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boulders still seared by the ancient heat of devastation. It climbed until the black stretch dropped away to
one side, while on the other, a hollow wave full of sweetness, rose the Vale. Here the stallion halted,
cropping grass, leaving
Chun Hwa perched in the big saddle like a pulpit, able to look over the two worlds of good and bad
earth.
On these occasions, Yalleranda climbed higher up the dope, moving as silently as blue moonlight among
the apple trees, until he came to the last apple tree, whose embryo fruits, as yet no bigger than tonsils,
were the loftiest in the Vale. Here he was so near to the old figure cut out of the blue sky above the
Profile that he could hear his robes rustle in the breeze. He could almost hear his thoughts.
Young men think about the women they will love, old men about the women they have loved: but Chun
Hwa was older than that, and he thought about Philosophy.
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I have lived ninety years, he thought, and my bones are growing thin as smoke. Yet something
remains to be done. An essence of me still remains inside: my inner-most heart: and that is as it was when
I was a child. It is wonderful to think that after all the wars and cataclysms of my life, I am yet myself; a
continuity has been preserved. Yet what am I? How can I know? I only know that when I think of what I
am, I am dis-turbed and dissatisfied. If only I could round off my life properly....
He looked about him, screwing up his withered cheeks to assist the stiff muscles of his eyes.
Falling away to his left lay the Vale of Apple Trees. Chun Hwa saw the stream at the bottom of it,
pushing brooks like snail trails up the slope; a village grew and twittered and slumbered beside the
stream. This, Chun Hwa liked to think of as the present.
Falling away to his right were the burnt lands, and these he thought of as the past The naturally fertile
landscape had had the fertility burnt irreparably out of it, as the bottom is burnt out of a pot. The
weapons of man had become as fearsome as the Hand of God. Nothing lived, except two giant machines
which had met in the black valley; they lay now, locked together, sides streaked in rust, each slowly and
hatelessly demolishing the other.
This was the good thing for which Chun Hwa rode to sit on the very nose of Blighted Profile: he could
see from here both past and present. It was like looking at the two sides of the nature of man, the black
and the green.
Existence has become too terrible, he thought. The bad side must never emerge again. Never.
But he had no means of knowing how long never might be. That was why he wanted to go into the
future.
So he sat there for a long time, wondering about life and death. The little boy watched him like a bird
look-ing at a stone, wondering why it is a stone.
There is no solution to the bird s problem.
Chun Hwa eventually ate a small meal from porcelain bowls packed in a china box.
Hup, now, Leg of Leather! he called, when he had packed the bowls away, and the stallion began at
once to carry him back home. The Vale sank below the high ridge. They jogged down the black side of
Blighted Profile, jogged among the hard-boiled boulders, through the little landslides of dust and crystals,
down, down, on to the arid plain.
The ground was like a scab. Occasionally Leg of Leather s hooves went through the crust. Skirting the
machines locked in frigid battle, the stallion crossed the width of desolation, climbed a low slope and
came among trees. Far behind cautiously and involuntarily Yalleranda followed. This was the first
time he had ever left the Vale of the Apple Trees so far behind.
Nearly home now, Leg of Leather, Chun Hwa said, as they emerged from the wood.
Ahead, the country grew green: parkland as trim and bright as a sunshade. When Chun Hwa
approached, a section of it about an acre in extent appeared to change. Curious illusions grew in the air,
shapes formed, mists moved. Curtains of molecules lifted higher and higher into the air, like fountains
newly switched on; the molecules twisted, misted, glittered, frosted and formed mirrors, one behind
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another, interpenetrating, weaving, defining the rooms of Chun Hwa s summer home.
He could see himself on fifty planes, approaching him-self on his own white horse.
By the time he came up to the house, all of its walls were entirely opaque, as they would appear to any
visitor. Coaxing the stallion, Chun Hwa rode in. Without pausing at his own quarters, he rode slowly
through the house to see his wife, Wangust Ilsont.
She was busily integrating with two servants when he appeared. Dismissing them, she came towards him
as they clicked off. Her leopard, Coily, was beside her; she rested a hand on it for support. Age had her
in its web. Only her eyes were not grey.
I have not seen you for a week, husband, she said gently, taking the bridle in her hand as Coily and
Leg of Leather touched muzzles. At our time of life, that is too long. What have you been doing?
Thinking, my love; only thinking and regretting. In this weather, it s an agreeable enough pastime.
Please dismount, Hwa, Wangust said anxiously.
When he had climbed down beside her, she said, You are unsettled in yourself. This should never be,
now. We have no reason or time to be anything but at peace with ourselves. For a decade, we have
enjoyed only tran-quillity; you must allow me to do what I can to remedy the change in you.
Chun Hwa led her to a bank which shaped itself com-fortably about them as they sat down.
There has never been a woman like you in any age, Wangust, he said, gently taking her frail hand. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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