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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3ddf58f --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #50905 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50905) diff --git a/old/50905-h.zip b/old/50905-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 72f270c..0000000 --- a/old/50905-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/50905-h/50905-h.htm b/old/50905-h/50905-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 5f2307c..0000000 --- a/old/50905-h/50905-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1838 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Yesterday House, by Fritz Leiber. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.caption {font-weight: bold;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1, .ph2, .ph3, .ph4 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; } -.ph1 { font-size: xx-large; margin: .67em auto; } -.ph2 { font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; } -.ph3 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } -.ph4 { font-size: medium; margin: 1.12em auto; } - -.poetry .stanza -{ - margin: 1em auto; -} - -.poetry .verse -{ - padding-left: 3em; -} - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Yesterday House, by Fritz Leiber - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Yesterday House - -Author: Fritz Leiber - -Release Date: January 12, 2016 [EBook #50905] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YESTERDAY HOUSE *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="363" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>Yesterday House</h1> - -<p>By FRITZ LEIBER</p> - -<p>Illustrated by ASHMAN</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Galaxy Science Fiction August 1952.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3"><i>Meeting someone who's been dead for twenty<br /> -years is shocking enough for anyone with a<br /> -belief in ghosts—worse for one with none!</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3">I</p> - -<p>The narrow cove was quiet as the face of an expectant child, yet so -near the ruffled Atlantic that the last push of wind carried the <i>Annie -O.</i> its full length. The man in gray flannels and sweatshirt let the -sail come crumpling down and hurried past its white folds at a gait -made comically awkward by his cramped muscles. Slowly the rocky ledge -came nearer. Slowly the blue V inscribed on the cove's surface by the -sloop's prow died. Sloop and ledge kissed so gently that he hardly had -to reach out his hand.</p> - -<p>He scrambled ashore, dipping a sneaker in the icy water, and threw the -line around a boulder. Unkinking himself, he looked back through the -cove's high and rocky mouth at the gray-green scattering of islands -and the faint dark line that was the coast of Maine. He almost laughed -in satisfaction at having disregarded vague warnings and done the thing -every man yearns to do once in his lifetime—gone to the farthest -island out.</p> - -<p>He must have looked longer than he realized, because by the time he -dropped his gaze the cove was again as glassy as if the <i>Annie O.</i> had -always been there. And the splotches made by his sneaker on the rock -had faded in the hot sun. There was something very unusual about the -quietness of this place. As if time, elsewhere hurrying frantically, -paused here to rest. As if all changes were erased on this one bit of -Earth.</p> - -<p>The man's lean, melancholy face crinkled into a grin at the banal -fancy. He turned his back on his new friend, the little green sloop, -without one thought for his nets and specimen bottles, and set out to -explore. The ground rose steeply at first and the oaks were close, but -after a little way things went downhill and the leaves thinned and he -came out on more rocks—and realized that he hadn't quite gone to the -farthest one out.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Joined to this island by a rocky spine, which at the present low tide -would have been dry but for the spray, was another green, high island -that the first had masked from him all the while he had been sailing. -He felt a thrill of discovery, just as he'd wondered back in the woods -whether his might not be the first human feet to kick through the -underbrush. After all, there were thousands of these islands.</p> - -<p>Then he was dropping down the rocks, his lanky limbs now moving -smoothly enough.</p> - -<p>To the landward side of the spine, the water was fairly still. It even -began with another deep cove, in which he glimpsed the spiny spheres -of sea urchins. But from seaward the waves chopped in, sprinkling his -trousers to the knees and making him wince pleasurably at the thought -of what vast wings of spray and towers of solid water must crash up -from here in a storm.</p> - -<p>He crossed the rocks at a trot, ran up a short grassy slope, raced -through a fringe of trees—and came straight up against an eight-foot -fence of heavy mesh topped with barbed wire and backed at a short -distance with high, heavy shrubbery.</p> - -<p>Without pausing for surprise—in fact, in his holiday mood, using -surprise as a goad—he jumped for the branch of an oak whose trunk -touched the fence, scorning the easier lower branch on the other side -of the tree. Then he drew himself up, worked his way to some higher -branches that crossed the fence, and dropped down inside.</p> - -<p>Suddenly cautious, he gently parted the shrubbery and, before the first -surprise could really sink in, had another.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="384" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>A closely mown lawn dotted with more shrubbery ran up to a snug white -Cape Cod cottage. The single strand of a radio aerial stretched the -length of the roof. Parked on a neat gravel driveway that crossed just -in front of the cottage was a short, square-lined touring car that he -recognized from remembered pictures as an ancient Essex. The whole -scene had about it the same odd quietness as the cove.</p> - -<p>Then, with the air of a clock-work toy coming to life, the white door -opened and an elderly woman came out, dressed in a long, lace-edged -dress and wide, lacy hat. She climbed into the driver's seat of the -Essex, sitting there very stiff and tall. The motor began to chug -bravely, gravel skittered, and the car rolled off between the trees.</p> - -<p>The door of the house opened again and a slim girl emerged. She wore a -white silk dress that fell straight from square neck-line to hip-height -waistline, making the skirt seem very short. Her dark hair was bound -with a white bandeau so that it curved close to her cheeks. A dark -necklace dangled against the white of the dress. A newspaper was tucked -under her arm.</p> - -<p>She crossed the driveway and tossed the paper down on a rattan table -between three rattan chairs and stood watching a squirrel zigzag across -the lawn.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The man stepped through the wall of shrubbery, called, "hello!" and -walked toward her.</p> - -<p>She whirled around and stared at him as still as if her heart had -stopped beating. Then she darted behind the table and waited for him -there. Granting the surprise of his appearance, her alarm seemed not -so much excessive as eerie. As if, the man thought, he were not an -ordinary stranger, but a visitor from another planet.</p> - -<p>Approaching closer, he saw that she was trembling and that her breath -was coming in rapid, irregular gasps. Yet the slim, sweet, patrician -face that stared into his had an underlying expression of expectancy -that reminded him of the cove. She couldn't have been more than -eighteen.</p> - -<p>He stopped short of the table. Before he could speak, she stammered -out, "Are you he?"</p> - -<p>"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling puzzledly.</p> - -<p>"The one who sends me the little boxes."</p> - -<p>"I was out sailing and I happened to land in the far cove. I didn't -dream that anyone lived on this island, or even came here."</p> - -<p>"No one ever does come here," she replied. Her manner had changed, -becoming at once more wary and less agitated, though still eerily -curious.</p> - -<p>"It startled me tremendously to find this place," he blundered on. -"Especially the road and the car. Why, this island can't be more than a -quarter of a mile wide."</p> - -<p>"The road goes down to the wharf," she explained, "and up to the top of -the island, where my aunts have a tree-house."</p> - -<p>He tore his mind away from the picture of a woman dressed like Queen -Mary clambering up a tree. "Was that your aunt I saw driving off?"</p> - -<p>"One of them. The other's taken the motorboat in for supplies." She -looked at him doubtfully. "I'm not sure they'll like it if they find -someone here."</p> - -<p>"There are just the three of you?" he cut in quickly, looking down the -empty road that vanished among the oaks.</p> - -<p>She nodded.</p> - -<p>"I suppose you go in to the mainland with your aunts quite often?"</p> - -<p>She shook her head.</p> - -<p>"It must get pretty dull for you."</p> - -<p>"Not very," she said, smiling. "My aunts bring me the papers and other -things. Even movies. We've got a projector. My favorite stars are -Antonio Morino and Alice Terry. I like her better even than Clara Bow."</p> - -<p>He looked at her hard for a moment. "I suppose you read a lot?"</p> - -<p>She nodded. "Fitzgerald's my favorite author." She started around the -table, hesitated, suddenly grew shy. "Would you like some lemonade?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He'd noticed the dewed silver pitcher, but only now realized his -thirst. Yet when she handed him a glass, he held it untasted and said -awkwardly, "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Jack Barry."</p> - -<p>She stared at his outstretched right hand, slowly extended her own -toward it, shook it up and down exactly once, then quickly dropped it.</p> - -<p>He chuckled and gulped some lemonade. "I'm a biology student. Been -working at Wood's Hole the first part of the summer. But now I'm here -to do research in marine ecology—that's sort of sea-life patterns—of -the in-shore islands. Under the direction of Professor Kesserich. You -know about him, of course?"</p> - -<p>She shook her head.</p> - -<p>"Probably the greatest living biologist," he was proud to inform -her. "Human physiology as well. Tremendous geneticist. In a class -with Carlson and Jacques Loeb. Martin Kesserich—he lives over there -at town. I'm staying with him. You ought to have heard of him." He -grinned. "Matter of fact, I'd never have met you if it hadn't been for -Mrs. Kesserich."</p> - -<p>The girl looked puzzled.</p> - -<p>Jack explained, "The old boy's been off to Europe on some conferences, -won't be back for a couple days more. But I was to get started anyhow. -When I went out this morning Mrs. Kesserich—she's a drab sort of -person—said to me, 'Don't try to sail to the farther islands.' So, of -course, I had to. By the way, you still haven't told me your name."</p> - -<p>"Mary Alice Pope," she said, speaking slowly and with an odd wonder, as -if she were saying it for the first time.</p> - -<p>"You're pretty shy, aren't you?"</p> - -<p>"How would I know?"</p> - -<p>The question stopped Jack. He couldn't think of anything to say to this -strangely attractive girl dressed almost like a "flapper."</p> - -<p>"Will you sit down?" she asked him gravely.</p> - -<p>The rattan chair sighed under his weight. He made another effort to -talk. "I'll bet you'll be glad when summer's over."</p> - -<p>"Why?"</p> - -<p>"So you'll be able to go back to the mainland."</p> - -<p>"But I never go to the mainland."</p> - -<p>"You mean you stay out here all winter?" he asked incredulously, his -mind filled with a vision of snow and frozen spray and great gray waves.</p> - -<p>"Oh, yes. We get all our supplies on hand before winter. My aunts are -very capable. They don't always wear long lace dresses. And now I help -them."</p> - -<p>"But that's impossible!" he said with sudden sympathetic anger. "You -can't be shut off this way from people your own age!"</p> - -<p>"You're the first one I ever met." She hesitated. "I never saw a boy or -a man before, except in movies."</p> - -<p>"You're joking!"</p> - -<p>"No, it's true."</p> - -<p>"But why are they doing it to you?" he demanded, leaning forward. "Why -are they inflicting this loneliness on you, Mary?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She seemed to have gained poise from his loss of it. "I don't know -why. I'm to find out soon. But actually I'm not lonely. May I tell -you a secret?" She touched his hand, this time with only the faintest -trembling. "Every night the loneliness gathers in around me—you're -right about that. But then every morning new life comes to me in a -little box."</p> - -<p>"What's that?" he said sharply.</p> - -<p>"Sometimes there's a poem in the box, sometimes a book, or pictures, -or flowers, or a ring, but always a note. Next to the notes I like the -poems best. My favorite is the one by Matthew Arnold that ends,</p> - -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">'Ah, love, let us be true</div> -<div class="verse">To one another! for the world, which seems</div> -<div class="verse">To lie before us like a land of dreams,</div> -<div class="verse">So various, so beautiful, so new,</div> -<div class="verse">Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,</div> -<div class="verse">Nor certitude—'"</div> -</div></div> - -<p>"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Who sends you these boxes?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know."</p> - -<p>"But how are the notes signed?"</p> - -<p>"They're wonderful notes," she said. "So wise, so gay, so tender, you'd -imagine them being written by John Barrymore or Lindbergh."</p> - -<p>"Yes, but how are they signed?"</p> - -<p>She hesitated. "Never anything but 'Your Lover.'"</p> - -<p>"And so when you first saw me, you thought—" He began, then stopped -because she was blushing.