Wolfe, Gene - Peritonitis.pdf - Gene Wolfe - chomikbob7

Peritonitis

GENE WOLFE

Now this is the story Greylock told before the Men of the Neck were

scattered forever, before the great exodus and the wandering in the cold

lands of hunger. Once (so said Greylock, my father's mother heard him)

the Men of the Neck ruled all the World and were all the world, and there

was nothing between Heel and Finger-tip that was not theirs. In those

times a virgin might dine at the Calf and drink at the Eyes and sleep

where she would and none would harm her. Then every man said

"Brother" or "Sister" when he met a child, and the old were respected.

How many were born in those times, and lived each moment of life in

those times, and dying rolled away, and never dreamed that the World

would not be thus forever? Who can say? Their spirits have gone to the

Hair. The dark followed the light for them, and the wettings came and

some perished; but this, as all knew, was good lest the People wax too

great.

I myself was born into lesser times, but even so not until even those

lesser days were nearly ended. I tell you this that you may remember, and

know in your despair that God has in times past been good. All is his, all

belongs to him alone. Never in the coming time shall you say among

yourselves that he has robbed you—what he takes is his; it cannot be

otherwise.

No man can now comprehend the joy of those times. There was no bad

food anywhere; every morsel was filled with strength, and a happiness

indescribable. When the old—yes, even as I am now—ate of that meat their

backs straightened and their eyes grew bright; then the grand-sire of a

thousand might take the goodwife beneath the shade of some soft roof.

And the children of those first times ate, and eating danced in the light,

and sang songs that came to them as they sang, one word following

another, and played a score of merry games now forgotten, games that

grandmothers only mumbled of, forgetting both the names and the rules,

even when I myself was but a child; games of running, jumping, hiding

and finding, games of hopping, climbing, and singing; games of holding

hands in chains.

Again I say, none now can know the joy of those times, and the greatest

of them was this—that every man and woman saw, as light came and dark,

then light again, and time grew heavy upon them, that that World that

was their children's children's waxed.

You do not believe me. Ah, there is no blame in that to you. How could

you, who have seen it wane all your lives, yes, and heard your fathers say

that it has waned all theirs? But it was true—larger it grew and fairer, the

warmth increasing. Then those we call still the New Mountains first began

to grow, lifting, very gently then, their slopes above the level plain.

At that time there came a change to the nature of the meat, and none

(so have I heard) could well prove whether it was for good or ill—nor can I

now say. Happiness it brought indeed, but in that happiness there were a

thousand sorrows; yet it was said by many, weeping, that it was a sweeter

joy. Then the eaters sang not, but chanted, making of the old,

mouth-smoothed words new and unfamiliar things, chants that brought

happiness or tears or terror even to those who fasted. And this was called

the second age, and it was the time of counterpoint and dreams.

That time too passed. Of the third age what is there to say? You have

heard its story already too often. The New Mountains were mighty then,

and there came upon all who ate a fever of clean lust that wiped away

everything that had gone before. It was then—so I deem it—that the

oneness of the People was broken, never in truth to come again. For by

twos and threes and fives all but the youngest children drew apart, and

those that returned to the gatherings stayed but a little time. At that time

if at any the love-promisings that are older than the People were kept: for

many a pair dallied all a dark away, and a light too, feasting enough to

have fattened a dozen save that love kept them lean.

With the age of New Food that time ended. From the summit of each

New Mountain, grown now until they rivaled the Haunches, there broke

forth a spring; and the waters of those springs were not clear as the waters

of the Eyes are, but white, and sweet. Many a one climbed the New

Mountains then to taste of them, though they flowed less than a lifetime.

This was the fourth age, and the end of the beginning. For when those

springs died the New Mountains waned; and the Belly, which had, scarcely

noted, waxed above the Loins, withered in one dark.

Then many felt their doom upon them; this feeling was in the meat, so

it was said—but in the air as well. The World was smaller. Then came the

Sundering. Some said there was no God; and we, the Men of the Neck,

drove them for their blasphemy beyond the New Mountains toward the

Loins. Others said that the World itself was God; and these, a fierce and a

terrible people, climbed to the Face. Then did we name ourselves Men of

the Neck, but beyond our boasting we feared—for though the Men of the

Loins might drink there of impure waters, we must needs reach the Eyes

when we could eat no more without drinking, and we feared that those

above us would prevent us. A few, brave and fleet, ventured first, daring

the Spirit Forests to come to the lakes from the north, and returning by

the same troubled path. But return they did, and others after them, until

we came in time to know that those whom we feared had left all the lands

of light to dwell in the Mouth, where—they said—the waters at times

possessed a quality magical and ineffable. They spoke of the third age, and

the second and the first—all these, they said, had returned not in the meat,

but in the waters of the Mouth. With these avowals they taunted us,

flinging at us jagged stones fallen from the Teeth. But we saw that,

however fierce, they were few; and when we questioned them, shouting

from a distance, they would not reply.

