, that is a meal I can never forget.

 

[NOTE - It has been necessary to omit a
good deal of material here having to do with doctors in general and Hinch in
particular. Phipps never ceases to blame the doctors for not “doing something"
about Subtraction. He seems to feel that if they had been as competent in their
field as he was in his, they would have “repulsed" the “invasion" by the forces
of Subtraction.]

 

As soon as we had eaten I sent
the children to the playroom, though David was determined to go out, show his
friends what had happened.

 

“Well, Hinch," I said when they
had gone, “WhatÅ‚s to be done?"

 

“God only knows," he muttered, “God
only knows: this is beyond me."

 

He walked over to me and I
thought he was going to pat me on the head, say, “There, there, little man."
Hinch never got far beyond exterior appearances.

 

“IÅ‚ll want to have a consultation
of course; have Dr. Kleigh and Dr. Marbot here. Therełll have to be X-rays,
blood tests. IÅ‚d like to have a psychiatrist, see if there has been any
fundamental personality change."

 

I agreed so long as the matter be
kept secret. Hinch, I think, actually pictured himself as the entrepreneur of a
successful “racket"to use a pre-Chileking word popular in my youtha sort of
latter-day Barnum. I agreed to the examinations, but insisted that they be secret
and postponed for at least three days, for I clung to the fantastic hope that
there might be some spontaneous recovery in that time.

 

I sat propped up in the corner of
my big chair like an organ-grinderłs monkey, while Hinch, with his buttons
catching the sunlight, paced the room like a general. He would walk away from
me, then turn suddenly on his heel, flash a look in my direction, and start
perceptibly, to see me still there, still the same size, the same shape.

 

I finally put an end to it. “ThereÅ‚s
no need taking more of your time, Hinch," I said. “Will you stop in the
kitchen, remind Maria about coming abovestairs, bring us up some sandwiches and
fruit, and drop in tonight about six?"

 

It was noon when he left. I got
the children to take naps after lunch and I was left alone in my room at last.
I had had Mary place my books and papers in the seat of a chair, and by using
the hassock to sit on I had a pretty fair desk. Before I permited myself any
thought concerning my present condition, my future, and that of my wife and
children, I wanted to test, once and for all, whether or not I had suffered any
diminution of mental ability. I resolutely turned to the revision with which I
had been occupied the night before. I became completely absorbed in the specific
problems with which I had been working, and the solution that had till then
evaded me came to me that afternoon. There was no doubt about it. There was
nothing miniature, nothing juvenile about my mind. It was my appearance only
which was altered. I worked until dusk, then got off the hassock and paced
about exultantly feeling again my former self. The furniture, the room, even
the books dwarfed me, but the man inside was unaltered.

 

Before I knew it, it was six ołclock
and Hinch was back, and had brought our dinner upstairs. I went to the playroom
to call the children. I hadnłt seen them since they left to take their naps. I
found them both lying full length on the playroom floor talking in low voices.
I stood for a moment listening to them.

 

“Well," said David, “I guess from
now on we do what we want to."

 

“Yes," said Mary Frances, “weÅ‚re
the grownups now and Daddyłs the baby. Poor Daddy. He looks just like a monkey,
doesnłt he? But wełll have to let him have his way sometimes, Dave. He was kind
to us lots of times. Really he was, Dave. ęMember how he helped you with your
jack-oł-lantern last night?" and she laughed maliciously.

 

Dave snorted. “I could have done
it. He took it away from me just when it was most fun."

 

“Yes," Mary Frances agreed, “heÅ‚s
always been like that. But wełve got to be kind to him. He looks so awful, and
he canłt help it."

 

I could bear to hear no more. The
children to whom I had given life and for whom I had been willing to sacrifice
everything! We were not then aware of the profound influence of size in the
relationship of parents and children. None had then guessed the part force and
fear played in that relationship. I was the first man to have a glimpse of that
truth, listening to that conversation. But I could not credit it. Had my
children obeyed me, not because they loved me, because I was reasonable,
but because they feared my superior size? I could not then believe it.
Their dear, childish natures had been warped, disfigured by this alteration.
They had not had time, I thought, to learn the true relativity of size.

 

I cleared my throat. “Children,"
I called. “David, Mary Frances, time for dinner."

 

Mary Frances answered pleasantly,
“Yes, Daddy," but David came running out of his room bellowing in that
many-times-amplified childÅ‚s voice of his, “Damn it, IÅ‚m hungry."

 

“David," I started, but before I
could continue he stooped down, picked me up with an easy swoop and held me
awkwardly over his head. I was filled with fury, but could do nothing but kick
and squeak. He was shamefaced when he put me down.

 

“David," I cried, “Never do that
again. I donłt like it."

 

“I never liked it, either," he
said.

 

Down the hall Hinch stood looking
on sardonically.

 

Dinner was a strained and unhappy
meal. As soon as it was over I asked Hinch and the children to leave me. I was
exhausted by the dayłs events and as soon as I was alone I undressed, pushed a
chair next to my bed, and clambered laboriously up its rungs to the seat, and
from the seat to the bed. I lay there, with the great bolsterlike pillow
thrusting my head out at a right angle from my body, and pulled the covers of
the unmade bed up over my wretched gnome-like body.

 

Dully I picked up the evening
paper which Hinch had brought me. There was no use pretending that I felt any
real interest in what had happened that day in the world. Because of the change
in me the world was no longer what it had been. It no longer fitted me. The
newspaper itself was an annoyance and irritation. Great, bulky, flapping thing
that I had to struggle with. You, with your neat little built-to-size
accommodations, know nothing of the perverse and recalcitrant nature that then
infested the very things in which we had been wont to find our greatest
pleasures and conveniences. When at last I had bent and shaped the paper into a
size I could handle I was almost too tired to read it. But I let my eyes run
over the print hunting some anodyne, something that would, even for the short
time my eyes rested on it, let me forget myself. But there seemed to be no news
of importance that night.

 

I did not sleep at all during the
first part of the night, but 1 was deep in sleep the next morning when the
incessant ringing of the phone roused me. I came up out of sleep, forgetful of
what happened to me, and plunged out of bed onto the floor with a thud that
momentarily stunned me. But in spite of this I limped out to the hall, climbed
up the chair to the telephone table.

 

“Yes," I said.

 

“Phipps, Phipps," came an
anguished and squeaky voice. “My God! Phipps."

 

“What is it?" I cried. “Who is
speaking? Who is it? Speak louder." But in my bones I knew and was glad.

 

“This is Hinch," came back the
thin voice that I hated because I knew that it echoed my own. “This is Hinch
and itłs happened to me. Iłve shrunk. Wełve all shrunk. Everyone in the house.
My wife. Wełre dwarfs. My God, the world is ending. Or has ended!"

 

I suddenly felt cheerful. “Come,
Hinch," I shouted. “Buck up. YouÅ‚ve just lost a few inches."

 

“IÅ‚ve had calls all morning. ItÅ‚s
happening to everyone."

 

“Town people, too?" I could
hardly hear him. The phone service was very bad at the moment.

 

“Noonly our own people so far. I
think itłs infectious. I think I caught it from you. Oh God, why did you ever
call me over?"

 

“Did you see everyone yesterday
who has called you this morning?"

 

“No," he admitted.

 

“Well, it canÅ‚t be infectious," I
said.

 

Hinch lost control of himself
then and began to whimper hysterically. This man who had thought of me as a
subject for a scientific paper the day before!

 

* * * * * * * *

 

“Hinch,"
I said, “IÅ‚ll be over at once. As soon as I can get the children up. Be calm
now. Get yourself together."

 

I put the phone back on the table
and smiled. I will not dissemble what I felt then. Relief, hope. I, my family,
were not singled out. We were all in the grip of some wide-spread malady. Now
there were those I too could pity. I need not carry the burden of every other
creaturełs pity and commiserationnor watch the man who pitied me swell up with
the joy of being not as I was. No, I will not deceive you. Tears of relief
filled my eyes. I saw, even then, it would not be so bad a thing to be a little
man with other little men. But still I did not foresee what it would mean to be
a little man in a Chileking world.

 

As I stood supporting myself on
the chair in the hall, rubbing my bruised arms and legs, I heard little thin
cries of distress from the bottom of the stairs and awkward plodding steps. I
went to the head of the stairs and looked over. There was Maria, a poor,
gray-haired midget wrapped about in a formless garment, crying and clambering
like some stray dog. She was a pitiable object. I have never thought that women
have been able to undergo Subtraction as gracefully as men. You would think
otherwise: that the female, being by nature slighter and more fragile than men,
would be a better subject for Subtractionbut it was not proved so. Her bulges
and curves become crowded when she is shortened, so that she is like a little
country with too much topography. Well, be that as it may, Maria was the first
female I had ever seen who had suffered Subtraction, the first adult of either
sex, in fact, and her miserable crawling figure stays in my mind even after a
lapse of sixty years.

 

When I had eased her mind as best
I could concerning what had happened, and had warned her to let no one see her,
I roused the children and told them that they were to drive me to Dr. Hinchłs;
they were immediately beside themselves with excitement. Mary Frances could
drive after a fashion and I could see nothing for it but to risk her being able
to get us there safely. There was no question of my being able to drive. I
would have sat under the wheel like an elf under a toadstool. The children
dressed with careDavid using my clothes, Mary Frances her motherłsbut they
were grotesque figures when they had finished. They stood, broad and shapeless
like cloth-draped planks. I made my first trip, after Subtraction, in a laundry
basket with a sheet covering me. That is not a ride I like to recall: Mary
Frances driving with an unevenness that I thought at any moment would either
wreck us or attract the attention of some passing motor cop. But we finally
arrived at Hinchłs, safe enough.

 

My memories now concern events
which have been exhaustively written about. Hinchłs own account in his memoirs
is known everywhere, as is Colonel Werlełs The First Decade. Whitmore,
who was at Hinchłs that first morning, is the author of the standard
Psychology of Subtraction. The events they write of were so extraordinary,
they moved at so swift a pace, the change in accepted practices was so
revolutionary, that it is little wonder that their reports are conflicting.
When a manłs life breaks up about him he has neither the time nor the emotional
stability to classify the splinters. And so it is that one of these men will
emphasize one thing and perhaps omit altogether something which struck me as
being of paramount significance.

 

The scene at Hinchłs that morning
was sad enough, but it had a grisly, diabolic humor too. Goyenłs imaginative
painting, “The Little Men" based on that morningÅ‚s meeting is in no wise too
bitter or too violent in its emphasis of that grotesquerie. I had had a day and
a night in which to accustom myself to what had happened to me. The men I saw
that morning in Hinchłs library had had a few hours at most. Then too they were
army men, accustomed to the protection a uniform gives. Here they were, worse
than naked, wrapped about in the cast-off rag, tag, and bobtail of their
children. Accustomed to order and hierarchies, here they were stripped of all
insignia of rank, almost of all signs of humanity. Earlier that morning when
Hinch had told me what was happening I had rejoiced that I was not to be
separated because of my size from my fellow men. But as I stood looking at that
collection of monkeys in motley, these erstwhile men, I felt myself, in spite
of my size, to be unlike them; surely from my throat would never rise any such
sad, simian gibber, such uncontrolled quavers. There were thirty-four men in
the room. That is the exact figure. I counted them as I stood there. Some had
managed to crawl up into chairs; others were sitting on the slightly elevated
hearth holding hands they could not believe were theirs toward the fireplace in
which no fire burned; but most were walking about in an aimless, tormented way,
clutching their fantastic garments about them.

 

While I stood there, Captain
Mayberry, who killed himself a few months later, saw me, and clambered
laboriously up the steps to where I was standing. He was a very young man for
his rank, thin and brown, with a goatee. Subtraction suited him better than any
man I have ever seen. He seemed completely unconcerned over what had happened,
an ironical troll or faun.

 

“Well, Phipps," he smiled, “you
too? This is a wonderful thingan interesting thingI donłt mean whatłs
happened but the way theyłre taking it. Actually, how have we changed? Our
clothes, our furniture donłt fit us, but otherwise how have we changed? Besides
wełre not going to have to worry about things much longer. Theyłll take things
out of our hands," and he nodded his head toward the living room where the
childrenthey werenłt the Chilekings yet, were lounging about.

 

“You forget theyÅ‚re only
children," I said.

 

“But they feel big, and people
who feel big, act big; they are big," he replied. “And we are small and feel
smaller. And will act smaller."

 

“They know nothingwe have the
knowledge."

 

“That wonÅ‚t last long. Who
brought you here this morning? Mary Frances? I thought so. Well, the carłs hers
now."

 

“Mayberry, youÅ‚re not married.
You donłt know anything about the parental relationship. The matter of size is
relative."

 

He looked at me and laughed, “TheyÅ‚re
proposing already down there that the boys be trained to take our places at the
Post."

 

I had already thought of that. “They
ought to," I said, “for the time beinguntil adjustments can be made."

 

“You too?" Mayberry asked.

 

“Why not?" I wanted to know. “ItÅ‚s
not safe, leaving us defenseless this way, an easy target for any country. We
canłt man any of our equipment nowbut they could, with instructions from us."

 

“Perhaps they could. Will they?
As you say? Anyway, how long do you think this can be kept secret?"

 

“I donÅ‚t know. But itÅ‚s worth
trying for a good many reasons. And there might be a reversal at any time."

 

“You think so?" Mayberry smiled
skeptically. Poor fellow. He shot himself a few months later when the girl he
was engaged to was not Subtracted.

 

Mayberry and I talked together
for some time before we joined the men in the room below. The two of us felt a
bond a bond that united us, and separated us from those poor, lamenting
figures. He, because of his naturally reflective, ironic nature, I, because of
the somewhat longer period of adjustment I had had, were loath to step down
into that room of molten emotion. But it had to be done. That was our world
now. It is impossible to report with any detail or accuracy what was said
there. Those men did not so much talk as emit jets of feeling, raw lumps of
bleeding emotion. I remember Lieutenant Hildebrand though. Hełd been having
something to drinkhad it with him in fact. He kept singing snatches from a
movie that had been popular about two decades before. I forget its name,
something about a band of dwarfs. Afterwards we used to speak of its
unconscious prophecy. Strange that Hildebrandłs irrelevancies should stick with
me when much of that morningłs serious conversation has escaped me. But
Hildebrand I can still see, draped in something white and togalike, toddling
uncertainly about the room tilting his bottle as big as his head and singing a
song, one snatch of which went, “Heigh-ho, itÅ‚s off to work we go." No, GoyenÅ‚s
picture is no exaggeration.

 

Colonel Oren, the senior officer
there that morning, was able finally to bring about some organized
consideration of what we were to do. It was he who railroaded us into the
fantastic idea, and dangerous too, as it later proved, of having our sons take
our places at the Presidio. The times were extremely uncertain internationally
just then. Oren was afraid that if news concerning our Subtraction leaked out
other nations would be quick to take advantage of weakness. He, like me, hoped
for a spontaneous restoration of size in time, and he argued that, even if this
did not occur, by the time other countries became aware of what was happening
in California, our sons, with us to direct them, would be able to give a good
account of themselves. It is true Oren had had for a number of years an idée
fixe concerning Russiałs desire to attack us; and this shrinkage seemed to
him to provide them with the logical moment of attackthe moment when he, Oren,
would be unable to do anything to resist them.

 

In the light of what followed,
much that we planned that morning was worse than silly. I have heard that many
times since, and especially have I heard it from the Chilekings. It is
extremely easy to be wise after the event. It has always seemed remarkable to
me that we were able to plan anything that morning, miserable,
overnight-midgets that we were.

 

It was Orenłs plan then, but I
fully admit it was agreed to by every man there, including myself (in spite of
disclaimers after the disaster) except Mayberry and Hildebrand. Hildebrand was
snoozing under the library table and past awakening when it came to a vote, and
Mayberry alone opposed it with, as it afterwards proved, his extremely
well-founded fears. But Mayberry was overruled and we agreed, without other
dissent, to exercise every possible caution toward keeping this nightłs
happenings secret, and in the interval until the matter should be known, to
train our sons to replace usin some of the essential defensive practices at
least.

 

The meeting broke up about noon
with a pathetic flurry of salutes; the children, who had been playing rummy and
dominoes in the living room, and bolting all the food they could find in the
kitchen, got their variously disguised and hidden parents out to the waiting
cars. Mayberry, Oren, and I stayed on sometime longer talking with Hinch. I
asked Hinch if he still believed there had been mental as well as physical
changes. He was now. convinced that the change was physical alone.

 

Mayberry broke in, “A month from
now, a year from now ask yourself that question. A man is his size; his
thoughts, attitudes, are molded not only by what he is, but by the figure he sees
himself cut alongside his fellow men. Did you ever know a dwarf? I did. Do you
think he wasnłt influenced by his sizeand that your children havenłt been?"

 

“You forget," I reminded him, “that
your dwarf friend was an isolated case. Wełll be surrounded by others like
ourselves. Wełll be the norm."

 

“You at thirty inches, the norm,
with your son looking down on you from a four-foot advantage? Perhaps."

 

Oren, who with his round, red
face, and faded blond hair, needed only a frilled bonnet to look like a real
baby, objected heatedly to this. “Our entire civilization has been built on the
theory that mind and intellect are the criteria by which to judge men and
nations. Are you ready to renounce that now, Mayberry? To say that size and
physical strength are paramount? I myself never felt more convinced of the
contrary."

 

Mayberry laughed as if he were
really enjoying himself. “And you an old army man. Well, well." He threw back
his head. Mayberryłs laugh was clear and pleasant, not the little goat-giggle
of most of us Subtracted men. “Well, Oren, I hope your idealism is justified."
He left us and went over to the hearth where Hinch was trying to get a fire
started. With Mayberryłs help, Hinch was able to lift a eucalyptus log onto the
blazing kindling. I never, to this day, smell eucalyptus smoke without
remembering that scene.

 

Oren turned to me, “My wifeÅ‚s
pregnant, you know," he said, and stroked his bulging babyłs brow as if
embarrassed that a creature his size should be an expectant father.

 

“What does Hinch say?"

 

“HeÅ‚s too taken up with himself
to have any mind for anything else. Says it will be all right."

 

“Well, it seems reasonable," I
tried to console him, “that if Helen has diminished the child has too, and the
birth will be normal."

 

“But the child, the child? What
can it be?"

 

I didnłt know. No one knew then,
and for Oren the prospect was terrifying.

 

The fire was blazing comfortably
now, and we all sat on the hearthłs edge to warm ourselves before leaving.

 

Mayberry said, “You know MarshaÅ‚s
still her own size?" Marsha was the girl he was engaged to, a teacher who lived
in Sausalito.

 

“You saw her?"

 

“God, no," he grimaced, “but she
called this morning, and shełs all right."

 

“I donÅ‚t know about my own wife,"
I said. (As a matter of fact she and her mother had both been Diminished the
night before, but I didnłt have word of it until I returned home.)

 

Hinch said, ęThis is striking
like any disease. Some have more resistancehold out longer than others."

 

“But certain people have complete
resistance to some diseases," Mayberry reminded him. Ä™“Perhaps Marsha has.
Beautiful opportunity to test your theory, Oren." His laugh was unpleasant
then.

 

As experience proved, Mayberry
was right about that, too. Some never were Subtracted. Some children never
experienced Addition. They were very few, a handful really. I remember the
names of most of the men of my generation who for some reason or another were
never Diminished. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for their escape. They
made up an extraordinarily diverse group: Einstein, the physicist, was one. Max
Baer, a local prize fighter, was another. There were two or three poets whose
names I never knew well and have forgotten. In California beside Marsha OÅ‚Brien,
there was a sister at an Ursuline Academy who was never Subtracted.

 

A good deal of investigation and
writing has been done on the subject of the Unchanged, but none of it, to my
mind, has been very convincing.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

Certainly,
however, it begins to appear that whatever it is that gives to these persons
their immunity to Subtraction, it is a quality which is not inherited,
transferred from one generation to the next. Though it has proved, I think, an
exceedingly doubtful gift. Those adults who have not been Subtracted live among
us like half-breedsthey are at ease neither with the Chilekings who are their
own size, nor with their contemporaries, who walk about them at knee level,
horrible monstrosities. It has often seemed to me that all those adults who
have not been Subtracted, have had about them something childlike, ingenuous.
Certainly it is true that in those great upheavals of policy in which the
Chilekings and Smalfri have been opposed, the Unchanged have always sided with
the Chilekings. And their position has been the more untenable because the
Chilekings resented them, considered them spies from the Smalfri. Their
position, however trying, has not been anything like as bad as that of the
children who were not Expanded. But I am getting ahead of my story.

 

These memories take more care in
the telling than I at first anticipated. On the one hand there is the
temptation to give readers a quantity of purely personal detail and reaction
which they may find boring. On the other hand, if I avoid the personal, retell
the high lights of those first days, I will repeat much that has already been
many times retold. My best course is, I think, to confine myself to those
events in which I was either a participant, or observed at first hand, and
which were in themselves significant or momentous. [A fine resolve,
but one which Phipps is unable to keep consistently.] God knows there were plenty of
those. Many which did not seem so at the time have since proved to be extremely
“seminal," to use once more a word fashionable sixty years ago.

 

The day after our meeting at
Hinchłs, we went with, or rather were taken by, our sons, to the Post. Nothing
untoward marked our arrival. Every man at the Post, had that morning, as it was
later ascertained, experienced Subtraction. Most were not on duty, but were
still hiding in their barracks or homes, not yet aware that what had happened to
them had happened to all. Orders had been given excluding all civilians from
the Post, and by some lucky chance, nothing of what had happened had yet gotten
into the papers.

 

The boys were in uniform, and
from a distance they werenłt so bad to look ata big, hulking beefy line. But
close up they were most unsoldierly. Not only were they physically lumpish and
shapeless, but their plump, characterless faces above their uniforms made them
look like an exercise group at an imbecilełs home. The fact that my son was one
of them did not mitigate this impression.

 

But however they looked, they
were extremely quick to catch on. There were no boys younger than David in the
group, and a few were fifteen or overbut all of the older boys picked up
almost at once all that was necessary for the manning of the guns which then
constituted our chief harbor defense. Much of this was done through electrical
controls, and except for the scale on which everything was constructed, a scale
which made our manipulation of the guns after Subtraction hazardous as well as
difficult, we might have been able to carry on alone. But in time of attack
swiftness and dexterity of manipulation are essential. That we could not
manage, and they, with our instruction, could. In the matter of sighting an
invisible target, a matter which requires a good deal of mathematical ability,
they had of course to rely on our calculations. That at least we were still fit
to do. It was heartbreaking work though, in spite of their responsiveness: to
stand, dwarfed and antlike, beside those you had, the day before, been able to
dominate. There were tears and curses as well as instruction the day the
Chilekings took over.

 

All went well that first day
until about four ołclock when we called for a brief break in the work. It was
hard to remember that six-footers like David were accustomed to a nap and a
glass of milk in the middle of the afternoon. I had told David to lie down for
awhile, and had placed, with considerable effort, a coat across him (he had
never outgrown a tendency to croup). Then I had gone over to sit on the ground
and look out across the quiet bay toward the green hills of Sausalito, while I
considered the outcome of these crushing and amazing happenings. I had been
there perhaps a half an hour when I was shaken and momentarily stunned by the
detonation of one of the big sixteen-inch guns. As I ran stumbling and falling
toward the guns I saw at a glance what had happened.

 

The gun had been fired and a
direct hit had been made on the Russian ship, the Stalingrad, which was
anchored in the harbor with a delegation of representatives from Communist or
Communist-dominated countries here for a “last" conference with the
anti-Communist nations. These delegates, with typical Communist caution about
fraternizing with foreigners, were all housed aboard their ship rather than in
the hotels of San Francisco as would have been the case with the
representatives from any other countries. The boys knew this, of course, but I
did not, at the time, understand the connection between their knowledge and the
firing of the shot. I assumed that the firing was accidental and it was not
until later that I learned that it was deliberate, the result of what seemed to
the Chilekings to be logical thinking. These boys had grown up at a time when
they had heard continual talk of the danger of Communism, of the menace of the
Communist countries and of Russia as our enemy in a cold war and our potential
attacker in a hot one. This being true, they saw no reason, in their forthright
and childish way, why they should not do something to mitigate this danger.
Children have wonderfully single-track minds. They are unable to understand
that action need not follow upon recognition of a need for action. They had
accepted our words concerning the danger and it seemed stupid to them, as they
said later, not to take advantage of a God-given chance to lessen it. If it was
true that Russia was only biding her time, waiting an opportunity to attack us,
why wait? Why not strike the first blow? They had heard, being army children,
more of that talk than most. Combine that conviction with the natural love most
boys have for playing with mechanical toys and the action they took was, I
suppose, highly predictable. Wanting to fire those guns, with or without cause,
completely unaware for the most part of the meaning of death in reality, though
very familiar with it as an abstraction through their television, comic book
and motion picture experiences, they were easily able to convince themselves
that they should fire them. Another element, though it is not one the
Chilekings have ever themselves admitted, played its part in their action. It
is an element which has been a constantly present and determining one in the
relationship of Chilekings and Smalfri: I refer to the childrenłs resentment
toward and hatred of adultsespecially such adults as had the misfortune of
being their parents. This bitterness before Subtraction had gone unnoticed,
since the children had been unable, because of their size, to do much about it.
And by the time most of them (before Subtraction) had reached a size which made
it possible for them to retaliate with any degree of success, they had been so
inculcated with their parentsÅ‚ principles, “Honor your father and your mother,"
and the like, that they had lost heart for revolt and reprisal. Of course an
occasional child, even before Subtraction, of unusual energy and determination,
managed to blow off his fatherłs head or stab his mother. Such overt aggressive
tactics were no longer necessary after Subtraction. The Chilekings had the
upper hand and they knew itnevertheless their relationship with us has
continued to be more or less punitive.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

So
the gun was fired not only for “fun," not only because the firing made sense to
the children, but as an act of defiance against us. It was fired because after
a lifetime of denial, of “hands off," “donÅ‚t touch," or “do as Father says," it
was glorious to touch, to do exactly the opposite of what Father said. So the
gun was fired.

 

These facts were ascertained and
these conjectures made afterwards, of course. There was no time then for
getting at reasons; and, as I said earlier, we all, then, took for granted that
both the firing of the shot and the hitting of the Stalingrad were accidental.
There was of course immediate pandemonium both at the Post and in San
Francisco. Oren and those of his officers who were with him at the time put off
for the scene of the catastrophe in a launch belonging to one of the officers.
I say “put off" euphemistically. The Chilekings put off. We were passengers on
the launch, helpless as papooses in their motherłs carrying bags. Dangerous as
it had now proved to entrust any knowledge of equipment to the children, it was
nevertheless absolutely necessary to make use of their help in boarding and manning the launch.

 

The decision to go out to the
stricken Stalingrad had been preceded by another decisiona difficult
one to make. A decision to give up any attempt at secrecy. As we made the short
trip out to the sinking ship my mind was filled with a despairing conflict of
ideas. I forgot my size, which would in itself have put an end to my army
career, and thought that all was now over with me: that this incident would
mean war for my country and court-martial and probable death for all of us.

 

We were among the first to reach
the Stalingradand, although it had been struck only twenty minutes
earlier, it had already heeled over onto its port side at an angle that
indicated that it had not much longer to live. The ship had listed so quickly
and so badly, and so many of both crew and passengers had been killed outright
that no lifeboats had been put over. The water was filled with the dead and
wounded many, both of the living and dead, being terribly maimed headless,
dismembered, disembowelled. I had been an army man all my life but as chance
would have it I had never participated in an engagement. This was my first
sight of carnageand I was not prepared for what I saw and heard: the screams,
the bloodstained water, entrails afloat on the encarmined bay like lush aquatic
plants. I report these gruesome facts so that you can better understand the
subsequent reactions of the Chilekings. They, of course, had the actual work of
lifting these torn and bleeding bodies into the launch. We were as helpless as
babies would have been attempting to rescue full-grown men. The Chilekings had
the size for it and the strengthbut not the stomach. All the gore of
television and comics had not prepared them for the real thing any more than
their reading of the wooing and wedding of Sleeping Beauty, say, could have
prepared them for the realities of marriage. I remember one young boy, a
Chinese I would guess, with his arm off at the shoulder, who screamed pitifully
until he died. One of the Chilekings refused to go on with the rescue work and
bent over him sobbing and crying, “DonÅ‚t die, donÅ‚t die." But he did die and
the Chileking shook him and patted him the way a small boy will pet a puppy
when it diesunable to believe that his own will and desireto which the pet
has always before respondedwill not cause the animal once more to respond.

 

The last person we were able to
take onto the launch was, we thought, another, though smaller, child. When we
turned him onto his back we saw, though he was no larger than a four-year-old,
that he had a full beard and the marked and lined face of a man well past
middle age. We Smalfri were more unnerved by this sight than by that of all the
injured put together. Oren clutched my arm and whispered, “This is the end for
us." By “us," he meant both the world as we had known itand we, the adults who
had made that world. And he was absolutely right. “Our" world, the world we had
made and dominated, had ended that dayand we as “dominators" ended then too.
The Chileking Era had already, though we did not then know it, begun.

 

In spite of the confusion and
terror, the make-up of the crew of our launchmidget officers directing a crew
of imbeciles is how it looked I supposehad not gone unnoticed. Subtraction (or
Deflation, as the Chilekings call it), as I said earlier, had begun first and
with a hundred per cent effectiveness at the Presidio. On the morning of the
thirty-first, most of San Francisco was as yet unaware of what was taking place
all over the world as it later proved. A launch on which there were several
representatives of the press, including not only the local dailies but a number
of the national press services had been near us while we were picking up
survivors, and their own lifesaving efforts had not blinded them to our
peculiaritiesto use rather a cheerful and inadequate word for what had
happened to us. Hemworth of the “Chronicle," who knew Oren and me well but did
not recognize us, reduced, shouted over to us, “In GodÅ‚s name who are you guys?
What have you got there? Thatłs a Post launch isnłt it? The shot was fired from
the Post wasnłt it? For Godłs sake where did you come from and who are you?
Look at this! Do you know anything about this?" He was pointing at a Subtracted
Russian whom the newsmen had picked up. “Is he one of you?"

 

“He is one of us," Oren called
back in mournful recognition, but his answer was lost in the general cry that
went up to put away from the Stalingrad which was then sinking fast.
There were survivors still in the water but our boat was already overfulland
in any case we could not help those in the water by lingering to be ourselves
engulfed. The Stalingrad went down quietly, with a kind of organic
shudder as she slid from sight. Hemworthłs launch had kept close to us as we
swung out to avoid the Stalingrad. Oren, who as I said knew Hemworth
well, shouted to him, “Hemworth, IÅ‚m Oren, Colonel Oren of the Post. Let me
come on board. IÅ‚ve a story for you."

 

Hemworth called back, “If youÅ‚re
Oren, IÅ‚m Malenkov."

 

Oren said, “What have you got to
lose?"

 

“What have I got to gain?"
Hemworth answered, but his launch pulled in close to ours and a more than
willing Chileking tossed Oren over to the newsmen like a sack of potatoes a
nephew of Orenłs, it was. Both boats, already dangerously overloaded, then put
in for shore where private cars and ambulances were waiting to relieve us of
our injured. We made two more trips out into the bayon the last trip picking
up only dead bodiesone of which was another reducee, a woman this time. (On
the whole women were more tardily reduced than the men.)

 

It is quite remarkable that we
were able, in the midst of the pain and near panic of the occasion, and in the
face of the increasing interest in the make-up of our crew, to get our craft
and the Chilekings back to the dock. A cold damp night was now upon us. The
Chilekings, who had been sick repeatedly during the rescue operations, were now
shivering with cold and weakness. I ordered them all to the mess hall where
there were flickering lightsthe electric system was beginning to go outand
where I thought, in spite of the dayłs events, we might find some food. At the
word “food" the Chilekings began to runlike the children they werein spite of
the dayłs work behind themrun and whimper, and in their fatigue, both physical
and emotional, waver and stumble. I let them run. “Let" is ironical. What else
could I do? We “men"to use another word ironically, could neither restrain nor
keep up with the Chilekings. I realize that in the last few pages I have
slipped into a constant use of the word “Chilekings." Chronologically this is
inexact, for they were not, these overblown children, so called at the time. “Chilekings"
came later and was their own name for themselves when they began to assume the
characteristics of child kings.

 

Mayberry, who in Orenłs absence
from the Post was commanding officer, toddled out to meet us.

 

“All back safely?" he asked.

 

I told him yes and asked about
food.

 

“Plenty for all, such as it is,"
he said. “The work had to be done by the kidsand they werenÅ‚t interested in
anything very complicated. Do you know," he asked, “I canÅ‚t even take the top
off a can of beer?"

 

I tried to cheer him up by
reminding him that he had never, even before reduction, been a muscle man.

 

“I could open a can of beer," he
said obstinately. Then he asked, “You know this thingÅ‚s busted wide open? Calls
are coming in from everywhere. We havenłt been able to handle them."

 

I told him that Oren was with
Hemworth and the other newspaper mengiving them a full report, so far as he
knew itof what had happened at the Post.

 

He already knew thatOren had
talked with him on the phone. “You understand whatÅ‚s happening?" he asked.

 

“No," I said, “I donÅ‚t understand
a thing, except that we are the victims of a tragedyor a farceI donłt know
which. Or madness, universal delusion and madness."

 

“ItÅ‚s universal all right,"
Mayberry said. “ItÅ‚s not just us. ItÅ‚s not just the military. HasnÅ‚t the news
from England had any meaning for you? From Spain? The lack of news from France?
The adjournment of Congress? Iłve been talking to Hermes at March Field. Itłs
happened thereitłs happening everywhere!"

 

“WeÅ‚ve got to organize," I said, “weÅ‚ve
got to get control. Wełve got to map out our strategy."

 

“Against Russia?" he asked.

 

For the moment I had forgotten
about themthat it was their ship, their crew, their
delegates our children had sent to the bottom of the bay. What I had meant was:
organize against the children, map out a strategy to control them.

 

“I had forgotten the Russians," I
said.

 

“It isnÅ‚t likely theyÅ‚ve
forgotten us," he said.

 

“But look," I told him, “theyÅ‚re
being reduced too. Hasnłt any one told you that we picked up reduced Russians
in the water?"

 

“No," he said, “I hadnÅ‚t heard
that."

 

“You didnÅ‚t think some one whole
nation was escaping did you?"

 

“Nobut if any did, it might be
Russia."

 

“Why Russia?"

 

“TheyÅ‚re more kidlike in some
ways than other nations believe in fairy talesblack and whiteabsolute
goodness absolute badness-"

 

“Nonsense," I said. “YouÅ‚re
the child if you swallow that; they donłt believe thatnot the policy
makerstheyłre a hard-headed lottheyłll be reduced as fast as any one."

 

“How does that help us any? WeÅ‚re
reducedtheyłre reducedthings are still equalwełre just where we started."

 

“They canÅ‚t man any of their
equipment in case they want to attack."

 

“They can man it the same way we
manned the launch, if they want to-"

 

We had reached the mess hall, and
labored up the steps occasionally even having to help ourselves with our
hands. The Chilekings, with no one to make them wash and sit at the table, had,
for the most part, grabbed plates of food with their still bloodstained hands
and gathered around the fireplace. There they sat, huddled about the hearth, not
knowing how to manage their big bodies, awkward, some still sick after their
experience with the survivors, others wolfing down their food. I didnłt want
anything to eat and told Mayberry so.

 

“YouÅ‚d better eat," he said. “Things
are going to get worse. Youłre not likely to get any sleep tonight."

 

I climbed up onto a chair to get
a cup of coffeebut the spigot on the coffee urn first stuckthen, as I put all
my strength into my effort to budge it, swung wide open letting a scalding
stream of coffee pour downnot on meI was able to draw back in time, but onto
the table and floor. David, who was one of the children clustered around the
fireplace, saw what happened and ran over and turned off the spigot for me.

 

“Did you hurt yourself?" he
asked, not unkindly.

 

I told him I hadnłt.

 

“It was just luck," he said. “DonÅ‚t
try it again."

 

“IÅ‚m hungry," I complained. “I
havenłt had anything to eat." I wasnłt hungryI was simply trying to justify
myself to my own eight-year-old son.

 

“Here," David said, drawing me a
cup. “Next time ask someone bigger to help you." He walked back to the waiting
Chilekings, leaving me standing on the chair, holding the cup of coffee which
curved in my two hands bowl-large, wondering how to get down. I was damned if IÅ‚d
ask David to come lift me. Carefully stooping I got the coffee cup to the
table. Then I got down from the chairand though I was in momentary danger of
scalding myself, managed alone to get the cup from the table. I could not bring
myself to call to David, scald or no, “Come help Daddy with his coffee." The
Chilekings about the fireplace had all the chairsthey no longer suited us
anywayso I squatted on the floor, my cold fingers enjoying the warmth of the
cup I had to hold as does a child.

 

Orenłs son Wilbur, who had been
the sickest of the lot on our rescue triphe was, or had been, a lank blond boy
of fourteen or fifteenturned to me and said truculently, “You canÅ‚t blame me
for what happened. Russia is our enemy. Iłve read fatherłs book."

 

So had I and most Americansan
amazing runaway (considering its subject matter) best seller called Strike
The First Blow.

 

“Wilbur," I said patiently (the
reversal in our sizes no doubt had something to do with my patience), “your
fatherłs policy has always been highly controversial."

 

“Nerts," said Wilbur.

 

“And even if we all believed in
the efficacy of such a policy, there would still be the question of ęwhen.ł ęWhenł
is not decided singlehanded by a child. There has to be concerted action,
unanimity of mind-"

 

“. . . unanimity of mind," Wilbur
repeated, using a word he would never have thought of using the day before. “There
were the guns and there was the enemy. We did the right thing. What are guns
for?"

 

“TheyÅ‚re for our defense."

 

“. . . defense," Wilbur said,
with shocking vulgarity.

 

“If you wait until the enemy
strikes the first blow you are morally in a sound position."

 

“Morally sound," Wilbur said, “with
both legs missing."

 

Then he suddenly changed his
tune. He snatched off his horn-rimmed spectacles, which he had secured around
his suddenly enlarged head by means of a rubber band. His head had become
larger without his eyes becoming better. Then, with his glasses out of the way,
he put his big, pale, myopic face down close to mine and shouted in a voice
powerful but not masculine, “Lies, lies, lies. We were little so you told us
whatever you wanted to. Whatever made things easy for you. ęStrike the first
blow!ł father wrote. And now you say, ęNot really. Itłs just a theory. Itłs
controversial, we didnłt really mean it.ł ęDeath is easy,ł you told us. ęPeople
just go to sleep, dear. They just rest forever, dear.ł Why didnłt you tell us
they bled so much? And screamed so much? Why didnłt you tell us their guts come
out? You think itłs all right to shoot the guts out of people. Youłve spent
your whole life learning how to do that. And just because you didnłt give
orders you start saying itłs wrong."

 

I felt sorry for the boythe
first sight of blood is always upsetting, but to have him call me a liarand
get away with it simply because he was larger, was a little too much.

 

“Get out and stay out until you
can talk sense," I told him. I raised or tried to raise my voicebut there is
no degree of will power which will lend authority to the sounds which issue
from a mouth the size of a buttonhole.

 

I was surprised by what
happenedon two counts. I was cuffed on the ears, not once, but a half-dozen
times. This in itselfbeing something I had not experienced since the age of
seven or sowas an enormous surprise. But what surprised me even more was that
the slapping came, not from Wilbur, but from some boy unknown to me who
punctuated his blows by “You canÅ‚t talk that way to Wilbur."

 

This was the first inkling I
received that there was, for the Chilekings anyway, something special about
Wilbur, and my wonder at this, together with my anger at the unfairness of
being struck by someone so much larger than I, immobilized me beneath the
combined punishments of hand and tongue.

 

But what could I have done,
amazed or unamazed? Angered or unangered? There were no more threats I could
make. Spank? Turn off the television? Cut down on the allowance? Nonsense. The
children were in the saddle and they knew it. What else could I do? Whimper?
Run? Plead for mercy?

 

Such scenes are now far less common
than at the beginning of the Chileking Era. Then, in their new-found freedom
they, as the newly freed so often do, misused their power.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

There
were beatings and manhandlings, some very brutal; though the Chilekings always
referred to them as “spankings," and professed to find no pleasure in what they
did. Pleasure or not, it was not until the first batch of Chilekings
experienced reduction themselves that there was any letup of the roughness.

 

It was Mayberry who handled the
situation for mehis urbanity, whatever his physical size, still undiminished. “We
donłt do that in the army, buddy," he said, and the boy, who had been ready to
let fly at me with another round of cuffing, sat down confused and apologetic.
The Chilekings also had habits and inclinations which were unchanged by their
alteration in size. They were accustomed to an early bedtime. Big heads began
to nod, childish eyelids to fall. They fought their sleepiness. It no longer
matched their own ideas of themselves. And they could no longer plead, “Let me
stay up," relying on their parents not to take them at their word. They were
their own masters nowand more and more, as they quickly discovered, ours too.
Having decided to go to bed it was pitiful to see some of these young six-footers,
my own David among them, reluctant to go out into the dark alone. They were of
a size, certainly, to defend themselves from any night attackers. But their
minds, their imaginations were still of an eight- or ten-year size.

 

Mayberry and a dozen others
beside myself lingered on in the mess hall after these man-sized infants left.
First of all we prepared as accurate and objective a statement as we could
manage of the dayłs happenings. Then we all signed it. This seemed to us of
first importance. There was simply no telling what might happen next. We had
not the least assurance that diminution had stopped; that the Subtraction we
had already experienced might not be a first step only in a process which might
finally diminish us right out of existence. We had no assurance that the
Chilekings might not throw us into the bay; or that we might not, in despair,
all leap in ourselves. And chiefly we had no way then of knowing whether or not
there would be retaliatory blows struck by those countries whose nationals had
died in the blowing up of the Stalingrad. H-bombs and A-bombs might be
falling on San Francisco within the next twenty-four hours. From the mechanical
side alone the recording of this statement was an enormous undertaking almost
beyond us. A thousand difficulties confronted us at every turn. Our fingers
could no longer manage the typewriter keys; our short stubby legs could no
longer get us up to within striking distance of the keys in the first place,
without a lot of climbing, rearranging of furniture, and so forth. Nowadays
Smalfri have furniture designed for them; then, except for high chairs,
toilet-training seats, velocipedes, and the like, nothing fitted, and, as you
can see, what did fit we had little desire for. I donłt want to harp on the discomforts
and frustration of those first daysbut to find a world which we had equipped
for our own pleasure and convenience suddenly useless was like living in a
misfit nightmare. That is the exact word for it. Have you ever dreamed of being
in a room in which everything was unaccountably heavy or oversized? Intractable,
immovable, so that all of your efforts are either hampered or balked? That was
our situation, exactly.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

At
last we had done everythingI started to write “humanly possible"; what I
should say is “midgetly possible," I suppose. We were scarcely human that
night. Messages had been prepared for the President, the Secretary of Defense,
the Chiefs of Staff.

 

It was long after midnight by
this timeand we were all tired, as we had never been tired before in our
lives. To say nothing of what we had suffered emotionally, we had physically
accomplished what was about equal to an assault on Everest, that day. It was
Mayberry who first said, “LetÅ‚s turn in. My feet are killing me." He looked
down ruefully at his shoes. “Mary Jane" pumps, they were calledsomething
intended for little girls. God knows where he had picked them up. “I think my
arches are broken," he said, rubbing his insteps. Ä™

 

He had just kicked off his shoes
when Oren and Hemworth came in. Hemworth, still unsubtracted, was pushing the
semi-collapsed Oren before him in a perambulatoror perhaps it was called a
strollera vehicle for transporting the very young, anyway. It was either do
that, or abandon him. Or carry him. Oren, ordinarily one of the stiffest, most
dignified men in the armywhich is saying a good deal more than, “in the world"was
too worn out to protest. If Hemworth had stuffed him into a shopperłs handbag
and had carried him over his shoulder like a squawłs papoose I donłt think he
would have objected. Oren was little and he was tired; how he got home was of
no importance to him at the moment.

 

Hemworth was big and he was
excited. He gave, out of sheer exuberance, Orenłs baby carriage a fast shoot
into the room. He miscalculated and except that a Smalfri risked his life
(actually) stopping it, it would have banged into the wall with possibly
serious results.

 

“God in heaven!" Hemworth cried,
staring at us all once again as if hełd never seen us before"this is unbelievable!"
Then he rapped his head with his knuckles. “Lord! Lord! Why havenÅ‚t I been more
temperate with my words? Here I am a man of words and no word for this. Itłs
the colossal in reverse and all of my trainingłs been in describing the merely
colossal."

 

Hemworthłs verbal centers were
irritated; he could not cease talking and as he talked, he walked about looking
at us, shaking his head, unable to doubt that what he saw existed, yet unable
to convince himself that it was possible for such objects to exist. Nor could
he rid himself, it was obvious, of the feeling that he was a grownup dealing
with children.

 

Finally, his visual curiosity
momentarily satisfied, he gave us the big, the terrible news. “Boys," he said, “here
it is. The President, while taking a nap at two-thirty this afternoon, was
reduced, decimated, shrunken, concentrated, condensed, what you willmade
small."

 

The message, after the first
shock, was variously received. But to all of us, Subtracted men as we were,
there was something ghastly in the thought that the head of our nation was now
just such another little, wizened monstrosity as ourselves. Misery, they say,
loves company. Well, we didnłt love it that muchnot to the extent of wanting
him to become one of us.

 

Mayberry, as usual, was less
concerned with the particular event than with its meaning. “Hemworth," he
asked, “has anyone been reduced except when asleep?"

 

“There arenÅ‚t any statistics on
it yetno questionnaires have been sent out." Hemworth saw that we didnłt think
this was funny and gave Mayberry a straight answer. “So far as I know, thereÅ‚s
been no waking shrinkage. And IÅ‚ve been thinking about that too, Mayberry. I
figure on staying up tonight. IÅ‚d like my clothes to fit me when I wake up in
the morning."

 

Well, Hemworth could joke about
it then. It hadnłt happened to him yet. But at some time that night he must
have dozed off. Next morning his clothes didnłt fit. But that night he
still inhabited a world tailored to his size and felt the confidence that fit
gave him. “WeÅ‚ll know soon enough if they do," he went on. “Let a few drivers,
pilots, radio announcers, and the like, get reduced on their jobs and wełll
soon hear about it."

 

“What about Russia?" somebody
wanted to know. “Has there been any protest filed about what happened this
afternoon?"

 

“ItÅ‚s hard to tell for sure about
Russiaher news sources are pretty well bottled upbut Matthews got a cable
through. There hasnłt been any protesttheyłve got trouble of their own nearer
home. Theyłre shrinking, and shrinking fast. The Chinese are shrinking too,
nowhere near so fast though. The ratio is about four to one, Matthews says. The
Japanese are jittery as hell, but the Chinese seem to think itłs a great joke."

 

“Who on?" Mayberry asked.

 

“Matthews didnÅ‚t say."

 

“If this keeps up," Mayberry
said, stroking his black, satyrłs beard, now about the size of a number-two
paintbrush, “we arenÅ‚t going to have a manÅ‚s world any longer."

 

“A childÅ‚s world?" Hemworth
asked.

 

“Women and childrenÅ‚s."

 

“Why women? TheyÅ‚re shrinking as fast
as the men from all reports. The worldłs going to belong to the kids,
obviously."

 

“Indirectly, yes. Physically,
theyłll have the upper hand but theyłll turn to their mothers for advice as
theyłve always done. The world of the adult male is done for. Hemworth is
probably one of its last representatives."

 

Oren, who had been too weary to
take any part in the discussion, now suggested that we have something to eat
and go to bed. Hemworth volunteered to get the food together for us. He had
just left the room when two heavy explosions rocked the building. Most of us
were knocked off our feet. I fell heavily, the glass in my hand breaking with a
clatter which was lost in the crash of breaking windows. My first thought was
of Russian retaliation. The sounds were those of explosives near at hand. We
struggled to our feet and stood for a minute without speaking, waiting for the
next blast. I noticed that my hand was bleeding badly from the broken glass.

 

While we were waiting, Wilbur
Oren and a half-dozen of the older Chilekings burst in, frightened, we
believed. They were; but they were defiant, too.

 

“No oneÅ‚s ever going to be killed
again by that gun," young Oren shouted.

 

“What gun?" his father asked.

 

“The one that sunk the
Stalingrad. IÅ‚ve seen to that. And IÅ‚m going to fix every other gun in the
United States."

 

The boy was obviously in a state
of psychic shock. His skin was pale, pupils dark and dilated, voice pitched in
a high monotone. “We blew it sky high. Now figure out some other way to kill
people."

 

“Wilbur," his father said, “how
do you expect us to protect ourselves in case of attack?"

 

“There wonÅ‚t be any attack,"
Wilbur said. “WeÅ‚ll give other countries a chance to destroy their weaponsif
they wonłt do it themselves, wełll do it for them."

 

“Wilbur, my boy," Oren said in a
fatherly squeak, “you are not yourself. You need rest. Now you run along-"

 

Wilbur stopped him in
midsentence. “IÅ‚m not taking orders from you any longer. WeÅ‚ve taken a vow"he
indicated the group of Chilekings about him"not to stop until every gun and
bomb in the United States is destroyed. You canłt make them without us, and you
canłt stop us from destroying the ones you have. Can you?" he asked.

 

Oren searched the faces of his
fellow officers looking for help.

 

“Can you?" Wilbur persisted,
picking his father up bodily and holding him so that their faces were on a
level. “Can you, Daddy?"

 

“No," Oren said, “I canÅ‚t."

 

With that Oren set his father
down, not gently, and with his band of big-headed, soft-faced Chilekings at his
heels turned and lumbered, in the awkward way the blown-up children have for
the first two or three weeks, out of the “building.

 

And he was as good as his word,
better than his word. Without him the Second Childrenłs Crusade (which has
swept the world with all the fanaticism and a thousand times the effectiveness
of the First) might never have been. The moral shock, if that is what it was,
which Wilbur Oren received the day he saw the human suffering caused by the
shots he fired at the Stalingrad gave him a drive, an eloquence which
carried all before him.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

It
has been my plan to speak only in passing of those events of which I do not
have a firsthand knowledge. The first Chileking Demilitarization Mission to
Russia is an example. I was not a member of this Mission and much has been
written of it by those who were. I propose to say only what is necessary
concerning this, and like events, to fill in the background for my very
personal eyewitness account. Chronologically I am far ahead of myself in mentioning
this Mission at all. But having mentioned it, I will dispose of it now. The
American Chilekings under Wilbur Orenand I do mean under, for he dominated
them as only hero-worshiping children are capable of being dominatedwere
fanatically set on the destruction of all armamentsso set, that when they did
not find immediate like-mindedness in the Russian Chilekings they proceeded
without a minutełs hesitation and with childlike logic and brutality to blast a
large section of the Russian countryside to a moonlike bareness. And the
Russian Chilekings, for they were in complete control there, accepted this act
as children do the losing of a game. It had been played, they had lost, and,
since it had not seemed a very interesting game in the first place, they did
not care to play it over in an effort to try for a win the second time.
Children, we discovered, have none of an adultłs normal pride. They have short
memories. They are incapable of the concentrated effort which a retaliatory
program requires. And, except for the mesmeric power exercised over them by
Wilbur Oren, I doubt that we would have experienced this long period of
Demilitarization. The land is still strewn with the wreckage effected by this
one Chileking. Forts, garrisons, training fields, factories, ammunition stores,
bomb depots, the result of years of patriotic and scientific effort were all
smashed in a decade. And not only in America everywhere.

 

In a sense it was our faultthis
world-wide destruction. We had permitted our children to form “pen leagues," to
correspond with children of other countries, to exchange handiwork. We had let
the sense of nationality become undermined in them. They had begun to feel like
a “band of brothers," these children of the world. [In our schools and churches,
in spite of the efforts of clear thinkers from 1940 on, there had been a
concerted attempt on the part of men and women, themselves without any concept
of national dignity or integrity, to indoctrinate our children with a pacific
internationalism. Because we took no stock in this un-American fanaticism, we
took for granted (as in the old days we took so many things for granted about
our children) that our children did not believe in it, either. How wrong and
stupid we were! They were inexperienced and impressionable. And they came to
power with these ideas of brotherhood and equality simmering in their
undeveloped minds. And since those ideas, except for our laxness, would never
have been there, it is unfair to blame the destruction of the past fifty years
wholly on them. We had our own guilty part to play in the razing of every fort,
the demolition of every station for experimenting with guided missiles.]

 

Of course it is true that, except
for one fact, the entire Demilitarization Program might not have succeeded as
it did: if Wilbur Oren had subsequently suffered Subtraction as most Chilekings
did, he would not have continued to exercise his enormous power over them. But
because he never changed physically nor lessened a whit in his fiery
determination to rid the world of what had, at the critical moment of the
change, caused him so much suffering, he has remained for all these years the
Chilekingłs dictator. This, quite probably, although it also is chronologically
out of place, is as good a place as any to speak of the varieties of Chilekings
and Smalfri that have so far made their appearance. Subtraction has taken place
at almost every ageat ages when the size loss was so small as to be almost
unnoticeable. The youngest Subtracted person, in so far as our records go, was
four. The oldest, ninety-two. Subtraction seems to take place when a certain
degree of “maturity" has been reached; although the word “maturity" is a
controversial one (to use an adjective which dates me). Some, those who are
late Subtractees for the most part, insist that Subtraction simply indicates a
kind of rigidity, an end of spiritual and mental growth. Some four- and
six-year-olds, born without curiosity, without the ability or desire to enlarge
themselves spiritually or mentally, shrink early, they say. Most are Subtracted
in their forties, with a considerable number experiencing the change in the
decades on each side of forty. Some few are never Subtracted at all. These
people have always struck me as being childlike, in spite of the fact that some
have been eminent in their professions, poets, scientists, musicians, and so
forth. These un-Subtracted adults have always, both by virtue of their size and
the quality of their minds, been very much at home with the Chilekings. And alas,
they, who might have been expected to caution, to guide, and restrain the
Chilekings in their excesses, have been the very ones, out of the entire adult
population, who have had the least inclination to do so.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

So
then, there were Smalfri of all ages. Men of fifty the same size as early
Shrinkees of eight and ten; and of course, the same size as the un-Shrunk
toddlers of two and three. (These poor babies, the real babies, never knew
quite what to make of us whiskered pygmies of their own size. There we stood,
eyes on a level with theirs, but with no desire to catch frogs, suck lollipops
or play in the mud.) There was prevalent in the first years of the Chileking
Era a slang labelling of the small which has since been superseded by more
exact terms. “Real Babes," “No Babes," and “Go Babes," were the phrases used
then. I was a “Go Babe," as were all shrunken adults. “No Babes" were those who
had experienced Subtraction while young and who oftentimes were confused with
the “Real Babes"those who, as is no doubt plain in the terminology itself,
were real babies; that is, veritable infants.

 

Chilekings also had their
classifications. Amplification took place at various agesoccasionally very
early, occasionally very late. Sometimes, though this is unusual, a person who
had never been amplified, who had accomplished what was once considered a “normal"
growth and who was expected to finish life without ever becoming a Smalfri
either, was belatedly overamplified, swollen to gigantic proportions. This was quite
unusual however and there have never been enough of these oddities about to be
more than passing curiosities.

 

Occasionally [Great
understatement.] in
this narrative I find myself ruminating about matters and meanings which
rightly have no part in an “eyewitness" account. The matters I have been
discussing in the above paragraphs are common knowledge to all now alive and as
such have no particular interest. However, since this manuscript will be
published only in a form approved by the Chileking Commission for Preservation of
Old Records, I neednłt worry about the inclusion of matter extraneous to the
central purpose of my narrative. It will be stricken out, anyway, if not
wanted. [Right.] In view of this I want to make
a final point, for my own satisfaction. Although the rationale of these
processes has not yet been completely understood, yet it is clear that there
is a rationale. It was and is no hit-or-miss matter. There is some meaning
in these physical alterations, a correspondence of some kind between inner
growth or shrinkage and the outer waxing or waning. But exactly what this
correspondence is, we are not yet able to say, though many studies are now in
progress. One change in attitudes obvious to all, has been caused by the
discrepancy which now exists between the outer appearance and the inner
reality. In the old days, “big" meant adult. “Big" can mean anything now,
so far as the interior person is concerned. “Big" means “big" now, nothing
more. So, by analogy, “black" is coming to mean “black"; “white," “white"; “little,"
“little," and nothing more. The visual surface is less and less meaningful. The
result has been, IÅ‚m afraid, an undermining of standards. If things are not
what they appear, it is very easy to call them what you like. And what you “like"
is seldom whatłs good for you.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

This
is all beside the pointwhich is to report what I saw with my own eyes; but it
is difficult for a thinking, feeling man to make a mechanical recording machine
of himself at this late date in life. What I next saw with my own eyes was that
roomful of gnomes expressing pity to Oren for the derangement of his sonpity,
as later events have proved, which was entirely uncalled for. Wilbur Oren had
taken that night the first steps which would little by little elevate him to a
position as dictator of the Chilekingsand that meant of Smalfri as well.

 

Hemworth, alone, wasted no time
on expressions of sympathy but went outside to examine the damage caused by
this latest blast. The rest of us were too exhausted mentally and physically to
care what had happened.

 

The knowledge that if we went to
sleep we would awaken the size of gnats would not have kept us from sleeping
that night. We turned in where we were, cuddling up like a cage-ful of wizened
monkeys trying to keep warm on a chilly evening. The fire died out. Getting
logs into it was not worth the labor. Some had a drink before sleeping. It was
a mistake. We had not yet learned to adjust our intake to our reduced
capacities. That night, which should have been one of prayer and contemplation,
was one instead of drunken snores and sodden sleep.

 

I was still sleeping next morning
when David came in. “Come on out, Daddy," he said when he had awakened me, “and
see how quiet it is."

 

I got up without awakening the
others and limped along beside David, stiff and sore. (The Chilekings have
never, to this day, learned that our legs are shorter than theirs. They either
leave us far behind them, unless we jog trot to keep up with them or, impatient
with our slowness, grab our arms and pull us along at a pace which is both
physically painful and psychically hateful.) That morning with David was my
first, though since many times reaffirmed, experience of this. “CanÅ‚t you hurry
up, Daddy?" he called back fretfully, as if my steps were small out of a
deliberate desire on my part to impede him.

 

But he was right about the
quietness. Not a boat moved on the bay, not a train-on a rail. No factory
whistles sounded. No planes flashed across the sky. On the highways there were
a few slow-moving autos. It was one of those fine, clear, windy mornings common
to San Francisco in the fall when, in spite of the abundance of water, there is
a tang of desert dryness in the air. On such days I have often thought I could
look from the Presidio into the open windows of the office buildings in San
Francisco and read the letters rolling out from under the typistsł fingers. In
spite of this wonderful magnifying clarity, there was nothing to be seen on the
morning of November 2nd, except a dead worldor an apparently dead world. For I
knew that behind those solid and shining walls there was hidden an emotional
activity so quivering and feverishly alive as to put into the shade all of
yesterdayłs merely mechanical movement.

 

As I stood there at Davidłs knee
looking, pitying, speculating, Mayberry came out to us. He pulled his wrist
watch, which he could no longer keep on his arm, out of some placket or fold of
his clothes. It was near eight ołclock.

 

He looked about the Post. “It
didnłt take long for discipline to disappear, did it? Orenłs sick. Iłm calling
all officers and men together at eleven. Usual routines are impossible, of
course, but wełd better decide what we are to door what we can do. San
Francisco is going to need martial law before the dayłs overonly God knows who
she can get to maintain it."

 

“I say," somebody called, “I donÅ‚t
think I look so bad." It was Hemworth, scrambling awkwardly down the steps of
the officersÅ‚ barracks where he had gone to sleep, “like a man," instead of
sleeping with us Smalfri on the messroom floor. He was bundled up in a towel. “How
do you like my swaddling clothes?" he asked jauntily. He took a look around. “Well,
boys, it has, I take it, really struck."

 

It had struck. That day, I
suppose, was the most momentous the world has ever known. Everywhere on that
day, as later investigation proved, men and women were Subtracted, and children
inflated. On remote South American rancheros, in equatorial jungles, in the
Ukraine, even in the Vatican. There were thousands of suicides that day: men
and women who thought they were alone in their gnomish reduction and preferred
to die rather than face the world so dwarfed. There were many deaths not
self-sought; on ships where wholesale reduction made it impossible to bring the
ship into port. The recent teledrama, “Subtraction at Sea," has made
magnificent use of the horrors of such a situation. There was heroism at sea,
too. The English passenger ship Laurentia with 1200 aboard came safely
into New York harbor in spite of the fact that every man and woman on board was
Subtracted.

 

The wars that were in progress
that day died in mid-stride. What could men do with weapons they could no
longer handle? Of what value were planes to men who could no longer control
them? Russia was, I suppose it has been agreed, the most seriously affected.
She had in India with her army of occupation, no children. The Indians had on
the other hand, innumerable Chilekings available who, because of the agelong
oriental philosophy of parental regard, were far more easily controlled by the
Indian Smalfri than were Chilekings elsewhere. These Chilekings, together with
the Indian adults, who as a whole were very tardy shrinkers, placed almost the
entire Russian army there in prison camps. Then, with the breakdown of all
international transportation, and with conditions in Russia as chaotic as
elsewhere, Russia simply abandoned this expeditionary force of hers. Today they
have become thoroughly assimilated into the Indian nation. The Chileking
delegate from India to the last International Congress here was the son of one
of these reduced Russian soldiers.

 

In Spain that day, though word of
it did not reach us at once, all the adult population was very substantially
reduced. Germany, with its weakness for leaders, has provided more recruits
than any other country to the anti-war crusade of Wilbur Oren. The Orenites,
who in this country are fanatic enough, God knows, have in Germany added a
mysticism to their fanaticism which makes Orenism nothing less than a religion.
Nowhere has there been such a cleavage between Chileking practices and the
Smalfri practices which they superseded as in Germany.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

Once
again and in spite of my resolution, I find myself slipping into matters of
opinion, abandoning my chronological outline, writing of happenings as familiar
to you as to myself. These slips will no doubt be taken care of in the offices
of the Commemoration Commission. I find it easier to write as I please, and
trust them to delete.

 

In San Francisco on that first
day of general Reduction and Amplification we were not only subjected to an
overwhelming emotional shock, but deprived of those material conveniences which
we had come to believe were essential. Not a streetcar, not a bus moved.
Telephone and telegraph services were completely disrupted. Some communication
was kept up by means of amateur short-wave radio operators. The commercial
radio systems were silent. Stores did not open. Restaurants and movie houses
were locked.

 

Toward evening of that first day
when the news began to get about that the catastrophe was general, the roads
began to fill up againcarloads of gaping, bewildered Smalfri piloted by proud
Chilekings; Smalfri, reassured, and at the same time stunned and shocked to see
in a thousand other dwarfed ones their own lineaments. This riding about in
cars did not last long. California had gasoline again, sooner than other
states, for we had no long-distance transportation problems to cope with and we
had stores of gas on handbut it was years before there were again long lines
of cars bumper to bumper on the highways.

 

I found that I had no car at all.
Mary Frances pedalled up to the Presidio about noon on a borrowed bicycle to
get news of me for her mother.

 

“Where is the car?" I asked her.

 

“Elizabeth has it today."

 

“Elizabeth?" I wanted to know.

 

“Yes, you know. My friend
Elizabeth Purdy. They donłt have a car so I said she could have ours every
other day. They need it a lot."

 

Oh, the seeds of almost
everything that followed were right there in the happenings of that first week,
had we then had the eyes to see them. Little laxities, concessions, which in
the emotional upheaval of the time we permitted, were seized and held by the
Chilekings, made an entering wedge which, in time, separated us Smalfri from
every right and privilege we had ever enjoyed as parents and adults.

 

When, twelve years afterwards,
the Smalfri made a united effort to regain their control of the world, it was
too late. I knew it at the time, though I was heart and soul in the movement.
Useless blood was shed then. Had the blow been struck earlier, before the
Chilekings had become so expert technologically, we would have won. But we
waited too long. And though I shall never be content with this world reversal
under which I live, it has advantages which I will not try to deny. Our present
custom of work in youth and study in age, for instance, has proved far more
feasible than I ever anticipated.

 

It grew, naturally enough, out of
the necessity in those early days of having the Chilekings carry on the work of
which we were incapable. Of course we could have made no headway with this, had
the Chilekings been of another mind. But they would have done it even had we
opposed them. They were determined to drive the tractors, man the generators,
operate the grain elevators. They left their schools as though leaving prisons.
We had at that time in our schools a philosophy of learning by doingbut what
the students learned by doing was usually of no possible use to them outside
the school room. They had looms on which they made little rugsor they made
clay jugs like those of the Egyptians, or Indian bows and arrows, and they knew
how to build a stockade like those of our pioneer forefathers, or duplicate the
slave galleys of the Roman Empire. But out of school there was hardly any
demand for, or pleasure in, stockades or slave galleysand even while they made
these things the Chilekings have confessed they felt as if they were working
with shadows. They knew well enough this was sugar, and not very palatable
sugar, on a pill being rammed down their throats.

 

Now, set loose among the
realities of our own day, they learn processes, techniques, operational
routines in weeks instead of months and years as in the old days. There were
mistakes and fatalities of course, but they acquired these muscular patterns
far faster than the Smalfri had ever been able to do. It began to. appear that
our schools had been, not so much a place for teaching children, as a place
where adults served as governors on the childłs natural learning speed.

 

When the Chileking later becomes
a Smalfri and takes up, if he wishes, his speculative and abstract studies, it
appears that his learning habits have, as a result of this practical work,
become so sharpened and acute that his progress here is also helped. And in his
years of work he has gained a desire to relate his studies to the concrete
world which gave them wonderfully increased point and validity.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

I
have taken no pains to hide the fact that many things that have come with the
Chileking reversal are to me lastingly intolerable; but I freely admit that
this revolution is not one of them. It is still, I confess, a shock to see our
great universities filled with these little, bearded, gnomish figuresthese
Peascods and Buttercups; see the gridirons and diamonds grass-grown. Organized
athletics have become a thing of the past. It appears now that the young never
had, actually, nearly as much pleasure in the bruising, semiprofessional
collegiate sports as did the adults who were their spectators. Once out from
under the directorial thumb of the adults there was a spontaneous abandonment
of these grueling athletic contests and a growth of interest in rather ragged,
so far as performance is concerned, spontaneous sports.

 

Our system of universal
compulsory education has naturally broken down. Now only those Smalfri who have
some real hunger for learning go to school. The results are mixed but not
wholly bad. It is certainly strange, for one who remembers the old world, to
find men, like Goyen the painter, scarcely able to pick out the headlines and
never twice spelling a word the same way. But it hasnłt seemed to hurt his
painting. In the old days it often happened that a man who wrote or painted had
scarcely ever smelled the real world. He put his nose into a book, and never
took it out until he was twenty-six, when he then suspended it over a piece of
foolscap and began writing.

 

Oh, yes, the seeds of almost
everything that has followed were seen in that first chaotic week. It is easy
enough to say that we should have stopped it at the time. We did say “No," and
we were not listened to. And at that time a civil war between fathers and
children was unthinkable.

 

When, toward the end of that
first week, certain foodstuffs began to grow scarce, the Chilekings made a
collection of these scarce articles and apportioned them equally among the
people. What could we do? They wielded the crowbars that broke in the doors of
the warehouses, they drove the trucks that distributed the food.

 

The economic structure was
incapable of bearing the burden of this and similar quixoticisms. The profit
system disappeared and today we have the uninspiring spectacle of men content
simply to have a home and sufficient food; to travel a little, to have a few
objects they believe to be beautiful, and to spend their Smalfrihood in study
or in some unprofitable avocation. The memory of the great men of my youth has
almost left the earth: men who did not permit their needs to become the measure
of their productivity, but who accumulated oil fields and railroads and ships
and factories. From a thousand chimneys there once poured the smoke of one manłs
furnaces; he put wages into the hands of ten thousand men; in the banks he
counted his reserves in the millions.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

But
these spacious days are forever gone. And in large part, it is our fault. The
Chilekings had received an unrealistic upbringing. There was a dichotomy in
their training which they were never able to bridge. We had permitted them to
hear in school and in church the old sentimental platitudes about sharing their
plenty. We continually said to them, “DonÅ‚t be selfishgive Johnny half,"
considering this but a charming grace which they would give up when they left
childhood behind. The trouble was that they came to power before childhood was
left behind, and someone with more taste for irony that I might smile at the
way in which they have proceeded to put us Smalfri over these same
platitudinous hurdles.

 

I think the chief trouble was
that the Chilekings had no real conception of the significance of money. They
had never had much themselves and they had been fairly content. Money to them
was simply a metal that would take them to a show or buy a bag of candy. They
had no understanding whatever of money as a productive agent. They had no
desire to have more of it than they needed for the day. They literally took no
thought for the morrow. Well, you know as well as I where that has brought us.
The Chilekings have been far more cruel and unscrupulous in their seizure of an
individualłs property than the Smalfri would ever have been. Since they
themselves are not interested in anything beyond their daily needs, they cannot
enter into the minds of men more imaginative than themselves. They can see
distributed without a qualm the properties men had spent a lifetime
accumulating. Their only concern has been the anthill, beehive, regard of
seeing that all have enough to eat and drink. It is as simple as that for them.
And we Smalfri are helpless. I watched my own son David loading the Chileking
trucks that first week.

 

There have always been those who
have opposed distributionism and we Smalfri who have kept faith with the old
order have now and again been able to make numerous converts even among the
Chilekings. This has usually proved extremely unrewarding labor however, for a
Chileking seemed no sooner to be converted to reason than he was Subtracted.
And Subtracted, he was of very little use to us in any actual overthrow of the
Chilekings.

 

Because of my firsthand
knowledge, I know a report of the earliest meetings for “Chilesex" is expected
of me. Inadvertently, hunting Mary Frances, who had slipped off to attend a “rally"
she said, at one of the barracks, I happened in upon the first of these
get-togethers. (Later, when the practice became more ritualistic and better
organized such a phrase would not be suitable. At this state “get-together" is
about right.)

 

I am loath, in spite of
expectations, to say anything at all about a practice so entirely repellent to
me. After all I was brought up in an era in which sex was a private matter for
adults, not a public one for adolescents. I am no historian, no anthropologist.
Nor do their protestations that practices similar to those of our Chilekings
have been common with primitive peoples throughout history move me. I am not a
primitive and it was never my intention that my children should behave as if
they were. Before the Chileking Era there was never a more demure,
self-respecting, modest child than Mary Frances. One month after Inflation and
she was behaving like a South Sea Islander in a grass hut.

 

I know that such meetings and
practices are today a commonplace. We see signs, “Chilesex Headquarters," as
openly displayed as, “Public Library," or “MenÅ‚s Room." “Meeting for Chilesex
at Seven Tonight," is as common now as “Choir Practice at Seven," was in my
youth. Familiarity has nevertheless not diminished either my disapproval nor my
early feeling of shock, and I find it completely impossible to make any
concrete report of what I encountered that first night in “A" barracks.
Lighthearted, affectionate (they tell me) experimental sexual play on the part
of Chilekings, some as young as twelve! How am I, for whom such matters were of
life and death importance, to react to these Chileking practices?

 

* * * * * * * *

 

They
tell me that these Chilesex activities are less seriously regarded by their
participants than the activities of a communal reading hour! Chilekings hoot
with unbelief when I tell them that in my day sexual union was so sacred a
matter that men often shot their mates for obtaining sexual gratification
outside a legal union, then committed suicide themselves. Sex was no trivial
matter with us. Chilekings consider death for such a cause on a plane with
death for reading a poem with an “illegal" person or for drinking an “unsanctified"
soda. Sex has lost the deep, awful, and romantic meaning it had for us. I can
not, I freely confess, understand what manłs deepest instinct can mean to those
who have, from the time of puberty to marriage, expressed it quite freely. When
I ask them they jibe at me. “Fun," they answer and look down at me laughing, as
if I were an insect, not a man, and unknowing about these matters. Fun! indeed.

 

But how were we. to stop them?
Once they had the upper hand physically over us, parents, and teachers, there
was no longer any reason not to be public about practices which (they now tell
us) were formerly quite commonly indulged in secretly. Children; it now appears,
are born without shame, and since the Change, parents have been too preoccupied
with their own troubles to instill in their offspring suitable feelings about
sex. Since the Chilekings made full use, from the beginning, of our own
contraceptive devices there has been surprisingly enough no increase in
illegitimacy.

 

But something is lost, I feel
sure, in todayłs marriages. There is no longer that sense of breathless wonder
as the two young people approach the moment of unveiling. Weddings have become quite
cheerful, unromantic, matter-of-fact. My feeling when I attend one is of
witnessing the establishment of a partnership between two business associates,
rather than the legalizing of the union of two tremulous, innocent, and
yearning young bodies: which was marriage as we experienced it fifty years ago,
I do assure you.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

My
contention that Chilesex has taken the bloom off marriage and the romance out
of the man-woman relationship is borne out by the fact that, once wedded,
Chilekings cling to their original marriage beds with all the unimaginative
obstinacy of a pair of ring-necked doves! Not that I do not believe in conjugal
fidelity. I do, indeed. But the Chilekings practice this fidelity, once they
are married, not as we did, because it was our duty, but because they can think
of nothing better to do! Their imaginations have been depleted, their zest
destroyed by their early experiences. They have, in fact, only derisive terms
for those who seek romance outside of marriage. A “Go Babe," as I have related
earlier, is the name for a Smalfri of middle age. But an adulterous “Go Babe"
is called by the Chilekings a “Slobabe." Why? Because they think it is “slow,"
that is, “stupid," not to have experienced enough, learned enough in the “Meetings
for Chilesex" to enable one to pick out a permanently satisfactory mate. The “Slobabe"
is regarded today much as a retarded child was regarded in my time. No
criticism is attached to his incompetence, rather a kind of pity.

 

Now this is surely a far cry from
the days of my youth when men and women took sex seriously enough to die for
it. Or at least to kill for it. Are there any Paolas and Francescas today? Any
Heros and Leanders? Any Tristrams and Iseults? Tristram today would be a “Slobabe."
Is this an advance in civilization?

 

And though what has happened in
the area of reproduction cannot be “blamed" on the Chilekings, and though from
all I gather they like it as little as we, still it is part and parcel of the
topsy-turvy world which is theirs. No Subtracted woman, whatever her age, bears
children. But a woman who has never been Subtracted goes right on having
children, if she wants to (and several have), until her deatheven if she lives
until she is in her seventies or eighties. I must say that I find a pregnant
woman of seventy a shocking sight.

 

A Subtracted man is capable of
fathering children in unions with un-Subtracted women. Not many such unions
exist however.

 

The Amplified, as soon as they
are sexually matureand this maturity comes chronologically at the age it
always has can and do have children. The fact of early Chilesex together with
the inability of the Subtracted to have children has induced early marriage and
childbearing. Nevertheless the birth rate is falling off considerably and I foresee
a time when we must . . .

 

I know this is not what was asked
of me by the Commission. They want what “I saw," not what “I think." Well, they
have the power to strike this out if they want. Or strike me. It wonłt be the
first time. I am an old man and a little one. But what I saw is locked behind
my two eyes and is not to be exposed at command.

 

One “eyewitness" event which I
can report with a free conscience is the first Chileking Meeting for
Worship. I was there; through no desire on my part, it is true. Amy and I were
bundled up willy-nilly, and taken there for the good of our soulsso we were
told. My own feeling is that the Chilekings knew that the whole experience
would be most miserable for us and for this reason forced it sadistically upon
us. When any group has the power the Chilekings have over us Smalfri it is
impossible to determine to what extent they are exercising power for its own
sake and covering up by telling us it is for our own “good."

 

Whatever their reasons, Mary
Frances told her mother and me the day before, that there would be a service of
prayer and thanksgiving in the cathedral next morning at dawn. This was toward
the end of the third month of the Chileking Era.

 

“Dawn?" I asked, seizing, as one
does in astonishment, upon the least significant detail of all.

 

“Yes," she replied, “dawn is the
best time to propitiate the gods."

 

“The gods?" I echoed, staring up
into her face.

 

She answered without
self-consciousness. “Wilbur thinks, and so do all of us, that there are more
gods than one. God and Jesus are the greatest and best we think. But the Devil
is a god too, and perhaps if he were honored more, he would be more content.
Wilbur says you have all tried to act as if there wasnłt any evil. You kill
people or starve them and you call it ęeconomic necessity,ł but Wilbur says itłs
just plain evil and probably the Devilłs work."

 

“But thatÅ‚s truesuch things do
grow out of conditions beyond our control. We donłt want to do them."

 

“ThatÅ‚s the reason Wilbur thinks
itłs the Devilłs work. Since it does happen, someone must want it done.
Wilbur says that things that no one wants done, donłt happen. So, tomorrow
morning we will honor himthat doesnłt mean worship. But Wilbur says we canłt
resist until we have recognized."

 

I was too amazed to speak any
more with Mary Frances at the time. This eleven-year-old talking religion and
economics; but talking it like some primitive medicine man with forces of evil
to be propitiated. Neither Amy nor I had been churchgoers but we had, like many
other people, sent our children to Sunday School, and had taught them to say
their prayers. It had always seemed a pretty sight to us to see them kneel at
bedtime in their night clothes prattling in their sweet unformed voices the old familiar words. But now to hear them planning to pray in cold blood, meaning
it, and in public, and at dawn! And talking of the devil! I was shocked at this
revelation of the depths of their naïveté. But this was only another instance
of their faulty training. Though when they were receiving that training in
Sunday School, we had, of course, no inkling that they would not have
sufficient time before they came to power to learn to distinguish between the
ideal and the workable.

 

I had no intention of attending
those services to propitiate the devil, but long before it was light next
morning David came into our room.

 

“ItÅ‚s time to get up," he said.

 

“What do you mean coming in here
this time of the morning?" I wanted to know.

 

“ItÅ‚s time to get ready for the
Services."

 

Then I remembered. “Your mother
and I arenłt going."

 

“Wilbur said to bring our
parents. Therełs going to be a special place reserved for the little ones where
they can see. We promised Wilbur we would bring you," he said quietly. “I
wouldnłt want to break my promise. Not to Wilbur."

 

I saw what he meant. ęTell Maria
to make us some coffee then," I said. We still had coffee at that time. The
electric power was off, but Maria was managing some rudimentary cooking on the
barbecue grill in the backyard. She had a kind of scaffolding of boxes and
cartons on which she mounted to get at the grill.

 

“We arenÅ‚t to have any breakfast,"
David said, “weÅ‚re to pray fasting."

 

I had no doubt that David and
Mary Frances were so completely under Wilbur Orenłs power, that if we were to
refuse they would simply hustle us into the car and take us there by force. So
Amy and I dressed quietly and were waiting for them when they came for us.

 

I well remember that ride through
the raw, foggy morning. We used the last of our gasoline for the trip and it
was months before we were to drive again. It was still some time before sunup
and there were no street lights. We moved slowly through the gray gloom. Amy
and I huddled together in the back seat, not talking. There were still a number
of cars on the road that morning, but the sidewalks were already beginning to
fill up with the makeshift wagons in which the Chilekings were transporting the
Smalfri of their families to the meeting.

 

When we reached the cathedral we
found it lit only by the wavering light of candles. High in the groined arches
it was still deep night. Great shadows rose and fell across the sup-porting
pillars. The air was thick with some heavy, oversweet incense. A Chileking,
some beginning student, I suppose, was playing the organ. Over and over he
played a monotonous wailing sort of five-finger exercise. The Smalfri were all
seated in the front of the cathedral, and behind them and against the walls at
the sides ranged the Chilekings, big, heavy, smooth-faced, and intent.

 

The cathedral was soon filled and
the doors closed. Gray light began to seep through the arched windows. The
organ continued its long four-or-five-note wail. Now and then a veering candle
flame sent a splash of pale light across one of the faces near me.

 

Suddenly over the organłs
monotone came a sound or series of sounds that prickled my skin: something
halfway between the brass clang of a cymbal and the muffled beat of a drum.
What mumbo jumbo are we to have now I wonderedand as I looked at the
Chilekings, lined along the walls, with their big, round faces lit by the
flickering candlelight, it was easy to imagine them savages, gathered about
some ritual fire. Well, I thought, there isnłt really much difference; children
and primitives arenłt far separated.

 

Organ wail and drum throb, if
drum it was, continued. Then a door to the left of the altar slowly opened and
three towering figures emerged and crossed ponderously to a position in front
of the altar. The central figure I recognized as that of Wilbur Oren; the other
two I did not know. Each was costumed in a habit that had as its basis,
vestments of either the Roman or Anglican church. Over this vestment the three
Chilekings wore long, red, capelike garments. On the back of each cape was
affixed the insignia, then so strange, and now so common of the Antlered Egg.
On their heads was something that was neither military shako, nor bishopłs
miter, but that somehow resembled both.

 

But the strangest thing about
those three Chilekings was not their costumes, but the great, life-size figures
they bore aloft. The figure carried by the Chileking on Wilbur Orenłs right was
obviously a representation of the Christ, though very unlike those commonly
seen at that time. The face of that Christ was neither bearded nor thorn crowned,
but young and unlined. Christ before Golgotha, before Gethsemane, before the
temptation in the wilderness even. The modeling of the face was a little
uncertain, but there was no denying that it had great power and sweetness. A
young face, full of hope; a Chilekingłs conception of a Chileking, in fact.

 

The figure on the left was at
first difficult to place; it was that of a woman, big-breasted, heavy, rounded,
gray-haired, with a face compassionate, double-chinned, and motherly.
Motherlywas this the Chilekingłs conception of Mary, I wondered? The Fathers
of the Church had made her young and comely, Mary the Maiden; but perhaps the
Chilekings saw in her only Mary, the real mother. No compromise in the words, “Mary,
Mother," with the image of an untouched virgin.

 

The central figure, the one
Wilbur Oren held aloft, towered high above the other two. In the half-light
that filled the cathedral it looked like an African witch doctor. A hideous
black creature with little red eyes that seemed to flicker evilly in the
shifting light, and a big, loose-lipped, white mouth. This figure of evilfor
he was obviously that, was hung about with various oddments of broken glass, of
tufts of hair, of old cartridges and pierced coins. In one respect he was an
orthodox devilhe had a tail, sinuous, and scaly. And this figure of evil was,
unlike the other two, jointedfor he was kept aquiver with grimacings and
jerkings and lurchings.

 

We have had time enough now to
adapt ourselves to this fantastic mummery of the Chilekings: Antlered Eggs,
spirits propitiated, and shrines at every crossroad. These attract little
attention now, but then we were accustomed, in such religious practices as we
still retained, to a certain dignity of ritual, a certain reassuring decorum.
And yet in spite of my distaste for such primitive religious flummery as we
were seeing that cold, gray morning, I was deeply impressed. More so, I regret
to say, than at my usual place of worship. I was no doubt the victim of a very
elementary sort of mass psychology. About me washed great waves of Chileking
belief and ardor and 1 was unable to escape a certain degree of submergence in
that flood of feeling. We Smalfri, perched uneasily on the edges of our seats
so that we might bend our knees, with the tall, grave Chilekings pressing
closely in about us, were like a little band of simians surrounded by water
buffaloes or elephants. With us, we felt, were knowledge and wisdom; but what
could they avail against this bulk, and this belief? And as the tempo of the services
increased and the pitch mounted I began to wonder what they would do.

 

As I have said, much of what
happened seemed to me farcical; yet in spite of myself, as IÅ‚ve already
confessed, I was deeply moved. My mind recognized the naïveté, the Huck Finn, caveman
quality of the proceedings; and yet because not too long ago (as mankind counts
its years) I had bowed my own head before just such images and stamped to just
such drum beats, I could not, however cool my thinking, control my pulse beats.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

Wilbur
Oren spoke for a long time. I donłt think he said a sentence worth remembering,
nor do I believe the words now attributed to him and known as the “Cathedral
Speech," are authentic in any detail. That speech, the official one, outlines
in considerable detail subsequent Chileking policies. I heard that speech and
there was nothing of that kind in it. There was nothing in it whatever but a
kind of eloquent hysteria, a reiteration of “God wills it," a shocked,
inexperienced boyłs denunciation of what had hurt him. [This, though
obviously the report of a shocked Smalfri concerning what has hurt him, I have
let stand in spite of its misrepresentation of the Cathedral Speech of Wilbur
Oren.] That was all
there was to it. Though to say that was all, is not to say it was not
effective. It was effective, terribly so. As that high voice continued and
daylight came, I could see those big, empty Chileking faces contorted with conviction
and washed with tears.

 

When Oren finished, the three
figures were again held aloft, and all the Chilekings in the building filed
past them. And as they passed they held out their hands to a fourth Chileking who
had joined the three at the altar. He made a cut in their hands so that a fair
quantity of blood flowed from the wound. Then each Chileking held his gashed
hand over a big brass or gold bowl so that the blood of all mingled there. I
was there and saw all this done, and my gorge rose at the sight of this savage
blood-brotherhood ritual. I saw my own children let their blood drip into this
potDavid and Mary Francesand Smalfri all about me shivered. But what could we
do? Our day had passed.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

As
I watched that long line of Chilekings file past, and saw them wince as the
blade flashed across their hands, and heard them mumble some vow as they
pressed the blood out of the cut flesh into that pot, I knew that something
portentous was afoot, a revolution beyond anything our world has yet seen. I
will not pretend, as many have, that I foresaw all that has happened. But I saw
a little that morningenough to frighten me with grim forebodings.

 

I do not know whether this paper
is what the Commemorative Committee had in mind when they asked me to write of
my experiences during the first days of Subtraction or not. I am an old man and
not a professional writer; I have done the best I can. I have tried not to be
bitter, but there is no use denying that my life stopped sixty years ago. Since
then I have only been an onlooker.

 

<<Contents>>

 

* * * *

 

For
I Am A Jealous People!

 

By LESTER DEL REY

 

 

I

 

.
. . the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow
themselves . . . and the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of
the grinding is low . . . they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears
shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish . . . because man goeth
to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets . . .

 

ecclesiastes, xii, 3-5.

 

There
was the continuous shrieking thunder of an alien rocket overhead as the
Reverend Amos Strong stepped back into the pulpit. He straightened his square,
thin shoulders slightly, and the gaunt hollows in his cheeks deepened. For a
moment he hesitated, while his dark eyes turned upwards under bushy, grizzled
brows. Then he moved forward, placing the torn envelope and telegram on the
lectern with his notes. The blue-veined hand and knobby wrist that projected
from the shiny black serge of his sleeve hardly trembled.

 

His eyes turned toward the pew
where his wife was not. Ruth would not be there this time. She had read the
message before sending it on to him. Now she could not be expected. It seemed
strange to him. She hadnłt missed service since Richard was born nearly thirty
years ago.

 

The sound hissed its way into
silence over the horizon, and Amos stepped forward, gripping the rickety
lectern with both hands. He straightened and forced into his voice the
resonance and calm it needed.

 

“I have just received word that
my son was killed in the battle of the moon," he told the puzzled congregation.
He lifted his voice, and the resonance in it deepened. “I had asked, if it were
possible, that this cup might pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, Lord,
but as Thou wilt."

 

He turned from their shocked
faces, closing his ears to the sympathetic cry of others who had suffered. The
church had been built when Wesley was twice its present size, but the troubles
that had hit the people had driven them into the worn old building until it was
nearly filled. He pulled his notes to him, forcing his mind from his own loss
to the work that had filled his life.

 

“The text today is drawn from
Genesis," he told them. “Chapter seventeen, seventh verse; and chapter
twenty-six, fourth verse. The promise which God made to Abraham and to Isaac."
He read from the Bible before him, turning the pages unerringly at the first
try.

 

“And I will establish my covenant
between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an
everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee."

 

“And I will make thy seed to
multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these
countries, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."

 

He had memorized most of his
sermon, no longer counting on inspiration to guide him as it had once done. He
began smoothly, hearing his own words in snatches as he drew the obvious and
comforting answer to their uncertainty. God had promised man the earth as an
everlasting covenant. Why then should men be afraid or lose faith because alien
monsters had swarmed down out of the emptiness between the stars to try manłs
faith? As in the days of bondage in Egypt or captivity in Babylon, there would
always be trials and times when the fainthearted should waver, but the eventual
outcome was clearly promised.

 

He had delivered a sermon from
the same text in his former parish of Clyde when the government had first begun
building its base on the moon, drawing heavily in that case from the reference
to the stars of heaven to quiet the doubts of those who felt that man had no
business in space. It was then that Richard had announced his commission in the
lunar colony, using Amosł own words to defend his refusal to enter the
ministry. It had been the last he saw of the boy.

 

He had used the text one other
time, over forty years before, but the reason was lost, together with the
passion that had won him fame as a boy evangelist. He could remember the sermon
only because of the shock on the bearded face of his father when he had
misquoted a phrase. It was one of his few clear memories of the period before
his voice changed and his evangelism came to an abrupt end.

 

He had tried to recapture his
inspiration after ordination, bitterly resenting the countless intrusions of
marriage and fatherhood on his spiritual forces. But at last he had recognized
that God no longer intended him to be a modem Peter the Hermit, and resigned
himself to the work he could do. Now he was back in the parish where he had
first begun; and if he could no longer fire the souls of his flock, he could at
least help somewhat with his memorized rationalizations for the horror of the
alien invasion.

 

Another ship thundered overhead,
nearly drowning his words. Six months before, the great ships had exploded out
of space and had dropped carefully to the moon, to attack the forces there. In
another month, they had begun forays against Earth itself. And now, while the
world haggled and struggled to unite against them, they were setting up bases
all over and conquering the world mile by mile.

 

Amos saw the faces below him turn
up, furious and uncertain. He raised his voice over the thunder, and finished
hastily, moving quickly through the end of the service.

 

He hesitated as the congregation
stirred. The ritual was over and his words were said, but there had been no real
service. Slowly, as if by themselves, his lips opened, and he heard his voice
quoting the Twenty-Seventh Psalm. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom
shall I fear?"

 

His voice was soft, but he could
feel the reaction of the congregation as the surprisingly timely words
registered. “Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear:
though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident." The air seemed
to quiver, as it had done long ago when God had seemed to hold direct communion
with him, and there was no sound from the pews when he finished. “Wait on the
Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on
the Lord."

 

The warmth of that mystic glow
lingered as he stepped quietly from the pulpit. Then there was the sound of
motorcycles outside, and a pounding on the door. The feeling vanished.

 

Someone stood up and sudden light
began pouring in from outdoors. There was a breath of the hot, droughty
physical world with its warning of another dust storm, and a scattering of
grasshoppers on the steps to remind the people of the earlier damage to their
crops. Amos could see the bitterness flood back over them in tangible waves,
even before they noticed the short, plump figure of Dr. Alan Miller.

 

“Amos! Did you hear?" He was
wheezing as if he had been running. “Just came over the radio while you were in
here gabbling."

 

He was cut off by the sound of
more motorcycles. They swept down the single main street of Wesley, heading
west. The riders were all in military uniform, carrying weapons and going at
top speed. Dust erupted behind them, and Doc began coughing and swearing. In
the last few years, he had grown more and more outspoken about his atheism;
when Amos had first known him, during his first pastorate, the man had at least
shown some respect for the religion of others.

 

“All right," Amos said sharply. “YouÅ‚re
in the house of God, Doc. What came over the radio?"

 

Doc caught himself and choked
back his coughing fit. “Sorry. But damn it, man, the aliens have landed in
Clyde, only fifty miles away. Theyłve set up a base there! Thatłs what all
those rockets going over meant."

 

There was a sick gasp from the
people who had heard, and a buzz as the news was passed back to others.

 

Amos hardly noticed the commotion.
It had been Clyde where he had served before coming here again. He was trying
to picture the alien ships dropping down, scouring the town ahead of them with
gas and bullets. The grocer on the corner with his nine children, the lame
deacon who had served there, the two Aimes sisters with their horde of dogs and
cats and their constant crusade against younger sinners. He tried to picture
the green-skinned, humanoid aliens moving through the town, invading the
church, desecrating the altar! And there was Anne Seyton, who had been Richardłs
sweetheart, though of another faith . . .

 

“What about the garrison nearby?"
a heavy farmer yelled over the crowd. “I had a boy there, and he told me they
could handle any ships when they were landing! Shell their tubes when they were
coming down-"

 

Doc shook his head. “Half an hour
before the landing, there was a cyclone up there. It took the roof off the main
building and wrecked the whole training garrison."

 

“Jim!" The big man screamed out
the name, and began dragging his frail wife behind him, out toward his car. “If
they got Jim-"

 

Others started to rush after him,
but another procession of motorcycles stopped them. This time they were
traveling slower, and a group of tanks was rolling behind them. The rear tank drew
abreast, slowed, and stopped, while a dirty-faced man in an untidy majorłs
uniform stuck his head out.

 

“You folks get under cover! AinÅ‚t
you heard the news? Go home and stick to your radios, before a snake plane
starts potshooting the bunch of you for fun. The snakesłll be heading straight
over here if theyłre after Topeka, like it looks!" He jerked back down and
began swearing at someone inside. The tank jerked to a start and began heading
away toward Clyde.

 

There had been enough news of the
sport of the alien planes in the papers. The people melted from the church.
Amos tried to stop them for at least a short prayer and to give them time to
collect their thoughts, but gave up after the first wave shoved him aside. A
minute later, he was standing alone with Doc Miller.

 

“Better get home, Amos," Doc
suggested. “My carÅ‚s half a block down. Suppose I give you a lift?"

 

Amos nodded wearily. His bones
felt dry and brittle, and there was a dust in his mouth thicker than that in
the air. He felt old and, for the first time, almost useless. He followed the
doctor quietly, welcoming the chance to ride the six short blocks to the little
house the parish furnished him.

 

A car of ancient age and worse
repair rattled toward them as they reached Docłs auto. It stopped, and a man in
dirty overalls leaned out, his face working jerkily. “Are you prepared,
brothers? Are you saved? Armageddon has come, as the Book foretold. Get right
with God, brothers! The end of the world as foretold is at hand, amen!"

 

“Where does the Bible foretell
alien races around other suns?" Doc shot at him.

 

The man blinked, frowned, and
yelled something about sinners burning forever in hell before he started his
rickety car again. Amos sighed. Now, with the rise of their troubles, fanatics
would spring up to cry doom and false gospel more than ever, to the harm of all
honest religion. He had never decided whether they were somehow useful to God
or whether they were inspired by the forces of Satan.

 

“In my FatherÅ‚s house are many
mansions," he quoted to Doc, as they started up the street. “ItÅ‚s quite
possibly an allegorical reference to other worlds in the heavens."

 

Doc grimaced, and shrugged. Then
he sighed and dropped one hand from the wheel onto AmosÅ‚ knee. “I heard about
Dick, Amos. IÅ‚m sorry. The first baby I ever deliveredand the handsomest!" He
sighed again, staring toward Clyde as Amos found no words to answer. “I donÅ‚t
get it. Why canłt we drop atom bombs on them? What happened to the moon basełs
missiles?"

 

Amos got out at the unpainted
house where he lived, taking Docłs hand silently and nodding his thanks.

 

He would have to organize his
thoughts this afternoon. When night fell and the people could move about
without the danger of being shot at by chance alien planes, the church bell would
summon them, and they would need spiritual guidance. If he could help them to
stop trying to understand God, and to accept Him . . .

 

There had been that moment in the
church when God had seemed to enfold him and the congregation in warmththe old
feeling of true fulfillment. Maybe, now in the hour of its greatest need, some
measure of inspiration had returned.

 

He found Ruth setting the table.
Her small, quiet body moved as efficiently as ever, though her face was puffy
and her eyes were red. “IÅ‚m sorry I couldnÅ‚t make it, Amos. But right after the
telegram, Anne Seyton came. Shełd heard before we did. And-"

 

The television set was on,
showing headlines from the Kansas City Star, and he saw there was no
need to tell her the news. He put a hand on one of hers. “God has only taken
what he gave, Ruth. We were blessed with Richard for thirty years."

 

“IÅ‚m all right." She pulled away
and turned toward the kitchen, her back frozen in a line of taut misery. “DidnÅ‚t
you hear what I said? Annełs here. Dickłs wife! They were married before he
left, secretlyright after you talked with him about the difference in
religion. Youłd better see her, Amos. She knows about her people in Clyde."

 

He watched his wife go. The slam
of the outside door underlined the word. Hełd never forbidden the marriage; he
had only warned the boy, so much like Ruth. He hesitated, and finally turned
toward the tiny, second bedroom. There was a muffled answer to his knock, and
the lock clicked rustily.

 

“Anne?" he said. The room was
darkened, but he could see her blond head and the thin, almost unfeminine lines
of her figure. He put out a hand and felt her thin fingers in his palm. As she
turned toward the weak light, he saw no sign of tears, but her hand shook with
her dry shudders. “Anne, Ruth has just told me that God has given us a
daughter"

 

“God!" She spat the word out
harshly, while the hand jerked back. “God, Reverend Strong? Whose God? The one
who sends meteorites against Dickłs base, plagues of insects, and drought
against our farms? The God who uses tornadoes to make it easy for the snakes to
land? That God, Reverend Strong? Dick gave you a daughter, and hełs dead! Dead!"

 

Amos backed out of the room. He
had learned to stand the faint mockery with which Doc pronounced the name of
the Lord, but this was something that set his skin into goose-pimples and
caught at his throat. Anne had been of a different faith, but she had always
seemed religious before.

 

It was probably only hysteria. He
turned toward the kitchen door to call Ruth and send her in to the girl.

 

Overhead, the staccato bleating
of a ram-jet cut through the air in a sound he had never heard. But the radio
description fitted it perfectly. It could be no Earth ship!

 

Then there was another and
another, until they blended together into a steady drone.

 

And over it came the sudden
firing of a heavy gun, while a series of rapid thuds came from the garden
behind the house.

 

Amos stumbled toward the back
door. “Ruth!" he cried.

 

There was another burst of shots.
Ruth was crumpling before he could get to the doorway.

 

* * * *

 

II

 

My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? ... I am poured out like water, and all
my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of
my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to
my jaws; and thou has brought me into the dust of death. 

psalms,
xxii, 1, 14,
15.

 

There
were no more shots as he ran to gather her into his arms. The last of the alien
delta planes had gone over, heading for Topeka or whatever city they were
attacking.

 

Ruth was still alive. One of the
ugly slugs had caught her in the abdomen, ripping away part of the side, and it
was bleeding horribly. But he felt her heart still beating, and she moaned
faintly. Then as he put her on the couch, she opened her eyes briefly, saw him,
and tried to smile. Her lips moved, and he dropped his head to hear.

 

“IÅ‚m sorry, Amos. Foolish.
Nuisance. Sorry."

 

Her eyes closed, but she smiled
again after he bent to kiss her lips. “Glad now. Waited so long."

 

Anne stood in the doorway,
staring unbelievingly. But as Amos stood up, she unfroze and darted to the
medicine cabinet, to come back and begin snipping away the ruined dress and
trying to staunch the flow of blood.

 

Amos reached blindly for the
phone. He mumbled something to the operator, and a minute later to Doc Miller.
Hełd been afraid that the doctor would still be out. He had a feeling that Doc
had promised to come, but could remember no words.

 

The flow of blood outside the
wound had been stopped, but Ruth was white, even to her lips. Anne forced him back to a chair, her fingers gentle on his arm.