</p> - -<p>"How long have you been getting them?"</p> - -<p>"Ever since I can remember. I have two closets of the boxes. The new -ones are either by my bed when I wake or at my place at breakfast."</p> - -<p>"But how does this—person get these boxes to you out here? Does he -give them to your aunts and do they put them there?"</p> - -<p>"I'm not sure."</p> - -<p>"But how can they get them in winter?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know."</p> - -<p>"Look here," he said, pouring himself more lemonade, "how long is it -since you've been to the mainland?"</p> - -<p>"Almost eighteen years. My aunts tell me I was born there in the middle -of the war."</p> - -<p>"What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade.</p> - -<p>"The World War, of course. What's the matter?"</p> - -<p>Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind -of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him -had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, -the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his -nostrils. He could still hear the faint <i>chop-chop</i> of the waves.</p> - -<p>And yet everything had changed, gone dark and dizzy as a landscape -glimpsed just before a faint. All the little false notes had come to -a sudden focus. For the lemonade had spilled on the headline of the -newspaper the girl had tossed down, and the headline read:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>HITLER IN NEW DEFIANCE</p></blockquote> - -<p>Under the big black banner of that head swam smaller ones:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Foes of Machado Riot in Havana</p> - -<p>Big NRA Parade Planned</p> - -<p>Balbo Speaks in New York</p></blockquote> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Suddenly he felt a surge of relief. He had noticed that the paper was -yellow and brittle-edged.</p> - -<p>"Why are you so interested in old newspapers?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"I wouldn't call day-before-yesterday's paper old," the girl objected, -pointing at the dateline: July 20, 1933.</p> - -<p>"You're trying to joke," Jack told her.</p> - -<p>"No, I'm not."</p> - -<p>"But it's 1953."</p> - -<p>"Now it's you who are joking."</p> - -<p>"But the paper's yellow."</p> - -<p>"The paper's always yellow."</p> - -<p>He laughed uneasily. "Well, if you actually think it's 1933, perhaps -you're to be envied," he said, with a sardonic humor he didn't quite -feel. "Then you can't know anything about the Second World War, or -television, or the V-2s, or Bikini bathing suits, or the atomic bomb, -or—"</p> - -<p>"Stop!" She had sprung up and retreated around her chair, white-faced. -"I don't like what you're saying."</p> - -<p>"But—"</p> - -<p>"No, please! Jokes that may be quite harmless on the mainland sound -different here."</p> - -<p>"I'm really not joking," he said after a moment.</p> - -<p>She grew quite frantic at that. "I can show you all last week's papers! -I can show you magazines and other things. I can prove it!"</p> - -<p>She started toward the house. He followed. He felt his heart begin to -pound.</p> - -<p>At the white door she paused, looking worriedly down the road. Jack -thought he could hear the faint <i>chug</i> of a motorboat. She pushed open -the door and he followed her inside. The small-windowed room was dark -after the sunlight. Jack got an impression of solid old furniture, a -fireplace with brass andirons.</p> - -<p>"Flash!" croaked a gritty voice. "After their disastrous break day -before yesterday, stocks are recovering. Leading issues...."</p> - -<p>Jack realized that he had started and had involuntarily put his arm -around the girl's shoulders. At the same time he noticed that the voice -was coming from the curved brown trumpet of an old-fashioned radio -loudspeaker.</p> - -<p>The girl didn't pull away from him. He turned toward her. Although her -gray eyes were on him, her attention had gone elsewhere.</p> - -<p>"I can hear the car. They're coming back. They won't like it that -you're here."</p> - -<p>"All right they won't like it."</p> - -<p>Her agitation grew. "No, you must go."</p> - -<p>"I'll come back tomorrow," he heard himself saying.</p> - -<p>"Flash! It looks as if the World Economic Conference may soon adjourn, -mouthing jeers at old Uncle Sam who is generally referred to as Uncle -Shylock."</p> - -<p>Jack felt a numbness on his neck. The room seemed to be darkening, the -girl growing stranger still.</p> - -<p>"You must go before they see you."</p> - -<p>"Flash! Wiley Post has just completed his solo circuit of the Globe, -after a record-breaking flight of 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes. -Asked how he felt after the energy-draining feat, Post quipped...."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He was halfway across the lawn before he realized the terror into which -the grating radio voice had thrown him.</p> - -<p>He leaped for the branch over-hanging the fence, vaulted up with the -risky help of a foot on the barbed top. A surprised squirrel, lacking -time to make its escape up the trunk, sprang to the ground ahead of -him. With terrible suddenness, two steel-jawed semicircles clanked -together just over the squirrel's head. Jack landed with one foot to -either side of the sprung trap, while the squirrel darted off with a -squeak.</p> - -<p>Jack plunged down the slope to the rocky spine and ran across it, spray -from the rising waves spattering him to the waist. Panting now, he -stumbled up into the oaks and undergrowth of the first island, fought -his way through it, finally reached the silent cove. He loosed the line -of the <i>Annie O.</i>, dragged it as near to the cove's mouth as he could, -plunged knee-deep in freezing water to give it a final shove, scrambled -aboard, snatched up the boathook and punched at the rocks.</p> - -<p>As soon as the <i>Annie O.</i> was nosing out of the cove into the cross -waves, he yanked up the sail. The freshening wind filled it and sent -the sloop heeling over, with inches of white water over the lee rail, -and plunging ahead.</p> - -<p>For a long while, Jack was satisfied to think of nothing but the wind -and the waves and the sail and speed and danger, to have all his -attention taken up balancing one against the other, so that he wouldn't -have to ask himself what year it was and whether time was an illusion, -and wonder about flappers and hidden traps.</p> - -<p>When he finally looked back at the island, he was amazed to see how -tiny it had grown, as distant as the mainland.</p> - -<p>Then he saw a gray motorboat astern. He watched it as it slowly -overtook him. It was built like a lifeboat, with a sturdy low cabin in -the bow and wheel amidship. Whoever was at the wheel had long gray hair -that whipped in the wind. The longer he looked, the surer he was that -it was a woman wearing a lace dress. Something that stuck up inches -over the cabin flashed darkly beside her. Only when she lifted it to -the roof of the cabin did it occur to him that it might be a rifle.</p> - -<p>But just then the motorboat swung around in a turn that sent waves -drenching over it, and headed back toward the island. He watched it for -a minute in wonder, then his attention was jolted by an angry hail.</p> - -<p>Three fishing smacks, also headed toward town, were about to cross -his bow. He came around into the wind and waited with shaking sail, -watching a man in a lumpy sweater shake a fist at him. Then he turned -and gratefully followed the dark, wide, fanlike sterns and age-yellowed -sails.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="ph3">II</p> - -<p>The exterior of Martin Kesserich's home—a weathered white cube with -narrow, sharp-paned windows, topped by a cupola—was nothing like its -lavish interior.</p> - -<p>In much the same way, Mrs. Kesserich clashed with the darkly gleaming -furniture, persian rugs and bronze vases around her. Her shapeless -black form, poised awkwardly on the edge of a huge sofa, made Jack -think of a cow that had strayed into the drawing room. He wondered -again how a man like Kesserich had come to marry such a creature.</p> - -<p>Yet when she lifted up her little eyes from the shadows, he had the -uneasy feeling that she knew a great deal about him. The eyes were -still those of a domestic animal, but of a wise one that has been -watching the house a long, long while from the barnyard.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="422" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>He asked abruptly, "Do you know anything of a girl around here named -Mary Alice Pope?"</p> - -<p>The silence lasted so long that he began to think she'd gone into some -bovine trance. Then, without a word, she got up and went over to a tall -cabinet. Feeling on a ledge behind it for a key, she opened a panel, -opened a cardboard box inside it, took something from the box and -handed him a photograph. He held it up to the failing light and sucked -in his breath with surprise.</p> - -<p>It was a picture of the girl he'd met that afternoon. Same -flat-bosomed dress—flowered rather than white—no bandeau, same beads. -Same proud, demure expression, perhaps a bit happier.</p> - -<p>"That is Mary Alice Pope," Mrs. Kesserich said in a strangely flat -voice. "She was Martin's fiancee. She was killed in a railway accident -in 1933."</p> - -<p>The small sound of the cabinet door closing brought Jack back to -reality. He realized that he no longer had the photograph. Against the -gloom by the cabinet, Mrs. Kesserich's white face looked at him with -what seemed a malicious eagerness.</p> - -<p>"Sit down," she said, "and I'll tell you about it."</p> - -<p>Without a thought as to why she hadn't asked him a single question—he -was much too dazed for that—he obeyed. Mrs. Kesserich resumed her -position on the edge of the sofa.</p> - -<p>"You must understand, Mr. Barr, that Mary Alice Pope was the one love -of Martin's life. He is a man of very deep and strong feelings, yet as -you probably know, anything but kindly or demonstrative. Even when he -first came here from Hungary with his older sisters Hani and Hilda, -there was a cloak of loneliness about him—or rather about the three of -them.</p> - -<p>"Hani and Hilda were athletic outdoor women, yet fiercely proud—I -don't imagine they ever spoke to anyone in America except as to a -servant—and with a seething distaste for all men except Martin. They -showered all their devotion on him. So of course, though Martin didn't -realize it, they were consumed with jealousy when he fell in love with -Mary Alice Pope. They'd thought that since he'd reached forty without -marrying, he was safe.</p> - -<p>"Mary Alice came from a pure-bred, or as a biologist would say, inbred -British stock. She was very young, but very sweet, and up to a point -very wise. She sensed Hani and Hilda's feelings right away and did -everything she could to win them over. For instance, though she was -afraid of horses, she took up horseback riding, because that was Hani -and Hilda's favorite pastime. Naturally, Martin knew nothing of her -fear, and naturally his sisters knew about it from the first. But—and -here is where Mary's wisdom fell short—her brave gesture did not -pacify them: it only increased their hatred.</p> - -<p>"Except for his research, Martin was blind to everything but his love. -It was a beautiful and yet frightening passion, an insane cherishing as -narrow and intense as his sisters hatred."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>With a start, Jack remembered that it was Mrs. Kesserich telling him -all this.</p> - -<p>She went on, "Martin's love directed his every move. He was building a -home for himself and Mary, and in his mind he was building a wonderful -future for them as well—not vaguely, if you know Martin, but year by -year, month by month. This winter, he'd plan, they would visit Buenos -Aires, next summer they would sail down the inland passage and he would -teach Mary Hungarian for their trip to Buda-Pesth the year after, where -he would occupy a chair at the university for a few months ... and so -on. Finally the time for their marriage drew near. Martin had been -away. His research was keeping him very busy—"</p> - -<p>Jack broke in with, "Wasn't that about the time he did his definitive -work on growth and fertilization?"</p> - -<p>Mrs. Kesserich nodded with solemn appreciation in the gathering -darkness. "But now he was coming home, his work done. It was early -evening, very chilly, but Hani and Hilda felt they had to ride down to -the station to meet their brother. And although she dreaded it, Mary -rode with them, for she knew how delighted he would be at her cantering -to the puffing train and his running up to lift her down from the -saddle to welcome him home.</p> - -<p>"Of course there was Martin's luggage to be considered, so the station -wagon had to be sent down for that." She looked defiantly at Jack. "I -drove the station wagon. I was Martin's laboratory assistant."</p> - -<p>She paused. "It was almost dark, but there was still a white cold -line of sky to the west. Hani and Hilda, with Mary between them, were -waiting on their horses at the top of the hill that led down to the -station. The train had whistled and its headlight was graying the -gravel of the crossing.</p> - -<p>"Suddenly Mary's horse squealed and plunged down the hill. Hani and -Hilda followed—to try to catch her, they said, but they didn't manage -that, only kept her horse from veering off. Mary never screamed, but as -her horse reared on the tracks, I saw her face in the headlight's glare.</p> - -<p>"Martin must have guessed, or at least feared what had happened, for he -was out of the train and running along the track before it stopped. In -fact, he was the first to kneel down beside Mary—I mean, what had been -Mary—and was holding her all bloody and shattered in his arms."</p> - -<p>A door slammed. There were steps in the hall. Mrs. Kesserich stiffened -and was silent. Jack turned.</p> - -<p>The blur of a face hung in the doorway to the hall—a seemingly young, -sensitive, suavely handsome face with aristocratic jaw. Then there was -a click and the lights flared up and Jack saw the close-cropped gray -hair and the lines around the eyes and nostrils, while the sensitive -mouth grew sardonic. Yet the handsomeness stayed, and somehow the -youth, too, or at least a tremendous inner vibrancy.</p> - -<p>"Hello, Barr," Martin Kesserich said, ignoring his wife.</p> - -<p>The great biologist had come home.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="ph3">III</p> - -<p>"Oh, yes, and Jamieson had a feeble paper on what he called -individualization in marine worms. Barr, have you ever thought much -about the larger aspects of the problem of individuality?"</p> - -<p>Jack jumped slightly. He had let his thoughts wander very far.</p> - -<p>"Not especially, sir," he mumbled.</p> - -<p>The house was still. A few minutes after the professor's arrival, -Mrs. Kesserich had gone off with an anxious glance at Jack. He knew -why and wished he could reassure her that he would not mention their -conversation to the professor.</p> - -<p>Kesserich had spent perhaps a half hour briefing him on the more -important papers delivered at the conferences. Then, almost as if -it were a teacher's trick to show up a pupil's inattention, he had -suddenly posed this question about individuality.</p> - -<p>"You know what I mean, of course," Kesserich pressed. "The factors that -make you you, and me me."</p> - -<p>"Heredity and environment," Jack parroted like a freshman.</p> - -<p>Kesserich nodded. "Suppose—this is just speculation—that we could -control heredity and environment. Then we could re-create the same -individual at will."</p> - -<p>Jack felt a shiver go through him. "To get exactly the same pattern of -hereditary traits. That'd be far beyond us."</p> - -<p>"What about identical twins?" Kesserich pointed out. "And then there's -parthenogenesis to be considered. One might produce a duplicate of the -mother without the intervention of the male." Although his voice had -grown more idly speculative, Kesserich seemed to Jack to be smiling -secretly. "There are many examples in the lower animal forms, to say -nothing of the technique by which Loeb caused a sea urchin to reproduce -with no more stimulus than a salt solution."</p> - -<p>Jack felt the hair rising on his neck. "Even then you wouldn't get -exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits."</p> - -<p>"Not if the parent were of very pure stock? Not if there were some -special technique for selecting ova that would reproduce all the -mother's traits?"</p> - -<p>"But environment would change things," Jack objected. "The duplicate -would be bound to develop differently."</p> - -<p>"Is environment so important? Newman tells about a pair of identical -twins separated from birth, unaware of each other's existence. They met -by accident when they were twenty-one. Each was a telephone repairman. -Each had a wife the same age. Each had a baby son. And each had a fox -terrier called 'Trixie.' That's without trying to make environments -similar. But suppose you did try. Suppose you saw to it that each of -them had exactly the same experiences at the same times...."</p> - -<p>For a moment it seemed to Jack that the room was dimming and wavering, -becoming a dark pool in which the only motionless thing was Kesserich's -sphinx-like face.</p> - -<p>"Well, we've escaped quite far enough from Jamieson's marine worms," -the biologist said, all brisk again. He said it as if Jack were the -one who had led the conversation down wild and unprofitable channels. -"Let's get on to your project. I want to talk it over now, because I -won't have any time for it tomorrow."</p> - -<p>Jack looked at him blankly.</p> - -<p>"Tomorrow I must attend to a very important matter," the biologist -explained.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="ph3">IV</p> - -<p>Morning sunlight brightened the colors of the wax flowers under glass -on the high bureau that always seemed to emit the faint odor of old -hair combings. Jack pulled back the diamond-patterned quilt and blinked -the sleep from his eyes. He expected his mind to be busy wondering -about Kesserich and his wife—things said and half said last night—but -found instead that his thoughts swung instantly to Mary Alice Pope, as -if to a farthest island in a world of people.</p> - -<p>Downstairs, the house was empty. After a long look at the cabinet—he -felt behind it, but the key was gone—he hurried down to the -waterfront. He stopped only for a bowl of chowder and, as an -afterthought, to buy half a dozen newspapers.</p> - -<p>The sea was bright, the brisk wind just right for the <i>Annie O.</i> There -was eagerness in the way it smacked the sail and in the creak of the -mast. And when he reached the cove, it was no longer still, but nervous -with faint ripples, as if time had finally begun to stir.</p> - -<p>After the same struggle with the underbrush, he came out on the rocky -spine and passed the cove of the sea urchins. The spiny creatures -struck an uncomfortable chord in his memory.</p> - -<p>This time he climbed the second island cautiously, scraping the -innocent-seeming ground ahead of him intently with a boathook he'd -brought along for the purpose. He was only a few yards from the fence -when he saw Mary Alice Pope standing behind it.</p> - -<p>He hadn't realized that his heart would begin to pound or that, at the -same time, a shiver of almost supernatural dread would go through him.</p> - -<p>The girl eyed him with an uneasy hostility and immediately began to -speak in a hushed, hurried voice. "You must go away at once and never -come back. You're a wicked man, but I don't want you to be hurt. I've -been watching for you all morning."</p> - -<p>He tossed the newspapers over the fence. "You don't have to read -them now," he told her. "Just look at the datelines and a few of the -headlines."</p> - -<p>When she finally lifted her eyes to his again, she was trembling. She -tried unsuccessfully to speak.</p> - -<p>"Listen to me," he said. "You've been the victim of a scheme to make -you believe you were born around 1916 instead of 1933, and that it's -1933 now instead of 1951. I'm not sure why it's been done, though I -think I know who you really are."</p> - -<p>"But," the girl faltered, "my aunts tell me it's 1933."</p> - -<p>"They would."</p> - -<p>"And there are the papers ... the magazines ... the radio."</p> - -<p>"The papers are old ones. The radio's faked—some sort of recording. I -could show you if I could get at it."</p> - -<p>"<i>These</i> papers might be faked," she said, pointing to where she'd let -them drop on the ground.</p> - -<p>"They're new," he said. "Only old papers get yellow."</p> - -<p>"But why would they do it to me? <i>Why?</i>"</p> - -<p>"Come with me to the mainland, Mary. That'll set you straight quicker -than anything."</p> - -<p>"I couldn't," she said, drawing back. "He's coming tonight."</p> - -<p>"He?"</p> - -<p>"The man who sends me the boxes ... and my life."</p> - -<p>Jack shivered. When he spoke, his voice was rough and quick. "A life -that's completely a lie, that's cut you off from the world. Come with -me, Mary."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She looked up at him wonderingly. For perhaps ten seconds the silence -held and the spell of her eerie sweetness deepened.</p> - -<p>"I love you, Mary," Jack said softly.</p> - -<p>She took a step back.</p> - -<p>"Really, Mary, I do."</p> - -<p>She shook her head. "I don't know what's true. Go away."</p> - -<p>"Mary," he pleaded, "read the papers I've given you. Think things -through. I'll wait for you here."</p> - -<p>"You can't. My aunts would find you."</p> - -<p>"Then I'll go away and come back. About sunset. Will you give me an -answer?"</p> - -<p>She looked at him. Suddenly she whirled around. He, too, heard the -<i>chuff</i> of the Essex. "They'll find us," she said. "And if they find -you, I don't know what they'll do. Quick, run!" And she darted off -herself, only to turn back to scramble for the papers.</p> - -<p>"But will you give me an answer?" he pressed.</p> - -<p>She looked frantically up from the papers. "I don't know. You mustn't -risk coming back."</p> - -<p>"I will, no matter what you say."</p> - -<p>"I can't promise. Please go."</p> - -<p>"Just one question," he begged. "What are your aunts' names?"</p> - -<p>"Hani and Hilda," she told him, and then she was gone. The hedge shook -where she'd darted through.</p> - -<p>Jack hesitated, then started for the cove. He thought for a moment -of staying on the island, but decided against it. He could probably -conceal himself successfully, but whoever found his boat would have him -at a disadvantage. Besides, there were things he must try to find out -on the mainland.</p> - -<p>As he entered the oaks, his spine tightened for a moment, as if someone -were watching him. He hurried to the rippling cove, wasted no time -getting the <i>Annie O.</i> underway. With the wind still in the west, he -knew it would be a hard sail. He'd need half a dozen tacks to reach the -mainland.</p> - -<p>When he was about a quarter of a mile out from the cove, there was a -sharp <i>smack</i> beside him. He jerked around, heard a distant <i>crack</i> and -saw a foot-long splinter of fresh wood dangling from the edge of the -sloop's cockpit, about a foot from his head.</p> - -<p>He felt his skin tighten. He was the bull's-eye of a great watery -target. All the air between him and the island was tainted with menace.</p> - -<p>Water splashed a yard from the side. There was another distant <i>crack</i>. -He lay on his back in the cockpit, steering by the sail, taking -advantage of what little cover there was.</p> - -<p>There were several more <i>cracks</i>. After the second, there was a hole in -the sail.</p> - -<p>Finally Jack looked back. The island was more than a mile astern. -He anxiously scanned the sea ahead for craft. There were none. Then -he settled down to nurse more speed from the sloop and wait for the -motorboat.</p> - -<p>But it didn't come out to follow him.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="ph3">V</p> - -<p>Same as yesterday, Mrs. Kesserich was sitting on the edge of the couch -in the living room, yet from the first Jack was aware of a great -change. Something had filled the domestic animal with grief and fury.</p> - -<p>"Where's Dr. Kesserich?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"Not here!"</p> - -<p>"Mrs. Kesserich," he said, dropping down beside her, "you were telling -me something yesterday when we were interrupted."</p> - -<p>She looked at him. "You <i>have</i> found the girl?" she almost shouted.</p> - -<p>"Yes," Jack was surprised into answering.</p> - -<p>A look of slyness came into Mrs. Kesserich's bovine face. "Then I'll -tell you everything. I can now.</p> - -<p>"When Martin found Mary dying, he didn't go to pieces. You know how -controlled he can be when he chooses. He lifted Mary's body as if the -crowd and the railway men weren't there, and carried it to the station -wagon. Hani and Hilda were sitting on their horses nearby. He gave them -one look. It was as if he had said, 'Murderers!'</p> - -<p>"He told me to drive home as fast as I dared, but when I got there, -he stayed sitting by Mary in the back. I knew he must have given -up what hope he had for her life, or else she was dead already. I -looked at him. In the domelight, his face had the most deadly and -proud expression I've ever seen on a man. I worshiped him, you know, -though he had never shown me one ounce of feeling. So I was completely -unprepared for the naked appeal in his voice.</p> - -<p>"Yet all he said at first was, 'Will you do something for me?' I told -him, 'Surely,' and as we carried Mary in, he told me the rest. He -wanted me to be the mother of Mary's child."</p> - -<p>Jack stared at her blankly.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Kesserich nodded. "He wanted to remove an ovum from Mary's body -and nurture it in mine, so that Mary, in a way, could live on."</p> - -<p>"But that's impossible!" Jack objected. "The technique is being tried -now on cattle, I know, so that a prize heifer can have several calves -a year, all nurtured in 'scrub heifers,' as they're called. But no -one's ever dreamed of trying it on human beings!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Mrs. Kesserich looked at him contemptuously. "Martin had mastered the -technique twenty years ago. He was willing to take the chance. And so -was I—partly because he fired my scientific imagination and reverence, -but mostly because he said he would marry me. He barred the doors. We -worked swiftly. As far as anyone was concerned, Martin, in a wild fit -of grief, had locked himself up for several hours to mourn over the -body of his fiancee.</p> - -<p>"Within a month we were married, and I finally gave birth to the child."</p> - -<p>Jack shook his head. "You gave birth to your own child."</p> - -<p>She smiled bitterly. "No, it was Mary's. Martin did not keep his whole -bargain with me—I was nothing more than his 'scrub wife' in every way."</p> - -<p>"You <i>think</i> you gave birth to Mary's child."</p> - -<p>Mrs. Kesserich turned on Jack in anger. "I've been wounded by him, -day in and day out, for years, but I've never failed to recognize his -genius. Besides, you've seen the girl, haven't you?"</p> - -<p>Jack had to nod. What confounded him most was that, granting the -near-impossible physiological feat Mrs. Kesserich had described, the -girl should look so much like the mother. Mothers and daughters don't -look that much alike; only identical twins did. With a thrill of fear, -he remembered Kesserich's casual words: "... parthenogenesis ... pure -stock ... special techniques...."</p> - -<p>"Very well," he forced himself to say, "granting that the child was -Mary's and Martin's—"</p> - -<p>"No! Mary's alone!"</p> - -<p>Jack suppressed a shudder. He continued quickly, "What became of the -child?"</p> - -<p>Mrs. Kesserich lowered her head. "The day it was born, it was taken -away from me. After that, I never saw Hilda and Hani, either."