It was at this time that Deepdelver's woman Singing was stolen by a

Man of the Face, and into those times I was born—yes, I saw them, with

these same eyes that behold you now, remembering them in the time I was

a child.

Deepdelver was not stronger than other men, nor swifter; and others

there were who were cleverer than he. Why then was he counted a hero

when they were not? This was the question I put to my parents; and the

answer they gave was that he had done a wonderful thing, going to

Everdark to bring back the woman he loved; but that reply was no

answer—would any other, stronger, swifter, more cunning, not have done

as Deepdelver had? No. There was in him something better than strength

or cunning, that which made him go forward and not back. This it was

that made Deepdelver a hero, that brought him into Everdark, and to the

light again alive.

As to Singing, what can an old man say? Her beauty cursed me, if you

will, though I was then but a little child. I have never seen another and

never shall—she ennobled us all; wherever she stood was for that time a

place of peace and beauty. Of the crime that befell her I was then too

young to know, but I give it as I received it.

With others of her age and a guard of men, of whom Deepdelver, then

called by another, lesser, name, was one, she journeyed to the Eyes to

bathe. Now at that time men no longer went into the haunted Hair to

reach the lakes from the north. But not yet were they so bold as to come

too near the corners of the Mouth—no, the accepted path, then deemed

safe, was to skirt the southernmost spinney of the Hair, near the Ear, and

thence to climb to the Eyes by an oblique ascent.

Now this party of young men and maidens were so doing when there

came upon them such a calamity as we, of this latter age, have so much

more knowledge than they. An overflow from the nearer lake, forming

itself into a great mass of water, came hurtling down on them; and they

scattered—none looking to the others, but each fleeing in that direction

that seemed to him easiest. Now it so happened that Singing's path led

her to the Mouth.

When the Tear had passed the young men and maids joined again,

laughing and each telling their tale of escape until, as they reckoned their

numbers, their laughter hushed. Wide they quested then for Singing, but

not to the Mouth until with the passing of time it grew upon them that if

Singing had not, indeed, been washed away, then it was there that they

must search for her. None spoke this knowledge, but it waxed among

them; and at length they would not look at one another for the shame of

it—but already Deepdelver was gone.

No one had he told of his plan, going alone to the very precipices of the

Lips, and from those dark, ill-omened heights, staring, alone, at the Teeth

themselves, the dread portals of the sunless realm, found within him the

strength to enter there; such a man is not like us, though he walk among

us; the ghosts who wander forever through the Hair might, if they saw a

living man walking unafraid where they are accustomed to take such ease

as is permitted the Dead, believe him to be a ghost even as they: but—if we

are not all specters now—it would not be so, because he would have life in

him. Just so such men as you and I, seeing a Deepdelver, think him but

our peer.

Often I questioned him—young as I was, and shameless—of what he

found within the Teeth, and the rescue of Singing. Little would he tell me.

There are watery caves beneath the Tongue, by his saying. There he swam

in halflight through waves clearer, yet thicker, than those of the lakes; and

met a gentle race who begged him to go no farther, offering in the stead of

Singing milk-pale maidens, languid, gentle, and enamoured of love, whom

he spurned.

We call ourselves the People of the Neck, but who but Deepdelver ever

knew the extent of that kingdom; who but he ever, in the long song of

history, went down the Throat? That road he took, leaving the last of the

light. Savages he met there, and, defeating their chief in solitary combat,

bound him when his vassels fled—till hunger forced from him the tale of

Singing's passing, and her captor's. Deeper they had gone by his telling,

and even Deepdelver's mighty strength—so he himself recounted it —died

within him.

Then came a wetting, but not as we have known them. The dim rills of

the Throat turned to black as the waters multiplied, and there came upon

Deepdelver, in the rushing confusion of those waters, all the thoughts that

men have ever felt, so that he knew himself to be brave and afraid, happy

yet sorrowful, God and nothing—all at once and without causes; and

though his thought told him that to do so was death, he dived into the

waters and swam with them, laughing to die so, laughing in the breakers,

dizzy with delight in the darkness, knowing that it was death but eager to

die so.

So he came to the depths, to Everdark, and heard there the weeping of

Singing. Who can tell a tale that was born in the blackness? How he found

her and killed her captor, drowning him, though he was himself delirious,

in the millrace of madness. How the Inner People won them, they who

then ate what they had from the waters, those unseen ones who never

stand in sun, whelming Deepdelver in their myriads; how he their slave

taught them to tear the meat they trod and so live lawfully, and how they

gave freedom to him, and Singing too, when once they had tasted; how the

two made their way midst difficulties and dangers to the Neck again; all

these are more than I can say. But you must know the courage, and the

history of your People before you fare forth; and I have told you.

Field and hill are cold now, and the World itself dying or dead, and the

lands are filled with ghouls. It is time you go.

This was the last story.

Wolfe, Gene - Peritonitis.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: