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you see the splendor, the splendor of the human spirit. Because our men and women are free
possessing nothing, they are free. And you the possessors are possessed. You are all in jail. Each alone,
solitary, with a heap of what he owns. You live in prison, die in prison. It is all I can see in your
eyes the wall, the wall!"
They were all looking at him.
He heard the loudness of his voice still ringing in the silence, felt his ears burning. The darkness, the
blankness, turned over once more in his mind. "I feel dizzy," he said, and stood up.
Vea was at his arm. "Come along this way," she said, laughing a little and breathless. He followed her
as she threaded her way through the people. He now felt his face was very pale, and the dizziness did not
pass; he hoped she was taking him to the washroom, or to a window where he could breathe fresh air.
But the room they came into was large and dimly lit by reflection. A high, white bed bulked against the
wall; a looking-glass covered half an other wall. There was a close, sweet fragrance of draperies, linens,
the perfume Vea used.
"You are too much," Vea said, bringing herself directly before him and looking up into his face, in the
dimness, with that breathless laugh. "Really too much you are impossible magnificent!" She put her
hands on his shoulders. "Oh, the looks on their faces! I've got to kiss you for that!" And she lifted herself
on tiptoe, presenting him her mouth, and her white throat, and her naked breasts.
He took hold of her and kissed her mouth, forcing her head backward, and then her throat and
breasts. She yielded at first as if she had no bones, then she writhed a little, laughing and pushing weakly
at him, and began to talk. "Oh, no, no, now behave," she said. "Now, come on, we do have to go back
to the party. No, Shevek, now calm down, this won't do at all!" He paid no attention. He pulled her with
him toward the bed, and she came, though she kept talking. He fumbled with one hand at the
complicated clothes he was wearing and managed to get his trousers unfastened. Then there was Vea's
clothing, the lowslung but tight-fitted skirt band, which he could not loosen. "Now, stop," she said. "No,
now listen, Shevek, it won't do, not now, I haven't taken a contraceptive, if I got stuffed I'd be in a pretty
mess, my husband's coming back in two weeks! No, let me be," but he could not let her be; his face was
pressed against her soft, sweaty, scented flesh. "Listen, don't mess up my clothes, people will notice, for
heaven's sake. Wait just wait, we can arrange it, we can fix up a place to meet, I do have to be careful
of my reputation, I can't trust the maid, just wait, not now Not now! Not now!" Frightened at last by
his blind urgency, his force, she pushed at him as hard as she could, her hands against his chest. He took
a step backward, confused by her sudden high tone of fear and her struggle; but he could not stop, her
resistance excited him further. He gripped her to him, and his semen spurted out against the white silk of
her dress.
"Let me go! Let me go!" she was repeating in the same high whisper. He let her go. He stood dazed.
He fumbled at his trousers, trying to close them. "I am sorry I thought you wanted "
"For God's sake!" Vea said, looking down at her skirt in the dim light, twitching the pleats away from
her. "Really! Now I'll have to change my dress."
Shevek stood, his mouth open, breathing with difficulty, his hands hanging; then all at once he turned
and blundered out of the dim room. Back in the bright room of the party he stumbled through the
crowded people, tripped over a leg, found his way blocked by bodies, clothes, jewels, breasts, eyes,
candle flames, furniture. He ran up against a table. On it lay a silver platter on which tiny pastries stuffed
with meat, cream, and herbs were arranged in concentric circles like a huge pale flower. Shevek gasped
for breath, doubled up, and vomited all over the platter.
"I'll take him home," Pae said.
"Do, for heaven's sake," said Vea. "Were you looking for him, Saio?"
"Oh, a bit. Fortunately Demaere called you."
"You are certainly welcome to him."
"He won't be any trouble. Passed out in the hall. May I use your phone before I go?"
"Give my love to the Chief," Vea said archly.
Oiie had come to his sister's flat with Pae, and left with him. They sat in the middle seat of the big
Government limousine that Pae always had on call, the same one that had brought Shevek from the space
port last summer. He now lay as they had dumped him on the back seat.
"Was he with your sister all day, Demaere?"
"Since noon, apparently."
"Thank God!"
"Why are you so worried about his getting into the slums? Any Odonian's already convinced we're a
lot of oppressed wage slaves, what's the difference if he sees a bit of corroboration?"
"I don't care what he sees. We don't want him seen. Have you been reading the birdseed papers? Or
the broadsheets that were circulating last week in Old Town, about the 'Forerunner'? The myth the one
who comes before the millennium 'a stranger, an outcast, an exile, bearing in empty hands the time to
come.' They quoted that. The rabble are in one of their damned apocalyptic moods. Looking for a
figurehead. A catalyst. Talking about a general strike. They'll never learn. They need a lesson all the
same. Damned rebellious cattle, send them to fight Thu, it's the only good we'll ever get from them."
Neither man spoke again during the ride.
The night watchman of the Senior Faculty House helped them get Shevek up to his room. They
loaded him onto the bed. He began to snore at once.
Oiie stayed to take off Shevek's shoes and put a blanket over him. The drunken man's breath was
foul; Oiie stepped away from the bed, the fear and the love he felt for Shevek rising up in him, each
strangling the other. He scowled, and muttered, "Dirty fool." He snapped the light off and returned to the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]