</p> - -<p>"You mean," Jack asked, "that Martin sent them away to bring up the -child?"</p> - -<p>Mrs. Kesserich turned away. "Yes."</p> - -<p>Jack asked incredulously, "He trusted the child with the two people he -suspected of having caused the mother's death?"</p> - -<p>"Once when I was his assistant," Mrs. Kesserich said softly, "I -carelessly broke some laboratory glassware. He kept me up all night -building a new setup, though I'm rather poor at working with glass and -usually get burned. Bringing up the child was his sisters' punishment."</p> - -<p>"And they went to that house on the farthest island? I suppose it was -the house he'd been building for Mary and himself."</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"And they were to bring up the child as his daughter?"</p> - -<p>Mrs. Kesserich started up, but when she spoke it was as if she had to -force out each word. "As his wife—as soon as she was grown."</p> - -<p>"How can you know that?" Jack asked shakily.</p> - -<p>The rising wind rattled the windowpane.</p> - -<p>"Because today—eighteen years after—Martin broke all of his promise -to me. He told me he was leaving me."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="ph3">VI</p> - -<p>White waves shooting up like dancing ghosts in the Moon-sketched, -spray-swept dark were Jack's first beacon of the island and brought a -sense of physical danger, breaking the trancelike yet frantic mood he -had felt ever since he had spoken with Mrs. Kesserich.</p> - -<p>Coming around farther into the wind, he scudded past the end of the -island into the choppy sea on the landward side. A little later he let -down the reefed sail in the cove of the sea urchins, where the water -was barely moving, although the air was shaken by the pounding of the -surf on the spine between the two islands.</p> - -<p>After making fast, he paused a moment for a scrap of cloud to pass the -moon. The thought of the spiny creatures in the black fathoms under the -<i>Annie O.</i> sent an odd quiver of terror through him.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="600" height="150" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>The Moon came out and he started across the glistening rocks of the -spine. But he had forgotten the rising tide. Midway, a wave clamped -around his ankles, tried to carry him off, almost made him drop the -heavy object he was carrying. Sprawling and drenched, he clung to the -rough rock until the surge was past.</p> - -<p>Making it finally up to the fence, he snipped a wide gate with the -wire-cutters.</p> - -<p>The windows of the house were alight. Hardly aware of his shivering, -he crossed the lawn, slipping from one clump of shrubbery to another, -until he reached one just across the drive from the doorway. At that -moment he heard the approaching <i>chuff</i> of the Essex, the door of the -cottage opened, and Mary Alice Pope stepped out, closely followed by -Hani or Hilda.</p> - -<p>Jack shrank close to the shrubbery. Mary looked pale and blank-faced, -as if she had retreated within herself. He was acutely conscious of -the inadequacy of his screen as the ghostly headlights of the Essex -began to probe through the leaves.</p> - -<p>But then he sensed that something more was about to happen than just -the car arriving. It was a change in the expression of the face behind -Mary that gave him the cue—a widening and side-wise flickering of the -cold eyes, the puckered lips thinning into a cruel smile.</p> - -<p>The Essex shifted into second and, without any warning, accelerated. -Simultaneously, the woman behind Mary gave her a violent shove. But -at almost exactly the same instant, Jack ran. He caught Mary as she -sprawled toward the gravel, and lunged ahead without checking. The -Essex bore down upon them, a square-snouted, roaring monster. It -swerved viciously, missed them by inches, threw up gravel in a skid, -and rocked to a stop, stalled.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The first, incredulous voice that broke the pulsing silence, Jack -recognized as Martin Kesserich's. It came from the car, which was -slewed around so that it almost faced Jack and Mary.</p> - -<p>"Hani, you tried to kill her! You and Hilda tried to kill her again!"</p> - -<p>The woman slumped over the wheel slowly lifted her head. In the -indistinct light, she looked the twin of the woman behind Jack and -Mary.</p> - -<p>"Did you really think we wouldn't?" she asked in a voice that spat with -passion. "Did you actually believe that Hilda and I would serve this -eighteen years' penance just to watch you go off with her?" She began -to laugh wildly. "You've never understood your sisters at all!"</p> - -<p>Suddenly she broke off, stiffly stepped down from the car. Lifting her -skirts a little, she strode past Jack and Mary.</p> - -<p>Martin Kesserich followed her. In passing, he said, "Thanks, Barr." It -occurred to Jack that Kesserich made no more question of his appearance -on the island than of his presence in the laboratory. Like Mrs. -Kesserich, the great biologist took him for granted.</p> - -<p>Kesserich stopped a few feet short of Hani and Hilda. Without shrinking -from him, the sisters drew closer together. They looked like two gaunt -hawks.</p> - -<p>"But you waited eighteen years," he said. "You could have killed her -at any time, yet you chose to throw away so much of your lives just to -have this moment."</p> - -<p>"How do you know we didn't like waiting eighteen years?" Hani answered -him. "Why shouldn't we want to make as strong an impression on you as -anyone? And as for throwing our lives away, that was your doing. Oh, -Martin, you'll never know anything about how your sisters feel!"</p> - -<p>He raised his hands baffledly. "Even assuming that you hate me—" at -the word "hate" both Hani and Hilda laughed softly—"and that you were -prepared to strike at both my love and my work, still, that you should -have waited...."</p> - -<p>Hani and Hilda said nothing.</p> - -<p>Kesserich shrugged. "Very well," he said in a voice that had lost all -its tension. "You've wasted a third of a lifetime looking forward to -an irrational revenge. And you've failed. That should be sufficient -punishment."</p> - -<p>Very slowly, he turned around and for the first time looked at Mary. -His face was clearly revealed by the twin beams from the stalled car.</p> - -<p>Jack grew cold. He fought against accepting the feelings of wonder, of -poignant triumph, of love, of renewed youth he saw entering the face in -the headlights. But most of all he fought against the sense that Martin -Kesserich was successfully drawing them all back into the past, to 1933 -and another accident. There was a distant hoot and Jack shook. For a -moment he had thought it a railway whistle and not a ship's horn.</p> - -<p>The biologist said tenderly, "Come, Mary."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Jack's trembling arm tightened a trifle on Mary's waist. He could feel -<i>her</i> trembling.</p> - -<p>"Come, Mary," Kesserich repeated.</p> - -<p>Still she didn't reply.</p> - -<p>Jack wet his lips. "Mary isn't going with you, Professor," he said.</p> - -<p>"Quiet, Barr," Kesserich ordered absently. "Mary, it is necessary that -you and I leave the island at once. Please come."</p> - -<p>"But Mary isn't coming," Jack repeated.</p> - -<p>Kesserich looked at him for the first time. "I'm grateful to you for -the unusual sense of loyalty—or whatever motive it may have been—that -led you to follow me out here tonight. And of course I'm profoundly -grateful to you for saving Mary's life. But I must ask you not to -interfere further in a matter which you can't possibly understand."</p> - -<p>He turned to Mary. "I know how shocked and frightened you must feel. -Living two lives and then having to face two deaths—it must be more -terrible than anyone can realize. I expected this meeting to take place -under very different circumstances. I wanted to explain everything to -you very naturally and gently, like the messages I've sent you every -day of your second life. Unfortunately, that can't be.</p> - -<p>"You and I must leave the island right now."</p> - -<p>Mary stared at him, then turned wonderingly toward Jack, who felt his -heart begin to pound warmly.</p> - -<p>"You still don't understand what I'm trying to tell you, Professor," -he said, boldly now. "Mary is not going with you. You've deceived her -all her life. You've taken a fantastic amount of pains to bring her up -under the delusion that she is Mary Alice Pope, who died in—"</p> - -<p>"She <i>is</i> Mary Alice Pope," Kesserich thundered at him. He advanced -toward them swiftly. "Mary darling, you're confused, but you must -realize who you are and who I am and the relationship between us."</p> - -<p>"Keep away," Jack warned, swinging Mary half behind him. "Mary doesn't -love you. She can't marry you, at any rate. How could she, when you're -her father?"</p> - -<p>"Barr!"</p> - -<p>"Keep off!" Jack shot out the flat of his hand and Kesserich went -staggering backward. "I've talked with your wife—your wife on the -mainland. She told me the whole thing."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Kesserich seemed about to rush forward again, then controlled himself. -"You've got everything wrong. You hardly deserve to be told, but under -the circumstances I have no choice. Mary is not my daughter. To be -precise, she has no father at all. Do you remember the work that -Jacques Loeb did with sea urchins?"</p> - -<p>Jack frowned angrily. "You mean what we were talking about last night?"</p> - -<p>"Exactly. Loeb was able to cause the egg of a sea urchin to develop -normally without union with a male germ cell. I have done the same -tiding with a human being. This girl is Mary Alice Pope. She has -exactly the same heredity. She has had exactly the same life, so far -as it could be reconstructed. She's heard and read the same things at -exactly the same times. There have been the old newspapers, the books, -even the old recorded radio programs. Hani and Hilda have had their -daily instructions, to the letter. She's retraced the same time-trail."</p> - -<p>"Rot!" Jack interrupted. "I don't for a moment believe what you say -about her birth. She's Mary's daughter—or the daughter of your wife -on the mainland. And as for retracing the same time-trail, that's -senile self-delusion. Mary Alice Pope had a normal life. This girl has -been brought up in cruel imprisonment by two insane, vindictive old -women. In your own frustrated desire, you've pretended to yourself that -you've recreated the girl you lost. You haven't. You couldn't. Nobody -could—the great Martin Kesserich or anyone else!"</p> - -<p>Kesserich, his features working, shifted his point of attack. "Who are -you, Mary?"</p> - -<p>"Don't answer him," Jack said. "He's trying to confuse you."</p> - -<p>"Who are you?" Kesserich insisted.</p> - -<p>"Mary Alice Pope," she said rapidly in a breathy whisper before Jack -could speak again.</p> - -<p>"And when were you born?" Kesserich pressed on.</p> - -<p>"You've been tricked all your life about that," Jack warned.</p> - -<p>But already the girl was saying, "In 1916."</p> - -<p>"And who am I then?" Kesserich demanded eagerly. "Who am I?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The girl swayed. She brushed her head with her hand.</p> - -<p>"It's so strange," she said, with a dreamy, almost laughing throb in -her voice that turned Jack's heart cold. "I'm sure I've never seen you -before in my life, and yet it's as if I'd known you forever. As if you -were closer to me than—"</p> - -<p>"Stop it!" Jack shouted at Kesserich. "Mary loves me. She loves me -because I've shown her the lie her life has been, and because she's -coming away with me now. Aren't you, Mary?"</p> - -<p>He swung her around so that her blank face was inches from his own. -"It's me you love, isn't it, Mary?"</p> - -<p>She blinked doubtfully.</p> - -<p>At that moment Kesserich charged at them, went sprawling as Jack's fist -shot out. Jack swept up Mary and ran with her across the lawn. Behind -him he heard an agonized cry—Kesserich's—and cruel, mounting laughter -from Hani and Hilda.</p> - -<p>Once through the ragged doorway in the fence, he made his way more -slowly, gasping. Out of the shelter of the trees, the wind tore at them -and the ocean roared. Moonlight glistened, now on the spine of black -wet rocks, now on the foaming surf.</p> - -<p>Jack realized that the girl in his arms was speaking rapidly, -disjointedly, but he couldn't quite make out the sense of the words and -then they were lost in the crash of the surf. She struggled, but he -told himself that it was only because she was afraid of the menacing -waters.</p> - -<p>He pushed recklessly into the breaking surf, raced gasping across the -middle of the spine as the rocks uncovered, sprang to the higher ones -as the next wave crashed behind, showering them with spray. His chest -burning with exertion, he carried the girl the few remaining yards to -where the <i>Annie O.</i> was tossing. A sudden great gust of wind almost -did what the waves had failed to do, but he kept his footing and -lowered the girl into the boat, then jumped in after.</p> - -<p>She stared at him wildly. "What's that?"</p> - -<p>He, too, had caught the faint shout. Looking back along the spine just -as the Moon came clear again, he saw white spray rise and fall—and -then the figure of Kesserich stumbling through it.</p> - -<p>"Mary, wait for me!"</p> - -<p>The figure was halfway across when it lurched, started forward again, -then was jerked back as if something had caught its ankle. Out of the -darkness, the next wave sent a line of white at it neck-high, crashed.</p> - -<p>Jack hesitated, but another great gust of wind tore at the half-raised -sail, and it was all he could do to keep the sloop from capsizing and -head her into the wind again.</p> - -<p>Mary was tugging at his shoulder. "You must help him," she was saying. -"He's caught in the rocks."