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diff --git a/78294-h/78294-h.htm b/78294-h/78294-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e21d08 --- /dev/null +++ b/78294-h/78294-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,344 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + The Golden Flutterby | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + 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%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + + +blockquote { + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} +figcaption p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: .2em; text-align: inherit;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +.f15 {font-size: 1.5em;} +img.w20 {width: 20em;} + + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe113_8750 {width: 113.8750em;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78294 ***</div> + +<figure class="figcenter illowe113_8750" id="cover"> + <img class="w20" src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + Transcribed from Satellite Science Fiction October 1956 (vol. 1, no. 1). + </figcaption> +</figure> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + + +<h1> +The Golden Flutterby +</h1> + + +<p class="f15 center">by <strong>Craig Rice</strong></p> +<p class="f15 center">[Pseudonym of <strong>Georgiana Ann Craig]</strong></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + + +<blockquote> +<p><i>She was magic, meant for love—and like so much of beauty, strangely +marked by fate.</i></p> +</blockquote> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + + + + +<p>Of course it happened a very long time ago. Today, there is barely +a charred, overgrown trace left of the buildings that burned, the +curious, helter-skelter collection of gaily painted little two and +three apartment houses that huddled together, down a steep valley +scarp from the broad avenue above. The whole affair, indeed, is almost +forgotten—almost.</p> + +<p>He is a mature man now, the head of a family, +successful in his business, liked and respected, a solid citizen in +all things. But <i>he</i> still remembers. As long as he lives, he will never +forget.</p> + +<p>And the little children—all grown up now, of course—surely <i>they</i> +must remember, too.</p> + +<p>It began on a night that was windless and clear, +neither warm nor cold—a night that was very quiet. He was young, and +he was lonely, a stranger in the town in those days. All by himself, +he had gone into one of the small, shadowy bars that dotted the broad +avenue that crowned the hillside. He sat there alone, scarcely touching +his glass, not seeking companions, all but oblivious of the men and +women who moved and got acquainted with each other all around him.</p> + +<p>He +had no idea how long she had been sitting beside him when first he +noticed her. Even then, it was the drink that he noticed first, rather +than the girl. The glass that held it was conventional enough—thin and +gracefully stemmed—but the drink itself glowed with a color he could +not remember ever having seen before. A gold color it was, yet with +more light, more luminescence than gold. It was marvelously clear, yet +there was an occasional hint of swirling mist in its depths that +appeared and vanished and appeared again. +He watched it for a while caught by its almost hypnotic effect, and +then he looked at the girl.</p> + +<p>She was golden, from the hair wound and +braided so smoothly about her head, to the gold kid slippers on her +small and fragile feet. Her dress, of some soft, glistening, silky +stuff, was a deeper shade of the same gold, her soft, delicate skin +seemed almost to be touched with a faint, powdery, golden dust. He +failed to register, and never could recall, the color of her eyes. +Perhaps, they were golden, too.</p> + +<p>All at once, he realized she was aware +that he was staring at her, that she seemed faintly amused. He looked +away and stammered something inadequate about the curious color of +the drink in her glass.</p> + +<p>She smiled, a sweet radiant smile, and pushed +the glass toward him.</p> + +<p>Neither then, nor in memory, could he be sure +she said, “Would you like to try it?” in a faint whisper, or that +his own mind formed the words from some projected thought. For that +matter, did she ever speak at all? Of this, too, he never was quite +sure. But of course, he would remind himself in afterdays, she must +have spoken when she told the children stories. Or did she? Did they +understand the words as, perhaps, he had, without ever hearing them? He +never knew.</p> + +<p>He did know that he tried the drink. It was cool but not +cold, pungent yet sweet—almost too sweet with a curious, new flavor +he could not quite identify, a flavor of half-remembered fruits and +flowers. Cool and sweet and strangely heady—he took a sip of it and +felt a faint, delightful tingling in his fingers and toes.</p> + +<p>They sat +together silently, while strangers moved and chattered all around them +and paid as little attention as if neither of them was there. Then +it was late, and the lights were being turned out, and the chairs +stacked on the tables.</p> + +<p>He said, almost without thinking, “Will you +come home with me?” It was as easy as asking for a match.</p> + +<p>She said, +“Of course,” in that soft whisper that might not have been a whisper +at all. Then she rose and linked his arm with hers, and they went out +of the small, shadowy bar. It was as simple as that.</p> + +<p>They walked down +the broad avenue together and paused at the top of the stairs that led +down between the little buildings. They were steep stairs, narrow and +winding and dimly lighted, and he turned to her and said, “You must let +me carry you down.”</p> + +<p>He lifted her and she seemed to weigh nothing at +all—exactly nothing. It wasn’t that she was remarkably small, it was +simply that she didn’t weigh anything. Yet he +thought hardly anything about it at the time.</p> + +<p>Down the long, steep +stairs, past the paths and little flights of stairs that led off in +all directions, down to the wide, gardened space halfway to the valley +floor, where the children played in the daytime, from which his own +little flight of wooden stairs led. Up to his door, and into the two +tiny rooms that were his home in those days.</p> + +<p>He never was quite sure +how long she stayed. It might have been weeks or months. It was days, +certainly. He was on vacation, and there was no routine coming and +going to and from his insignificant job to wind the clock of his mind.</p> + +<p>He was certain of but one thing—then and always afterwards. This +was the happiest time of his entire life.</p> + +<p>It seemed never the least +strange to him that she seemed to have no other home, neither friends +nor mere people to inquire about her. Nor had she possessions of her +own.</p> + +<p>Save for the carrying of her down the long flight of stairs, +he scarcely dared touch her again but with the rarest and lightest +caress of a hand. He had a feeling that, somehow, she was too fragile, +too delicate, too perishable for coarse human contact, that a normal +caress would shatter her into glistening golden fragments, that she +might, perhaps, disappear altogether. Sometimes, she would smile +at him, the sweet radiant smile, and brush light fingers fondly over +his face. Yet, while he knew her fingers touched him, he could scarcely +feel them.</p> + +<p>It did seem curious to him now and then, during the time +they were together, that she never slept or, at least, never seemed to +sleep. She did come to rest from time to time, perched on the arm of +a chair, perhaps poised gracefully on the couch, her exquisite face +in repose, motionless save for an occasional fluttering of her small +hands. Watching her, he would fall asleep himself, confident that, +when he wakened, she would still be there in the two tiny rooms.</p> + +<p>It +was down in the garden that the very young children who lived in the +other buildings on the hillside would come to her. She would rest on +the lowest step of his little flight of wooden stairs, and tell them +stories—fabulous, wonderful, marvelous stories. It mattered not to the +children whether she told her stories in words or in dreamlike thought +projections. The children heard them and understood them, and watched +her with eyes sometimes gay, sometimes grave, sometimes aglow with +sheer enchantment.</p> + +<p>She made little cakes for them, too, the sugary, +crumbly little cakes that, with the sweet, golden drink, seemed to +be her only food. She loved them all, +and they loved her.</p> + +<p>It was a very lovely time, a dreamy time, and he +was happy.</p> + +<p>Then, awakening in the midst of a night that was windless +and clear and very quiet, he heard the rustle and crackle of flames. +He rushed outside to the little apartment landing and saw that the +lower buildings were ablaze, that the flames were creeping up towards +his own little garden.</p> + +<p>He ran back into the house to sweep her up to +safety. She shook her head, radiating a strange blend of sadness and +expectation. It didn’t matter to him whether she spoke aloud or not. +“The children,” was what she said. He understood. He raced down into +the garden and began to knock on all the doors.</p> + +<p>How he managed it +all, he was never quite sure. From doorway to doorway, from window to +window he ran, waking everyone, collecting the children, shepherding +them up the hill to the broad avenue and safety. There were fire +engines coming now.</p> + +<p>The flames were flickering hungrily, close to his +own little home when he reached it and ran lightly up the stairs, to +where she stood poised on the tiny landing.</p> + +<p>She had taken a scarf of +the same glistening, golden silky stuff as her dress, and bound it +around her eyes like a blindfold. She stretched out her hands to him, +and he prepared to lift her and carry her away to safety.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, in +his fear and in the urgency of the moment, he moved too quickly, too +roughly—for, suddenly, the scarf came unbound and floated into his +hands.</p> + +<p>She gave him one long look, of anguish, of incomprehensible +despair, of final farewell. Then she turned and, before he could move +to stop her, she had gone. She seemed, in his horrified eyes, to +dart, to fly, into the very heart of the flames. It was as if, having +seen them, she was drawn to them as by a magnet. It was as if a moth....</p> + +<p>Afterward, of course, they called him a hero. They made a great fuss +and pother over him. There were pictures of him in the newspapers, and +pictures of the children. But whenever he spoke of <i>her</i>, everyone looked +at him kindly, even pityingly. “<i>Shock</i>,” they said. “Shock and the +horror of the fire.”</p> + +<p>But he could never quite accept this theory—for +how did they explain the scarf he still had, the golden, glistening, +gossamer scarf, that he still has to this day. The children never spoke +to him of her, but, for a long time afterward, they looked at him with +sad, remembering, pitying eyes. Did <i>they</i> know? He was never to find +out. By the time he acquired the wisdom to ask them, it was too late. +They were no longer children—they were merely boys and girls.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div><div class="transnote"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Note"> + Transcriber’s Note: + </h2> + + + +<blockquote> +<p>This etext was produced from Satellite Science Fiction October 1956 +(vol. 1, no. 1). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that +the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p> +</blockquote> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78294 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |