Short Fiction, Stanley G. Weinbaum [chromebook ebook reader .TXT] 📗

“I love her,” insisted Dan.

“Then woe to both of you! For this is impossible in Paracosma; it is a confliction with the laws. Galatea’s mate is appointed, perhaps even now approaching.”

“Laws! Laws!” muttered Dan. “Whose laws are they? Not Galatea’s nor mine!”

“But they are,” said the Grey Weaver. “It is not for you nor for me to criticize them⁠—though I yet wonder what power could annul them to permit your presence here!”

“I had no voice in your laws.”

The old man peered at him in the dusk. “Has anyone, anywhere, a voice in the laws?” he queried.

“In my country we have,” retorted Dan.

“Madness!” growled Leucon. “Manmade laws! Of what use are man-made laws with only man-made penalties, or none at all? If you shadows make a law that the wind shall blow only from the east, does the west wind obey it?”

“We do pass such laws,” acknowledged Dan bitterly. “They may be stupid, but they’re no more unjust than yours.”

“Ours,” said the Grey Weaver, “are the unalterable laws of the world, the laws of Nature. Violation is always unhappiness. I have seen it; I have known it in another, in Galatea’s mother, though Galatea is stronger than she.” He paused. “Now,” he continued, “I ask only for mercy; your stay is short, and I ask that you do no more harm than is already done. Be merciful; give her no more to regret.”

He rose and moved through the archway; when Dan followed a moment later, he was already removing a square of silver from his device in the corner. Dan turned silent and unhappy to his own chamber, where the jet of water tinkled faintly as a distant bell.

Again he rose at the glow of dawn, and again Galatea was before him, meeting him at the door with her bowl of fruit. She deposited her burden, giving him a wan little smile of greeting, and stood facing him as if waiting.

“Come with me, Galatea,” he said.

“Where?”

“To the river bank. To talk.”

They trudged in silence to the brink of Galatea’s pool. Dan noted a subtle difference in the world about him; outlines were vague, the thin flower pipings less audible, and the very landscape was queerly unstable, shifting like smoke when he wasn’t looking at it directly. And strangely, though he had brought the girl here to talk to her, he had now nothing to say, but sat in aching silence with his eyes on the loveliness of her face.

Galatea pointed at the red ascending sun. “So short a time,” she said, “before you go back to your phantom world. I shall be sorry, very sorry.” She touched his cheek with her fingers. “Dear shadow!”

“Suppose,” said Dan huskily, “that I won’t go. What if I won’t leave here?” His voice grew fiercer. “I’ll not go! I’m going to stay!”

The calm mournfulness of the girl’s face checked him; he felt the irony of struggling against the inevitable progress of a dream. She spoke. “Had I the making of the laws, you should stay. But you can’t, dear one. You can’t!”

Forgotten now were the words of the Grey Weaver. “I love you, Galatea,” he said.

“And I you,” she whispered. “See, dearest shadow, how I break the same law my mother broke, and am glad to face the sorrow it will bring.” She placed her hand tenderly over his. “Leucon is very wise and I am bound to obey him, but this is beyond his wisdom because he let himself grow old.” She paused. “He let himself grow old,” she repeated slowly. A strange light gleamed in her dark eyes as she turned suddenly to Dan.

“Dear one!” she said tensely. “That thing that happens to the old⁠—that death of yours! What follows it?”

“What follows death?” he echoed. “Who knows?”

“But⁠—” Her voice was quivering. “But one can’t simply⁠—vanish! There must be an awakening.”

“Who knows?” said Dan again. “There are those who believe we wake to a happier world, but⁠—” He shook his head hopelessly.

“It must be true! Oh, it must be!” Galatea cried. “There must be more for you than the mad world you speak of!” She leaned very close. “Suppose, dear,” she said, “that when my appointed lover arrives, I send him away. Suppose I bear no child, but let myself grow old, older than Leucon, old until death. Would I join you in your happier world?”

“Galatea!” he cried distractedly. “Oh, my dearest⁠—what a terrible thought!”

“More terrible than you know,” she whispered, still very close to him. “It is more than violation of a law; it is rebellion! Everything is planned, everything was foreseen, except this; and if I bear no child, her place will be left unfilled, and the places of her children, and of their children, and so on until some day the whole great plan of Paracosma fails of whatever its destiny was to be.” Her whisper grew very faint and fearful. “It is destruction, but I love you more than I fear⁠—death!”

Dan’s arms were about her. “No, Galatea! No! Promise me!”

She murmured, “I can promise and then break my promise.” She drew his head down; their lips touched, and he felt a fragrance and a taste like honey in her kiss. “At least,” she breathed. “I can give you a name by which to love you. Philometros! Measure of my love!”

“A name?” muttered Dan. A fantastic idea shot through his mind⁠—a way of proving to himself that all this was reality, and not just a page that anyone could read who wore old Ludwig’s magic spectacles. If Galatea would speak his name! Perhaps, he thought daringly, perhaps then he could stay! He thrust her away.

“Galatea!” he cried. “Do you remember my name?”

She nodded silently, her unhappy eyes on his.

“Then say it! Say it, dear!”

She stared at him dumbly, miserably, but made no sound.

“Say it, Galatea!” he pleaded desperately. “My name, dear⁠—just my name!” Her mouth moved; she grew pale with effort and Dan could have sworn that his name trembled on her quivering lips, though no