Pygmalions Spectacles | Page 9

dizzily in turmoil. He realized suddenly that he was no longer standing,
but sitting in the midst of the crazy glade, and his hands clutched
something smooth and hard--the arms of that miserable hotel chair.
Then at last he saw her, close before him--Galatea, with
sorrow-stricken features, her tear-filled eyes on his. He made a terrific
effort to rise, stood erect, and fell sprawling in a blaze of coruscating
lights.
He struggled to his knees; walls--Ludwig's room--encompassed him; he
must have slipped from the chair. The magic spectacles lay before him,
one lens splintered and spilling a fluid no longer water-clear, but white
as milk.
"God!" he muttered. He felt shaken, sick, exhausted, with a bitter sense
of bereavement, and his head ached fiercely. The room was drab,
disgusting; he wanted to get out of it. He glanced automatically at his
watch: four o'clock--he must have sat here nearly five hours. For the
first time he noticed Ludwig's absence; he was glad of it and walked
dully out of the door to an automatic elevator. There was no response to
his ring; someone was using the thing. He walked three flights to the
street and back to his own room.
In love with a vision! Worse--in love with a girl who had never lived,
in a fantastic Utopia that was literally nowhere! He threw himself on
his bed with a groan that was half a sob.
He saw finally the implication of the name Galatea.
Galatea--Pygmalion's statue, given life by Venus in the ancient Grecian
myth. But his Galatea, warm and lovely and vital, must remain forever
without the gift of life, since he was neither Pygmalion nor God.
* * * * *
He woke late in the morning, staring uncomprehendingly about for the
fountain and pool of Paracosma. Slow comprehension dawned; how

much--how much--of last night's experience had been real? How much
was the product of alcohol? Or had old Ludwig been right, and was
there no difference between reality and dream?
He changed his rumpled attire and wandered despondently to the street.
He found Ludwig's hotel at last; inquiry revealed that the diminutive
professor had checked out, leaving no forwarding address.
What of it? Even Ludwig couldn't give what he sought, a living Galatea.
Dan was glad that he had disappeared; he hated the little professor.
Professor? Hypnotists called themselves "professors." He dragged
through a weary day and then a sleepless night back to Chicago.
It was mid-winter when he saw a suggestively tiny figure ahead of him
in the Loop. Ludwig! Yet what use to hail him? His cry was automatic.
"Professor Ludwig!"
The elfin figure turned, recognized him, smiled. They stepped into the
shelter of a building.
"I'm sorry about your machine, Professor. I'd be glad to pay for the
damage."
"Ach, that was nothing--a cracked glass. But you--have you been ill?
You look much the worse."
"It's nothing," said Dan. "Your show was marvelous,
Professor--marvelous! I'd have told you so, but you were gone when it
ended."
Ludwig shrugged. "I went to the lobby for a cigar. Five hours with a
wax dummy, you know!"
"It was marvelous!" repeated Dan.
"So real?" smiled the other. "Only because you co-operated, then. It
takes self-hypnosis."
"It was real, all right," agreed Dan glumly. "I don't understand it--that

strange beautiful country."
"The trees were club-mosses enlarged by a lens," said Ludwig. "All
was trick photography, but stereoscopic, as I told you--three
dimensional. The fruits were rubber; the house is a summer building on
our campus--Northern University. And the voice was mine; you didn't
speak at all, except your name at the first, and I left a blank for that. I
played your part, you see; I went around with the photographic
apparatus strapped on my head, to keep the viewpoint always that of
the observer. See?" He grinned wryly. "Luckily I'm rather short, or
you'd have seemed a giant."
"Wait a minute!" said Dan, his mind whirling. "You say you played my
part. Then Galatea--is she real too?"
"Tea's real enough," said the Professor. "My niece, a senior at Northern,
and likes dramatics. She helped me out with the thing. Why? Want to
meet her?"
Dan answered vaguely, happily. An ache had vanished; a pain was
eased. Paracosma was attainable at last!

End of Project Gutenberg's Pygmalion's Spectacles, by Stanley
Grauman Weinbaum
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
PYGMALION'S SPECTACLES ***
***** This file should be named 22893.txt or 22893.zip ***** This
and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/8/9/22893/
Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be
renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in