Pygmalions Spectacles | Page 7

portal, and Galatea had paused on the threshold. She watched his approach with eyes in which he again fancied the glint of tears.
"I am very tired," she said, and slipped within.
Dan moved to follow, but the old man raised a staying hand.
"Friend from the shadows," he said, "will you hear me a moment?"
Dan paused, acquiesced, and dropped to the opposite bench. He felt a sense of foreboding; nothing pleasant awaited him.
"There is something to be said," Leucon continued, "and I say it without desire to pain you, if phantoms feel pain. It is this: Galatea loves you, though I think she has not yet realized it."
"I love her too," said Dan.
The Grey Weaver stared at him. "I do not understand. Substance, indeed, may love shadow, but how can shadow love substance?"
"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. "Man-made 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