Le Guin, Ursula - Western Shore 2 - Voices.pdf - Ursula Le Guin - przemosta

Ursula K. Le Guin - Voices

Ursula K. Le Guin - Voices

CASPRO'S HYMN

As in the dark of winter night

Our eyes seek dawn,

As in the bonds of bitter cold

The heart craves sun,

So blinded and so bound, the soul

Cries out to thee:

Be our light, our fire, our life,

Liberty!

Ursula K. Le Guin - Voices

Ursula K. Le Guin - Voices

Ursula K. Le Guin - Voices

♦ 1 ♦

The first thing I can remember clearly is writing the way into the secret

room.

I am so small I have to reach my arm up to make the signs in the

right place on the wall of the corridor. The wall is coated with thick grey

plaster, cracked and crumbling in places so the stone shows through. It's

almost dark in the corridor. It smells of earth and age, and it's silent. But

I'm not afraid; I'm never afraid there. I reach up and move my writing

finger in the motions I know, in the right place, in the air, not quite

touching the surface of the plaster. The door opens in the wall. and I go

in.

The light in that room is clear and calm, falling from many small

skylights of thick glass in the high ceiling. It's a very long room, with

shelves down its wall, and books on the shelves. It's my room, and I've

always known it. Ista and Sosta and Gudit don't. They don't even know

it's there. They never come to these corridors far in the back of the

house. I pass the Waylord's door to come here, but he's sick and lame

and stays in his rooms. The secret room is my secret, the place where I

can be alone, and not scolded and bothered, and not afraid.

The memory isn't of one time I went there, but many. I remember

how big the reading table looked to me then, and how high the book-

shelves were. I liked to get under the table and build a kind of wall or

shelter with some of the books. I pretended to be a bear cub in its den I

Le Guin, Ursula - Western Shore 2 - Voices.pdf