 

“IÅ‚m sorry, Father Strong. II"

 

He stood up and went over to
stand beside Ruth, letting his eyes turn toward the half-set table. There was a
smell of something burning in the air, and he went out to the old wood-burning
stove to pull the pans off and drop them into the sink. Anne followed, but he
hardly saw her, until he heard her begin to cry softly. There were tears this
time.

 

“The ways of God are not the ways
of man, Anne," he said, and the words released a flood of his own emotions. He
dropped tiredly to a chair, his hands falling limply onto his lap. He dropped
his head against the table, feeling the weakness and uncertainty of age. “We
love the carnal form and our hearts are broken when it is gone. Only God can
know all of any of us or count the tangled threads of all our lives. It isnłt
good to hate God!"

 

She dropped beside him. “I donÅ‚t,
Father Strong. I never did." He couldnłt be sure of the honesty of it, but he
made no effort to question her, and she sighed. “Mother Ruth isnÅ‚t dead yet!"

 

He was saved from any answer by
the door being slammed open as Doc Miller came rushing in. The plump little man
took one quick look at Ruth, and was beside her, reaching for plasma and his
equipment. He handed the plasma bottle to Anne, and began working carefully.

 

“ThereÅ‚s a chance," he said
finally. “If she were younger or stronger, IÅ‚d say there was an excellent
chance. But now, since you believe in it, youłd better do some fancy praying."

 

“IÅ‚ve been praying," Amos told
him, realizing that it was true. The prayers had begun inside his head at the
first shot, and they had never ceased.

 

They moved her gently, couch and
all, into the bedroom where the blinds could be drawn, and where the other
sounds of the house couldnłt reach her. Doc gave Anne a shot of something and
sent her into the other room. He turned to Amos, but didnłt insist when the
minister shook his head.

 

“IÅ‚ll stay here, Amos," he said. “With
her. Until we know, or I get another call. The switchboard girl knows where I
am."

 

He went into the bedroom and
closed the door. Amos stood in the center of the living room, his head bowed,
for long minutes.

 

The sound of the television
brought him back. Topeka was off the air, but another station was showing
scenes of destruction.

 

Hospitals and schools seemed to
be their chief targets. The gas had accounted for a number of deaths, though
those could have been prevented if instructions had been followed. But now the
incendiaries were causing the greatest damage.

 

And the aliens had gotten at
least as rough treatment as they had meted out. Of the forty that had been
counted, twenty-nine were certainly down.

 

“I wonder if theyÅ‚re saying
prayers to God for their dead?" Doc asked. “Or doesnÅ‚t your God extend his
mercy to races other than man?"

 

Amos shook his head slowly. It
was a new question to him. But there could be only one answer. “God rules the
entire universe, Doc. But these evil beings surely offer him no worship!"

 

“Are you sure? TheyÅ‚re pretty
human!"

 

Amos looked back to the screen,
where one of the alien corpses could be seen briefly. They did look almost
human, though squat and heavily muscled. Their skin was green, and they wore no
clothes. There was no nose, aside from two orifices under their curiously flat
ears that quivered as if in breathing. But they were human enough to pass for
deformed men, if they were worked on by good make-up men.

 

They were creatures of God, just
as he was! And as such, could he deny them? Then his mind recoiled, remembering
the atrocities they had committed, the tortures that had been reported, and the
utter savagery so out of keeping with their inconceivably advanced ships. They
were things of evil who had denied their birthright as part of Godłs domain.
For evil, there could be only hatred. And from evil, how could there be worship
of anything but the powers of darkness?

 

The thought of worship triggered
his mind into an awareness of his need to prepare a sermon for the evening. It
would have to be something simple; both he and his congregation were in no mood
for rationalizations. Tonight he would have to serve God through their
emotions. The thought frightened him. He tried to cling for strength to the
brief moment of glory he had felt in the morning, but even that seemed far
away.

 

There was the wail of a siren
outside, rising to an ear-shattering crescendo, and the muffled sound of a
loud-speaker driven beyond its normal operating level.

 

He stood up at last and moved out
onto the porch with Doc as the tank came by. It was limping on treads that
seemed to be about to fall apart, and the amplifier and speakers were mounted
crudely on top. It pushed down the street, repeating its message over and over.

 

“Get out of town! Everybody clear
out! This is an order to evacuate! The snakes are coming! Human forces have
been forced to retreat to regroup. The snakes are heading this way, heading
toward Topeka. They are looting and killing as they go. Get out of town!
Everybody clear out!"

 

It paused, and another voice
blared out, sounding like that of the major who had stopped before. “Get the
hell out, all of you! Get out while youłve still got your skins outside of you.
We been licked. Shut up, Blake! Wełve had the holy living pants beat off us,
and wełre going back to momma. Get out, scram, vamoose! The snakes are coming!
Beat it!"

 

It staggered down the street,
rumbling its message, and now other stragglers began following itmen in cars,
piled up like cattle; men in carts of any kind, drawn by horses. Then another
amplifier sounded from one of the wagons.

 

“Stay under cover until night!
Then get out! The snakes wonłt be here at once. Keep cool. Evacuate in order,
and under cover of darkness. Wełre holing up ourselves when we get to a safe
place. This is your last warning. Stay under cover now, and evacuate as soon as
itłs dark."

 

There was a bleating from the
sky, and alien planes began dipping down. Doc pulled Amos back into the house,
but not before he saw men being cut to ribbons by shots that seemed to fume and
burst into fire as they hit. Some of the men on the retreat made cover. When
the planes were gone, they came out and began regrouping, leaving the dead and
hauling the wounded with them.

 

“Those men need me!" Amos
protested.

 

“So does Ruth," Doc told him. “Besides,
wełre too old, Amos. Wełd only get in the way. They have their own doctors and
chaplains, probably. Theyłre risking their lives to save us, damn ittheyłve
piled all their worst cases there and left them to warn us and to decoy the
planes away from the rest who are probably sneaking back through the woods and
fields. Theyłd hate your guts for wasting what theyłre trying to do. Iłve been
listening to one of the local stations, and itłs pretty bad."

 

He turned on his heel and went
back to the bedroom. The television program tardily began issuing evacuation
orders to all citizens along the road from Clyde to Topeka, together with
instructions. For some reason, the aliens seemed not to spot small objects in
movement at night, and all orders were to wait until then.

 

Doc came out again, and Amos
looked up at him, feeling his head bursting, but with one clear idea fixed in
it. “Ruth canÅ‚t be moved, can she, Doc?"

 

“No, Amos." Doc sighed. “But it
wonłt matter. Youłd better go in to her now. She seems to be coming to. Iłll
wake the girl and get her ready."

 

Amos went into the bedroom as
quietly as he could, but there was no need for silence. Ruth was already
conscious, as if some awareness of her approaching death had forced her to use
the last few minutes of her life. She put out a frail hand timidly to him. Her
voice was weak, but clear.

 

“Amos, I know. And I donÅ‚t mind
now, except for you. But therełs something I had to ask you. Amos, do you-?"

 

He dropped beside her when her
voice faltered, wanting to bury his head against her, but not daring to lose
the few remaining moments of her sight. He fought the words out of the depths
of his mind, and then realized it would take more than words. He bent over and
kissed her again, as he had first kissed her so many years ago.

 

“IÅ‚ve always loved you, Ruth," he
said. “I still do love you."

 

She sighed and relaxed. “Then I
wonłt be jealous of God any more, Amos. I had to know."

 

Her hand reached up weakly, to
find his hair and to run through it. She smiled, the worn lines of her face
softening. Her voice was soft and almost young. “And forsaking all others,
cleave only unto thee-"

 

The last syllable whispered out,
and the hand dropped.

 

Amos dropped his head at last,
and a single sob choked out of him. He folded her hands tenderly, with the
worn, cheap wedding ring uppermost, and arose slowly with his head bowed.

 

“Then shall the dust return to
the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Father,
I thank thee for this moment with her. Bless her, O Lord, and keep her for me."

 

He nodded to Doc and Anne. The
girl looked sick and sat staring at him with eyes that mixed shock and pity.

 

“YouÅ‚ll need some money, Anne,"
he told her as Doc went into the bedroom. “I donÅ‚t have much, but thereÅ‚s a
little-"

 

She drew back, choking, and shook
her head. “IÅ‚ve got enough, Reverend Strong. IÅ‚ll make out. Doctor Miller has
told me to take his car. But what about you?"

 

“ThereÅ‚s still work to be done,"
he said. “I havenÅ‚t even written my sermon. And the people who are giving up
their homes will need comfort. In such hours as these, we all need God to
sustain us."

 

She stumbled to her feet and into
the bedroom after Miller. Amos opened his old desk and reached for pencil and
paper.

 

*
* * *

 

III

 

The
wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor
and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation.

 

I have seen the wicked in great
power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.

psalms,
XXXVII, 14, 35.

 

Darkness
was just beginning to fall when they helped Anne out into the doctorłs car,
making sure that the tank was full. She was quiet, and had recovered herself,
but avoided Amos whenever possible. She turned at last to Doc Miller.

 

“What are you going to do? I
should have asked before, but-"

 

“DonÅ‚t worry about me, girl," he
told her, his voice as hearty as when he was telling an old man he still had
forty years to live. “IÅ‚ve got other ways. The switchboard girl is going to be
one of the last to leave, and IÅ‚m driving her in her car. You go ahead, the way
we mapped it out. And pick up anyone else you find on the way. Itłs safe; itłs
still too early for men to start turning to looting, rape, or robbery. Theyłll
think of that a little later."

 

She held out a hand to him, and
climbed in. At the last minute, she pressed Amosł hand briefly. Then she
stepped on the accelerator and the car took off down the street at its top
speed.

 

“She hates me," Amos said. “She
loves men too much and God too little to understand."

 

“And maybe you love your God too
much to understand that you love men, Amos. Donłt worry, shełll figure it out
The next time you see her, shełll feel different. Iłll see you later."

 

Doc swung off toward the
telephone office, carrying his bag. Amos watched him, puzzled as always at
anyone who could so fervently deny God and yet could live up to every
commandment of the Lord except worship. They had been friends for a long-time,
while the parish stopped fretting about it and took it for granted, yet the
riddle was no nearer solution.

 

There was the sound of a great
rocket landing, and the smaller stutterings of the peculiar alien ram-jets. The
ships passed directly overhead, yet there was no shooting this time.

 

Amos faced the bedroom window for
a moment, and then turned toward the church. He opened it, throwing the doors
wide. There was no sign of the sexton, but he had rung the bell in the tower
often enough before. He took off his worn coat and grabbed the rope.

 

It was hard work, and his hands
were soft. Once it had been a pleasure, but now his blood seemed too thin to
suck up the needed oxygen. The shirt stuck wetly to his back, and he felt giddy
when he finished.

 

Almost at once, the telephone in
his little office began jangling nervously. He staggered to it, panting as he
lifted it, to hear the voice of Nellie, shrill with fright. “Reverend, whatÅ‚s
up? Whyłs the bell ringing?"

 

“For prayer meeting, of course,"
he told her. “What else?"

 

“Tonight? Well, IÅ‚ll be-" She
hung up.

 

He lighted a few candles and put
them on the altar, where their glow could be seen from the dark street, but
where no light would shine upwards for alien eyes. Then he sat down to wait,
wondering what was keeping the organist.

 

There were hushed calls from the
street and nervous cries. A car started, to be followed by another. Then a
group took off at once. He went to the door, partly for the slightly cooler
air. All along the street, men were moving out their possessions and loading
up, while others took off. They waved to him, but hurried on by. He heard
telephones begin to ring, but if Nellie was passing on some urgent word, she
had forgotten him.

 

He turned back to the altar,
kneeling before it. There was no articulate prayer in his mind. He simply
clasped his gnarled fingers together and rested on his knee, looking up at the
outward symbol of his life. Outside, the sounds went on, blending together. It
did not matter whether anyone chose to use the church tonight. It was open, as
the house of God must always be in times of stress. He had long since stopped
trying to force religion on those not ready for it.

 

And slowly, the strains of the
day began to weave themselves into the pattern of his life. He had learned to
accept; from the death of his baby daughter on, he had found no way to end the
pain that seemed so much a part of life. But he could bury it behind the world
of his devotion, and meet whatever his lot was to be without anger at the will
of the Lord. Now, again, he accepted things as they were ordered.

 

There was a step behind him. He
turned, not bothering to rise, and saw the dressmaker, Angela Anduccini,
hesitating at the door. She had never entered, though she had lived in Wesley
since she was eighteen. She crossed herself doubtfully, and waited.

 

He stood up. “Come in, Angela.
This is the house of God, and all His daughters are welcome."

 

There was a dark, tight fear in
her eyes as she glanced back to the street. “I thoughtmaybe the organ"

 

He opened it for her and found
the switch. He started to explain the controls, but the smile on her lips
warned him that it was unnecessary. Her calloused fingers ran over the stops,
and she began playing, softly as if to herself. He went back to one of the
pews, listening. For two years he had blamed the organ, but now he knew that
there was no fault with the instrument, but only with its player before. The
music was sometimes strange for his church, but he liked it

 

A couple who had moved into the
old Surrey farm beyond the town came in, holding hands, as if holding each other
up. And a minute later, Buzz Williams stumbled in and tried to tiptoe down the
aisle to where Amos sat. Since his parents had died, hełd been the town
problem. Now he was half-drunk, though without his usual boisterousness.

 

“I ainÅ‚t got no car and I been
drinking," he whispered. “Can I stay here till maybe somebody comes or
something?"

 

Amos sighed, motioning Buzz to a
seat where the boyłs eyes had centered. Somewhere, there must be a car for the
four waifs who had remembered God when everything else had failed them. If one
of the young couple could drive, and he could locate some kind of a vehicle, it
was his duty to see that they were sent to safety.

 

Abruptly, the haven of the church
and the music came to an end, leaving
him back in the real worlda curiously
unreal world now.

 

He was heading down the steps,
trying to remember whether the Jameson boy had taken his flivver, when a panel
truck pulled up in front of the church. Doc Miller got out, wheezing as he
squeezed through the door.

 

He took in the situation at a
glance. “Only four strays, Amos? I thought we might have to pack them in." He
headed for Buzz. “IÅ‚ve got a car outside, Buzz. Gather up the rest of this
flock and get going!"

 

“I been drinking," Buzz said, his
face reddening hotly.

 

“Okay, youÅ‚ve been drinking. At
least you know it, and therełs no traffic problem. Head for Salina and hold it
under forty and youłll be all right." Doc swept little Angela Anduccini from
the organ and herded her out, while Buzz collected the couple. “Get going, all
of you!"

 

They got, with Buzz enthroned
behind the wheel and Angela beside him. The town was dead. Amos closed the
organ and began shutting the doors to the church.

 

“IÅ‚ve got a farm tractor up the
street for us, Amos," Doc said at last. “I almost ran out of tricks. There were
more fools than youłd think who thought they could hide out right here. At
that, I probably missed some. Well, the tractorłs nothing elegant, but it can
take those back roads. Wełd better get going."

 

Amos shook his head. He had never
thought it out, but the decision had been in his mind from the beginning. Ruth
still lay waiting a decent burial. He could no more leave her now than when she
was alive. “YouÅ‚ll have to go alone, Doc."

 

“I figured." The doctor sighed,
wiping the sweat from his forehead “. . . IÅ‚d remember to my dying day that
believers have more courage than an atheist! No sale, Amos. It isnłt sensible,
but thatłs how I feel. Wełd better put out the candles, I guess."

 

Amos snuffed them reluctantly,
wondering how he could persuade the other to leave. His ears had already caught
the faint sounds of shooting; the aliens were on their way.

 

The uncertain thumping of a
laboring motor sounded from the street, to wheeze to silence. There was a
shout, a pause, and the motor caught again. It might have run for ten seconds
before it backfired, and was still.

 

Doc opened one of the doors. In
the middle of the street, a man was pushing an ancient car while his wife
steered. But it refused to start again. He grabbed for tools, threw up the
hood, and began a frantic search for the trouble.

 

“If you can drive a tractor,
therełs one half a block down," Doc called out.

 

The man looked up, snapped one
quick glance behind him, and pulled the woman hastily out of the car. In almost
no time, the heavy roar of the tractor sounded. The man revved it up to full
throttle and tore off down the road, leaving Doc and Amos stranded. The sounds
of the aliens were clearer now, and there was some light coming from beyond the
bend of the street.

 

There was no place to hide. They
found a window where the paint on the imitation stained glass was loose, and
peeled it back enough for a peephole. The advance scouts of the aliens were
already within view. They were dashing from house to house. Behind them, they left
something that sent up clouds of glowing smoke that seemed to have no fire
connected to their brilliance. At least, no buildings were burning.

 

Just as the main group of aliens
came into view, the door of one house burst open. A scrawny man leaped out, with
his fat wife and fatter daughter behind him. They raced up the street, tearing
at their clothes and scratching frantically at their reddened skin.

 

Shots sounded. All three jerked,
but went racing on. More shots sounded. At first, Amos thought it was incredibly
bad shooting. Then he realized that it was even more unbelievably good
marksmanship. The aliens were shooting at the hands first, then moving up the
arms methodically, wasting no chance for torture.

 

For the first time in years, Amos
felt fear and anger curdle solidly in his stomach. He stood up, feeling his
shoulders square back and his head come up as he moved toward the door. His
lips were moving in words that he only half understood. “Arise, O Lord; O God,
lift up thine hand; forget not the humble. Wherefore doth the wicked condemn
God? He hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not requite it. Thou hast seen it,
for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor
committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless. Break thou
the arm of the wicked and the evil ones; seek out their wickedness till thou
find none . . ."

 

“Stop it, Amos!" DocÅ‚s voice
rasped harshly in his ear. “DonÅ‚t be a fool! And youÅ‚re misquoting that last
verse!"

 

It cut through the fog of his
anger. He knew that Doc had deliberately reminded him of his father, but the
trick worked, and the memory of his fatherłs anger at misquotations replaced
his cold fury. “We canÅ‚t let that go on!"

 

Then he saw it was over. They had
used up their targets. But there was the sight of another wretch,
unrecognizable in half of his skin . . .

 

Docłs voice was as sick as he
felt. “We canÅ‚t do anything, Amos. I canÅ‚t understand a race smart enough to
build star ships and still going in for this. But itłs good for our side, in
the long run. While our armies are organizing, theyłre wasting time on this.
And it makes resistance tougher, too."

 

The aliens didnłt confine their
sport to humans. They worked just as busily on a huge old tomcat they found.
And all the corpses were being loaded onto a big wagon pulled by twenty of the
creatures.

 

The aliens obviously had some
knowledge of human behavior. At first they had passed up all stores, and had
concentrated on living quarters. The scouts had passed on by the church without
a second glance. But they moved into a butcher shop at once, to come out again,
carrying meat which was piled on the wagon with the corpses.

 

Now a group was assembling before
the church, pointing up toward the steeple where the bell was. Two of them
shoved up a mortar of some sort. It was pointed quickly and a load was dropped
in. There was a muffled explosion, and the bell rang sharply, its pieces
rattling down the roof and into the yard below.

 

Another shoved the mortar into a
new position, aiming it straight for the door of the church. Doc yanked Amos
down between two pews. “They donÅ‚t like churches, damn it! A fine spot we
picked. Watch out for splinters!"

 

The door smashed in and a heavy
object struck the altar, ruining it and ricocheting onto the organ. Amos
groaned at the sound it made.

 

There was no further activity
when they slipped back to their peepholes. The aliens were on the march again,
moving along slowly. In spite of the delta planes, they seemed to have no
motorized ground vehicles, and the wagon moved on under the power of the twenty
green-skinned things, coming directly in front of the church.

 

Amos stared at it in the
flickering light from the big torches burning in the hands of some of the
aliens. Most of the corpses were strangers to him. A few he knew. And then his
eyes picked out the twisted, distorted upper part of Ruthłs body, her face
empty in deathłs relaxation.

 

He stood up wearily, and this
time Doc made no effort to stop him. He walked down a line of pews and around
the wreck of one of the doors. Outside the church, the air was still hot and
dry, but he drew a long breath into his lungs. The front of the church was in
the shadows, and no aliens seemed to be watching him.

 

He moved down the stone steps.
His legs were firm now. His heart was pounding heavily, but the clot of
feelings that rested leadenly in his stomach had no fear left in it. Nor was
there any anger left, nor any purpose.

 

He saw the aliens stop and stare
at him, while a jabbering began among them.

 

He moved forward with the
measured tread that had led him to his wedding the first time. He came to the
wagon, and put his hand out, lifting one of Ruthłs dead-limp arms back across
her body.

 

“This is my wife," he told the
staring aliens quietly. “I am taking her home with me."

 

He reached up and began trying to
move the other bodies away from her. Without surprise, he saw Docłs arms moving
up to help him, while a steady stream of whispered profanity came from the manłs
lips.

 

He hadnłt expected to succeed. He
had expected nothing.

 

Abruptly, a dozen of the aliens
leaped for the two men. Amos let them overpower him without resistance. For a
second, Doc struggled, and then he too relaxed while the aliens bound them and
tossed them onto the wagon.

 

* * * *

 

IV

 

He
hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of
Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.

 

The Lord was as an enemy: he hath
swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed
his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and
lamentation.

 

The Lord hath cast off his altar,
he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the
walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in
the day of a solemn feast.

 

lamentations, II, 4, 5, 7.

 

Amosł
first reaction was one of dismay at the ruin of his only good suit. He
struggled briefly on the substance under him, trying to find a better spot. A
ministerłs suit might be old, but he could never profane the altar with such
stains as these. Then some sense of the ridiculousness of his worry reached his
mind, and he relaxed as best he could.

 

He had done what he had to do,
and it was too late to regret it. He could only accept the consequences of it
now, as he had learned to accept everything else God had seen fit to send him.
He had never been a man of courage, but the strength of God had sustained him
through as much as most men had to bear. It would sustain him further.

 

Doc was facing him, having
flopped around to lie facing toward him. Now the doctorłs lips twisted into a
crooked grin. “I guess weÅ‚re in for it now. But it wonÅ‚t last forever, and
maybe wełre old enough to die fast. At least, once wełre dead, we wonłt know
it, so therełs no sense being afraid of dying."

 

If it was meant to provoke him
into argument, it failed. Amos considered it a completely hopeless philosophy,
but it was better than none, probably. His own faith in the hereafter left
something to be desired; he was sure of immortality and the existence of heaven
and hell, but he had never been able to picture either to his own satisfaction.

 

The wagon had been swung around
and was now being pulled up the street, back toward Clyde. Amos tried to take
his mind off the physical discomforts of the ride by watching the houses,
counting them to his own. They drew near it finally, but it was Doc who spotted
the important fact. He groaned. “My car!"

 

Amos strained his eyes, staring
into the shadows through the glare of the torches. Docłs car stood at the side
of the house, with the door open! Someone must have told Anne that he hadnłt
left, and shełd swung back around the alien horde to save him!

 

He began a prayer that they might
pass on without the car being noticed, and it seemed at first that they would.
Then there was a sudden cry from the house, and he saw her face briefly at a
front window. She must have seen Doc and himself lying on the wagon!

 

He opened his mouth to risk a
warning, but it was too late. The door swung back, and she was standing on the
front steps, lifting Richardłs rifle to her shoulder. Amosł heart seemed to
hesitate with the tension of his body. The aliens still hadnłt noticed. If shełd
only wait . . .

 

The rifle cracked. Either by luck
or some skill he hadnłt suspected, one of the aliens dropped. She was running
forward now, throwing another cartridge into the barrel. The gun barked again,
and an alien fell to the ground, bleating horribly.

 

There was no attempt at torture
this time, at least. The leading alien jerked out a tubelike affair from a
scabbard at his side and a single sharp explosion sounded. Anne jerked backward
as the heavy slug hit her forehead, the rifle spinning from her dead hands.

 

The wounded alien was trying
frantically to crawl away. Two of his fellows began working on him mercilessly,
with as little feeling as if he had been a human. His body followed that of
Anne toward the front of the wagon, just beyond Amosł limited view.

 

She hadnłt seemed hysterical this
time, Amos thought wearily. It had been her tendency to near hysteria that had
led to his advising Richard to wait, not the difference in faith. Now he was
sorry hełd had no chance to understand her better.

 

Doc sighed, and there was a
peculiar pride under the thickness of his voice. “Man," he said, “has one
virtue which is impossible to any omnipotent force like your God. He can be
brave. He can be brave beyond sanity, for another man or for an idea. Amos, I
pity your God if man ever makes war on Him!"

 

Amos flinched, but the blasphemy
aroused only a shadow of his normal reaction. His mind seemed numbed. He lay
back, watching black clouds scudding across the sky almost too rapidly. It
looked unnatural, and he remembered how often the accounts had mentioned a
tremendous storm that had wrecked or hampered the efforts of human troops.
Maybe a counteract had begun, and this was part of the alien defense. If they
had some method of weather control, it was probable. The moonlight was already
blotted out by the clouds.

 

Half a mile further on, there was
a shout from the aliens, and a big tractor chugged into view, badly driven by
one of the aliens, who had obviously only partly mastered the human machine.
With a great deal of trial and error, it was backed into position and coupled
to the wagon. Then it began churning along at nearly thirty miles an hour,
while the big wagon bucked and bounced behind. From then on, the ride was
physical hell. Even Doc groaned at some of the bumps, though his bones had
three times more padding than Amosł.

 

Mercifully, they slowed when they
reached Clyde. Amos wiped the blood off his bitten lip and managed to wriggle
to a position where most of the bruises were on his upper side. There was a
flood of brilliant lights beyond the town where the alien rockets stood, and he
could see a group of non-human machines busy unloading the great ships. But the
drivers of the machines looked totally unlike the other aliens.

 

One of the alien trucks swung
past them, and he had a clear view of the creature steering it. It bore no
resemblance to humanity. There was a conelike trunk, covered with a fine white
down, ending in four thick stalks to serve as legs. From its broadest point,
four sinuous limbs spread out to the truck controls. There was no head, but
only eight small tentacles waving above it.

 

He saw a few others, always in
control of machines, and no machines being handled by the green-skinned people
as they passed through the ghost city that had been Clyde. Apparently there
were two races allied against humanity, which explained why such barbarians
could come in space ships. The green ones must be simply the fighters, while
the downy cones were the technicians. From their behavior, though, the pilots
of the planes must be recruited from the fighters.

 

Clyde had grown since he had been
there, unlike most of the towns about. There was a new supermarket just down
the street from Amosł former church, and the tractor jolted to a stop in front
of it. Aliens swarmed out and began carrying the loot from the wagon into its
big food lockers, while two others lifted Doc and Amos.

 

But they werenłt destined for the
comparatively merciful death of freezing in the lockers. The aliens threw them
into a little cell that had once apparently been a cashierłs cage, barred from
floor to ceiling. It made a fairly efficient jail, and the lock that clicked
shut as the door closed behind them was too heavy to be broken.

 

There was already one occupanta
medium-built young man whom Amos finally recognized as Smithton, the Clyde
dentist. His shoulders were shaking with sporadic sobs as he sat huddled in one
corner. He looked at the two arrivals without seeing them. “But I surrendered,"
he whispered. “IÅ‚m a prisoner of war. They canÅ‚t do it. I surrendered-"

 

A fatter-than-usual alien,
wearing the only clothes Amos had seen on any of them, came waddling up to the
cage, staring in at them, and the dentist wailed off into silence. The alien
drew up his robe about his chest and scratched his rump against a counter
without taking his eyes off them. “Humans," he said in a grating voice, but
without an accent, “are peculiar. No standardization."

 

“IÅ‚ll be damned!" Doc swore. “English!"

 

The alien studied them with what
might have been surprise, lifting his ears. “Is the gift of tongues so unusual,
then? Many of the priests of the Lord God Almighty speak all the human
languages. Itłs a common miracle, not like levitation."

 

“Fine. Then maybe youÅ‚ll tell us
what wełre being held for?" Doc suggested.

 

The priest shrugged. “Food, of
course. The grethi eat any kind of meateven our peoplebut we have to
examine the laws to find whether youłre permitted. If you are, wełll need
freshly killed specimens to sample, so wełre waiting with you."

 

“You mean youÅ‚re attacking us for
food?"

 

The priest grunted harshly. “No!
Wełre on a holy mission to exterminate you. The Lord commanded us to go down to
Earth where abominations existed and to leave no living creature under your
sun."

 

He turned and waddled out of the
store, taking the single remaining torch with him, leaving only the dim light
of the moon and reflections from further away.

 

Amos dropped onto a stool inside
the cage. “They had to lock us in a new building instead of one I know," he
said. “If it had been the church, we might have had a chance."

 

“How?" Doc asked sharply.

 

Amos tried to describe the
passage through the big, unfinished basement under the church, reached through
a trap door. Years before, a group of teen-agers had built a sixty-foot tunnel
into it and had used it for a private club until the passage had been
discovered and bricked over from outside. The earth would be soft around the
bricks, however. Beyond, the outer end of the tunnel opened in a wooded
section, which led to a drainage ditch that in turn connected with the
Republican River. From the church, they could have moved to the stream and
slipped down that without being seen, unlike most of the other sections of the
town.

 

Docłs fingers were trembling on
the lock when Amos finished. “If we could get the two hundred feet to the
churchThey donłt know much about us, Amos, if they lock us in where the lock
screws are on our side. Well, wełll have to chance it."

 

Amosł own fingers shook as he
felt the screwheads. He could see what looked like a back door to the store. If
they could come out into the alley that had once been there, they could follow
it nearly to the churchand then the trees around that building would cut off
most of the light. It would be a poor chance. But was it chance? It seemed more
like the hand of God to him.

 

“More like the carelessness of
the aliens to me," Doc objected. “It would probably be a lot less complicated
in most other places, the way they light the town. Knock the bottom out of the
money drawer and break off two slats. IÅ‚ve got a quarter that fits these
screws."

 

Smithton fumbled with the drawer,
praying nowa childhood prayer for going to sleep. But he succeeded in getting
two slats Doc could place the quarter between.

 

It was rough going, with more
slipping than turning of the screws, but the lock had been meant to keep
outsiders out, not cashiers in. Three of the screws came loose, and the lock
rotated on the fourth until they could force the cage open.

 

Doc stopped and pulled Smithton
to him. “Follow me, and do what I do. No talking, no making a separate break,
or IÅ‚ll break your neck. All right!"

 

The back door was locked, but on
the inside. They opened it to a backyard filled with garbage. The alley wasnłt
as dark as it should have been, since open lots beyond let some light come
through. They hugged what shadows they could until they reached the church
hedge. There they groped along, lining themselves up with the side office door.
There was no sign of aliens.

 

Amos broke ahead of the others,
being more familiar with the church. It wasnłt until he had reached the door
that he realized it could have been locked; it had been kept that way part of
the time. He grabbed the handle and forced it back to find it open!"

 

For a second, he stopped to thank
the Lord for their luck. Then the others were with him, crowding into the
little kitchen where social suppers were prepared. Hełd always hated those
functions, but now he blessed them for a hiding place that gave them time to
find their way.

 

There were sounds in the church,
and odors, but none that seemed familiar to Amos. Something made the back hairs
of his neck prickle. He took off his shoes and tied them around his neck, and
the others followed suit.

 

The trap door lay down a small
hall, across in front of the altar, and in the private office on the other
side.

 

They were safer together than
separated, particularly since Smithton was with them. Amos leaned back against
the kitchen wall to catch his breath. His heart seemed to have a ring of
needled pain around it, and his throat was so dry that he had to fight
desperately against gagging. There was water here, but he couldnłt risk rummaging across the room to the sink.

 

He was praying for strength, less
for himself than the others. Long since, he had resigned himself to die. If God
willed his death, he was ready; all he had were dead and probably mutilated,
and he had succeeded only in dragging those who tried to help him into mortal
danger. He was old, and his body was already treading its way to death. He could
live for probably twenty more years, but aside from his work, there was nothing
to live forand even in that, he had been only a mediocre failure. But he was
still responsible for Doc Miller, and even for Smithton now.

 

He squeezed his eyes together and
squinted around the doorway. There was some light in the hall that led toward
the altar, but he could see no one, and there were drapes that gave a shadow
from which they could spy the rest of their way. He moved to it softly, and
felt the others come up behind him.

 

He bent forward, parting the
drapes a trifle. They were perhaps twenty feet in front of the altar, on the
right side. He spotted the wreckage that had once stood as an altar. Then he
frowned as he saw evidence of earth piled up into a mound of odd shape.

 

He drew the cloth back further,
surprised at the curiosity in him, as he had been surprised repeatedly by the
changes taking place in himself.

 

There were two elaborately robed
priests kneeling in the center of the chapel. But his eye barely noticed them
before it was attracted to what stood in front of the new altar.

 

A box of wood rested on an
earthenware platform. On it were four marks which his eyes recognized as
unfamiliar, but which his mind twisted into a sequence from the alphabets he had
learned, unpronounceable yet compelling. And above the box was a veil, behind
which Something shone brightly without light.

 

In his mind, a surge of power
pulsed, making patterns that might almost have been words through his
thoughtswords like the words Moses once had heardwords that Amos, heartsick,
knew. . . .

 

“I AM THAT I AM, who brought
those out of bondage from Egypt and who wrote upon the wall before Belshazzar,
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN, as it shall be writ large upon the Earth, from
this day forth. For I have said unto the seed of Mikhtchah, thou art my chosen
people and I shall exalt thee above all the races under the heavens!"

 

* * * *

 

V

 

And
it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and
power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

 

He that leadeth into captivity
shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the
sword.