</p> - -<p>He heard a voice crying, screaming crazily above the surf:</p> - -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">"Ah, love, let us be true</div> -<div class="verse">To one another! for the world—"</div> -</div></div> - -<p>The sloop rocked. Jack had it finally headed into the wind. He looked -around for Mary.</p> - -<p>She had jumped out and was hurrying back, scrambling across the rocks -toward the dark, struggling figure that even as he watched was once -more engulfed in the surf.</p> - -<p>Letting go the lines, Jack sprang toward the stern of the sloop.</p> - -<p>But just then another giant blow came, struck the sail like a great -fist of air, and sent the boom slashing at the back of his head.</p> - -<p>His last recollection was being toppled out onto the rocks and -wondering how he could cling to them while unconscious.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="ph3">VII</p> - -<p>The little cove was once again as quiet as time's heart. Once again the -<i>Annie O.</i> was a sloop embedded in a mirror. Once again the rocks were -warm underfoot.</p> - -<p>Jack Barr lifted his fiercely aching head and looked at the distant -line of the mainland, as tiny and yet as clear as something viewed -through the wrong end of a telescope. He was very tired. Searching the -island, in his present shaky condition, had taken all the strength out -of him.</p> - -<p>He looked at the peacefully rippling sea outside the cove and thought -of what a churning pot it had been during the storm. He thought -wonderingly of his rescue—a man wedged unconscious between two rock -teeth; kept somehow from being washed away by the merest chance.</p> - -<p>He thought of Mrs. Kesserich sitting alone in her house, scanning the -newspapers that had nothing to tell.</p> - -<p>He thought of the empty island behind him and the vanished motorboat.</p> - -<p>He wondered if the sea had pulled down Martin Kesserich and Mary Alice -Pope. He wondered if only Hani and Hilda had sailed away.</p> - -<p>He winced, remembering what he had done to Martin and Mary by his -blundering infatuation. In his way, he told himself, he had been as bad -as the two old women.</p> - -<p>He thought of death, and of time, and of love that defies them.</p> - -<p>He stepped limpingly into the <i>Annie O.</i> to set sail—and realized that -philosophy is only for the unhappy.</p> - -<p>Mary was asleep in the stern.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Yesterday House, by Fritz Leiber - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YESTERDAY HOUSE *** - -***** This file should be named 50905-h.htm or 50905-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/9/0/50905/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan 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 print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Yesterday House - -Author: Fritz Leiber - -Release Date: January 12, 2016 [EBook #50905] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YESTERDAY HOUSE *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - Yesterday House - - By FRITZ LEIBER - - Illustrated by ASHMAN - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Galaxy Science Fiction August 1952. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - - - Meeting someone who's been dead for twenty - years is shocking enough for anyone with a - belief in ghosts--worse for one with none! - - -I - -The narrow cove was quiet as the face of an expectant child, yet so -near the ruffled Atlantic that the last push of wind carried the _Annie -O._ its full length. The man in gray flannels and sweatshirt let the -sail come crumpling down and hurried past its white folds at a gait -made comically awkward by his cramped muscles. Slowly the rocky ledge -came nearer. Slowly the blue V inscribed on the cove's surface by the -sloop's prow died. Sloop and ledge kissed so gently that he hardly had -to reach out his hand. - -He scrambled ashore, dipping a sneaker in the icy water, and threw the -line around a boulder. Unkinking himself, he looked back through the -cove's high and rocky mouth at the gray-green scattering of islands -and the faint dark line that was the coast of Maine. He almost laughed -in satisfaction at having disregarded vague warnings and done the thing -every man yearns to do once in his lifetime--gone to the farthest -island out. - -He must have looked longer than he realized, because by the time he -dropped his gaze the cove was again as glassy as if the _Annie O._ had -always been there. And the splotches made by his sneaker on the rock -had faded in the hot sun. There was something very unusual about the -quietness of this place. As if time, elsewhere hurrying frantically, -paused here to rest. As if all changes were erased on this one bit of -Earth. - -The man's lean, melancholy face crinkled into a grin at the banal -fancy. He turned his back on his new friend, the little green sloop, -without one thought for his nets and specimen bottles, and set out to -explore. The ground rose steeply at first and the oaks were close, but -after a little way things went downhill and the leaves thinned and he -came out on more rocks--and realized that he hadn't quite gone to the -farthest one out. - - * * * * * - -Joined to this island by a rocky spine, which at the present low tide -would have been dry but for the spray, was another green, high island -that the first had masked from him all the while he had been sailing. -He felt a thrill of discovery, just as he'd wondered back in the woods -whether his might not be the first human feet to kick through the -underbrush. After all, there were thousands of these islands. - -Then he was dropping down the rocks, his lanky limbs now moving -smoothly enough. - -To the landward side of the spine, the water was fairly still. It even -began with another deep cove, in which he glimpsed the spiny spheres -of sea urchins. But from seaward the waves chopped in, sprinkling his -trousers to the knees and making him wince pleasurably at the thought -of what vast wings of spray and towers of solid water must crash up -from here in a storm. - -He crossed the rocks at a trot, ran up a short grassy slope, raced -through a fringe of trees--and came straight up against an eight-foot -fence of heavy mesh topped with barbed wire and backed at a short -distance with high, heavy shrubbery. - -Without pausing for surprise--in fact, in his holiday mood, using -surprise as a goad--he jumped for the branch of an oak whose trunk -touched the fence, scorning the easier lower branch on the other side -of the tree. Then he drew himself up, worked his way to some higher -branches that crossed the fence, and dropped down inside. - -Suddenly cautious, he gently parted the shrubbery and, before the first -surprise could really sink in, had another. - -A closely mown lawn dotted with more shrubbery ran up to a snug white -Cape Cod cottage. The single strand of a radio aerial stretched the -length of the roof. Parked on a neat gravel driveway that crossed just -in front of the cottage was a short, square-lined touring car that he -recognized from remembered pictures as an ancient Essex. The whole -scene had about it the same odd quietness as the cove. - -Then, with the air of a clock-work toy coming to life, the white door -opened and an elderly woman came out, dressed in a long, lace-edged -dress and wide, lacy hat. She climbed into the driver's seat of the -Essex, sitting there very stiff and tall. The motor began to chug -bravely, gravel skittered, and the car rolled off between the trees. - -The door of the house opened again and a slim girl emerged. She wore a -white silk dress that fell straight from square neck-line to hip-height -waistline, making the skirt seem very short. Her dark hair was bound -with a white bandeau so that it curved close to her cheeks. A dark -necklace dangled against the white of the dress. A newspaper was tucked -under her arm. - -She crossed the driveway and tossed the paper down on a rattan table -between three rattan chairs and stood watching a squirrel zigzag across -the lawn. - - * * * * * - -The man stepped through the wall of shrubbery, called, "hello!" and -walked toward her. - -She whirled around and stared at him as still as if her heart had -stopped beating. Then she darted behind the table and waited for him -there. Granting the surprise of his appearance, her alarm seemed not -so much excessive as eerie. As if, the man thought, he were not an -ordinary stranger, but a visitor from another planet. - -Approaching closer, he saw that she was trembling and that her breath -was coming in rapid, irregular gasps. Yet the slim, sweet, patrician -face that stared into his had an underlying expression of expectancy -that reminded him of the cove. She couldn't have been more than -eighteen. - -He stopped short of the table. Before he could speak, she stammered -out, "Are you he?" - -"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling puzzledly. - -"The one who sends me the little boxes." - -"I was out sailing and I happened to land in the far cove. I didn't -dream that anyone lived on this island, or even came here." - -"No one ever does come here," she replied. Her manner had changed, -becoming at once more wary and less agitated, though still eerily -curious. - -"It startled me tremendously to find this place," he blundered on. -"Especially the road and the car. Why, this island can't be more than a -quarter of a mile wide." - -"The road goes down to the wharf," she explained, "and up to the top of -the island, where my aunts have a tree-house." - -He tore his mind away from the picture of a woman dressed like Queen -Mary clambering up a tree. "Was that your aunt I saw driving off?" - -"One of them. The other's taken the motorboat in for supplies." She -looked at him doubtfully. "I'm not sure they'll like it if they find -someone here." - -"There are just the three of you?" he cut in quickly, looking down the -empty road that vanished among the oaks. - -She nodded. - -"I suppose you go in to the mainland with your aunts quite often?" - -She shook her head. - -"It must get pretty dull for you." - -"Not very," she said, smiling. "My aunts bring me the papers and other -things. Even movies. We've got a projector. My favorite stars are -Antonio Morino and Alice Terry. I like her better even than Clara Bow." - -He looked at her hard for a moment. "I suppose you read a lot?" - -She nodded. "Fitzgerald's my favorite author." She started around the -table, hesitated, suddenly grew shy. "Would you like some lemonade?" - - * * * * * - -He'd noticed the dewed silver pitcher, but only now realized his -thirst. Yet when she handed him a glass, he held it untasted and said -awkwardly, "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Jack Barry." - -She stared at his outstretched right hand, slowly extended her own -toward it, shook it up and down exactly once, then quickly dropped it. - -He chuckled and gulped some lemonade. "I'm a biology student. Been -working at Wood's Hole the first part of the summer. But now I'm here -to do research in marine ecology--that's sort of sea-life patterns--of -the in-shore islands. Under the direction of Professor Kesserich. You -know about him, of course?" - -She shook her head. - -"Probably the greatest living biologist," he was proud to inform -her. "Human physiology as well. Tremendous geneticist. In a class -with Carlson and Jacques Loeb. Martin Kesserich--he lives over there -at town. I'm staying with him. You ought to have heard of him." He -grinned. "Matter of fact, I'd never have met you if it hadn't been for -Mrs. Kesserich." - -The girl looked puzzled. - -Jack explained, "The old boy's been off to Europe on some conferences, -won't be back for a couple days more. But I was to get started anyhow. -When I went out this morning Mrs. Kesserich--she's a drab sort of -person--said to me, 'Don't try to sail to the farther islands.' So, of -course, I had to. By the way, you still haven't told me your name." - -"Mary Alice Pope," she said, speaking slowly and with an odd wonder, as -if she were saying it for the first time. - -"You're pretty shy, aren't you?" - -"How would I know?" - -The question stopped Jack. He couldn't think of anything to say to this -strangely attractive girl dressed almost like a "flapper." - -"Will you sit down?" she asked him gravely. - -The rattan chair sighed under his weight. He made another effort to -talk. "I'll bet you'll be glad when summer's over." - -"Why?" - -"So you'll be able to go back to the mainland." - -"But I never go to the mainland." - -"You mean you stay out here all winter?" he asked incredulously, his -mind filled with a vision of snow and frozen spray and great gray waves. - -"Oh, yes. We get all our supplies on hand before winter. My aunts are -very capable. They don't always wear long lace dresses. And now I help -them." - -"But that's impossible!" he said with sudden sympathetic anger. "You -can't be shut off this way from people your own age!" - -"You're the first one I ever met." She hesitated. "I never saw a boy or -a man before, except in movies." - -"You're joking!" - -"No, it's true." - -"But why are they doing it to you?" he demanded, leaning forward. "Why -are they inflicting this loneliness on you, Mary?" - - * * * * * - -She seemed to have gained poise from his loss of it. "I don't know -why. I'm to find out soon. But actually I'm not lonely. May I tell -you a secret?" She touched his hand, this time with only the faintest -trembling. "Every night the loneliness gathers in around me--you're -right about that. But then every morning new life comes to me in a -little box." - -"What's that?" he said sharply. - -"Sometimes there's a poem in the box, sometimes a book, or pictures, -or flowers, or a ring, but always a note. Next to the notes I like the -poems best. My favorite is the one by Matthew Arnold that ends, - - 'Ah, love, let us be true - To one another! for the world, which seems - To lie before us like a land of dreams, - So various, so beautiful, so new, - Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, - Nor certitude--'" - -"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Who sends you these boxes?" - -"I don't know." - -"But how are the notes signed?" - -"They're wonderful notes," she said. "So wise, so gay, so tender, you'd -imagine them being written by John Barrymore or Lindbergh." - -"Yes, but how are they signed?" - -She hesitated. "Never anything but 'Your Lover.'" - -"And so when you first saw me, you thought--" He began, then stopped -because she was blushing. - -"How long have you been getting them?" - -"Ever since I can remember. I have two closets of the boxes. The new -ones are either by my bed when I wake or at my place at breakfast." - -"But how does this--person get these boxes to you out here? Does he -give them to your aunts and do they put them there?" - -"I'm not sure." - -"But how can they get them in winter?" - -"I don't know." - -"Look here," he said, pouring himself more lemonade, "how long is it -since you've been to the mainland?" - -"Almost eighteen years. My aunts tell me I was born there in the middle -of the war." - -"What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade. - -"The World War, of course. What's the matter?" - -Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind -of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him -had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, -the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his -nostrils. He could still hear the faint _chop-chop_ of the waves. - -And yet everything had changed, gone dark and dizzy as a landscape -glimpsed just before a faint. All the little false notes had come to -a sudden focus. For the lemonade had spilled on the headline of the -newspaper the girl had tossed down, and the headline read: - - HITLER IN NEW DEFIANCE - -Under the big black banner of that head swam smaller ones: - - Foes of Machado Riot in Havana - - Big NRA Parade Planned - - Balbo Speaks in New York - - * * * * * - -Suddenly he felt a surge of relief. He had noticed that the paper was -yellow and brittle-edged. - -"Why are you so interested in old newspapers?" he asked. - -"I wouldn't call day-before-yesterday's paper old," the girl objected, -pointing at the dateline: July 20, 1933. - -"You're trying to joke," Jack told her. - -"No, I'm not." - -"But it's 1953." - -"Now it's you who are joking." - -"But the paper's yellow." - -"The paper's always yellow." - -He laughed uneasily. "Well, if you actually think it's 1933, perhaps -you're to be envied," he said, with a sardonic humor he didn't quite -feel. "Then you can't know anything about the Second World War, or -television, or the V-2s, or Bikini bathing suits, or the atomic bomb, -or--" - -"Stop!" She had sprung up and retreated around her chair, white-faced. -"I don't like what you're saying." - -"But--" - -"No, please! Jokes that may be quite harmless on the mainland sound -different here." - -"I'm really not joking," he said after a moment. - -She grew quite frantic at that. "I can show you all last week's papers! -I can show you magazines and other things. I can prove it!" - -She started toward the house. He followed. He felt his heart begin to -pound. - -At the white door she paused, looking worriedly down the road. Jack -thought he could hear the faint _chug_ of a motorboat. She pushed open -the door and he followed her inside. The small-windowed room was dark -after the sunlight. Jack got an impression of solid old furniture, a -fireplace with brass andirons. - -"Flash!" croaked a gritty voice. "After their disastrous break day -before yesterday, stocks are recovering. Leading issues...." - -Jack realized that he had started and had involuntarily put his arm -around the girl's shoulders. At the same time he noticed that the voice -was coming from the curved brown trumpet of an old-fashioned radio -loudspeaker. - -The girl didn't pull away from him. He turned toward her. Although her -gray eyes were on him, her attention had gone elsewhere. - -"I can hear the car. They're coming back. They won't like it that -you're here." - -"All right they won't like it." - -Her agitation grew. "No, you must go." - -"I'll come back tomorrow," he heard himself saying. - -"Flash! It looks as if the World Economic Conference may soon adjourn, -mouthing jeers at old Uncle Sam who is generally referred to as Uncle -Shylock." - -Jack felt a numbness on his neck. The room seemed to be darkening, the -girl growing stranger still. - -"You must go before they see you." - -"Flash! Wiley Post has just completed his solo circuit of the Globe, -after a record-breaking flight of 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes. -Asked how he felt after the energy-draining feat, Post quipped...." - - * * * * * - -He was halfway across the lawn before he realized the terror into which -the grating radio voice had thrown him. - -He leaped for the branch over-hanging the fence, vaulted up with the -risky help of a foot on the barbed top. A surprised squirrel, lacking -time to make its escape up the trunk, sprang to the ground ahead of -him. With terrible suddenness, two steel-jawed semicircles clanked -together just over the squirrel's head. Jack landed with one foot to -either side of the sprung trap, while the squirrel darted off with a -squeak. - -Jack plunged down the slope to the rocky spine and ran across it, spray -from the rising waves spattering him to the waist. Panting now, he -stumbled up into the oaks and undergrowth of the first island, fought -his way through it, finally reached the silent cove. He loosed the line -of the _Annie O._, dragged it as near to the cove's mouth as he could, -plunged knee-deep in freezing water to give it a final shove, scrambled -aboard, snatched up the boathook and punched at the rocks. - -As soon as the _Annie O._ was nosing out of the cove into the cross -waves, he yanked up the sail. The freshening wind filled it and sent -the sloop heeling over, with inches of white water over the lee rail, -and plunging ahead. - -For a long while, Jack was satisfied to think of nothing but the wind -and the waves and the sail and speed and danger, to have all his -attention taken up balancing one against the other, so that he wouldn't -have to ask himself what year it was and whether time was an illusion, -and wonder about flappers and hidden traps. - -When he finally looked back at the island, he was amazed to see how -tiny it had grown, as distant as the mainland. - -Then he saw a gray motorboat astern. He watched it as it slowly -overtook him. It was built like a lifeboat, with a sturdy low cabin in -the bow and wheel amidship. Whoever was at the wheel had long gray hair -that whipped in the wind. The longer he looked, the surer he was that -it was a woman wearing a lace dress. Something that stuck up inches -over the cabin flashed darkly beside her. Only when she lifted it to -the roof of the cabin did it occur to him that it might be a rifle. - -But just then the motorboat swung around in a turn that sent waves -drenching over it, and headed back toward the island. He watched it for -a minute in wonder, then his attention was jolted by an angry hail. - -Three fishing smacks, also headed toward town, were about to cross -his bow. He came around into the wind and waited with shaking sail, -watching a man in a lumpy sweater shake a fist at him. Then he turned -and gratefully followed the dark, wide, fanlike sterns and age-yellowed -sails. - - -II - -The exterior of Martin Kesserich's home--a weathered white cube with -narrow, sharp-paned windows, topped by a cupola--was nothing like its -lavish interior. - -In much the same way, Mrs. Kesserich clashed with the darkly gleaming -furniture, persian rugs and bronze vases around her. Her shapeless -black form, poised awkwardly on the edge of a huge sofa, made Jack -think of a cow that had strayed into the drawing room. He wondered -again how a man like Kesserich had come to marry such a creature. - -Yet when she lifted up her little eyes from the shadows, he had the -uneasy feeling that she knew a great deal about him. The eyes were -still those of a domestic animal, but of a wise one that has been -watching the house a long, long while from the barnyard. - -He asked abruptly, "Do you know anything of a girl around here named -Mary Alice Pope?" - -The silence lasted so long that he began to think she'd gone into some -bovine trance. Then, without a word, she got up and went over to a tall -cabinet. Feeling on a ledge behind it for a key, she opened a panel, -opened a cardboard box inside it, took something from the box and -handed him a photograph. He held it up to the failing light and sucked -in his breath with surprise. - -It was a picture of the girl he'd met that afternoon. Same -flat-bosomed dress--flowered rather than white--no bandeau, same beads. -Same proud, demure expression, perhaps a bit happier. - -"That is Mary Alice Pope," Mrs. Kesserich said in a strangely flat -voice. "She was Martin's fiancee. She was killed in a railway accident -in 1933." - -The small sound of the cabinet door closing brought Jack back to -reality. He realized that he no longer had the photograph. Against the -gloom by the cabinet, Mrs. Kesserich's white face looked at him with -what seemed a malicious eagerness. - -"Sit down," she said, "and I'll tell you about it." - -Without a thought as to why she hadn't asked him a single question--he -was much too dazed for that--he obeyed. Mrs. Kesserich resumed her -position on the edge of the sofa. - -"You must understand, Mr. Barr, that Mary Alice Pope was the one love -of Martin's life. He is a man of very deep and strong feelings, yet as -you probably know, anything but kindly or demonstrative. Even when he -first came here from Hungary with his older sisters Hani and Hilda, -there was a cloak of loneliness about him--or rather about the three of -them. - -"Hani and Hilda were athletic outdoor women, yet fiercely proud--I -don't imagine they ever spoke to anyone in America except as to a -servant--and with a seething distaste for all men except Martin. They -showered all their devotion on him. So of course, though Martin didn't -realize it, they were consumed with jealousy when he fell in love with -Mary Alice Pope. They'd thought that since he'd reached forty without -marrying, he was safe. - -"Mary Alice came from a pure-bred, or as a biologist would say, inbred -British stock. She was very young, but very sweet, and up to a point -very wise. She sensed Hani and Hilda's feelings right away and did -everything she could to win them over. For instance, though she was -afraid of horses, she took up horseback riding, because that was Hani -and Hilda's favorite pastime. Naturally, Martin knew nothing of her -fear, and naturally his sisters knew about it from the first. But--and -here is where Mary's wisdom fell short--her brave gesture did not -pacify them: it only increased their hatred. - -"Except for his research, Martin was blind to everything but his love. -It was a beautiful and yet frightening passion, an insane cherishing as -narrow and intense as his sisters hatred." - - * * * * * - -With a start, Jack remembered that it was Mrs. Kesserich telling him -all this. - -She went on, "Martin's love directed his every move. He was building a -home for himself and Mary, and in his mind he was building a wonderful -future for them as well--not vaguely, if you know Martin, but year by -year, month by month. This winter, he'd plan, they would visit Buenos -Aires, next summer they would sail down the inland passage and he would -teach Mary Hungarian for their trip to Buda-Pesth the year after, where -he would occupy a chair at the university for a few months ... and so -on. Finally the time for their marriage drew near. Martin had been -away. His research was keeping him very busy--" - -Jack broke in with, "Wasn't that about the time he did his definitive -work on growth and fertilization?" - -Mrs. Kesserich nodded with solemn appreciation in the gathering -darkness. "But now he was coming home, his work done. It was early -evening, very chilly, but Hani and Hilda felt they had to ride down to -the station to meet their brother. And although she dreaded it, Mary -rode with them, for she knew how delighted he would be at her cantering -to the puffing train and his running up to lift her down from the -saddle to welcome him home. - -"Of course there was Martin's luggage to be considered, so the station -wagon had to be sent down for that." She looked defiantly at Jack. "I -drove the station wagon. I was Martin's laboratory assistant." - -She paused. "It was almost dark, but there was still a white cold -line of sky to the west. Hani and Hilda, with Mary between them, were -waiting on their horses at the top of the hill that led down to the -station. The train had whistled and its headlight was graying the -gravel of the crossing. - -"Suddenly Mary's horse squealed and plunged down the hill. Hani and -Hilda followed--to try to catch her, they said, but they didn't manage -that, only kept her horse from veering off. Mary never screamed, but as -her horse reared on the tracks, I saw her face in the headlight's glare. - -"Martin must have guessed, or at least feared what had happened, for he -was out of the train and running along the track before it stopped. In -fact, he was the first to kneel down beside Mary--I mean, what had been -Mary--and was holding her all bloody and shattered in his arms." - -A door slammed. There were steps in the hall. Mrs. Kesserich stiffened -and was silent. Jack turned. - -The blur of a face hung in the doorway to the hall--a seemingly young, -sensitive, suavely handsome face with aristocratic jaw. Then there was -a click and the lights flared up and Jack saw the close-cropped gray -hair and the lines around the eyes and nostrils, while the sensitive -mouth grew sardonic. Yet the handsomeness stayed, and somehow the -youth, too, or at least a tremendous inner vibrancy. - -"Hello, Barr," Martin Kesserich said, ignoring his wife. - -The great biologist had come home. - - -III - -"Oh, yes, and Jamieson had a feeble paper on what he called -individualization in marine worms. Barr, have you ever thought much -about the larger aspects of the problem of individuality?" - -Jack jumped slightly. He had let his thoughts wander very far. - -"Not especially, sir," he mumbled. - -The house was still. A few minutes after the professor's arrival, -Mrs. Kesserich had gone off with an anxious glance at Jack. He knew -why and wished he could reassure her that he would not mention their -conversation to the professor. - -Kesserich had spent perhaps a half hour briefing him on the more -important papers delivered at the conferences. Then, almost as if -it were a teacher's trick to show up a pupil's inattention, he had -suddenly posed this question about individuality. - -"You know what I mean, of course," Kesserich pressed. "The factors that -make you you, and me me." - -"Heredity and environment," Jack parroted like a freshman. - -Kesserich nodded. "Suppose--this is just speculation--that we could -control heredity and environment. Then we could re-create the same -individual at will." - -Jack felt a shiver go through him. "To get exactly the same pattern of -hereditary traits. That'd be far beyond us." - -"What about identical twins?" Kesserich pointed out. "And then there's -parthenogenesis to be considered. One might produce a duplicate of the -mother without the intervention of the male." Although his voice had -grown more idly speculative, Kesserich seemed to Jack to be smiling -secretly. "There are many examples in the lower animal forms, to say -nothing of the technique by which Loeb caused a sea urchin to reproduce -with no more stimulus than a salt solution." - -Jack felt the hair rising on his neck. "Even then you wouldn't get -exactly the same pattern of hereditary traits." - -"Not if the parent were of very pure stock? Not if there were some -special technique for selecting ova that would reproduce all the -mother's traits?" - -"But environment would change things," Jack objected. "The duplicate -would be bound to develop differently." - -"Is environment so important? Newman tells about a pair of identical -twins separated from birth, unaware of each other's existence. They met -by accident when they were twenty-one. Each was a telephone repairman. -Each had a wife the same age. Each had a baby son. And each had a fox -terrier called 'Trixie.' That's without trying to make environments -similar. But suppose you did try. Suppose you saw to it that each of -them had exactly the same experiences at the same times...." - -For a moment it seemed to Jack that the room was dimming and wavering, -becoming a dark pool in which the only motionless thing was Kesserich's -sphinx-like face. - -"Well, we've escaped quite far enough from Jamieson's marine worms," -the biologist said, all brisk again. He said it as if Jack were the -one who had led the conversation down wild and unprofitable channels. -"Let's get on to your project. I want to talk it over now, because I -won't have any time for it tomorrow." - -Jack looked at him blankly. - -"Tomorrow I must attend to a very important matter," the biologist -explained. - - -IV - -Morning sunlight brightened the colors of the wax flowers under glass -on the high bureau that always seemed to emit the faint odor of old -hair combings. Jack pulled back the diamond-patterned quilt and blinked -the sleep from his eyes. He expected his mind to be busy wondering -about Kesserich and his wife--things said and half said last night--but -found instead that his thoughts swung instantly to Mary Alice Pope, as -if to a farthest island in a world of people. - -Downstairs, the house was empty. After a long look at the cabinet--he -felt behind it, but the key was gone--he hurried down to the -waterfront. He stopped only for a bowl of chowder and, as an -afterthought, to buy half a dozen newspapers. - -The sea was bright, the brisk wind just right for the _Annie O._ There -was eagerness in the way it smacked the sail and in the creak of the -mast. And when he reached the cove, it was no longer still, but nervous -with faint ripples, as if time had finally begun to stir. - -After the same struggle with the underbrush, he came out on the rocky -spine and passed the cove of the sea urchins. The spiny creatures -struck an uncomfortable chord in his memory. - -This time he climbed the second island cautiously, scraping the -innocent-seeming ground ahead of him intently with a boathook he'd -brought along for the purpose. He was only a few yards from the fence -when he saw Mary Alice Pope standing behind it. - -He hadn't realized that his heart would begin to pound or that, at the -same time, a shiver of almost supernatural dread would go through him. - -The girl eyed him with an uneasy hostility and immediately began to -speak in a hushed, hurried voice. "You must go away at once and never -come back. You're a wicked man, but I don't want you to be hurt. I've -been watching for you all morning." - -He tossed the newspapers over the fence. "You don't have to read -them now," he told her. "Just look at the datelines and a few of the -headlines." - -When she finally lifted her eyes to his again, she was trembling. She -tried unsuccessfully to speak. - -"Listen to me," he said. "You've been the victim of a scheme to make -you believe you were born around 1916 instead of 1933, and that it's -1933 now instead of 1951. I'm not sure why it's been done, though I -think I know who you really are." - -"But," the girl faltered, "my aunts tell me it's 1933." - -"They would." - -"And there are the papers ... the magazines ... the radio." - -"The papers are old ones. The radio's faked--some sort of recording. I -could show you if I could get at it." - -"_These_ papers might be faked," she said, pointing to where she'd let -them drop on the ground. - -"They're new," he said. "Only old papers get yellow." - -"But why would they do it to me? _Why?_" - -"Come with me to the mainland, Mary. That'll set you straight quicker -than anything." - -"I couldn't," she said, drawing back. "He's coming tonight." - -"He?" - -"The man who sends me the boxes ... and my life." - -Jack shivered. When he spoke, his voice was rough and quick. "A life -that's completely a lie, that's cut you off from the world. Come with -me, Mary." - - * * * * * - -She looked up at him wonderingly. For perhaps ten seconds the silence -held and the spell of her eerie sweetness deepened. - -"I love you, Mary," Jack said softly. - -She took a step back. - -"Really, Mary, I do." - -She shook her head. "I don't know what's true. Go away." - -"Mary," he pleaded, "read the papers I've given you. Think things -through. I'll wait for you here." - -"You can't. My aunts would find you." - -"Then I'll go away and come back. About sunset. Will you give me an -answer?" - -She looked at him. Suddenly she whirled around. He, too, heard the -_chuff_ of the Essex. "They'll find us," she said. "And if they find -you, I don't know what they'll do. Quick, run!" And she darted off -herself, only to turn back to scramble for the papers. - -"But will you give me an answer?" he pressed. - -She looked frantically up from the papers. "I don't know. You mustn't -risk coming back." - -"I will, no matter what you say." - -"I can't promise. Please go." - -"Just one question," he begged. "What are your aunts' names?" - -"Hani and Hilda," she told him, and then she was gone. The hedge shook -where she'd darted through. - -Jack hesitated, then started for the cove. He thought for a moment -of staying on the island, but decided against it. He could probably -conceal himself successfully, but whoever found his boat would have him -at a disadvantage. Besides, there were things he must try to find out -on the mainland. - -As he entered the oaks, his spine tightened for a moment, as if someone -were watching him. He hurried to the rippling cove, wasted no time -getting the _Annie O._ underway. With the wind still in the west, he -knew it would be a hard sail. He'd need half a dozen tacks to reach the -mainland. - -When he was about a quarter of a mile out from the cove, there was a -sharp _smack_ beside him. He jerked around, heard a distant _crack_ and -saw a foot-long splinter of fresh wood dangling from the edge of the -sloop's cockpit, about a foot from his head. - -He felt his skin tighten. He was the bull's-eye of a great watery -target. All the air between him and the island was tainted with menace. - -Water splashed a yard from the side. There was another distant _crack_. -He lay on his back in the cockpit, steering by the sail, taking -advantage of what little cover there was. - -There were several more _cracks_. After the second, there was a hole in -the sail. - -Finally Jack looked back. The island was more than a mile astern. -He anxiously scanned the sea ahead for craft. There were none. Then -he settled down to nurse more speed from the sloop and wait for the -motorboat. - -But it didn't come out to follow him. - - -V - -Same as yesterday, Mrs. Kesserich was sitting on the edge of the couch -in the living room, yet from the first Jack was aware of a great -change. Something had filled the domestic animal with grief and fury. - -"Where's Dr. Kesserich?" he asked. - -"Not here!" - -"Mrs. Kesserich," he said, dropping down beside her, "you were telling -me something yesterday when we were interrupted." - -She looked at him. "You _have_ found the girl?" she almost shouted. - -"Yes," Jack was surprised into answering. - -A look of slyness came into Mrs. Kesserich's bovine face. "Then I'll -tell you everything. I can now. - -"When Martin found Mary dying, he didn't go to pieces. You know how -controlled he can be when he chooses. He lifted Mary's body as if the -crowd and the railway men weren't there, and carried it to the station -wagon. Hani and Hilda were sitting on their horses nearby. He gave them -one look. It was as if he had said, 'Murderers!' - -"He told me to drive home as fast as I dared, but when I got there, -he stayed sitting by Mary in the back. I knew he must have given -up what hope he had for her life, or else she was dead already. I -looked at him. In the domelight, his face had the most deadly and -proud expression I've ever seen on a man. I worshiped him, you know, -though he had never shown me one ounce of feeling. So I was completely -unprepared for the naked appeal in his voice. - -"Yet all he said at first was, 'Will you do something for me?' I told -him, 'Surely,' and as we carried Mary in, he told me the rest. He -wanted me to be the mother of Mary's child." - -Jack stared at her blankly. - -Mrs. Kesserich nodded. "He wanted to remove an ovum from Mary's body -and nurture it in mine, so that Mary, in a way, could live on." - -"But that's impossible!" Jack objected. "The technique is being tried -now on cattle, I know, so that a prize heifer can have several calves -a year, all nurtured in 'scrub heifers,' as they're called. But no -one's ever dreamed of trying it on human beings!" - - * * * * * - -Mrs. Kesserich looked at him contemptuously. "Martin had mastered the -technique twenty years ago. He was willing to take the chance. And so -was I--partly because he fired my scientific imagination and reverence, -but mostly because he said he would marry me. He barred the doors. We -worked swiftly. As far as anyone was concerned, Martin, in a wild fit -of grief, had locked himself up for several hours to mourn over the -body of his fiancee. - -"Within a month we were married, and I finally gave birth to the child." - -Jack shook his head. "You gave birth to your own child." - -She smiled bitterly. "No, it was Mary's. Martin did not keep his whole -bargain with me--I was nothing more than his 'scrub wife' in every way." - -"You _think_ you gave birth to Mary's child." - -Mrs. Kesserich turned on Jack in anger. "I've been wounded by him, -day in and day out, for years, but I've never failed to recognize his -genius. Besides, you've seen the girl, haven't you?" - -Jack had to nod. What confounded him most was that, granting the -near-impossible physiological feat Mrs. Kesserich had described, the -girl should look so much like the mother. Mothers and daughters don't -look that much alike; only identical twins did. With a thrill of fear, -he remembered Kesserich's casual words: "... parthenogenesis ... pure -stock ... special techniques...." - -"Very well," he forced himself to say, "granting that the child was -Mary's and Martin's--" - -"No! Mary's alone!" - -Jack suppressed a shudder. He continued quickly, "What became of the -child?" - -Mrs. Kesserich lowered her head. "The day it was born, it was taken -away from me. After that, I never saw Hilda and Hani, either." - -"You mean," Jack asked, "that Martin sent them away to bring up the -child?" - -Mrs. Kesserich turned away. "Yes." - -Jack asked incredulously, "He trusted the child with the two people he -suspected of having caused the mother's death?" - -"Once when I was his assistant," Mrs. Kesserich said softly, "I -carelessly broke some laboratory glassware. He kept me up all night -building a new setup, though I'm rather poor at working with glass and -usually get burned. Bringing up the child was his sisters' punishment." - -"And they went to that house on the farthest island? I suppose it was -the house he'd been building for Mary and himself." - -"Yes." - -"And they were to bring up the child as his daughter?" - -Mrs. Kesserich started up, but when she spoke it was as if she had to -force out each word. "As his wife--as soon as she was grown." - -"How can you know that?" Jack asked shakily. - -The rising wind rattled the windowpane. - -"Because today--eighteen years after--Martin broke all of his promise -to me. He told me he was leaving me." - - -VI - -White waves shooting up like dancing ghosts in the Moon-sketched, -spray-swept dark were Jack's first beacon of the island and brought a -sense of physical danger, breaking the trancelike yet frantic mood he -had felt ever since he had spoken with Mrs. Kesserich. - -Coming around farther into the wind, he scudded past the end of the -island into the choppy sea on the landward side. A little later he let -down the reefed sail in the cove of the sea urchins, where the water -was barely moving, although the air was shaken by the pounding of the -surf on the spine between the two islands. - -After making fast, he paused a moment for a scrap of cloud to pass the -moon. The thought of the spiny creatures in the black fathoms under the -_Annie O._ sent an odd quiver of terror through him. - -The Moon came out and he started across the glistening rocks of the -spine. But he had forgotten the rising tide. Midway, a wave clamped -around his ankles, tried to carry him off, almost made him drop the -heavy object he was carrying. Sprawling and drenched, he clung to the -rough rock until the surge was past. - -Making it finally up to the fence, he snipped a wide gate with the -wire-cutters. - -The windows of the house were alight. Hardly aware of his shivering, -he crossed the lawn, slipping from one clump of shrubbery to another, -until he reached one just across the drive from the doorway. At that -moment he heard the approaching _chuff_ of the Essex, the door of the -cottage opened, and Mary Alice Pope stepped out, closely followed by -Hani or Hilda. - -Jack shrank close to the shrubbery. Mary looked pale and blank-faced, -as if she had retreated within herself. He was acutely conscious of -the inadequacy of his screen as the ghostly headlights of the Essex -began to probe through the leaves. - -But then he sensed that something more was about to happen than just -the car arriving. It was a change in the expression of the face behind -Mary that gave him the cue--a widening and side-wise flickering of the -cold eyes, the puckered lips thinning into a cruel smile. - -The Essex shifted into second and, without any warning, accelerated. -Simultaneously, the woman behind Mary gave her a violent shove. But -at almost exactly the same instant, Jack ran. He caught Mary as she -sprawled toward the gravel, and lunged ahead without checking. The -Essex bore down upon them, a square-snouted, roaring monster. It -swerved viciously, missed them by inches, threw up gravel in a skid, -and rocked to a stop, stalled. - - * * * * * - -The first, incredulous voice that broke the pulsing silence, Jack -recognized as Martin Kesserich's. It came from the car, which was -slewed around so that it almost faced Jack and Mary. - -"Hani, you tried to kill her! You and Hilda tried to kill her again!" - -The woman slumped over the wheel slowly lifted her head. In the -indistinct light, she looked the twin of the woman behind Jack and -Mary. - -"Did you really think we wouldn't?" she asked in a voice that spat with -passion. "Did you actually believe that Hilda and I would serve this -eighteen years' penance just to watch you go off with her?" She began -to laugh wildly. "You've never understood your sisters at all!" - -Suddenly she broke off, stiffly stepped down from the car. Lifting her -skirts a little, she strode past Jack and Mary. - -Martin Kesserich followed her. In passing, he said, "Thanks, Barr." It -occurred to Jack that Kesserich made no more question of his appearance -on the island than of his presence in the laboratory. Like Mrs. -Kesserich, the great biologist took him for granted. - -Kesserich stopped a few feet short of Hani and Hilda. Without shrinking -from him, the sisters drew closer together. They looked like two gaunt -hawks. - -"But you waited eighteen years," he said. "You could have killed her -at any time, yet you chose to throw away so much of your lives just to -have this moment." - -"How do you know we didn't like waiting eighteen years?" Hani answered -him. "Why shouldn't we want to make as strong an impression on you as -anyone? And as for throwing our lives away, that was your doing. Oh, -Martin, you'll never know anything about how your sisters feel!" - -He raised his hands baffledly. "Even assuming that you hate me--" at -the word "hate" both Hani and Hilda laughed softly--"and that you were -prepared to strike at both my love and my work, still, that you should -have waited...." - -Hani and Hilda said nothing. - -Kesserich shrugged. "Very well," he said in a voice that had lost all -its tension. "You've wasted a third of a lifetime looking forward to -an irrational revenge. And you've failed. That should be sufficient -punishment." - -Very slowly, he turned around and for the first time looked at Mary. -His face was clearly revealed by the twin beams from the stalled car. - -Jack grew cold. He fought against accepting the feelings of wonder, of -poignant triumph, of love, of renewed youth he saw entering the face in -the headlights. But most of all he fought against the sense that Martin -Kesserich was successfully drawing them all back into the past, to 1933 -and another accident. There was a distant hoot and Jack shook. For a -moment he had thought it a railway whistle and not a ship's horn. - -The biologist said tenderly, "Come, Mary." - - * * * * * - -Jack's trembling arm tightened a trifle on Mary's waist. He could feel -_her_ trembling. - -"Come, Mary," Kesserich repeated. - -Still she didn't reply. - -Jack wet his lips. "Mary isn't going with you, Professor," he said. - -"Quiet, Barr," Kesserich ordered absently. "Mary, it is necessary that -you and I leave the island at once. Please come." - -"But Mary isn't coming," Jack repeated. - -Kesserich looked at him for the first time. "I'm grateful to you for -the unusual sense of loyalty--or whatever motive it may have been--that -led you to follow me out here tonight. And of course I'm profoundly -grateful to you for saving Mary's life. But I must ask you not to -interfere further in a matter which you can't possibly understand." - -He turned to Mary. "I know how shocked and frightened you must feel. -Living two lives and then having to face two deaths--it must be more -terrible than anyone can realize. I expected this meeting to take place -under very different circumstances. I wanted to explain everything to -you very naturally and gently, like the messages I've sent you every -day of your second life. Unfortunately, that can't be. - -"You and I must leave the island right now." - -Mary stared at him, then turned wonderingly toward Jack, who felt his -heart begin to pound warmly. - -"You still don't understand what I'm trying to tell you, Professor," -he said, boldly now. "Mary is not going with you. You've deceived her -all her life. You've taken a fantastic amount of pains to bring her up -under the delusion that she is Mary Alice Pope, who died in--" - -"She _is_ Mary Alice Pope," Kesserich thundered at him. He advanced -toward them swiftly. "Mary darling, you're confused, but you must -realize who you are and who I am and the relationship between us." - -"Keep away," Jack warned, swinging Mary half behind him. "Mary doesn't -love you. She can't marry you, at any rate. How could she, when you're -her father?" - -"Barr!" - -"Keep off!" Jack shot out the flat of his hand and Kesserich went -staggering backward. "I've talked with your wife--your wife on the -mainland. She told me the whole thing." - - * * * * * - -Kesserich seemed about to rush forward again, then controlled himself. -"You've got everything wrong. You hardly deserve to be told, but under -the circumstances I have no choice. Mary is not my daughter. To be -precise, she has no father at all. Do you remember the work that -Jacques Loeb did with sea urchins?" - -Jack frowned angrily. "You mean what we were talking about last night?" - -"Exactly. Loeb was able to cause the egg of a sea urchin to develop -normally without union with a male germ cell. I have done the same -tiding with a human being. This girl is Mary Alice Pope. She has -exactly the same heredity. She has had exactly the same life, so far -as it could be reconstructed. She's heard and read the same things at -exactly the same times. There have been the old newspapers, the books, -even the old recorded radio programs. Hani and Hilda have had their -daily instructions, to the letter. She's retraced the same time-trail." - -"Rot!" Jack interrupted. "I don't for a moment believe what you say -about her birth. She's Mary's daughter--or the daughter of your wife -on the mainland. And as for retracing the same time-trail, that's -senile self-delusion. Mary Alice Pope had a normal life. This girl has -been brought up in cruel imprisonment by two insane, vindictive old -women. In your own frustrated desire, you've pretended to yourself that -you've recreated the girl you lost. You haven't. You couldn't. Nobody -could--the great Martin Kesserich or anyone else!" - -Kesserich, his features working, shifted his point of attack. "Who are -you, Mary?" - -"Don't answer him," Jack said. "He's trying to confuse you." - -"Who are you?" Kesserich insisted. - -"Mary Alice Pope," she said rapidly in a breathy whisper before Jack -could speak again. - -"And when were you born?" Kesserich pressed on. - -"You've been tricked all your life about that," Jack warned. - -But already the girl was saying, "In 1916." - -"And who am I then?" Kesserich demanded eagerly. "Who am I?" - - * * * * * - -The girl swayed. She brushed her head with her hand. - -"It's so strange," she said, with a dreamy, almost laughing throb in -her voice that turned Jack's heart cold. "I'm sure I've never seen you -before in my life, and yet it's as if I'd known you forever. As if you -were closer to me than--" - -"Stop it!" Jack shouted at Kesserich. "Mary loves me. She loves me -because I've shown her the lie her life has been, and because she's -coming away with me now. Aren't you, Mary?" - -He swung her around so that her blank face was inches from his own. -"It's me you love, isn't it, Mary?" - -She blinked doubtfully. - -At that moment Kesserich charged at them, went sprawling as Jack's fist -shot out. Jack swept up Mary and ran with her across the lawn. Behind -him he heard an agonized cry--Kesserich's--and cruel, mounting laughter -from Hani and Hilda. - -Once through the ragged doorway in the fence, he made his way more -slowly, gasping. Out of the shelter of the trees, the wind tore at them -and the ocean roared. Moonlight glistened, now on the spine of black -wet rocks, now on the foaming surf. - -Jack realized that the girl in his arms was speaking rapidly, -disjointedly, but he couldn't quite make out the sense of the words and -then they were lost in the crash of the surf. She struggled, but he -told himself that it was only because she was afraid of the menacing -waters. - -He pushed recklessly into the breaking surf, raced gasping across the -middle of the spine as the rocks uncovered, sprang to the higher ones -as the next wave crashed behind, showering them with spray. His chest -burning with exertion, he carried the girl the few remaining yards to -where the _Annie O._ was tossing. A sudden great gust of wind almost -did what the waves had failed to do, but he kept his footing and -lowered the girl into the boat, then jumped in after. - -She stared at him wildly. "What's that?" - -He, too, had caught the faint shout. Looking back along the spine just -as the Moon came clear again, he saw white spray rise and fall--and -then the figure of Kesserich stumbling through it. - -"Mary, wait for me!" - -The figure was halfway across when it lurched, started forward again, -then was jerked back as if something had caught its ankle. Out of the -darkness, the next wave sent a line of white at it neck-high, crashed. - -Jack hesitated, but another great gust of wind tore at the half-raised -sail, and it was all he could do to keep the sloop from capsizing and -head her into the wind again. - -Mary was tugging at his shoulder. "You must help him," she was saying. -"He's caught in the rocks." - -He heard a voice crying, screaming crazily above the surf: - - "Ah, love, let us be true - To one another! for the world--" - -The sloop rocked. Jack had it finally headed into the wind. He looked -around for Mary. - -She had jumped out and was hurrying back, scrambling across the rocks -toward the dark, struggling figure that even as he watched was once -more engulfed in the surf. - -Letting go the lines, Jack sprang toward the stern of the sloop. - -But just then another giant blow came, struck the sail like a great -fist of air, and sent the boom slashing at the back of his head. - -His last recollection was being toppled out onto the rocks and -wondering how he could cling to them while unconscious. - - -VII - -The little cove was once again as quiet as time's heart. Once again the -_Annie O._ was a sloop embedded in a mirror. Once again the rocks were -warm underfoot. - -Jack Barr lifted his fiercely aching head and looked at the distant -line of the mainland, as tiny and yet as clear as something viewed -through the wrong end of a telescope. He was very tired. Searching the -island, in his present shaky condition, had taken all the strength out -of him. - -He looked at the peacefully rippling sea outside the cove and thought -of what a churning pot it had been during the storm. He thought -wonderingly of his rescue--a man wedged unconscious between two rock -teeth; kept somehow from being washed away by the merest chance. - -He thought of Mrs. Kesserich sitting alone in her house, scanning the -newspapers that had nothing to tell. - -He thought of the empty island behind him and the vanished motorboat. - -He wondered if the sea had pulled down Martin Kesserich and Mary Alice -Pope. He wondered if only Hani and Hilda had sailed away. - -He winced, remembering what he had done to Martin and Mary by his -blundering infatuation. In his way, he told himself, he had been as bad -as the two old women. - -He thought of death, and of time, and of love that defies them. - -He stepped limpingly into the _Annie O._ to set sail--and realized that -philosophy is only for the unhappy. - -Mary was asleep in the stern. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Yesterday House, by Fritz Leiber - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YESTERDAY HOUSE *** - -***** This file should be named 50905.txt or 50905.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/9/0/50905/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan 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 print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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