 

revelations, XII, 7, 10.

 

The
seed of Mikhtchah. The seed of the invaders. . . .

 

There was no time and all time,
then. Amos felt his heart stop, but the blood pounded through his arteries with
a vigor it had lacked for decades. He felt Ruthłs hand in his, stirring with
returning life, and knew she had never existed. Beside him, he saw Doc Millerłs
hair turn snow-white and knew that it was so, though there was no way he could
see Doc from his position.

 

He felt the wrath of the Presence
rest upon him, weighing his every thought from his birth to his certain death,
where he ceased completely and went on forever, and yet he knew that the Light
behind the veil was unaware of him, but was receptive only to the two Mikhtchah
priests who knelt, praying.

 

All of that was with but a
portion of his mind so small that he could not locate it, though his total mind
encompassed all time and space, and that which was neither; yet each part of
his perceptions occupied all of his mind that had been or ever could be, save
only the present, which somehow was a concept not yet solved by the One before
him.

 

He saw a strange man on a low
mountain, receiving tablets of stone that weighed only a pennyweight, engraved
with a script that all could read. And he knew the man, but refused to believe
it, since the garments were not those of his mental image, and the clean-cut
face fitted better with the strange headpiece than with the language the man
spoke.

 

He saw every prayer of his life
tabulated. But nowhere was there the mantle of divine warmth which he had felt
as a boy and had almost felt again the morning before. And there was a stirring
of unease at his thought, mixed with wrath; yet while the thought was in his
mind, nothing could touch him.

 

Each of those things was untrue,
because he could find no understanding of that which was true.

 

It ended as abruptly as it had
begun, either a microsecond or a million subjective years after. It left him
numbed, but newly alive. And it left him dead as no man had ever been
hopelessly dead before.

 

He knew only that before him was
the Lord God Almighty, He who had made a covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and
with Jacob, and with their seed. And he knew that the covenant was ended.
Mankind had been rejected, while God now was on the side of the enemies of
Abrahamłs seed, the enemies of all the nations of earth.

 

Even that was too much for a human
mind no longer in touch with the Presence, and only a shadow of it remained.

 

Beside him, Amos heard Doc Miller
begin breathing again, brushing the white hair back from his forehead
wonderingly as he muttered a single word, “God!"

 

One of the Mikhtchah priests
looked up, his eyes turning about; there had been a glazed look on his face,
but it was changing.

 

Then Smithton screamed! His open
mouth poured out a steady, unwavering screaming, while his lungs panted in and
out. His eyes opened, staring horribly. Like a wooden doll on strings, the man
stood up and walked forward. He avoided the draperies and headed for the Light
behind the veil. Abruptly, the Light was gone, but Smithton walked toward it as
steadily as before. He stopped before the falling veil, and the scream cut off
sharply.

 

Doc had jerked silently to his
feet, tugging Amos up behind him. The minister lifted himself, but he knew
there was no place to go. It was up to the will of God now . . . Or . . .

 

Smithton turned on one heel
precisely. His face was rigid and without expression, yet completely mad. He
walked mechanically forward toward the two priests. They sprawled aside at the
last second, holding two obviously human-made automatics, but making no effort
to use them. Smithton walked on toward the open door at the front of the
church.

 

He reached the steps, with the
two priests staring after him. His feet lifted from the first step to the
second and then he was on the sidewalk.

 

The two priests fired!

 

Smithton jerked, halted, and
suddenly cried out in a voice of normal, rational agony. His legs kicked
frantically under him and he ducked out of the sight of the doorway, his
faltering steps sounding further and further away. He was dead the Mikhtchah
marksmanship had been as good as it seemed always to bebut still moving,
though slower and slower, as if some extra charge of life were draining out
like a battery running down.

 

The priests exchanged quick
glances and then darted after him, crying out as they dashed around the door
into the night. Abruptly, a single head and hand appeared again, to snap a shot
at the draperies from which Smithton had come. Amos forced himself to stand
still, while his imagination supplied the jolt of lead in Iris stomach. The
bullet hit the draperies, and something else.

 

The priest hesitated, and was
gone again.

 

Amos broke into a run across the
chapel and into the hall at the other side of the altar. He heard the faint
sound of Docłs feet behind him.

 

The trap door was still there,
unintentionally concealed under carpeting. He forced it up and dropped through
it into the four-foot depth of the uncompleted basement, making room for Doc.
They crouched together as he lowered the trap and began feeling his way through
the blackness toward the other end of the basement. It had been five years
since he had been down there, and then only once for a quick inspection of the
work of the boys who had dug the tunnel.

 

He thought he had missed it at
first, and began groping for the small entrance. It might have caved in, for
that matter. Then, two feet away, his hand found the hole and he drew Doc after
him.

 

It was cramped, and bits of dirt
had fallen in places and had to be dug out of the way. Part of the distance was
covered on their stomachs. They found the bricked-up wall ahead of them and
began digging around it with their bare hands. It took another ten minutes,
while distant sounds of wild yelling from the Mikhtchah reached them faintly.
They broke through at last with bleeding hands, not bothering to check for aliens
near. They reached a safer distance in the woods, caught their breath, and went
on.

 

The biggest danger lay in the
drainage trench, which was low in several places. But luck was with them, and
those spots lay in the shadow.

 

Then the little Republican River
lay in front of them, and there was a flatbottom boat nearby.

 

Moments later, they were floating
down the stream, resting their aching lungs, while the boat needed only a
trifling guidance. It was still night, with only the light from the moon, and
there was little danger of pursuit by the alien planes. Amos could just see Docłs
face as the man fumbled for a cigarette.

 

He lighted it and exhaled deeply.
“All right, Amosyou were right, and God exists. But damn it, I donÅ‚t feel any
better for knowing that. I canłt see how God helps menor even how Hełs doing
the Mikhtchah much good. What do they get out of it, beyond a few miracles with
the weather? Theyłre just doing Godłs dirty work."

 

“They get the Earth, I supposeif
they want it," Amos said doubtfully. He wasnłt sure they did. Nor could he see
how the other aliens tied into the scheme; if he had known the answers, they
were gone now. “Doc, youÅ‚re still an atheist, though you now know God is."

 

The plump man chuckled bitterly. “IÅ‚m
afraid youłre right. But at least Iłm myself. You canłt be, Amos. Youłve spent
your whole life on the gamble that God is right and that you must serve
himwhen the only way you could serve was to help mankind. What do you do now?
God is automatically rightbut everything youłve ever believed makes Him
completely wrong, and you can only serve Him by betraying your people. What
kind of ethics will work for you now?"

 

Amos shook his head wearily,
hiding his face in his hands. The same problem had been fighting its way
through his own thoughts. His first reaction had been to acknowledge his
allegiance to God without question; sixty years of conditioned thought lay
behind that. Yet now he could not accept such a decision. As a man, he could
not bow to what he believed completely evil, and the Mikhtchah were evil by
every definition he knew.

 

Could he tell people the facts,
and take away what faith they had in any purpose in life? Could he go over to
the enemy, who didnłt even want him, except for their feeding experiments? Or
could he encourage people to fight with the old words that God was with
themwhen he knew the words were false, and their resistance might doom them to
eternal hellfire for opposing God?

 

It hit him then that he could
remember nothing clearly about the case of a hereaftereither for or against
it. What happened to a people when God deserted them? Were they only deserted
in their physical form, and still free to win their spiritual salvation? Or
were they completely lost? Did they cease to have souls that could survive? Or
were those souls automatically consigned to hell, however noble they might be?

 

No question had been answered for
him. He knew that God existed, but he had known that before. He knew nothing
now beyond that. He did not even know when God had placed the Mikhtchah before
humanity. It seemed unlikely that it was as recent as his own youth. Yet
otherwise, how could he account for the strange spiritual glow he had felt as
an evangelist?

 

“ThereÅ‚s only one rational
answer," he said at last. “It doesnÅ‚t make any difference what I decide! IÅ‚m
only one man."

 

“So was Columbus when he swore
the world was round. And he didnłt have the look on his face youłve had since
we saw God, Amos! I know now what the Bible means when it says Mosesł face
shone after he came down from the mountain, until he had to cover it with a
veil. If IÅ‚m right, God help mankind if you decide wrong!"

 

Doc tossed the cigarette over the
side and lighted another, and Amos was shocked to see that the manłs hands were
shaking. The doctor shrugged, and his tone fell back to normal. “I wish we knew
more. Youłve always thought almost exclusively in terms of the Old Testament
and a few snatches of Revelationslike a lot of men who become evangelists. IÅ‚ve
never really thought about GodI couldnłt accept Him, so I dismissed Him. Maybe
thatłs why we got the view of Him we did. I wish I knew where Jesus fits in,
for instance. Therełs too much missing. Too many imponderables and hiatuses. We
have only two facts, and we canłt understand either. There is a manifestation
of God which has touched both Mikhtchah and mankind; and He has stated now that
he plans to wipe out mankind. Wełll have to stick to that."

 

Amos made one more attempt to
deny the problem that was facing him. “Suppose God is only testing man again,
as He did so often before?"

 

“Testing?" Doc rolled the word on
his tongue, and seemed to spit it out. The strange white hair seemed to make
him older, and the absence of mockery in his voice left him almost a stranger. “Amos,
the Hebrews worked like the devil to get Canaan; after forty years of wandering
around a few square miles God suddenly told them this was the landand then
they had to take it by the same methods men have always used to conquer a
country. The miracles didnłt really decide anything. They got out of Babylon
because the old prophets were slaving night and day to hold them together as
one people, and because they managed to sweat it out until they finally got a
break. In our own time, theyłve done the same things to get Israel, and with no
miracles! It seems to me God took it away, but they had to get it back by
themselves. I donłt think much of that kind of a test in this case."

 

Amos could feel all his values
slipping and spinning. He realized that he was holding himself together only
because of Doc; otherwise, his mind would have reached for madness, like any
intelligence forced to solve the insoluble. He could no longer comprehend
himself, let alone God. And the feeling crept into his thoughts that God couldnłt
wholly understand Himself, either.

 

“Can a creation defy anything
great enough to create it, Doc? And should it, if it can?"

 

“Most kids have to," Doc said. He
shook his head. “ItÅ‚s your problem. All I can do is point a few things out. And
maybe it wonłt matter, at that. Wełre still a long ways inside Mikhtchah
territory, and itłs getting along toward daylight."

 

The boat drifted on, while Amos
tried to straighten out his thoughts and grew more deeply tangled in a web of
confusion. What could any man who worshipped devoutly do if he found his God
was opposed to all else he had ever believed to be good?

 

A version of Kantłs categorical
imperative crept into his mind; somebody had once quoted it to himprobably
Doc. “So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of
any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means only." Was God now
treating man as an end, or simply as a means to some purpose, in which man had
failed? And had man ever seriously treated God as an end, rather than as a
means to spiritual immortality and a quietus to the fear of death?

 

“WeÅ‚re being followed!" Doc
whispered suddenly. He pointed back, and Amos could see a faint light shining
around a curve in the stream. “LookthereÅ‚s a building over there. When the
boat touches shallow water, run for it!"

 

He bent to the oars, and a moment
later they touched bottom and were over the side, sending the boat back into
the current. The building was a hundred feet back from the bank, and they
scrambled madly toward it. Even in the faint moonlight, they could see that the
building was a wreck, long since abandoned. Doc went in through one of the
broken windows, dragging Amos behind him.

 

Through a chink in the walls,
they could see another boat heading down the stream, lighted by a torch and
carrying two Mikhtchah. One rowed, while the other sat in the prow with a gun,
staring ahead. They rowed on past.

 

“WeÅ‚ll have to hole up here," Doc
decided. “ItÅ‚ll be light in half an hour. Maybe they wonÅ‚t think of searching a
ruin like this."

 

They found rickety steps, and
stretched out on the bare floor of a huge upstairs closet. Amos groaned as he
tried to find a position in which he could get some rest. Then, surprisingly,
he was asleep.

 

He woke once with traces of
daylight coming into the closet, to hear sounds of heavy gunfire not far away.
He was just drifting back to sleep when hail began cracking furiously down on
the roof. When it passed, the gunfire was stilled.

 

Doc woke him when it was turning
dark. There was nothing to eat, and Amosł stomach was sick with hunger. His
body ached in every joint, and walking was pure torture. Doc glanced up at the
stars, seemed to decide on a course, and struck out. He was wheezing and
groaning in a way that indicated he shared Amosł feelings.

 

But he found enough energy to
begin the discussion again. “I keep wondering what Smithton saw, Amos? It wasnÅ‚t
what we saw. And what about the legends of war in heaven? Wasnłt there a big
battle there once, in which Lucifer almost won? Maybe Lucifer simply stands for
some other race God cast off?"

 

“Lucifer was Satan, the spirit of
evil. He tried to take over Godłs domain."

 

“Mmm. IÅ‚ve read somewhere that we
have only the account of the victor, which is apt to be pretty biased history.
How do we know the real issues? Or the true outcome? At least he thought he had
a chance, and he apparently knew what he was fighting."

 

The effort of walking made speech
difficult. Amos shrugged, and let the conversation die. But his own mind ground
on.

 

If God was all-powerful and
all-knowing, why had He let them spy upon Him? Or was He all-powerful over a
race He had dismissed? Could it make any difference to God what man might try
to do, now that He had condemned him? Was the Presence they had seen the whole
of Godor only one manifestation of Him?

 

His legs moved on woodenly,
numbed to fatigue and slow from hunger, while his head churned with his basic
problem. Where was his duty now? With God or against Him?

 

They found food in a deserted
house, and began preparing it by the hooded light of a lantern, while they
listened to the news from a small battery radio that had been left behind. It
was a hopeless account of alien landings and human retreats, yet given without
the tone of despair they should have expected. They were halfway through the
meal before they discovered the reason.

 

“Flash!" the radio announced. “Word
has just come through from the Denver area. A second atomic missile, piloted by
a suicide crew, has fallen successfully! The alien base has been wiped out, and
every ship is ruined. It is now clear that the trouble with earlier bombing
attempts lay in the detonating mechanism. This is being investigated, while
more volunteers are being trained to replace this undependable part of the
bomb. Both missiles carrying suicide bombers have succeeded. Captive aliens of
both races are being questioned in Denver now, but the same religious
fanaticism found in Portland seems to make communication difficult."

 

It went back to reporting alien
landings, while Doc and Amos stared at each other. It was too much to absorb at
once.

 

Amos groped in his mind, trying
to dig out something that might tie in the success of human bombers, where
automatic machinery was miraculously stalled, with the reaction of God to his
thoughts of the glow he had felt in his early days. Something about man . . .

 

“They can be beaten!" Doc said in
a harsh whisper.

 

Amos sighed as they began to get
up to continue the impossible trek. “Maybe. We know God was at Clyde. Can we be
sure He was at the other places to stop the bombs by His miracles?"

 

They slogged on through the
night, cutting across country in the dim light, where every footstep was twice
as hard. Amos turned it over, trying to use the new information for whatever
decision he must reach. If men could overcome those opposed to them, even for a
time . . .

 

It brought him no closer to an
answer.

 

The beginnings of dawn found them
in a woods. Doc managed to heave Amos up a tree, where he could survey the
surrounding terrain. There was a house beyond the edge of the woods, but it
would take dangerous minutes to reach it. They debated, and then headed on.

 

They were just emerging from the
woods when the sound of an alien plane began its stuttering shriek. Doc turned
and headed back to where Amos was behind him. Then he stopped. “Too late! HeÅ‚s
seen something. Gotta have a target!"

 

His arms swept out, shoving Amos
violently back under the nearest tree. He swung and began racing across the
clearing, his fat legs pumping furiously as he covered the ground in straining
leaps. Amos tried to lift himself from where he had fallen, but it was too
late.

 

There was the drumming of gunfire
and the earth erupted around Doc. He lurched and dropped, to twitch and lie
still.

 

The plane swept over, while Amos
disentangled himself from a root. It was gone as he broke free. Doc had given
it a target, and the pilot was satisfied, apparently.

 

He was still alive as Amos
dropped beside him. Two of the shots had hit, but he managed to grin as he
lifted himself on one elbow. It was only a matter of minutes, however, and
there was no help possible. Amos found one of Docłs cigarettes and lighted it
with fumbling hands.

 

“Thanks," Doc wheezed after
taking a heavy drag on it. He started to cough, but suppressed it, his face
twisting in agony. His words came in an irregular rhythm, but he held his voice
level. “I guess IÅ‚m going to hell, Amos, since I never did repent if there is
a hell! And I hope there is! I hope itłs filled with the soul of every poor
damned human being who died in less than perfect grace. Because IÅ‚m going to
find some way-"

 

He straightened suddenly,
coughing and fighting for breath. Then he found one final source of strength
and met Amosł eyes, a trace of his old cynical smile on his face.

 

“-some way to open a recruiting
station!" he finished.

 

He dropped back, letting all the
fight go out of his body. A few seconds later, he was dead.

 

* * * *

 

VI

 

.
. . Thou shalt have no other peoples before me . . . Thou shalt make unto them
no covenant against me. . . . Thou shalt not foreswear thyself to them, nor
serve them . . . for I am a jealous people . . .

 

exultations, xii, 2-4.

 

Amos
lay through the day in the house to which he had dragged Docłs body. He did not
even look for food. For the first time in his life since his mother had died when
he was five, he had no shield against his grief. There was no hard core of
acceptance that it was Godłs will to hide his loss at Docłs death. And with the
realization of that, all the other losses hit at him as if they had been no
older than the death of Doc.

 

He sat with his grief and his
newly sharpened hatred, staring toward Clyde. Once, during the day, he slept.
He awakened to a sense of a tremendous sound and shaking of the earth, but all
was quiet when he finally became conscious. It was nearly night, and time to
leave.

 

For a moment, he hesitated. It
would be easier to huddle here, beside his dead, and let whatever would happen
come to him. But within him was a sense of duty that drove him on. In the back
of his mind, something stirred, telling him he still had work to do.

 

He found part of a stale loaf of
bread and some hard cheese and started out, munching on them. It was still too
light to move safely, but he was going through woods again, and he heard no
alien planes. When it grew darker, he turned to the side roads that led in the
direction of Wesley.

 

In his mind was the knowledge
that he had to return there. His church lay there; if the human fighters had
pushed the aliens back, his people might be there. If not, it was from there
that he would have to follow them.

 

His thoughts were too deep for
conscious expression, and too numbed with exhaustion. His legs moved on
steadily. One of his shoes had begun to wear through, and his feet were covered
with blisters, but he went grimly on. It was his duty to lead his people, now
that the aliens were here, as he had led them in easier times. His thinking had
progressed no further.

 

He holed up in a barn that
morning, avoiding the house because of the mutilated things that lay on the
doorstep where the aliens had apparently left them. And this time he slept with
the soundness of complete fatigue, but he awoke to find one fist clenched and
extended toward Clyde. He had been dreaming that he was Job, and that God had
left him sitting unanswered on his boils until he died, while mutilated corpses
moaned around him, asking for leadership he would not give.

 

It was nearly dawn before he
realized that he should have found himself some kind of a car. He had seen
none, but there might have been one abandoned somewhere. Doc could probably
have found one. It was too late to bother, then. He had come to the outskirts
of a tiny town, and started to head beyond it, before realizing that all the
towns must have been well searched by now. He turned down the small street,
looking for a store where he could find food.

 

There was a small grocery with a
door partly ajar. Amos pushed it open, to the clanging of a bell. Almost
immediately, a dog began barking, and a human voice came sharply from the back.

 

“Down, Shep! Just a minute, IÅ‚m
a-coming." A door to the rear opened, and a bent old man emerged, carrying a
kerosene lamp. “Darned electricÅ‚s off again! Good thing I stayed. Told them I
had to mind my store, but they wanted me to get with them. Had to hide out in
the old well. Darned nonsense about-"

 

He stopped, his eyes blinking
behind thick lenses, and his mouth dropped open. He swallowed, and his voice
was startled and shrill. “Mister, who are you?"

 

“A man who just escaped from the
aliens," Amos told him. He hadnłt realized the shocking appearance he must
present by now. “One in need of food and a chance to rest until night. But IÅ‚m
afraid I have no money on me."

 

The old man tore his eyes away
slowly, seeming to shiver. Then he nodded, and pointed to the back. “Never
turned nobody away hungry yet," he said, but the words seemed automatic.

 

An old dog backed slowly under a
couch as Amos entered. The man put the lamp down and headed into a tiny kitchen
to begin preparing food. Amos reached for the lamp and blew it out. “There
really are aliensworse than you heard," he said.

 

The old man bristled, met his
eyes, and then nodded slowly. “If you say so. Only it donÅ‚t seem logical
God would let things like that run around in a decent state like Kansas."

 

He shoved a plate of eggs onto
the table, and Amos pulled it to him, swallowing a mouthful eagerly. He reached
for a second, and stopped. Something was violently wrong, suddenly. His stomach
heaved, the room began to spin, and his forehead was cold and wet with sweat.
He gripped the edge of the table, trying to keep from falling. Then he felt
himself being dragged to a cot. He tried to protest, but his body was shaking
with ague, and the words that spilled out were senseless. He felt the cot under
him, and waves of sick blackness spilled over him.

 

It was the smell of cooking food
that awakened him finally, and he sat up with a feeling that too much time had
passed. The old man came from the kitchen, studying him. “You sure were sick,
Mister. Guess you ainłt used to going without decent food and rest. Feeling
okay?"

 

Amos nodded. He felt a little
unsteady, but it was passing. He pulled on the clothes that had been somewhat
cleaned for him, and found his way to the table. “What day is it?"

 

“Saturday, evening," the other
answered. “At least the way I figure. Here, eat that and get some coffee in
you." He watched until Amos began on the food, and then dropped to a stool to
begin cleaning an old rifle and loading it. “You said a lot of things. They
true?"

 

For a second, Amos hesitated. Then
he nodded, unable to lie to his benefactor. “IÅ‚m afraid so."

 

“Yeah, I figured so, somehow,
looking at you." The old man sighed. “Well, I hope you make wherever youÅ‚re
going."

 

“What about you?" Amos asked.

 

The old man sighed, running his
hands along the rifle. “I ainÅ‚t leaving my store for any bunch of aliens. And
if the Lord I been doing my duty by all my life decides to put Himself on the
wrong side, well, maybe Hełll win. But itłll be over my dead body!"

 

Nothing Amos could say would
change his mind. He sat on the front step of the store, the rifle on his lap
and the dog at his side, as Amos headed down the street in the starlight.

 

The minister felt surprisingly
better after the first half mile. Rest and food, combined with crude treatment
of his sores and blisters, had helped. But the voice inside him was driving him
harder now, and the picture of the old man seemed to lend it added strength. He
struck out at the fastest pace he could hope to maintain, leaving the town
behind and heading down the road that the old man had said led to Wesley.

 

It was just after midnight that
he saw the lights of a group of cars or trucks moving along another road. He
had no idea whether they were driven by men or aliens, but he kept steadily on.
There were sounds of traffic another time on a road that crossed the small one
he followed. But he knew now he was approaching Wesley, and speeded up his
pace.

 

When the first light came, he
made no effort to seek shelter. He stared at the land around him, stripped by
grasshoppers that could have been killed off if men had worked as hard at
ending the insects as they had at their bickerings and wars. He saw the dry,
arid land, drifting into dust, and turning a fertile country into a nightmare.
Men could put a stop to that.

 

It had been no act of God that
had caused this ruin, but manłs own follies. And without help from God, man
might set it right in time.

 

God had deserted men. But mankind
hadnłt halted. On his own, man had made a path to the moon and had unlocked the
atom. Hełd found a means, out of his raw courage, to use those bombs against
the aliens when miracles were used against him. He had done everything but
conquer himselfand he could do that, if he were given time.

 

Amos saw a truck stop at the
crossroads ahead and halted, but the driver was human. He saw the open door and
quickened his step toward it. “IÅ‚m bound for Wesley!"

 

“Sure." The driver helped him
into the seat. “IÅ‚m going back for more supplies myself. You sure look as if
you need treatment at the aid station there. I thought wełd rounded up all you
strays. Most of them came in right after we sent out the word on Clyde."

 

“YouÅ‚ve taken it?" Amos asked.

 

The other nodded wearily. “We
took it. Got ęem with a bomb, like sitting ducks, then wełve been mopping up since.
Not many aliens left."

 

They were nearing the outskirts
of Wesley, and Amos pointed to his own house. “If youÅ‚ll let me off there-"

 

“Look, I got orders to bring all
strays to the aid station," the driver began firmly. Then he swung and faced
Amos. For a second, he hesitated. Finally he nodded quietly. “Sure. Glad to
help you."

 

Amos found the water still
running. He bathed slowly. Somewhere, he felt his decision had been made,
though he was still unsure of what it was. He climbed from the tub at last, and
began dressing. There was no suit that was proper, but he found clean clothes.
His face in the mirror looked back at him, haggard and bearded, as he reached
for the razor.

 

Then he stopped as he encountered
the reflection of his eyes. A shock ran over him, and he backed away a step.
They were eyes foreign to everything in him. He had seen a shadow of what lay
in them only once, in the eyes of a great evangelist; and this was a hundred
times stronger. He tore his glance away to find himself shivering, and avoided
them all through the shaving. Oddly, though, there was a strange satisfaction
in what he had seen. He was beginning to understand why the old man had
believed him, and why the truck driver had obeyed him.

 

Most of Wesley had returned, and
there were soldiers on the streets. As he approached the church, he saw the
first-aid station, hectic with business. And a camera crew was near it, taking
shots for television of those who had managed to escape from alien territory
after the bombing.

 

A few people called to him, but
he went on until he reached the church steps. The door was still in ruins and
the bell was gone. Amos stood quietly waiting, his mind focusing slowly as he
stared at the people who were just beginning to recognize him and to spread hasty
words from mouth to mouth. Then he saw little Angela Anduccini, and motioned
for her to come to him. She hesitated briefly, before following him inside and
to the organ.

 

The little Hammond still
functioned. Amos climbed to the pulpit, hearing the old familiar creak of the
boards. He put his hands on the lectern, seeing the heavy knuckles and blue
veins of age as he opened the Bible and made ready for his Sunday-morning
congregation. He straightened his shoulders and turned to face the pews,
waiting as they came in.

 

There were only a few at first.
Then more and more came, some from old habit, some from curiosity, and many
only because they had heard that he had been captured in person, probably. The
camera crew came to the back and set up their machines, flooding him with
bright lights and adjusting their telelens. He smiled on them, nodding.

 

He knew his decision now. It had
been made in pieces and tatters. It had come from Kant, who had spent his life
looking for a basic ethical principle, and had boiled it down in his statement
that men must be treated as ends, not as means. It had been distilled from Docłs
final challenge, and the old man sitting in his doorway.

 

There could be no words with
which to give his message to those who waited. No orator had ever possessed
such a command of language. But men with rude speech and limited use of what
they had had fired the world before. Moses had come down from a mountain with a
face that shone, and had overcome the objections of a stiff-necked people.
Peter the Hermit had preached a thankless crusade to all of Europe, without
radio or television. It was more than words or voice.

 

He looked down at them when the
church was filled and the organ hushed.

 

“My text for today," he
announced, and the murmurs below him hushed as his voice reached out to the
pews. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make men free!"

 

He stopped for a moment, studying
them, feeling the decision in his mind, and knowing he could make no other. The
need of him lay here, among those he had always tried to serve while believing
he was serving God through them. He was facing them as an end, not as a means,
and he found it good.

 

Nor could he lie to them now, and
deceive them with false hopes. They would need all the facts if they were to
make an end to their bickerings and to unite themselves in the final struggle
for the fullness of their potential glory.

 

“I have come back from captivity
among the aliens," he began. “I have seen the hordes who have no desire but to
erase the memory of man from the dust of the earth that bore him. I have stood
at the altar of their God. I have heard the voice of God proclaim that He is
also our God, and that He has cast us out. I have believed Him, as I believe
Him now."

 

He felt the strange, intangible
something that was greater than words or oratory flow out of him, as it had
never flowed in his envied younger days. He watched the shock and the doubt
arise and disappear slowly as he went on, giving them the story and the honest
doubts he still had. He could never know many things, or even whether the God
worshipped on the altar was wholly the same God who had been in the hearts of
men for a hundred generations. No man could understand enough. They were
entitled to all his doubts, as well as to all that he knew.

 

He paused at last, in the utter
stillness of the chapel. He straightened and smiled down at them, drawing the
smile out of some reserve that had lain dormant since he had first tasted
inspiration as a boy. He saw a few smiles answer him, and then moreuncertain,
doubtful smiles that grew more sure as they spread.

 

“God has ended the ancient
covenants and declared Himself an enemy of all mankind," Amos said, and the
chapel seemed to roll with his voice. “I say this to you: He has found a worthy
opponent."

 

<<Contents>>

 

* * * *

 

To
Here and the Easel

 

By
THEODORE STURGEON

 

 

Up
here in the salt mine IÅ‚ve got a log jam to break.

 

And that about expresses the
whole thing. I mix pigments like I mix metaphors; so why not? Whołs a writer?

 

Trouble is, maybe IÅ‚m not a
painter. I was a painter, I will be a painter, but IÅ‚m not a painter just now. “Jam
every other day," as Alice was told in Wonderland, as through a glass darkly; “Jam
yesterday and jam tomorrow, but never jam today." I know what IÅ‚ll do, IÅ‚ll
paint for calendars; isnłt this the ę54 boom for the 44 bust? Iłll skip the art
and do handsprings eternal on the human breast.

 

So quickly: grab the brush, sling
the oils; en garde! easel; youłre nothing but a square white window to
me; Iłll throw a wad of paint through you sołs we can all take a good long
look inside. IÅ‚ll start just here with the magenta, or maybe over here,
and-

 

And nothing.

 

So down I go on the chair, I look
at the canvas, it looks back at me, and wełre right where we started. Didnłt
start.

 

Up here in the salt mine, as I
began to say, IÅ‚ve got a log jam to break. The salt mine is my studio, studio
being a name for a furnished room with a palette in it. The log jam is in my
head. Why is it I canÅ‚t work just because my brains are tied in a knot7 “Giles,"
the maestro, the old horseÅ‚s tail of a maestro used to say to me, “Giles, donÅ‚t
paint with your brains. Paint with your glands," he used to say, “your blood.
Sweat is a pigment. Dip your brush in-"

 

Shucks, Maestro! Get me a job in
a sign shop. IÅ‚ll sell everything else. Ad in the paper: for sale cheap, one
set sable-tipped vesicles. One heart: ventricle, sinister; auricle, Delphic.
Nine yards plumbing with hot and cold running commentaries, and a bucket of
used carmine, suitable for a road-company Bizet-body.

 

Was a painter, will be a painter,
ainłt a painter. Make a song of that, Giles, and you can die crazy yelling it
like Ravel chanting the Bolero. Ravel, unravel. Gilesłs last chants.

 

Ainłt a painta, ainłt a painta,
ainłt a painta pow! Ainłt a painta, ainłt a painta, ainłt a painta
now!

 

You better shut up, Giles, youłre
going to have another one of those dreams.

 

Well, Iłll have it anyway, wonłt
I? . . . the dreams, thatłs whatłs the matter with me. My glands I got, but my
brains, they keep running off with me, glands and all. No not running off; more
like a jail. I used to be a something, but IÅ‚m locked up in my own brains till
IÅ‚m a nothing. All I have to do is figure a way out.

 

Or maybe somebodyłll come and let
me out. Boy, what I wouldnłt do for somebody whołd come let me out. Anything.
The way I see it, the other guy, the one in the dream, hełs locked up too. I
should figure a way out for him. So maybe hełll get on the ball and figure a
way out for me. He was a knight in shining armor, he will be a knight in
shining armor, but he ainłt nothing but a nothing now. There shall be no
knight. He got a prison turns night into eternal afternoon, with dancing girls
yet.

 

I should get him out of a spot
like that? Whatłs the matter with a castle on a mountain with dancing girls?

 

On the other hand a knight who
was a knight and who wants to be a knight is just a nothing, for all his
dancing girls, if you lock him up in a magic castle on a magic mountain. I
wonder if his brains are working str

 

* * * *

 

aight
because mine are sore churned. Aiee! and here the echoes roll about
amongst the vaults and groinings of this enchanted place. No sword have I, no
shield, no horse, nor amulet. He has at least the things he daubs with, ęprisoned
with him. And yet if he would paint, and cannot, is he not disarmed? Ay, ay . .
. aiee! we twain are bound, and each of us enchanted; bound together,
too, in some strange way, and bound nowhere. And whose the hardest lot? He has
a brush; I have no sword, and so it seems his prisoning is less. Yet I may call
my jailer by a name, and see a face, and know the hands which hold the iron
key. But he, the ęprisoned painter, languishes inside himself, his scalp his
fetters and his skull his cell. And whołs to name his turnkey?

 

Mine I can name; he comes now,
soft leather awhisper on marble, his very stride abhorrent magic, the pressures
of the unalive against the never-living. Atlantes, hated Atlantes, of the soft
eyes and stone mouth, Atlantes who, controlling me, would alter fate itself.

 

“Rogero, is all well with thee?
Such a cry . . . like a great wind tearing the rocks." (His beard is full, he
is too wise, he has no soul.)

 

“Ay, all is well!" I tell him
scornfully. “Would I were such a wind, to tear and be torn on the rocks, and
gladly, under the open sky; and never again to know a slow death of silks and
sweets and boredom, the like of this . . . give me my sword."

 

“Ay, I will. And an enchanted
shield to blind thine enemies, and a steed to master earth and air; this castle
to shelter thee and all in it for thine own, and my powers for thy
convenienceand all for a word."

 

Atlantes is tall; yet, rising, I
may make him lift his beard to face me. Going to him, thunder-furious, I may
come close, yet unlike other men he will not flinch. I may not strike him, nor
anyone here nor any thing, so cautiously is he bemagicked. “For a word!" My
voice stirs the hangings and sets the great stone halls athrum. “You call my
faith a word, my fealty, my every drop of blood and all my days. I will never
be your knight, Atlantes."

 

And of all things, I hate his
smile. “Thee will, Rogero, unless thy choice is to languish here forever
instead. My plans for thee are better ones than fate dictated," he says, and
laughs at me. His voice booms inside my skull as my voice boomed a moment ago
within the castle. “This is thy destiny, knight: that a maiden shall free thee,
and that through her thou shalt embrace a new faith of sobriety and humility,
and spend thy days accursed with earthbound slowness like a tortoise, dressed
like a wren-hen; swordless and somber and chained."

 

I think about this, and look at
the carvings, the silks, the aromatic mounds of fabulous fruits. At last, “Maiden?"
I ask.

 

“Just the one for such
adventures," he says laughing again, for he has trapped me into responding. “And
a just return for thy kind of stubbornness. She shall hold her faith a greater
thing than thy flesh; she shall prefer to walk like a peasant rather than be
borne like a gentlewoman; she shall scorn satin and lace and cover herself like
a winterbound tree earth-hued and hard-barked. And worst of all, she shall have
more brains than thee."

 

“Surely you speak of some
afterlife, some penance for a great sin!"

 

“Na, lad! Thine afterlife is in
other hands than mine. ęTis all thy destiny, lad. Thou mayłst not take whatever
part of it that pleases thee, and cut the rest to fit thy fancy. The maid will
not come here; but should she come here she shall not free thee; but should she
free thee, thou wilt indeed finish thy life like a clip-winged hawk, hobbling
about amongst the sweating serfs and calling them thine equals."

 

He reasons right; and fury from
inside me pounds my hair-roots. And as the anger mounts, my mindłs aswirl
again; I seem to be here in this hall with the wizard, yet there, in the dream,
in that dusty box of poverty and miracles inhabited by the painter who may not
paint. I fight against it, even clinging to this hated hall, holding to the
familiar enchantments like Atlantesł hippogriff and unbearable shield, his
castle set in everlasting afternoon, and the silent and invisible chains by
which he holds me; these, to me, are real, for all they are magic, and not
beyond understanding like the painterłs chamber with its window overlooking
swift horseless chariots, its squat black demon-sculpture which first shrills,
then speaks with the voices of people outside the room; its music box no bigger
than my two fists, with the glowing golden eye and the sound, sometimes, of a
hundred musicians; and all the marvels which are part of his poverty. Again I
am he, myself, and he again one, the other, then both, then neither, and again
my brains churn in transition. My mouth holds the aftertaste of grapes and
mead, then the blue smoke he sucks constantly from his little glowing white
sticks; I taste one, the other, both, neither.

 

I turn from Atlantes and his
hated smile and throw myself across the yielding mound of silks and furs. And
far away I hear the golden clarion of a bell, the great gong of the castlełs
magic gate. I hear Atlantesł odd gasp, half surprise, half pleasure; I hear his
soft feet on the hard marble. Who comes, who comes a-ringing, challenging, and
unwantedand unafraid of this castle and its many devils? If I am the knight,
Rogero, I will watch from the window; if I am Giles, the painter, and I think I
am, I will let the goddam doorbell ring. Whoever heard of a doorbell in a magic
castle? What magic castle?

 

Herełs a dirty bed, and there a
dirty window, and over yonder the cleanest canvas yet; now wait, waitGiles is
my name, paint is my trade, if I was a knight, IÅ‚d have me a blade. Give me
my sword!

 

What sword? Will you for Godłs
sake get away from that doorbell so I can hear myself think? I almost had it
then, that business about the knight, whoever he isor is he me?and his
magic mountain, or is that really a furnished room? Ah, shaddap with
that doorbell already!

 

“Whaddayewant?"

 

All it does, it rings.

 

“Who is it?"

 

Ring, ring.

 

All right, you asked for it, IÅ‚m
going to snatch that door open, IÅ‚m going to haul off, no questions asked, and
punch the nose thatłs ringing my doorbell. Twist the knob, snatch the door,
knock the ringer, to the floor. Blam, a dead ringer.

 

So sometimes a tenth of a second
is as long as a paragraph or your arm. The door is open and IÅ‚m standing still
and tight like a kid looking through a knothole, being with and of the ball
game but standing quiet, watching. I watch my hand fly through the door, making
a fist on the way, I watch it reach her cheekbone and curl and compact there,
pudgy and hard. Back she goes, not falling but standing straight, across the
narrow lighted hall and against the wall, wump-thump! She is a little
brown thing with hair unwonderful, beautiful lashes opening now to make her
eyes round and glazed, and thatÅ‚s about all there is to her. “Mmmmmm," she
says, and slowly slides down the wall to sit, slowly bends her head to one
side, the hair ahang like a broken wing. “Well I told you to get away, ringing
that bell!" “Mmmm," she breathes.

 

So I scoop her up, and up she
comes, light as a leg oł lamb and common as cabbage, and I kick the door closed
and I throw her on the dirty bed, akimbo-crumpled and immodest as a dropped
doll, and who cares?not the artist, whołs seen better and wastes no time on
the likes of this; not the man, for he is, as the saying goes, not quite
himself just now. Herełs a dry paint rag to be wet at the sink and wrung out,
and pressed against the smooth beige-brown brow over the smooth lids with the ętender
row of feathers over the seal . . . lashes, I will admit, lashes she has. She
has damn-all else but my God! those lashes.

 

And the rag, coming away, leaves
a stain on the brow, verdigris. One can pretend she is a brazen head, skinned
with old silk, and the bronze staining through. But only until her eyes open;
then there is no pretense, but only a dowdy girl on my bed, a pallor ępon my
unpalatable pallet. She gazes past the green-brown stain and the anger of her
brutalized cheek, and she has no fear, but a sadness. “Still nothing?" she
murmurs, and I turn and look with her, and itłs my empty canvas she is sad for
and “Still nothing," half whispering about.

 

“I am going to punch your face
again." It is a faithful promise.

 

“All right, if you will paint."

 

“IÅ‚ll paint or not, whatever I
feel like," I am saying in a way that makes my throat hurt. Such a noise it
makes, a Day-Glo fluorescent dazzle of a noise. “Giles is my name and paint is
my trade, and you keep your nose out of it. Your nose," I say, “looks like a
piece of inner tube and you got no more side-silhouette than a Coca-Cola
bottle. What you want to be ringing my doorbell for?"

 

“Can I sit up?"

 

By which I discover I am hanging
over her close, popping and spitting as I bellow and peal. “Get up, get out!" I
touch my neck and the scarlet swelling of an artery there, I spin to the easel
to strike it but cannot touch it, so go on to the wall and drive my fist
against it. It is better than a cheekbone which hardly leaves a mark.

 

“Oh please, donÅ‚t hurt yourself.
Donłt," she says, her voice high and soft-textured around the edges, like light
through a hole in worn velvet, “donÅ‚t!" all pitying, all caring, “donÅ‚t be
angry . . ."

 

“Angry I am not," I say, and hit
the wall again, “angry; IÅ‚m a devil and dangerous to boot, so donÅ‚t boot me.
You," I say, pointing at her, and there is blood on my hand, “are a
draggletail; bad lines, wrong tone, foreground distracting" (that would be my
easel)"background unappetizing." (That would be my bed). “The whole thingÅ‚s
not composed, itłsitłs decomposed. Wherełd you get that awful dress?"

 

She plucks at it, looks at her
hand plucking, makes a faint brief frown, trying to remember. She canłt
remember, and she is not afraid, she is only trying to answer my question.

 

“Well donÅ‚t bother; I donÅ‚t care
where you got the dress. What do you want?"

 

Up come the lashes. “I want you
to paint again."

 

“Why?"

 

“DonÅ‚t, donÅ‚t," she whispers. “YouÅ‚ll
hurt your throat. I know everything youłve painted. Youłre getting good; youłre
getting great. But you donłt paint any more."

 

“I asked you why; you didnÅ‚t say
why, you just said what happened." She looks at me, still not afraid, still
puzzled. This girl, I think, is not only homely, she is stupid. “I asked you
whywhy? What do you care?"

 

“But I told you!" she cries. “You
were going to be great, and you stopped. Isnłt that enough?"

 

“No, not for people. People donÅ‚t
want things like that, greatness, goodness." I begin to be more angry at people
than angry at myself. Much better, Gilesmuch better. “People want their
work done easily. People want kisses and to feel important. People want to be
amused and to be excited safely. People want money. Do you want money? Herełs a
quarter. Herełs forty cents, even. Get out of here, people."

 

“I donÅ‚t want money. I just want
you to paint again."

 

“Why?"

 

Down go the lashes, away goes the
voice like a distant wind. “I saw them clustered around your Spanish picture,
Candlelight Malagatwo young people, holding hands very hard, very quiet;
and an old man, smiling; and there was a little boy tugging at a womanłs
sleeve: ęMa? Ma?ł and when she said, ęYes, dear,ł she kept her eyes on the
picture so he cried. I saw a man come away from Garretłs, where your Smoke was
hanging, and he laughed and said to all the strangers, ęAll I have to do is
tell her: sheÅ‚ll love me, itÅ‚s right there in the picture.Å‚ “ She spreads
her square unwomanly hands to say, “ThatÅ‚s what I mean, itÅ‚s proved."

 

I donłt care about the people,
the crying child, the man who speaks to strangers, and all the rest of them. I
never painted for them, I painted forforbut it wasnłt for them. So theyłre
all intruders, and for them IÅ‚ve done enough, too much already. If what they
have taken was really in the pictures, they have robbed me. If what they took
was not there, they are fools. Must I paint for thieves and fools?

 

All this comes to me clearly, but
there is no way to say it to the girl. “ItÅ‚s for those things," she says, as if
my silence means I am agreeing with her. “So paint again."

 

“Paint, how can I paint?"

 

“Why not? WhatÅ‚s the matter?"

 

“ItÅ‚s my head:" I hold it, hard.
My elbows knock together; I speak at her, peek at her through the wedge. “IÅ‚ll
tell you because it doesnłt make any difference. Iłll tell you," I say
painfully, “because you donÅ‚t make any difference." (And oh, no, she wouldnÅ‚t
wince.) “When I painted, I was Giles, Giles yesterday and Giles today, so that
where I stopped I could start, and even find the stopping place by tomorrow.
And tomorrow IÅ‚d be Giles, and knew it so well I never thought about it. Now .
. . now IÅ‚m Giles. Before that I was somebody else, and before that I was
Giles again. And being Giles now doesnłt matter, because soon Iłll be someone
else again, and after that, Giles. You donłt understand that."

 

“No," she says. “Neither do you."

 

“Right, so right; the first right
thing youłve said, no compliments intended, whateverłs-your-name."

 

“Brandt."

 

“Brandt. Miss Brandt,
surely, there being limits beyond which the most foolish of men will not go.
Painting, Miss Brandt, is a thing having a beginning, a middle, and an end; and
the beginning is part of the end of the painting before, and the end is part of
the beginning of the next picture. I am Giles, and being Giles I suppose I
could paint; but beforean hour or a while agosay when you were ringing my
doorbell, you and your fat nerveI was somebody else. And soon my brains will
scramble and words will mean two things or three, and yonder is either a naked
canvas or a far granite wall, and under me a dirty bed or a mound of silks and
furs, and what I want will be to paint or to regain my sword; I will be Rogero
and Giles, one, the other, both neither; until suddenly Giles is gone, the
easel, the paintingno, not gone, but like a dream, not really remembered
because not really real."

 

“Let Rogero paint," says the fool
girl as if she believes me.

 

Therełs a noise like one-third of
a scream, one-half of a howl, and itÅ‚s mine. “Rogero paint? He canÅ‚t paint! He
couldnłt believe in it, couldnłt think it, wouldnłt know a tint from a T
square. Listen, you; listen to me: can you imagine me as a knight, imprisoned
on a magic mountain, surrounded by spells I not only believe inI must
because theyłre realjailed by a magician who rides a hippogriff? A hippogriff,
Miss Unimportant Q. Brandt, you hear? A shining hippogriff whose dam was a
brood mare and whose sire was a gryphona gryphon whose mother was a lion and
whose father was an eagle. This hippogriff is real, real as the spells, real as
the magic mountain, real as the knight that you, Miss Interfering W. Brandt,
canÅ‚t imagine me being." (Have I been climbing, running? I am out of breath.) “To
that knight," I say when I can, “my telephone and my radio are laughable
wonders without foundation in fact, my inability to paint is of no importance
except to give me his sympathy; he too is captured and fettered. He can do as
little with my brushes as I might do with his sword. And you, Miss Unbeautiful
Brandt, could only be the most piddling of small nastinesses intruding into his
unbelievable fantasy. Now you know; now Iłve told you. Therełs nothing you can
do, nothing you can believe, and your coming here or not coming means nothing.
If you came to help, youłve failed. If you came to fight something, youłre
beaten." 

 

There is a time for wondering,
wondering what someone will say, and this is it, and it is good. Good as
anything could be now, where that is real or this is real, never
both. For I lie under a weight and I cannot move it, and when it disappears I
am no longer myself, and it is good to defeat someone, something, even an unimportant,
unlovely girl; even when in the defeat there can be no victory for me, nor a
lessening of the weight. So I wait, wondering in which of several possible ways
she will acknowledge her defeat; and here it comes from the usual lips and the
eyes behind the unusual lashes; here:

 

“May I use your phone?"

 

Because I said she doesnłt
matter, I may not let this matter either; I step away from the phone and turn
my back, and soft footsteps pass me and soft fingers take up the hard phone;
therełs a chorus of clicks, composed in syncopes, seven measures long. And a
ring, and a ring.

 

What portals open to this ladyłs
ringing, this Brandt for the burning? What dilates to this dialling, this braw,
bricht, moonlicht nictitation? My God, my God, here it comes again, the words
like lyings in their layers, and I am he, and he iseither or, both, neither.
Of these, “or" is king; I wear a coat dÅ‚or, that dry, exclusive little word.
For we are desiccated to the preposition that all men are created sequels. The “or"
is golden but my heart has been read, my mind has been lead; read, lead; just
the color of Floradora orange-youth.

 

“Hello," says the telephone
tinily because it can speak two syllables without moving its open mouth; “Giles,"
says Miss Brandt, “just Giles," and the telephone laughs and says, “Okay."

 

Soft footsteps on the wooden, or
is it marble floor, and the ring has been answered with a shout of laughter;
and soft-footed, swift, Atlantes strides to the casement and the curtains of
cloud leave the court, the mist melts away from the meadow below, the great
golden gate is agleam in the sun, and gone is the gloaming. “Rogero!" he cries
(but am I not Giles, imprisoned in a dream, who says he is where a felon needs
a friend? Aiee! Sharper than a serpentÅ‚s truth is an ungrateful Giles!) “Rogero,
come and see thy destiny!" and in Atlantesł laugh lies such a triumph, such a
scorn, I can only come and see. I go to stand beside him.

 

To either hand are buttresses of
weather-hammered stele; before me the castellated wall like a cliff, like a sea
becalmed and stood on edge, falls to the courtyard. Away and down and away
rolls the magic meadow to its lower margin, mighty walls patrolled by poisoned
gnomes. And when I see the gate I am myself again; Rogero, ęprisoned knight,
hungering for that craggy path beyond the gate.

 

“Thy destiny, knightyou see it?"

 

I look again; and there like a
mole under a monument is a small brown person, dun and dowdy. In one hand is a
crooked staff little changed from its soil-sprung origins, and it is this which
now again strikes the golden bell and sends its clang and hum to shake the
shining air. “My destiny?"

 

He laughs again; there is battle
in such laughter. “Look again!" With thumb and finger he makes a circle, and
thrusts the hand before my face, and through that circle I see the gate but
not from the mountaintop, but as if I stood but twenty paces away. And though
his magic is despicable to me, I yet must look.

 

Silently, for a long time I gaze.
At last I say, “Of all you have told me of my destiny, magician, I see but one
thing to bear you out, and that is, that yonder mudball is a maiden, for it is
unthinkable that such a one could be anything else. As to the rest, it is not
possible that fate should have stored for me anything so . . . unadorned."

 

“Ah, then thee need only swear
fealty to me, and we will squash this beetle together." The bell rings again. “If
not, I must do it myself, and keep thee bound as thou art. But one or the other
must be done, for that rude clanging is indeed the voice of thy fate, and that
barefoot damsel has come as fate dictates, to challenge me and set thee free."

 

“She challenges you!"

 

“Ay, lad, with nothing but that
crooked staff and the homespun cassock beneath which she generously hides her
uninteresting limbs. Oh, and a piddling faith in some unimportant system of
gods."

 

“The staff is enchanted, then."

 

“No."

 

“SheÅ‚s mad!"

 

“She is." He laughs. “So tell me,
good fool: wouldst go to her and spend thy days with her, swordless, horseless,
tending the plaguey brats of peasants and slaves? Or wouldst thou ride with me
and turn her into a damp spot on the meadow, and after, own the earth?"

 

“IÅ‚ll choose, wizard, but a
choice of mine own devising. IÅ‚ll not go to her nor ride with you. I shall stay
here and watch thy bravery and thine historic victory over that little brown
she-monk, with her dried tree-branch arrayed against nothing but thy magic
steed, thy mighty armaments, and thine army of gnomes. And when she is
vanquished-"

 

“Thee would see her vanquished?"
he mocks. “Thy last chance to be free? Thy destiny contains no other savior."

 

“When she is vanquished, come
back to me that may spit in thy face and tell thee that of my three possible
hells, I choose the one which can give thee no pleasure."

 

He shrugs and turns away from me.
At the door he gives me his evil smile. “I knew that one day theeÅ‚d call me Ä™thou,Å‚
Rogero."

 

I snatch up a heavy censer and
hurl it. With a crash it stops in mid-air before him and, broken, falls at his
feet. His smile is a laugh now. “Be certain, wizard, that I use not the Ä™thouÅ‚
of an intimate, but that of an animal," I roar, and he laughs again; and surely
one day, when I find a way, I shall kill this clever creature. I go to the
casement.

 

Far below, I can still see the
gate and the shining wall. The gnomes file away and down out of sight; and
there, one fragile hand on the golden bars, the other holding the staff, the
girl clings peering. Her courage is too foolhardy to be admired and her
strength too small to be considered at all; surely Atlantes need only laugh
once (that thunder of evil) or raise his brows, to shrivel up this audacious
sparrow.

 

There on the brow of the flying
buttress stands Atlantes, the wind whipping his figured mantle, the sun all
startled by his jewels.

 

He raises a hand and turns it,
and the gate, so far below, so far away, stands open. Nothing as massive as
those golden bars should move so swiftly and noiselessly; the tiny figure at
the entrance nearly falls. The girl stands in emptiness, the gate looming about
her, the rocky hill behind her, and high and massive over her, Atlantesł castle
crowned by the glittering magician himself. She is very small and very alone as
she begins to mount the slope.

 

Atlantes, laughing, claps his
hands twice-

 

And from a copse in the meadow
comes a thunder of wings, and a glory. There with an eaglełs cruel head and the
foreclaws of the mightiest of lions; with the splendid haunches of a stallion
and golden hoovesthere rises, there floats, there hurtles the hippogriff. His
cry ripples the grass; it is a clarion, a roar, and a scream, and through it
and through it is a thing which makes my heart melt as never a woman could do,
and mine eyes are scalded with pity and fellowship. For he, even he, the
hippogriff is enthralled; and with all his soul he hates his master!

 

I am glad there is no one by, for
I weep like a child. I am a knight, and I know my merits; yet everything
splendid is behind me. My shackles may not be broken, and my very destiny is
without beauty. Yet here before me is beauty crystallized, shaking the world
with its piteous, powerful protest . . . crystallized? Nay, alive, alive as a
man could never be. See the sun on his golden plumes, oh see his purple flanks
... he is more than I can bear to look on, to think on ... I shall have him,
mount him!

 

But if he sees me, knows my
heart, I know not, for he sweeps past and hovers, and the top of the buttress
takes him like a cupped palm. From the parapet Atlantes takes a curious shield,
with its cover of soft bat skins cleverly pieced. He buckles it to the
hippogriffłs harness, then with a hand on the parapet and a hand on the shield,
he climbs to the great beastłs back; and oh! I am proud that the steed kneels
not for him.

 

Atlantes leans forward and
speaks, and what his word is I may not hear, but the animalłs sweet, strong
pinions spread and flick the stone but once, and skyward they ride.

 

In a great circle the hippogriff
wheels, with Atlantes leaning from the saddle. His piercing eyes, and all his
magic to aid him, must discover any invisible armament she might have; and she
must have none, for I hear his distant laughter as he leans over his steedłs
neck to speak another secret command. The wings go up together and hold like a
great wedge, and down they drop just to the height of her head, and with a
single thrust and the sound of soft thunder, their speed is checked and they
are meadow-borne. Fifty paces away, the girl drops her staff and waits,
weaponless.

 

Tiny and evil, Atlantesł mirth
comes to me on the wind. He swings down from the beastłs broad back, unbuckles
his shield, and with a deft twist casts off its cover.

 

Now, he stands between me and the
girl so that the shield faces away from me. Were it any other way, I should
have seen nothing; this I knew when I saw the blaze of light which fanned out
and down; when I saw birds swing and flutter and fall, and a stag turn away and
blunder into a tree trunk. I had heard of this shield, but until now I had not
seen it. In unspeakable ways, its gilded surface had been polished until it
struck blind any who saw it. This, then, and the hippogriff, are what Atlantes
brings to bear against one girlłs fragile madness. Ah, a mighty magician he,
and confident.

 

Beaten and dazzled, she stands
frozen, waiting forno, not mercy; she cannot expect that. Waiting, then, for
him.

 

The work of the shield is done.
He covers it and confidently he strides down the slope to her. If he speaks, I
cannot hear; I doubt he does, for he knows I am watching, and he will want me
to understand. He stoops to pick up the useless staff she has dropped, and
thrusts it into her hand; he takes her by the shoulders and turns her about to
face the gate; he steps back, then throws up his shaggy head and bellows with
laughter. Such dismissal of the blind thing might have been predicted; instant
death would have been, for him, too gentle a thing. And so he stands, laughing,
impregnable even to such strength as mine, with the invisible wall his spells
have built about him; cruel and victoriousah, a mighty magician indeed!

 

So, defeated, she moves toward
the door . . . door? the gate of gold . . . but no, it is not longer a meadow,
but a room where I keep my easel and my . . . and now I see them both, the room
and the meadow, as if one were painted upon glass and through it I saw the
other; and which? which the painting? Aiee! my brains are mixed and
muddled again, I am one, the other, both, neither. I see a curtain of sky with
mountains for its ragged hem ... a dirty wall, with one small bright spatter of
my blood where I struck it, and the dazed dun maiden raising her staff, which
is a small blue book with gold letters on it. “But youÅ‚re blind!"

 

Miss Brandt has a twisted smile.
Her teeth are no better and no worse than the rest of her, and not to be compared
with her lashes. “IÅ‚ve been told that before, but I donÅ‚t think I am. This is
for youhere!" and she gives me the book.

 

Before or behind my eyes therełs
a flash, too bright; I think itłs a hippogriff. Up here in the salt mines I
stand and shiver until the crazy thing passes; I open my eyes slowly and
secretively so that I can snatch a reality and make it real. And Miss Brandt is
here (or still here, I forget which) and the meadow and the hippogriff become a
memory again (or maybe a dream.)

 

“Are you all right?" Her voice
and her hand touch me together.

 

“Stay away from me! IÅ‚m crazy,
donÅ‚t you know that?" (Her lashes are up.) “You better get out of here. IÅ‚m
liable to do practically anything. Look, youłre already getting a black eye." Iłm
yelling again. “ArenÅ‚t you afraid? Damn you, be afraid!"

 

“No."

 

Itłs a very puzzling thing, the
way she should be dressed like a monk, and be holding a crooked stick; but that
was a small blue bookthatłs right. Iłm shaking my head, or is it a shudder;
the girl and the wall and the door blur by me and my teeth are side-sliding,
making a switch-frog sound. It can be halted by holding the heels of the hands
on the halves of the head very hard . . . and slowly saliva is swallowed . . .
libation, libration, liberation, and quiet at last. In that moment of
stillness, when at last I am here altogether, I know that my . . .
dream, the Rogero thing, whatever it is . . . takes no time at all. For she was
at the phone when it began, that last time, and all those things had happened
to Rogero while she hung up and took two steps behind me . . . yes, and I heard
the steps. So when I become Rogero again, no matter what happens here, how many
hours it takes, I shall see Atlantes and the vanquished maid, down and away
below, and she fumbling the dry rough stick, blind, defeated destiny of mine.

 

So open your eyes to here and the
easel and Miss Brandt who is not afraid. Hold out the hand with the book. “WhatÅ‚s
this?"

 

“Money."

 

Itłs a checkbook, sky-green and
very disciplined and trackless inside, and sturdy and blue outside. “Blank
checks."

 

“Cartes blanches," she smiles; and this is no place
for smiling. So just wait, and the smile will go away. Ah. Unsmiling, she says,
“ItÅ‚s money; all you want. Just fill in a check and sign it."

 

“YouÅ‚re crazy." But she shakes
her head gravely.

 

So: “Why bring me money?"

 

“You can do whatever you want
now."

 

“I canÅ‚t paint. Do you think you
can make me paint by giving me money?"

 

When her tongue touches her lips,
they are the same color. No one, no woman, should be like that. Such a mouth
could taste nothing, take nothing. It says, “Not if you donÅ‚t want to. But you
can do all the other things you want to doall you have ever wanted to do."

 

What else have I ever wanted to
do but paint? There must be something. Oh, there is, there is; I never had a
chance to toand then my hand is crushing the book, the book of excellent
quality which yields only slightly and, when my hand opens, is bland again. “ItÅ‚s
just paper."

 

“ItÅ‚s money. DonÅ‚t you believe
me? Come with me. Come to the bank. Write out a check and see."

 

“Money. How much money?"

 

Again: “All you want." She is so
very certain.

 

“What for?"

 

“Whatever you like. Anything."

 

“I didnÅ‚t mean that." Things are
becoming real as real now. “When you take money you give something; you always
give something, a painting or a promise or-"

 

Her head turns briefly, a little,
right, left, right, her eyes steady on me, so sliding between the lashes. “Not
this money."

 

“Why are you giving me money?"
(You know, Giles, youÅ‚re frightened?) “What I can do for money mostly is paint.
But not now. Not now."

 

“You donÅ‚t have to paint. Not
unless you want to, and then not for me. Giles, maybe you canłt paint because
you want to do other things. Well, do them. Do them all; finish them
until theyłre all done and therełs only one thing left. Maybe then you can work
again."

 

“Then the moneyÅ‚s for painting!"

 

Oh, she is so patient; oh, how I
hate anyone as patient as that. “No. ItÅ‚s just for you. Do whatever you want. I
donłt want the money and I donłt ever want it back. It isnłt mine to begin
with, so why should I care about it?"

 

“But youÅ‚d care if I didnÅ‚t paint
again."

 

The fringes fall, the lashes hide
the ordinary eyes. “I care about that now. IÅ‚ll always care." And now she has the
door open. “Come to the bank. Come get your money. Then youÅ‚ll believe me."

 

“The bank, yes, and then what? Go
with you, I suppose, and youłll tell me what to buy and where to go and how to-"

 

“ItÅ‚s yours to do as you please.
Now will you come? IÅ‚ll leave you at the bank if you like."

 

“I like."

 

But no, this doesnłt hurt her,
and no, she is not angry; therełs only one thing that touches her, and that one
thing reaches through the closed door as we walk in the corridor, stretches
down the stairs and past the lintels and the newels and the curbs and cabs and
garbage all the way down to the bank; and that one thing is my white, clean,
blind square eye of canvas.

 

I wonder if she knows; I wonder.
Wondering under the polyglot columns corralling the bank (Doric they are, with
Corinthian capitals, yes but the door is not Doric but arched and Byzantine,
closed with a fanlight. IÅ‚d say from Virginia). “I wonder if you know."

 

“If I know what?" she says, still
patient.

 

“Why I canÅ‚t paint."

 

“Oh yes," she says, “I know."

 

“Well I donÅ‚t, Miss Brandt. I
really donłt."

 

“ItÅ‚s because you donÅ‚t know why
you can paint," she says, and her eyes are no longer patient, but
waiting. It is very different.

 

And when I shake my head (because
that is no answer) her eyes are patient again. “Come," she says; and in we go
from the portico, and wouldnłt you know the ceiling is red with ropes of gilded
plaster draped in altogether Moorish squares.

 

And here in a low wall made of
glazed marble, and flat-topped with marbleized glass, is a little black gate
that swings both ways. On the other side is a polished desk and a polished pate
bearing polished glasses: “Mr. Saffron," says Miss Brandt; “Mr. Saffron" says
the chock-shaped sign on his desk, gold on black.

 

Mr. Saffronłs glittering glasses
tilt up; then straight and slowly he rises, like the Lady of the Lake. When he
stands, his glasses lose some high lights, and I can see his eyes. They are
blue and shinynot polished, but wet; turned to Miss Brandt they are so round
they go pale; turned to me they are slits gone all dark, with a little eave of
pink flesh all the way across over both of them. And here is a man who is
astonished by Miss Brandt and repelled by me; what a wonderful way he has of
showing it, over and over again: round-pale, slit-dark, the whole time.

 

“This is Giles."

 

Mr. Saffron gives his slits to my
brush-wipe khaki pants, and to my yellow shirt with russet cuffs which is
really the top of my ski-pajamas, and to my face. “YouÅ‚re quite sure, Miss
Brandt?"

 

“Of course!"

 

“If you say so," says Mr.
Saffron, and sits. “WeÅ‚re quite ready. Will you sign this, Mr. Ahhh?" I hear a
drawer move but I am sure he pulls the white card from his spotless stomach.
With the shiny pen from his desk-set I write Giles.

 

“First name?" says Mr. Saffron to
the card, another shiny pen in hand.

 

“Yes."

 

“Last name?"

 

“Yes," I say again; and up come
the glasses. “ThatÅ‚s his name, just Giles," Miss Brandt says quickly. And then
she recites my address. Mr. Saffron writes it, putting no more of his boiled-veal
fingers on the card than he has to.

 

Miss Brandt says, “You want to
cash a check now?"

 

“Oh sure." I fumble around and
get the book. Miss Brandt comes close with a finger. “You write the date there,
and the-" But I just sit there looking up at her until she goes away. Whatłs
the matter, does she think I donłt know how to write a check? I write the
check.

 

Mr. Saffron takes the check by
its two ends and it flips softly like a little trampolin. He turns it over with
a brittle snap and does a squiggle with his pen. “Sixty-eight dollars. All
right, the cashier will give you your money." From his drawer he takes a
yellow, ruled pad and curls down over it as if there were sudden fire in his
watch pocket. Out we go through the little black gate, and when I look back he
is not busy with his paper at all, but staring after us the round-pale way.

 

“Is that all you wantsixty-eight
dollars?"

 

I look at her. “What would I do
with more than sixty-eight dollars?"

 

Patient, patient she says, “Anything,
Giles. Anything."

 

So we go to a cage and a fierce
face says in a sweet voice, “How do you want it?"

 

“Cash."

 

“Any way at all," says Miss
Brandt.

 

So he gives me the money and we
go to a marble table in the middle of the bank while I look at it. Miss Brandt
says, “Is that right?"

 

“What?"

 

“Is it all there? WerenÅ‚t you
counting it?"

 

“Oh no. I was just looking at it.
It really is real money."

 

“I told you."

 

“Is there more?"

 

Again she says, “All you want."

 

“Okay, good. Well, Miss Brandt,
you can stay here or go do whatever you want."

 

“All right."

 

I walk away and when I get to the
big door with the fanlight I look back. Miss Brandt is standing there by the
table, not exactly looking my way. I come walking back. I have a feeling inside
that makes the base of my nose hurt. I stop by her and look at her while I wet
my lips. She has a real sunset of a shiner by now but the lashes are all right.
So I tell her, “You just donÅ‚t care what happens to me now."

 

“You know I do."

 

“Well, why didnÅ‚t you try to stop
me if you cared so much?"

 

She says, “YouÅ‚re not going to do
anything important just now."

 

“With all this money? How do you
know?"

 

She doesnłt say.

 

“I guess you want me to come
running back to you so you can take care of me."

 

“No, Giles, truly," she says in
that absolutely certain way. “You donÅ‚t understand. IÅ‚m not important. IÅ‚m not
trying to be important. I just donłt matter in any of this."

 

“Not to me." Why does she make me
so mad anyway? “So what is important?"

 

“Why you could paint. Why you canÅ‚t
paint. Thatłs all."

 

“Well, the hell with that for
now. Wellmaybe IÅ‚ll see you around."

 

She sort of shrugs. I just go.
Maybe I want to turn around but I donłt. Therełs something in my head about how
do I get in touch with her if I should want to, but the hell with that too.

 

By all the paint pots of
perdition, nobodyłs ever going to make Giles admit hełs a part of the works,
like she does. People like her, all they do is go around believing in something
and trying to trap other people into believing it too. “I just donÅ‚t matter in
any of this." What kind of a way to get along is that, the silly bitch?

 

I get out of line of the bank
door and then go across the street and stand in a low areaway where I can watch
her when she comes out. From now on by God my business is my business.
Who does she think shełs brushing off?

 

Itłs getting chilly out, but who
cares? IÅ‚ve got lots of time. Lots of money. Lots of patience. Miss Brandt,
now, shełs really got patience. On the other hand, all Godłs chillun got
patience. Will you look at that bank, now; those big fat pillars are doing just
what? Holding up a pseudo-Parthenonic frieze, thatłs what. Thatłs really
patience. Year in, year out they stand there holding it up and nobody knows itłs
there but the starlings. Patiencelook at the work that went into carving all
those figures, that fat, baggy nude in the middle clear down to the chow dogs
or lions or whatever they are at the ends. Stiacciato, they call that
work, the lowest form of relief, and that fat one in the center, she sure would
be. So they in turn are patient, the hodgepodge of Hermes and Demeters and
blind Justices, holding still for the starlings. And when itłs cold the
starlings freeze on the marble stool, and when itłs warm they stool on the
marble frieze, and the meek shall inhibit the earth.

 

Oh holy Pete whatłs happening to
my head . . . listen, Giles, hold on to this area rail and keep your wall eyes
on that bank and donłt go off into no magic mountains. Watch that clock over
the door. Watch it? I can hear it! Well listen to it then and keep your
head in the here and now and donłt let yourself go splitting the definitive.
That, now, is a sick clock, it must be three hours slow, and listen to it moan.
Oh I know a bank where the wild time groans . . . Hang on, Giles boy; think of
something else, like San Francisco where the second-story men from across the
Bay are called berkelers, and the Golden G no! Think of the statue down the
block, the Mayorłs father on a horse, thatłs in the papers every other day
should they move it or not . . . My fatherłs horse has many mentions . . . and
in the bank, now, Miss Brandt is leaving, see the gate is open and agleam in
the sun as she stumbles on stones; it is as if Atlantesł mirth alone were
bending her down to be crushed like a tree in a thunder-wind. And across the
streetbut meadow, meadowłs the wordthe blue-black helmets of the beastly
gnomes show as they watch this . . .could it be called a challenge? Ay; but a
battle, no; only a defeat.

 

All this in a flash of stern
anger, and thenyea, she is sinking, twisting about as if to fall at his feet .
. . then up she comes in a whirl, her crude staff invisible, lost in speed, and
with a whipłs crack, the staff . . . Aiee!

 

For a moment I cling to the
casement, scrabbling like a cat half-fallen from a wall; in that incredible
moment I have leaned forward to shout and have all but pitched out through the
window; and what of my destiny then?

 

Back at last and looking outward:

 

And the gate is lead, and
shrunken, and the gnomes but a herd of goats; I stand not on a mighty parapet,
but on the roof of a byre. Gone are the swan pools, the great gray halls, the
soft-footed dancers and the grape-girls. Atlantes, mighty Atlantes, lies on his
back with his eyes glazed and the bright blood flowing from his broken head . .
. lying, aiee! like a goatherd after a bottle-fight on market day. And
his steed but horror itself! has she then turned the hippogriff into a milch
cow? May the mandrake curdle her bowels if shełs harmed my hippogriff!

 

Ah but no; there he stands, the
blazing beauty, and throws back his eaglełs head, and hurls his joy away to the
farthest mountains. I mingle my shout with his, leap free of the wall, and run
and tumble down the meadow.

 

In a transport I stretch myself
against the unenchanted grass, and twist and turn in it until I can smell its
sweet green ichor; and in just such a turning mine eyes fall upon her who
stands meekly by, her two hands folded about the piece of her broken staff, her
eyes downcastbut not so far they see me not.

 

“But Ä™tis thee, my warrior-maid!"
I roar. “Here to me lass, and IÅ‚ll buss thee well for thy trouble!"

 

But she stands where she is, so I
must go to her. That at least I can do; has she not set me free?

 

(Or is she here to imprison me
again? Destiny, now, is not fragile; yonderłs a fractured magician for proof.
Still-) “How do they call thee, maid?"

 

“Bradamante," says she; now, the
Arabs breed a long-maned horse, and in the distance that silken banner on their
necks looks like this maidłs lashes close to.

 

“Well, Bradamante, I owe thee my
freedom if not my life. And should I pay the reckoning, what would thee do with
them?"

 

Up to me she looks, with a deep
calm which destroys my reckless smile; and up past me she looks further; and
she says gently, “I would do the LordÅ‚s will with them."

 

“Call me not Lord!" I cry; this
creature embarrasses me.

 

“I was not." Quiet as ever, her
voice, yet somehow she chides me. “I meant the Lord Whom I serve, Who is King
of kings."

 

“Is He now! And what would He
have thee do with a belly-hungry, prison-broke hellion of a swordless knight?"

 

“If thou wilt serve Him-"

 

“Hold, lass. Yon wizard told me a
tale of thee and me betrothed, and crawling the mud like worms among worms with
never a jewel to our cloaks. He said ętwas my destiny to be freed by thee, and
free me thee did. Though I canłt say how."

 

“I but struck him with my staff."

 

“Na, lass. Even I could never do
that; he could not be touched."

 

She gives me her hand; I take it
and then follow her gaze to it. It wears a simple golden ring. Gently she frees
herself and removes the ring. “The Lord sent this my way; who wears it is proof
against all enchantments. I need it no longer." The ring flashes in the sun as
she casts it aside; with my quick thumb and forefinger I pluck it out of the
air.

 

“But keep it, Bradamante! Thee
cannot discard such a treasure!"

 

“It was given me to free thee,
and thou art free. As to the futurethe Lord will provide."

 

I slip the ring upon my smallest
finger, and though it is thick as her thumb, the ring clasps me like mine own.
(Even without it, girl, theełd have better fortune with an angry basilisk than
thee would with me, if thee would persuade me to join thee oh thy rocky pilgrimages. But now-) “This much of my
destiny is complete, then, Bradamante, and I am in thy debt. But surely the
wizard was wrong about the rest of it."

 

“It is in the hands of the Lord."

 

“Thee doesnÅ‚t expect me to cast
aside my brocades for a scratchy gown like thine, and go with thee among the
peasants!"

 

“We do as the Lord directs. We do
it freely and with all our hearts, and are saved, or we do it blindly until we
end in darkness; but serve Him we shall."

 

Such confidence is more unnerving
than any magic. “I cannot believe that."

 

“Will not," she corrects me calmly.

 

“But IÅ‚ve choice! Here we stand,
Bradamante, and in the next heartbeat I might slay thee or woo thee or bite
thee or fall on the earth and gobble grass; and which of these things I do is
for me to decide!"

 

Slowly and so surely she shakes
her head. “It is in thee to serve the Lord, else I should not have been sent to
thee. Choice thee has: Thee may serve Him willingly or thee may serve Him
blindly; and none has a third way."

 

“Thee cannot force-"

 

She puts up her hands. “We do not
force. We do not kill. We need not. The Lord-"

 

“Thy Lord let thee kill Atlantes!"

 

“No, Rogero. He is not dead."

 

I spring to the crumpled
magician; and indeed, he is but stunned. I snatch out his own poiniard, and
instantly, under its point, Bradamante thrusts her firm brown arm. “The Lord
will take him in his own time, Rogero. Spare him."

 

“Spare him! He would have killed
thee!"

 

“But he did not. He too is a
servant of God, though unwilling. Spare him."

 

I fling down the blade so
violently that nought but the jewelled knob at the hilt-top shows between the
grass-blades. “Then I will; and having done thee the one service, I shall call
my debts discharged. Art satisfied, girl?"

 

She makes my head bubble, this
quiet creature; and I recall Atlantesł scoffing words, that this dedicated
beetle of a Bradamante shall think more of her faith than of my flesh, and that
she shall have more brains than I.

 

Her lashes fall, and “Sobeit,"
she says, and not another word.

 

I need my sword, and to get it I
must turn my back on her a good need. So up the slope I go lightly, just as if
her very presence were not like a heat on my shoulder blades. I close my eyes
as I spring up the smooth grassway, and it does nothing to shut her out.

 

Patience, Rogero! Down the hill,
over the rise, and shełll be forgotten!

 

And in any case, one could come
back if one must . . .

 

So I let my eyes come open again,
and gasp; for there stands the hippogriff, and he has never let me come so
close. If I am to continue upward I must go round him, or I must move him. For
a split second I falter, and his great head comes round to me; and oh, IÅ‚ve
looked in the wells of Kazipon which are bottomless, IÅ‚ve followed the light of
my torch in the endless caverns of Qual, and IÅ‚ve known a night when the stars
went out; and never before have I looked into such depths and such reaches as
the eyes in his eagle head. True birdłs eyes they are, fierce in their very
structure and unreadable. Through them the beast seeswhat? A soft sac of blood
and bones to be a sheath for that golden beak . . . or a friend ... or a
passing insect ... I should flee. I should stand. I should sidle about him and
be wary. I should, I should-

 

But I shall ride him!

 

I finish my stride and go
straight to him, and when my hand falls on his purple shoulder he swings his
head forward and high, and trembles so that from his wings comes a sound like
soft rain on a silken tent. My heart leaps so that I must leap with it or lose
it, and with a single motion I am on his back and my knees have him. Aiee!
such a shout comes from me, it would rival his own; it is full of the joyous
taste of terror. With it I fetch him a buffet on the withers which jars me to
the very neckbones, and before I can feel the blow as any more than a shock,
his wings are open and thrusting, and he rears and leaps ...

 

It is a leap that never will end;
fast he flies and faster hurtling higher just at the angle of his leap, and the
surges of his body are most strange to a horseman. Only the glint of the golden
ring convinces me that we are not involved in an enchantment; for flying
sunward warms nothing, curious as it may seem, and the bright air grows cold as
the hoary hinges of perditionłs door.

 

I think of poor sod-shackled
Bradamante, and look back and down; but by now she is lost in that
indeterminate new place between haze and horizon, and there, for all of me, she
may stay. I shrug, and find that I have not shrugged away the picture of her
face, which is strange, since it is hardly one worth remembering. Surely,
Rogero, thou art not smitten?

 

With her? Withthat?

 

Ah no, it could not be. There
must be something else, something buried in the whole mosaic of our meeting. Of
our parting . . . ah; that was it!

 

Atlantes is not dead.

 

That in itself is nothing;
Atlantes distant is, to me, as good as Atlantes dead. But Atlantes slowly
waking in the meadow, his enchantments all destroyed, his shield and steed
gone and the peaceful author of his ruin doubtless helping him to his feet
with her sturdy unwomanly hands . . . this is another matter.

 

But forget it! The sly-tongued
termagant could, by the time Atlantes was fully conscious, have him so morassed
in debate he would forget to be angry. Bradamante has a most powerful
helplessness; she attacks with the irresistible weapon of being unarmed,
immobilizes the enemy by surrendering, and at last sits on his feeble form,
holding by the great weight of her passivity. I need not fear for Bradamante.

 

But the ring flicks a mote of
light into mine eye, and I know I have taken her last defense and left her at
the mercy of the merciless, and this is small thanks indeed for what she dared
for me.

 

But what else would a knight, a
true knight, do?

 

One thing a knight would do, I
tell myself bitterly, is to regain his sword if he lost it, and not pleasure himself
with a hippogriff, however beautiful. Thou art no knight, Rogero; not yet, not
again. Regain thine own holy blade, its very hilt encrusted with thy sacred
promises, ere thee call thyself knight again.

 

Back, then, for the sword, and
decide then about the maiden; and keep thyself armed with the thought of thy
destiny it is with her, and means soaking in meekness until I am mushy as
bread in a milk bowl . . . no! by the heart of the fire in the
nethermost pit, I shall get my blade and hew out a new destiny!

 

There are no reins, and I
remember that the magician controlled the beast with words. “Enough, my beauty!"
I cry. “Back nowtake me back!" And somewhere inside a voice sniggers Thee
deludes thyself with the matter of the sword; itłs the plight of the maid that
drives thee. “No!" I cry, “she shall not have me! Let her King of kings
save her, shełs His ward, not mine!" And I thump the hippogriff with my
hard-tooled heels: “Back, my beauty, take me back!"

 

And the hippogriff tilts to the
wind, and balances and sails as before, for these are not the magic words.

 

“Turn! Turn!" I bellow, rowelling
him. I ball my fist and sink half of it in the feathered root of his neck just
forward of the shoulder; for by this, if rightly done, one may stagger a horse.
“Mule!" I shriek. Ä™Turn thy spavined carcass about ere I tie a knot in thy
neck!"

 

At this the eaglełs head turns
about like an owlłs and the measureless eyes loom over me. Slowly the beak
opens that I may see the spear tip and the scissor sides of that frightful
weapon. Like a blind animal, the gray-pink tongue shifts and searches and
settles again; the tongue itself is adversary enough for any soldier. Fear,
however, is an assistant to safety only up to a point, and I am far past it. “Go
back, aborted monster, ere I snatch out that ugly horn and crack thine eyeballs
together! By the pleasure-bred blood of thy half-bred dam and the-" Thus far I
rant, and he strikes. And would he had killed with the one stroke; for instead
he has slipped the point of his beak between my saddle and my hams, and I am
flipped, unharmed and sore humiliated, high in the air over him. I am spinning
like a broken lance, or the earth is circling me head to heel, chased by a
blazing band of sun. I see the glory-tinted wings below me, too small and far
away; around I go and see them again closer; and again, and this time I must
touch, clutch; I claw my hands and flex my legs, and turn againand the
hippogriff slips away to the side to let me plunge past him.

 

I cover my eyes and I scream; I
scream till my tendons cannot bear it, sob and scream again fit to startle the
starlings off every bank from here to Brookline, Mass. I recant, IÅ‚ll accept my
destiny and honestly wed the little brown nun, if shełll have me; ay, and do
for her Lord what paltry dog-tricks Hełll ask of me; only make this hippogriff,
this lovely, legitimate, honorable beauty of a hippogriff save me. Aiee! and
IÅ‚ll lie on my back on a scaffold and paint Thee murals, Lord, and I swear
never to punch Miss Brandt in the eye, or anywhere else again, if theełll but
send me a cloud or an eagle or a parachute or a helicopter ... oh holy Pete,
what a spot for him to lose his mind in and be me again. I wonder if he knows
it wonłt take any real time at all, where he is. And there below me the mottled
earth pursues a sun-turned-rocket . . . whew. Giles old boy, donłt you shut
your eyes again until you have to-"Hullo!"

 

There at the area railing stands
a smut-faced urchin and a smaller but female version of himself, all eyeballs
and streaky cheeks. “Gee, mister, you all right? You sick?" and the smaller
one: “Canchasee, heÅ‚s dyne!"

 

“DonÅ‚t mind me, kids," I mumble. “I
just fell off a hippogriff." I find IÅ‚m half-kneeling and try to stand, and it
seems my hands are locked around the iron uprights of the railing. I stay there
stooped and feeling very foolish while they watch me, and I concentrate from my
stone-cold marrow up and out until at last my left fingers begin to stir. With
a little more effort the hand comes free, and with it I disengage the right,
one finger at a time. I straighten up then and look a while at my hands and
wiggle them. “He ainÅ‚t dyne," says the boy in a robbed tone, and his cohort
says defensively, “Anyway he wuz dyne," because her ardent hopes had
made it her production.

 

Briefly, a sun flashes past, but
I ignore it; IÅ‚ll be all right now. You get so you know the signs. “Here," I
say, “IÅ‚ll try to do better next time," and I give them money, I donÅ‚t know how
much but it must be enough; they beat it.

 

I put my elbows on the railing,
keeping these spastic hands away from it, and look across the street. The clock
hands havenłt moved any that I can see, and Miss Brandt, who was just starting
out the door when my addled brains caught up with me, is pausing on the portico,
the door just closing behind her. Two seconds, three maybe. My God, what a way
to live!

 

Miss Brandt looks up the street
and down, descends the shallow steps and turns right toward the old Mayorłs
statue. When she has quite gone I cross to the bank and go inside. At the
island table I write a check, and take it to the wicket where the fierce-faced
man is caged. He takes the paper and turns it over with the same snap Mr.
Saffron used, and that is a trick I must learn one day. “YouÅ‚ll need to get
this initialed," he says. So off I go to Mr. Saffron again, and stand in front
of his shiny desk until he looks up at me and makes the pink meaty ridge across
and above his narrowed eyes. The man disapproves of me to the point of ecstasy,
and I take this as a kindness; for it makes us both feel important. I let the
check fall to him, and he looks, snaps, looks, and grunts. “All right, Mr. Ahh,"
he says, and squiggles on it with his personal pen. I take the check and stand
where I am.

 

“Well?"

 

“I want to know whose money this
is."

 

“Yours." He has a way of snapping
off the margins of his words as if he doesnłt want you to have a whole one.

 

“Yes, but-"

 

“The deposit is in your name;
surely thatłs sufficient!"

 

I look at the check. “Is there
any more left?"

 

He is offended by the whole
thing, but he is stuck with it. “There is," he says.

 

“Much?"

 

“More than you can spend today,"
he says. “Or this week."

 

“Well, dammit, how much?"

 

He sort of spreads his pale-pink
hands, which means, I gather, that this is not an account like other accounts
and he wishes he could do something about the irregularity but he canłt. He
says, “That is the one and final checkbook you get. Aside from that, there
doesnłt seem toahhbe any upper limit. And now youłll excuse me, Iłve a great
deal to good day Mr. Mmmm." And down he goes to his papers.

 

Well, IÅ‚ve asked enough questions
to know there wonłt be any answers. I go back to the wicket and slide the
fierce one the check. “Half in hundreds and the rest in small bills." He makes
a long snort or a short sigh, clicks the bars between us down tight, lets
himself out the back with a key, and is gone for too long, but I donłt mind
about that just now. Pretty soon hełs back with a sack. He opens the wicket and
starts taking stacks out of the sack and sliding them to me. The sixty hundreds
go into my socks; they have elastic tops and pull up high enough. The sixty
fifties fan out flat enough to go between my belly and my knit shorts, though
they hump up some. Then I spend some time with the hundred and eighty twenties
and tens, cramming ęem into two side and one back pants pocket. By now Iłm
lumpy as a sofa cushion just out of the wet wash and IÅ‚ve collected quite a
crowd. The fierce face flutes, “YouÅ‚re going to run into trouble, carrying all
that money that way," as if it was a wish, and I say “No I wonÅ‚t. They all
think Iłm crazy, and therełs no telling what a crazy man will do." I say it
good and loud, and all the people watching stop their buzz-buzz and back off a
little. They make a wide empty aisle for me when I start away.

 

“Wait!" cries the teller, and
punches some keys on his little machine. Coins slide down the half-spiral chute
and pile up in the cup at the bottom with a cast-iron clink. “Wait! HereÅ‚s your
twenty-eight cents!"

 

“Keep it!" I bellow from the
door, and go out feeling a lot happier than IÅ‚ve been feeling lately. All my
life Iłve wanted to leave twenty-eight cents for a bank teller, who wouldnłt
put it in his pocket to save his soul, and who hasnłt got any place for it in
his books.

 

Down the street therełs a big menłs
shop with little letters over the door and a windowful of somber-colored suits
with no creases in the jacket-arms. I look them over until I find the one with
the most pockets and then I go inside.

 

Itłs like a church in there, but
with wall-to-wall broadloom, and the only showcases I can see are two little
ones set into mahogany pillars, one with tie-clasps and collar pins, one with
four hand-painted silk ties. I go look at the first one. Every velvet box has a
humble little card with “the" on it: $200 the set. $850
the pair. IÅ‚m on my way to look at the ties when a tall man with a paper
carnation steps out of a potted palm and stands where I have to run him down in
case IÅ‚m not going to stop.

 

“What," he says, “do you want?"
The “you" is a little bigger than the other words and the whole thing sounds
like hełs pretty disgusted. I tell him about the suit in the window.

 

He laughs with his mouth. “That
is a three-hundred-dollar suit."

 

“Well, drag it on out."

 

“IÅ‚m rawtha sure we donÅ‚t carry
your size," he says, looking at my painting pants.

 

“Then weÅ‚ll hack it till it fits,"
I tell him. “Come on, buster, quit stalling."

 

“IÅ‚m afraid that-"

 

So I start yelling a little, and
he backs off and bleats “Mr. Triggle, Mr. Triggle!" and from somewhereI
guess another potted palm, therełs plenty aroundcomes another tall man in the
same sort of funeral suit, but this oneÅ‚s got a real carnation. “Here," he
says, “Here-here-here. WhatÅ‚s this, what?"

 

“YouÅ‚re selling, IÅ‚m buying. Only
he donłt think so," I tell the real carnation, pointing at the paper one.

 

The paper one says, “The
gentleman" (dirtiest word I ever heard, the way he says it) “The gentleman is
inquiring after the von Hochmann worsted in the window."

 

The real carnation nickers. “My
good man, Iłm afraid youłve come to the wrong-" and then I put twenty dollars
in his hand. He looks at it and the other one looks at it so I give him one
too. They look at each other, so I pass out two more. “Get the suit."

 

“WonÅ‚t you step into the sample
room?" says the real carnation, and you wouldnłt know it was the same man. It
certainly isnÅ‚t the same voice. “We have quite a selection in-"

 

“I donÅ‚t want a selection, I want
that suit in the window. That very goddam selfsame suit and not one like it."

 

“Oh but we canÅ‚t get a suit out
of the-" So I give them each twenty dollars. “Yes, sir!" says the paper
one, and dives to the front.

 

“Now letÅ‚s see," says the real
carnation, pulling at his chin and trying to imagine me with my face washed. “Once
we get the suit out of the way, wełll look at some cravats, and perhaps an
English broadcloth, hmmm? Handmade? Rolled collar, studs? Yes indeedy."

 

“No indeedy. I got a shirt." I
pluck at the yellow ski-pajama top. This shuts him up without any money
changing hands.

 

The other tall man comes back
with the suit and we parade into the fitting room which looks more than ever
like part of a funeral home, only bigger. The two of them stand in the middle
of the room wringing or rubbing their hands while I step into a curtained booth
and put the suit on. The pants got no cuffs yet and the coatłs too tight. I
come out and they jump all over me like Hansel and Gretel on the gingerbread
house. When they get to measuring the pants they find out I still got my old
ones on underneath. Forty dollars fixes that up too, before they can say
anything.

 

So when theyłre finished chalking
and pinning they want to know when I want the suit. “Now!" I roar, and before either
of them can so much as “But we-" I give them money again. “How many people you
got back in there, altering?"

 

“Eight, sir."

 

“Well, here." I give him eight
twenties. “Give Ä™em this and put Ä™em all to work on this one suit. YouÅ‚ve got
nine minutes."

 

“Yes sir," and off goes
paper carnation, breathing hard.

 

The other one says, “You said you
were in the movie line?"

 

“I did not."

 

“Ahh," he says. “Oil."

 

“Nup. LadiesÅ‚ wear. I put out a
line of underskirts with prints of umbrellas and telephones on ęem. Youłve seen
ęem."

 

“IahhdonÅ‚t know that I have."

 

“What?" I shout, “You never heard of a
Freudian slip?"

 

“Why, I-" and after that he shuts
up. He keeps looking at me.

 

They donłt get the suit ready in
nine minutes but they make it in eleven. As soon as the man shows with the suit
over his arm, I tell him, “Hey, I forgot. I want the left sleeve three-eighths
of an inch shorter than the right one." His jaw drops, but the real carnation
says “Do it, Hopkinson." And the other one goes out with the suit, me diving
along right behind him. We get to a door about the same time. Inside is a real
patchy workroom with bright lights and racks of suits, two old women and six
old men. “But sir, you canÅ‚t-"

 

“Shut up and give me that," I
say, and snatch the suit. “I didnÅ‚t want the sleeve fixed, I just wanted to see
these people. Listen," I say to the whole room, “Did he give you any money just
now, this guy with the paper flower?"

 

All those old people stand and
blink at me till somebody says “Money?" and then they all shrug their shoulders
and wag their heads. Paper flower, all nods and smiles, steps forward and says,
“Why, I was going to give it to them just as soon as the suit was satisfactory,"
and he takes the eight twenties out of his side pocket. I bang them out of his
hand and stick them into my pants. “You were like hell, you crumb." I go down
into my sock and haul out the pack of hundreds and go around the room giving
one to each of the old people. The real carnation sticks his head in just then
and I tell him, “You better get that guy out of my sight before something
happens around here even my money wonłt fix." The paper flower disappears.

 

I go back to the booth and this
time I take off the old pants. I spread the money around through all the
pockets in the suit itłs got fourteenand get dressed. I give the carnation
three hundred dollars and my old pants. “You keep Ä™em. They should fit pretty
good." I have to admire him; I can see hełs all aquiver inside, but he still
walks like a bishop at a coronation as we go to the door, and as he walks hełs
carefully folding my old pants, which hasnłt happened since I brought them home
from Kresgełs two years ago, until they hang flat as an antimaccassar over his
forearm. He opens the door for me and by God, bows. “Thank you so
much, and come back to us soon, Mr. Freud."

 

Itłs close to nighttime, eating
time. Around the corner and up the street is a restaurant IÅ‚ve heard about that
used to be a stable. IÅ‚m just pushing through the door when in front of me
there grows a soft wall made of maroon serge and brass buttons and a monstrous
braided golden silk rope. I step back and look up, and it isnłt a wall, but the
prow of a commodore-type doorman; and I swear hełs eight feet tall before the
hat starts.

 

“Sorry, sir; you canÅ‚t go in like
that."

 

The suit, it seems, gets me a “sir"
but not any courtesy in the voice. “Like what7"

 

He puts up a hand like a punching
bag and taps himself on the Adamłs apple. I put up my hand and touch only my
yellow ski pajama top. “Oh, the tie," I say.

 

“Oh," he says, “the tie."
Mimicking somebody like that, now thatłs for murder; thatłs worse than what
Rogero called the hippogriff. “Well, you didnÅ‚t happen to notice I got no tie."

 

He pushes out his chest. It looms
up and over me like the business end of a hydraulic forging press. “I did
happen to notice you got no tie," he says, still copying my voice and you know?
Hełs pretty good at it.

 

“You did, for sure?" I say, and
give him twenty dollars.

 

“Well, kind of one-eyed I did,"
he says in a new voice which wasnÅ‚t mine and wasnÅ‚t the “sir" voice I first
heard, but one which seems to come easiest of all to him. I give him another
twenty, and he lets me go on in.

 

A man meets me at the inner
doorquite a man, boiled shirt, tailcoat, and the magnificent head you see in
college lobbies, the oil painting of the previous Dean. With one flick of his
eyesand mind you, the lightłs not too good just there he does with me what
Mr. Saffron does with a check; he reads me, turns me over with a snap, puts his
squiggle on me so that the inside man will do whatłs absolutely correct. It
must be a problem, with the new suit and the worn shoes and the dirty face and
the fact that the doorman let me in; but if it bothers him he doesnÅ‚t show it. “Good
evening, sir," he says. His tone has the depth of one of those console radios
they built in the thirties, when the more money you had, the more bass you
bumped your belly with. “Step right this way."

 

But I knock his elbow. “It
bothers you I got no necktie."

 

“Whyno, sir."

 

“Yes it does." I take out a
hundred-dollar bill and fold it lengthwise and pleat it good and tight, and
then I take a fifty and fold it flat and narrow, and wind it once around the
middle of the hundred. Then I take the two pleated ends and spread them so I
have a bow, tied in the middle. He stands there waiting for me as if people did
this kind of thing all the time. “Now lend me the pin off that flower of yours."
He hands it to me, carrying it the last half inch of the way by a subtle and
courteous bow from the waist. I pin the bow to the front of my yellow
ski-pajama top. “A tie. Okay with you?"

 

“Quite suitable, sir."

 

“I thought youÅ‚d like it." I pull
it off and hand it to him. “I want a table for eight on the edge of the floor."

 

“Yes, sir. I have just the one."
Off he goes, and me after him, and sure enough, therełs a big round table. He
plucks a subdued ivory Reserved card off it and sits me down. “And when
do you expect the rest of your party?"

 

“IÅ‚m the rest of the party."

 

“Very good, sir. And youÅ‚re
drinking-"

 

“Brandy. Double. The kind that nobody
but you knows is the best in the place."

 

“I have just the year. Water?
Soda?"

 

“Yoghurt," I say. “About
half-and-half."

 

“Right away, sir."

 

So I have that and a liver and
oatmeal sandwich and crepes suzettes with a jubilee sauce made (by four men with
three shiny capts) with those little tiny wild French strawberries, and you
know? It costs eighty-four bucks to eat in that place.

 

I sit and I watch the show, and I
watch the watchers watching the show. And I plan the things I shall do with
more money than I can spend. I shall leave here when it is too late to hire
anything and IÅ‚ll make my money rent a powerboat. IÅ‚ll leave twice the price
with the owner and Iłll sink it, and never be seen again by him, so hełll
wonder. IÅ‚ll buy two islands with two mansions, and on one IÅ‚ll pretend to be a
prude while through an agent IÅ‚ll lease everything but my house to nudists; and
the other island IÅ‚ll populate with prudes while I go naked. IÅ‚ll buy Thomas
Moorełs own harp from the Institute and build in a contact microphone and a
music box which will play “Red Wing" for forty minutes at double tempo if
anyone touches it. IÅ‚ll train up a man who can fascinate as many hungry people
as Huey Long and as many frightened people as Joe McCarthy, both at the same
time, and when he takes over hełll pull a switch on them all and be as gentle
and as poor and as strong as Jesus of Nazareth. And IÅ‚ll supply every male
teen-ager with a hand-tainted pie, and every female with a totally new orgasmic
term to apply to sundaes, convertibles, knobby-faced pop vocalists and shoe
straps. For Bradamante a transparent lipstick so she can feel like a woman even
if she doesnłt want it to show, and for Atlantes (poor little rich man) the
full realization of destinyłs indestructibility.

 

Look yonder: look! There by
herself, with a candle on her table, sits the most beautiful woman who ever
lived. Her hair is soft sable, long, straight, fine, and thick; her eyes and
cheekbones the delicate strong interacting Eurasian arch-sequence. Her nostrils
are petal-textured, moving as indetectably as the shift from one aurora-pattern
to the next, but sensitively in motion even from her shallow breathing as she
sits still, so still . . . and surely she is the saddest woman who ever lived,
or a mouth such as hers could not be sleeping so, nor the head turned and held
just that way of all ways, nor the shoulders so careless and the hands so
forgotten. Is she grieving from loneliness, in the knowledge that never in life
can she meet her like? Or has she been hurt by a small someone, and cannot
understand?

 

I raise a hand, and the
Dean-faced obsolescent console drifts to me. “Who is she?"

 

“IÅ‚ll find out for you in a
moment, sir."

 

“No, donÅ‚t!" It bursts from me. “Please
donÅ‚t." (Now, why not?) “You mustnÅ‚t do that."

 

“Very well, sir," and as if he
senses my distress, “really I wonÅ‚t."

 

“Why is she so sad?" And I donÅ‚t
know IÅ‚ve spoken until he answers: “I think she has been disappointed, sir. She
has been sitting there alone for a long while." He bends a little closer, as if
to add a great importance to what he has to say. “I think, sir, that she is
very young."

 

And somehow I understand
precisely what he means; he means that she is frightened, but will not suggest
fear in the burnished security of this moneyed place, of which he is such a
piece.

 

Fear . . . there are fears and
fears, depending upon onełs origins and sense of value. Seimel, who hunts
tigers with a spear, faces death without fear, and I know a man who is struck
numb at the sound of a key in a Yale lock; whołs to say which terror is great
or small, or that itłs a small thing to be a girl who dare not leave a table
because she has no money? “Well, let her go. IÅ‚ll take her check."

 

“Yes, sir." His glossy finish
emits, like an alpha particle, a brief bright flash of approval. “Shall I take
her your card?"

 

“Oh God no!" Again the thought of
knowing her at all distresses me. “Just say a hippogriff flew by."

 

Unperturbed he says, “Quite, sir,"
and, as a good piece of furniture should, rolls silently and unbendingly away
on his casters.

 

I wait, and I wait; and there
coming in is a chinchilla coat which will be flung over a chair somewhere just
under a light, and yonder a fat face laughs too loudly; the trombone, part of a
chord, still gives me two notes exactly right for a girlłs inexpressible
loneliness and my feelings about it, and the man with the shiny-cart moves the
heel of a silver spoon deftly through the pure transparent heat springing
bluely from the bubbling blood of the jubilee . . . and as if by accident, the
fine Deanłs- head bows over the girlłs table and he speaks to her.

 

Her face, when she looks up,
blinds me for a moment. Or maybe my tears do. She radiates no happinesssome
great grief is bred too deeply into this girlłs fine bonesbut there is a
change which permits hands to be remembered and a mouth to live again. It could
have been fear and its removal, an excision which works wonders with dogs and
humans, and might, I imagine, even with nations.

 

And so she may turn her head away
from sorrow, and when she does, the breath catches in my throat; in the
nocturnal texture of her hair lies a single streak of silver, a hue of just the
deadness, just the distance of a winter moon. No other color could treat with
such precision of an inherent sorrow, and no other creature has been so
correctly branded as this girl.

 

I saw motion pictures of a lily
growing; shoot to blossom in a brace of seconds; and as it rose and burst, so
she rises and shakes back her hair. I saw a strand of spider web drift by and
away, streaming; and so she passes. I saw a bird die in the hollow of my hand,
its open crystal eyes unchanging; and so I sit now unchanged, except that
something is gone out of me.

 

I shall invoke Rogero, and escape
from this tomb into terror; I shall not wait for a summons to his world. Better
to be falling away through a shining sky with angry wings above me and a sudden
quiet below, than to sit here in the meshes of my several madnesses. Insanity
is only wisdom of a sort, too deeply driven for the sphincters of the mind to
compass; and this is the riddle of the sphinx. Brushless Giles, the ex-painter,
is (when you come right down to it) a far wiser person than Swordless Rogero,
ex-knight. Put me on a hippogriff without a driverłs license and I wonłt sit
and bawl “Back, sir!"; IÅ‚ll push the buttons and pull the levers and watch what
happens until I can back into anybodyłs downhill driveway. And if words are the
reins, the throttle, and clutch, then words IÅ‚ll try, until at last I have a “Gee"
for him and a “Haw" for him and above all a big fat “Whoa!" Rogero, now, heÅ‚s a
fool, and rather healthier than I and therefore more alive; his uncertainties
are a little less well-founded in fact than mine. Whoosh! and is that
the hot, gentle ignition of brandy over yonder, or the sun passing my feet? Is
that polite patter halfhearted applause for the band or is it the wind in the
wings of the wheeling beast above me? Catch me, catch me, good knight and I
shall die gladly with thee, free of both these insupportable worlds. But I am
not falling; I hang here in dusk, supported by a rushing wind, a central point
for the looming earth and the hurtling sun as they rotate about me. (And if
hanging thou art, why are the crags of Earth larger each time they pass thee?)
Aiee, could I but die of foolhardiness, like a Bradamante challenging the
powers of evil, and not thus crotch-flung in penance for the silly vapors of my
foul mouth, not humiliated and screaming like a whipped serf. (Waiter, bring me
an orchestra playing Rampart Street, I have fallen from Grace, who is a
hippogriff.)

 

Shining one, can thee not forgive
me my temper and my tongue? Is there nothing in thee which recalls the swift
romp on Atlantesł mountain, and thee dancing away from me like a playmate,
sharing my joy? That is Rogero, good hippogriff, and not the furious
mote who offended thee . . . IÅ‚ll beg thee no more, but pray only that thee
might escape thy conscience, as I failed to do when I left my sword and my
destiny with Bradamante.

 

And he comes, he comes, his wings
all but folded, back-bent, beating a very buzz to fly downward faster than I
can fall. And faster he is; he looms to me, blasts himself to one side so close
he tumbles me anew, so that the sun is still above me, but below the mountains
turn like clay on a potters wheel. The hippogriffs wings are wide now, and
working weightily, and again he grows in mine eye; and now I can hear him; he
is screaming, screaming . . . gods! What a terror-struck cry! Then the
screaming stops, and his lionłs voice rumbles with laughterah, he mocks me, he
mocks me, the son of ... of a mighty gryphon and a blooded mare, most beautiful
of creatures. There, hippogriff: mock me, it is thy privilege; let me die, it
is thy right.

 

And again the thunder of his
humor; he twists his wings, one up, one down, rolling like a summer swallow;
and as I fall to meet him he is on his back like a swimmer, and, blessed angel
of a hippogriff, he takes me!

 

I hang from his talons like a
newt, mine eyes a-pop from the pressure of his holding and the surge of his
climb; and climb he must, for he has caught me in a valley, no further aloft
than the height of a tall pine tree; the mountains all about are above us. He
could not have waited the tenth part of a heartbeat and saved me still. He is
confident and beautiful and he has a most cruel sense of humor.

 

I am lifted now to his beak; I
face his eyes, and from his open maw his laughter rumbles, and I like a
captured puppy plead to be set down. And indeed, had I a tail IÅ‚d wag for him;
IÅ‚d whimper if I felt it would reach him.

 

He dips his head and turns it,
and his beakłs about my waist. Now he lifts me, turns his head back to front,
lowers me, twists that my feet may go down and my head upand I am astride him
again, perched on his shoulders a forearmłs span away from the saddle. He
nudges me back, and I bump my way to the saddle like a babe on a fence-prop,
bottom foremost and clumsy with fright. Not until I am firm in the saddle does
he release me; indeed, for a moment it occurs to me that, purely in jest, he
might bite me in twain once I think I am safe. Through my thighs I sense
another thunderous chuckle at my expense. I bite my lip and cast mine eyes
down, but there is no escaping his mirth.

 

Now the mountains are behind. The
sea is a haze and the sky sea-colored, and where they meet there is no longer a
line; by a twist of my mind I may imagine naught but sky around us in an
Earthless universe, and a twist again, and it is the sea all about, up and
over, my hippogriff and I the sole population of an empty bubble in a universe
of water.

 

And it comes to me then, like a
sendingwords, odd and small; “Gee," and “Haw," and “Whoa!" and each carries
the nostriled flavor of Giles and the smoke in his mouth. So “Gee!" I
murmurand my hippogriff wheels; “Haw," say I, and the other way he turns. ...
I can ride him, fly him! He is mine, he is mine!

 

But mine too is the humiliation,
and the lesson of his laughter, cackling like a conscience. Ahead is the sea,
across it adventure and freedom. Behind are the hills, and my sword, my duty,
my debt, and a weaponless wench. My steed is silent, as if waiting: “So haw
then, and let me be damned to my destiny," I cry, and he swings about to tuck
the distant shore under his golden chin; to take me back to my grubby fate. And
grubby or not, I preen; I am a knight who will not be swayed nor turned aside;
straight to my sword I will fly, to mine honor, to-

 

But below, a clot of white on the
rock takes mine eye, and “Whoa!" I cry with all my heart; and the
hippogriffłs bellow of laughter fairly puts whitecaps on the waves below. And
down we drop, and down, the roar and crash of beastly laughter in the van, the
flanks, the trailing wind of our descent. There is a peal of it for knights
without swords, for true courses set and forsaken; therełs a rumbling gust of
it for gratitude confessed but unpaid, and one for the man who would plan an
escape for himself if he were on time to rescue a maiden in peril, or who would
plant a bluebell for her if he were late, if he happened to pass that way. But
the shrillest laughter, the one having the most cold gold eagle in it, was for
a knight who claimed to value his sword for the vows it carried.

 

I have a moment of shame and one
of fury, and then a tortured time of both together. All I need do to cut off
this obscene bellowing-ay, and gain the beastłs respect, I wouldnłt doubtis
to press my heels to his flanks, and straight to Atlantesł mountain wełd go; to
Bradamante; to my sword; to the completion of my promises and the payment of my
debts.

 

And it is in the muscles of my
legs to draw back those heels; it is in my heart to be humble and accept the
beastłs deafening censure and cleanse myself; it is, it is, but once again I
look below, and am lost; for chained to the rock is a naked woman of such
unearthly beauty she can be compared only with the hooded shield I carry . . .
with this difference: that whosoever looks upon this shield is blinded, but who
looks upon this woman sees so clearly that he cannot live.

 

Down comes my steed and hovers,
searching for a foothold on the windswept rock; and finding it, settles in.
Before he is fully earth-borne I am away from him and his subsiding chuckles,
slipping and scrambling to the seaward slope. Braced against the iron loops to
which she is chained, I cower down close to her, cover mine eyes against that
blaze, not of light, but of beauty; and when I can, I peer quickly through my
fingers and drink the vision in small and frightened sips.

 

Her ankles are cruelly bound by a
single hoop, hinged, hasped by the double chain which anchored it below. A
smaller version of the same device was given each slender wrist, and there she
lies, stretched tight against the cold rock, wet with spray, and the wind
tugging her hair.

 

I touch the shackles, the chains.
Anchored as they are, it seems the rock itself would lift from the sea bottom
before those loops could be drawn. Turning hopelessly from this examination, I
meet her eyes and the impact melts me; I fall to my knees and bow my head.

 

“Who art thou?" she whispers into
the shouting wind.

 

“Rogero, a knight, come to save
thee. Who has done this to thee, princess? . . . surely thou art princess . .
.?

 

“Ay," she breathes, “Angelica of
Cathay, shipwrecked here on the very day the oracle at Ebuda demanded the most
beautiful Ebudan maid as a sacrifice to some wrathful god. But since they had
me . . ."

 

“Ebuda is that village yonder?"

 

“Ay." Ah, but she is weary; her
voice may be heard at all only because its sound was so very different; it
differed, almost, from sound itself. “But go not to the village, good knight;
they are barbarians and would tear thee to pieces rather than replace me here
with one of their own. Best go whence thee came, and my blessing goes with
thee; but I am doomed."

 

“To die of cold and the pecks of
sea eagles? IÅ‚ll die here with thee rather!"

 

“Nay, it will be quicker than
that," she murmurs. “Knowest the monster Orc?" Her eyes are calm, seaward now.
As the wind tumbles her hair, I see that it is mystically marked with a stripe
of cold silver; there has never been anything so lovely and far away as that
swath of starshine.

 

“Orc? Oh, ay; a legend, a tale to
frighten children. He is big as an island and has scales of iron and the tusks
of a boar. And thou art chained here for Orc? The eagles will have thee before
such a fable comes."

 

“But he comes now," she says
calmly; and two things happen to me which will leave their mark for all my
days; one, that as she spoke, grave and quite contained, her tears flowed and I
knew that I saw a strength here as wondrous as her beauty; but for the tears,
she might have been in her garden, half dreaming and at peace, for all her face
showed it. And I turn away from her and see the second thing, the monster Orc.

 

With a shout I spin to Angelica,
take her prisoned hand and on it slip my golden ring. “This will guard thee,
Princess!" I cry, and my heart cries with it, only from my shield, and I
stumble to the hippogriff.

 

He is ready, flexed, spread,
trembling to be off; I have but one foot in the stirrup as he launches himself.
The monster comes, and we fly out to meet it; and when we have flown what
seemed far enough at first, there is yet another mile to go. It looms over us
like a thundercloud; it rises higher and higher from the water, and there is more
and still more of it, shapeless, immeasurable, and blind.

 

Blind! Swordless, lacking pike or
halberd, axe or hook, mine only weapon is a giver of blindness; against this,
the monster brings the only possible defense; “Blind, it is blind," I cry, and
my mount utters a shriek, part despair, but a fine part challenge, and mounts
the sky to get above the creature and be sure.

 

And still it rises until we are
but a wasp at a bullłs shoulder, until the black rock below is but a
steppingstone to this great living hulk.

 

And the hippogriff, unbidden,
folds his wings and we drop, down and down past the upright acres of filthy,
streaming iron. I am past thought, incapable of anything except keeping my
saddle in the weightless drop. Even my first long fall from the beastłs back
had seemed not so long as this. Then out come the wings, and I groan against
the pressure inside my doublet. Down we go still, the hippogriff battling the
wind of our fall, and checking us at last.

 

We are in a roaring, stinking
steam of water and evil fumes, somewhere between Orcłs looming bulk and the
black rock. Across, and turn, and back, and turn; steamed and spumed and soaked
and splattered with stiff salt slime. And for the second time that day I face
death despised by the hippogriff .. .

 

I see his face again, I think for
the last time. And had I years of life to give for the ability to read those
bright implacable eyes, I would do it, and gladly; but IÅ‚ve but a few weary
minutes. I gaze up hopelessly, and he brings his shining head closer to me,
touches my head with a rough gentleness. With his eyes on mine, he makes a
single soft sound, and then it is time to turn again. It seems for a moment he
cannot and then he does, bravely, and labors back again. Belatedly I see that
his wings are wet, and like Pegasus near death in dragonłs blood, he cannot
remain aloft much longer. Ah, to know what it was he tried to tell me! Who
would know? Giles? Ah, but I hate what I was, and what I am . . .

 

Together we scream a challenge,
and the hippogriff finds strength, somehow, to drive up twice, three times the
height of a man and, descending, flutter away a great weight of water from his
wings. He passes close to the widening mouth, drives down near the hinge of the
jaw just as it emerges. What appears at first as a bony projection from the
hinge is suddenly a slimy opal, alight and aliveOrcłs eye, set like a whalełs.
The hippogriff must have known, he must have known!

 

His small downward drive gives us
speedalmost too much. As if alive, however, the shield trembles under my
hands, turns to the sun for a bright beam, and hurls it across and back, on,
and into the eye. And then we are past and tilting steeply; once more the
hippogriff shivers away a mist of heavy water and fights to rise, and back we
come the long, long distance around that mountain of a snout, past and past the
yawning great arch of the open mouth, to the eye on the other side.

 

It must be only now that the
mighty mass of dim-nerved flesh feels the pain of his dazzle-tattered eye.
Something unspeakable moves inside the arch, and a gout of water and ichor
shoots skyward. I see it rise, I see it curl; our wings will not survive this,
so “Gee!" I cry, the sum total of terror and self-hate, of love for the
hippogriff and the enchantment of Angelica; of anger, regret, remorse. His
response is instant and beyond his control, and he wheels shoreward as I stand
on the saddle, fall toward the monster, and kick back at that purple flank with
both legs and all my strength. Even as I fall I look back under one arm, for a
flash of Angelicałs body and the sight of my hippogriff flailing down into the
water, short of the shore line. One wet wing-elbow rises like a sail and sinks
as slowly; his neck, so pathetically thin without the dry golden ruff of feathers,
is stretched toward the rock, but not far enough: he has died for me, and his
laughter is dead with him; does thee know now, fool knight, what it was he told
thee with that touch of his beak? Only that for all his jibes and hurtful
scorn, he was ready to die with thee . . . And dying, Rogero, thy steed could
not know thee heard, or would ever understand.

 

All this, in the instant of
catapult, stretched achingly from my kick, with speed my only wings, my brain
racing and my heart wrenched; and before me the magic shield of Atlantes. The
shield strikes the water first, and my arrowing body slips under the thundering
waterspout as it descends. Like a flat stone the shield skips on its curved
face, and my forehead rings it like a gong. It tries to skip again, but my body
plops in stingingly at the same instant, and stays it.

 

And at last I squat in the corner
of that beastly smile, and all the hate I have ever known pours out of my arms
and into the flailing of the shield. Edge and edge, flat and edge again, I
belabor that viscid mound just back of my perch. It yields slowly, and at first
I must work with my face but an arrows-length away; I feel it is burning me,
filling me with a brutal and primitive madness that surely must turn my brain
into what one finds in a dryrotted chestnut. But then it ceased to be, and was
no more, and surely no less horrid than any part of the beast.

 

How long this pounding? I know
not . . . but at length pain reaches it, and a convulsion such as should be
impossible to anything so ponderous. My handhold disappears; there is a moment
of strangling and a moment of crushing weight, a blow precisely where, earlier,
my forehead struck the shield. And then I am thrashing in shallows on black
rock, my legs tangled with the limp neck of the hippogriff.

 

The anchor of the Princessłs
leg-shackle grinds my small ribs; I shift away from it, clutch it between arm
and side, and lock my legs about the neck of the hippogriff, lest his body be
swept out to sea. Water runs and runs, tugs and cascades off the rock, and for
a long time my sky is full of black specks shifting and twinkling. But I will
not let go.

 

When the tugging stops, I raise
my head. The water is back to something like normal. More than half the
hippogriffłs body is aground. The rock is completely free of litterthe last
cascade having swept it clear. Out at sea stands a new mountain: I think it is
dead now. It is sinking, ever so slowly, or sliding down some age-old chute it
has worn in the ocean floor.

 

“Rogero-"

 

I kick free of the hippogriffłs
heavy neck and head, and crawl to her.

 

“Princess!"

 

“Å‚Thou art bravest of knights."

 

“Nay, Angelica," I mumble. “I am
neither brave, nor a knight. I must free thee."

 

“A simple matter."

 

“Ay, had I his strength," and I
nod to the dead hippogriff.

 

“Mourn him not, Rogero," says the
Princess. “Thee stayed by him as he died, and thee will be rewarded."

 

“Then must we wait on another
hippogriff to strike thy chains?"

 

“No. The ring, Rogero; take off
the ring."

 

I stumble up the slope to her
shackled hand, and take the ring, while she says, “It is a greater amulet,
possibly, than thee knows. I was seeking it when I was shipwrecked here; I
never thought to see it again; to have it brought to me makes thee part of a
miracle."

 

“See it again? It is thine?"

 

“It was stolen from my treasure
house long ago, and has been on many hands. Its last use, so I was told in the
north, was to be by a maiden who wished to free some dolt stupid enough to be
entrapped by a magician and too stupid to break free. How came thee by it?"

 

“It was . . . cast aside as
worthless." My ears burn. “Princess, I must free thee."

 

In her chains, she stretches
lazily. “Whenever we like. These bonds mean nothing. Rogero, I am in thy debt."

 

“No, Princess, for I have seen
thee. It is enough."

 

“Prettily said, and I believe
thee." And it seems she is amused. “Then do as I ask, and thee shall see a new
power of the ring. Put the ring in my mouth."

 

I held it to her parted lips. “Thou
art a sweet and somewhat slow-witted man," she whispers. “Goodbye, Rogero." She
takes the ring.

 

The shackles lie empty, and I
crouch there over the black rock which pillowed her, my one hand extended, my
mind awhirl at the nearness . . .

 

Nearness? She is gone!

 

Ah, she might have told me of
this magic before demonstrating it! Is the world and all its magics leagued
against me? Has the universe itself been designed to make me out a fool? “Thou
art a sweet and somewhat slow-witted man." Aiee! I shall have that
carven on my tomb!

 

Slowly I mount the rock, and face
the rocky spine leading to the mainland, to and through the barbarians; through
mountains and hunger and poverty and illness; to aid and be aided along the
way, until at last I have won what was given me and what, unearned, was cast
aside; afoot, acrawlto my destiny.

 

* * * *

 

“Are
you quite all right, sir?"

 

Now that, old Dean-head, is a
question. The music is surf and feathers in all its upbeats, strictly society
on the down: scherzophrenic. A hot, transparent, blue flame whuffs out, and
suddenly that is a matter of supreme importance, though I canłt think why.
Slowly I look up at him. “Me?"

 

“It seemed for a second or two
that you werenłt quite with us, sir."

 

“A second or two," I say, “thatÅ‚s
all it takes." Now I remember: that blue flame on the jubilee tray is the one I
was looking at when I went under, or other, or wherever Rogero keeps his world.
Surely I know where that is! I look up again. Deans read books. “Listen, what
do you know about Atlantes?"

 

“Atlantis, sir?" This guy, you
couldnÅ‚t ruffle him with a williwaw. “As I recall, it sank under the sea."

 

“No, Atlantesa magician."

 

“Ah. I believe there was a
necromancer of that name in Ariosto, somewhere."

 

I put an accurate forefinger on
his second stud and push it triumphantly. “Orlando Furioso! So thatÅ‚s
it! Hey, do you remember what ever happened to Bradamante?"

 

He puts his hands behind his back
and looks at the wall meeting the ceiling. Good head on that man; splendid. “As
I remember, sir, she married a knight-"

 

“Ex-knight," I say, and it hurts.
“Also, good night." I give him a whole heap of money and head out.

 

“Good night, sir," says the
doorman.

 

“Oh," I say, “You. Hey, a girl
about so high and so wide with a silver streak in her hair, she left here. How
long ago?"

 

He says he doesnłt recall so I
give him some money. “About four minutes," he says. “That way," and points.

 

“Only four?" I have something in
me like a pain. “That way, youÅ‚re sure?"

 

“You should be able to catch her,"
he says. He closes his eyes and smiles. “Pretty."

 

“The Grand Canyon," I say, “itÅ‚s
cute too." I run the way he points. Itłs to the river.

 

So itłs Orlando all this
time, I think, and something has kept me from recognizing it. Atlantes and
Bradamante, Angelica, princess of Cathay, the hippogriff and the Orc, all
there. And what am I doing, acting it out? Atlantes kept Rogero from being a
knight; some sort of magic keeps me from being a painter. Only nowadays they
call it a neurosis.

 

So where am I going in such a
hurry?

 

Got to save the Princess from the
Orc. Orc, variant of urp, a real nauseating beast. Better I should go right
back to the studio and mind my own business. Yes, thatłs what Rogero kept
telling himself. And he landed by the Princess anyway, no matter how his
hippogriff laughed. Well laugh then, hippogriff. Youłre not long for this world
anyway.

 

There she is!

 

Walk now. Get your wind. See what
happens to her. Shełs chained naked on no rock yet. Or maybe she is . . .
analogies being what they are . . .

 

Now cut it out, Giles! Youłre all
right now. Itłs all just a story you read and mooned over when you were a kid.
There were others; but did you really live it up with “The Little Lame Prince";
did you referee that go between the firedrake and the remora in Andrew Langłs
book; did you feel the icicle pierce your heart in “Back of the North Wind?" So
maybe your subconscious is trying to tell you something with Ariosto. Tell you
what? To get religion? Or (and this is the idea that feels like pain) that youłre
no more a painter than Rogero is a knight, in the long run ... in spite of some
initial successes?

 

Go home, go home, and paint the
way Miss Brandt wants you to. Go home now and your hippogriff will love you for
it; yes, and live, whatever that might mean.

 

But wait; Miss Brandt wants you
to be a painter and Bradamante didnłt want Rogero to be a knight. My story
doesnłt coincide with his; it just sort of resonates. All the more reason to
get out of here, Giles; go home. Youłve got all the money in the world; all the
freedom, all the time to go anywhere and do anything. Paint anything.
You know what happened to Rogero, his hippogriff, and his magic ringyes, and
his shield too, when he let his bumbling chivalry override his derisive
conscience. (Conscience? Since when can a conscience be as beautiful as a
hippogriff?)

 

So, go home. But look; look
there, she has stopped at the River Road, and stands under a light, her gray
silk gone all silver and the margins of her hair sinking a little over her
slender shoulders as she raises her face to the sky. What is in that face? I
canłt see, I canłt see ... an appeal, a submission rather; such sadness as hers
is past hope and therefore past appealing to anything.

 

Princess, what is your rock, what
your Orc? What conies, and you helpless; what shows itself without form, grows to
fill the sky; what is impregnable, ironclad, and filthy, unspeakable? What
fills your world and your short future, and proves at the same time that it
shows only its slimy skull, and there is measurelessly more below?

 

You donłt scream, Princess?

 

You are only calm; but I have
seen your tears.

 

She crosses the road to the
trees, and takes a path toward the water; so laugh, hippogriff. IÅ‚ll go to her.

 

But shełs gone in the shadows:
hurry, hurry-

 

And there in a quiet place I come
on her and, like Rogero on the black rock, I sip the vision; for to gulp it
would be more than I could bear.

 

There is a hole in the grove, an
empty place by the water to let the night in. Part of a moon floats a train
across the water to her as she sinks to a bench. Her head turns and tilts a
little, as if to a footfall (does she hear me? Does she know there is more than
her sadness in the world?) and she is completely in silhouette except for the
single beam cupping a cheekbone, and the silver streak in her hair; with that
small shard of cold white, the path on the water has a part of moon at each
end!

 

And still more, just a little,
her head turns, so her perfect profile lies in liquid moon; and now, if she
turns only her eyes, she may see me. She does.

 

“I knew youÅ‚d be around." Her
voice ... a bell, a bird, a sound-unlike-sound . . . no. A voice, just a voice.
Think about that, Giles; but not now.

 

“May I ... I mean . . ."

 

“Sure," she says, indicating the
bench. “Why not?"

 

I sit timidly at the other end of
the bench, watching her as she stares out over the water. Her eyes are hooded
and her face a chalice of sadness, brimming. And suddenly I know her Orc.

 

Poverty can be the Orc. Poverty
can be the monster visible and nearing, which comes slimy and stinking out of
the pit to fill the sky and yet be showing only its smallest part. Poverty can
come to one chained, disregard onełs station and onełs virtues, and take one at
its leisure.

 

Then I might be Rogero yet, for
there is money in my pocket, neat, obedient, omnipotent money. Should I
challenge her monster?

 

She might be angry. (Angelica?
Angry? No; she bade the knight leave her and save himself.)

 

I look at her, and the sadness in
her is greater than the money in my pocket. I see abruptly that my gesture
would not anger her after all. She would simply pity me. My effort would be
lost in her great need.

 

Then IÅ‚ll share what I have. Half
what I have is still, effectively, all the money there is.

 

She is looking at the moon, so
distant and so dead; she has the mark of distance and death upon her. Rogero
offered no part of himself to his princess; he offered it all.

 

All of it? I touch the lapel of
the most expensive suit I have ever owned; good new money whispers under my
hand of miles and years of color and startlement, tastes and textures and toys;
all the things, the thrills IÅ‚ve never had because it took too much time to be
just Giles.

 

“I wish you wouldnÅ‚t stare like
that."

 

“IÅ‚m sorry," I whisper. “Sorry."

 

“WhatÅ‚s on your mind?"

 

Only that when tomorrowłs sun
comes to you, you might give back to it as much gladness as a daffodil. Just
that by giving you all I ever owned, so new that my own hands have not touched
it, you might never be afraid again. “Just that IÅ‚d like to . . . borrow your
pen."

 

“Mywell, I suppose." She has it
in her handbag; finds it and gives it to me.

 

I take my elegant, one and final
blue book, and crouching close in the moonlight, Giles, I write,
Giles, and Giles, and Giles, until IÅ‚ve written on the bottom
line of every perforated page.

 

I hold it out to her with the
pen. Here (I would say, but I cannot speak) here is all the magic I own, since
I lost my shield. Here are my hooves and my talons. Here are my wings.

 

“WhatÅ‚s this?"

 

“Yours," I croak. “I donÅ‚t want
it. Any of it."

 

“God," she says.

 

She rises like the lilybut now,
in the moonlight, more like a cereusand looks at me. “YouÅ‚re sure, now."

 

“Never more sure."

 

“I thought," she says, “that youÅ‚d
turn out to be a lot more fun than this." And she throws the book into the
river.

 

I sit in a dream by the corpse of
a dream. It grows cold. Loneliness lives in my very pores as sadness lives in
her face. She is gone, the moon is gone, and something else has gone, too. I do
not know its name but it once kept me warm.

 

When she left, her leaving a
completion of the absent gesture of throwing the book, I said nothing and I did
not move; I am not sure that I really saw her leave.

 

Rogero, I think, I need you. I
wish I could have a word with you.

 

For when you were stripped and
alone, somewhere in yourself you found a way to travel, through wild countries,
through poverty and sickness and hardship, certain that they would refine you
for your destiny. You see, dear dopple, the twentieth-century man has no
destiny; at least, he has no magicians to read it off for him, so he can never
quite be sure. But take his amulets away, his spells and cantrips graven with
the faces of dead presidentsand hełll look over no mountains toward an
unshakable faith. Hełll stare at nothing but his own terror.

 

Rogero, the universe is indeed
leagued together to make fools of us.

 

I leave the bench and the river,
not to be a pilgrim, but just to take my misery to familiar surroundings and
wrap it up in weariness. And tomorrow I shall wake with the comfortif such it
isthat I am Giles and will continue to be Giles without the intrusion of
Signor Ariostołs parables. It had better be a comfort; I may not even turn my
staring white canvas to the wall, now that I think of it; I wouldnłt be able to
bring myself to touch it.

 

So I walk and I walk. And then up the long steps and down the long hall,
fling open the door which unveils the dirty

 

But it isnłt a dirty bed, and I
have one mad moment of childish panic; I have burst into the wrong place; and
then I see the easel, the bright clean easel, and I know I am home.

 

“I hope you donÅ‚t mind; the door
was open, and I thought ... so to keep myself busy while I waited, I-" She
makes a smile, and tries harder and makes another, but smiles over hands which
rapidly clasp and unclasp are unconvincing. “IÅ‚ll go," says Miss Brandt, “but I
wanted to tell you I think you did a splendid thing."

 

I look at the clean, shelved
dishes and the drum-tight bedclothes, and my paints and brushes sensibly left
untouched. But what impresses me is the unthinkable statement that I have done
a splendid thing. I sit on the bed and look at her.

 

“How did you ever find out?" she
asks. “You werenÅ‚t to know, ever."

 

“I know a lot now," I tell her. “What
specially do you mean?"

 

“About the money. Giving it back."

 

“I gave it away," I admit. And,
because itÅ‚s the truth, “I donÅ‚t call that so splendid."

 

“It was, if . . ." And then, as
if shełs had the question held down tight and canłt control it any longer, she
flashes a glance at the easel, and asks, “Does it mean youÅ‚ll paint again?"

 

My eye follows hers and I
shudder. She turns pale as the new light at the window. “Oh," she says in a
very small voice. “Iguess IÅ‚ve done the wrong thing." She snatches up a shiny
black pocketbook and runs to the door. But therełs a Giles standing there
first, who pushes her back hard so she sits downplump!on the bed.

 

I am tired and hurt and
disappointed and I want no more wonderments. “You tell me all the things youÅ‚ve
done, wrong and otherwise, right from the beginning."

 

“Oh, how it began. Well, IÅ‚m
her secretary, you know, and we had a sort of quarrel about you. Shełs a mean,
small, stupid sort of person, Giles, for all her money and the way she
looksshe is lovely, isnłt she? In case you want to know (everybody does) that
streak of silver is real. Anyway, I-"

 

“YouÅ‚re her secretary?"

 

“Yes. Well I got so terribly
distressed about-" She waves at the easel again, and the miraculous lashes
point away, “-you, you know, that I suppose I got on her nerves. She said some
mean things about you and I sort of blew up. I said if I had her money IÅ‚d see
to it that you started painting again."

 

“Just like that."

 

“IÅ‚m sorry. It wasso important;
I couldnłt bear to have you just-"

 

“Go on with the story."

 

“She said if I had her money and
tried to use it that way IÅ‚d just make a fool of myself. Well, maybe she was
right, but ... it went like that until she swore at me and said if I was so
positive, go ahead. Take all the money I wanted and just see how far IÅ‚d get."
All the while she talks she is pleading, underneath. I donłt listen to that
part of it. “So I came here yesterday and I was to phone her the way you sign
your name, and she would call the bank and fix it up."

 

“Nice of her."

 

“No it wasnÅ‚t. She did it because
she thought it would be amusing. She has so much money that it wouldnłt cost
her anything. Anything shełd notice. And then you found out about it, I donłt
know how, and gave her the checkbook. When she came back last night she was
wild. It wasnłt half the fun she thought. All you did was to be amusing in a
restaurant for a couple of hours. Please donłt look at me like that. I just did
what I could. Ihad to. PleaseI had to."

 

I keep on looking at her,
thinking. Finally, “Miss Brandt, you said a thing yesterdaymy God, was it only
yesterday? about my not being able to paint now because I donłt know why I
painted before. Do you know what you were talking about?"

 

“I-" and the lashes go down, the
hands busy themselves, “-I only know sort of generally. I mean, if you can do a
thing and know how you do it andand especially why, and then something
stops you, I think itłs easy to see the thing that stops you."

 

So I lean against the door and
look at her in the way that makes her squirm (Iłm sorry but thatłs the way I
look when IÅ‚m thinking) and I think:

 

Does anyone ask a paintereven
the painter himself why he paints? Now me, I painted . . . used to . .
. whatever I saw that was beautiful. It had to be beautiful to me, through and
through, before I would paint it. And I used to be a pretty simple fellow, and
found many completely beautiful things to paint.

 

But the older you get the fewer
completely beautiful things you see. Every flower has a brown spot somewhere,
and a hippogriff has evil laughter. So at some point in his development an artist
has to paint, not what he sees (which is what IÅ‚ve always done) but the beauty
in what he sees. Most painters, I think, cross this line early; IÅ‚m crossing it
late.

 

And the simplechild?artist
paints for himself . . . but when he grows up he sees through the eyes of the
beholder, and feels through his fingertips, and helps him to see that which the
artist is gifted to see. Those who had wept over my work up to now, I used to
say, had stolen meanings out of it, against my will. When I grow up, perhaps
they will accept what I willingly give them. And because Miss Brandt feels this
is worth giving, she has tried to get more of it for people.

 

So I had stopped painting because
I had become too discerning, and could find nothing perfect enough to paint. But
now it occurs to me that the girl with the silver in her hair can be painted
for the beauty she has, regardless of her other ugliness. Atlantes had a magic,
and in it one walked the battlements of a bastionwhich was only, in truth, a
byre. Miss Brandt can paint me, in her mind, as a man who turned back all the
money in the world, and, for her, this is a real nobility.

 

The only key to the complexity of
living is to understand that this world contains two-and-a-half-billion worlds,
each built in a personłs eyes and all different, and all susceptible to beauty
and hungry for it.

 

I ran out of things to paint . .
. and now, now, therełll never be enough time to paint beauty! Rogero did a
knightly thing on the black rock, because he was not a good knight. I did a
manly thing about the money because I was a fool. All successes are accidents
in someoneÅ‚s world ... so: “You tell her it worked, Miss Brandt. IÅ‚m going to
paint, Miss Brandt; Iłm going to paint you, Miss Brandt, because youłre
beautiful."

 

And I paint, and she is, because
I paint, because she is.




 

<<Contents>>

 

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