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.- 274 - The audience filed into the theatre.The children shrieked their song in the street,awash with greed and joy.The carriage that had brought Madame Morrible aroundwas able to draw up in front of the theatre and start its long wait for her to come outagain.Fiyero paused, unsure, in case there was a backup plan, in case Elphaba hadsomething else up her sleeve, in case the theatre exploded.Then he began to worry that, in the few minutes of losing sight of her, Elphabahad been rounded up by the Gale Force.Could they have whisked her out of sightthat fast? What should he do if she became one of the disappeared?At a clip, he headed back across town.Mercifully he found a waiting cab, and hehad the cab drive him directly to the street of warehouses adjacent to the militarygarrison in the city's ninth district.In a state of profound agitation he arrived back at Elphaba's little eyrie atop thecorn exchange.As he climbed the stairs, his bowels turned suddenly to water, and itwas only with effort he managed to make it to the chamber pot.His insides sloppednoisily, wetly out, and he held his perspiring face in his hands.The cat was perchedatop the wardrobe, glaring down at him.Voided, washed down, and at least looselydone up again, he tried to coax Malky with a bowl of milk.She would have none of it.He found a couple of dried crackers, and ate them miserably, and then pulled onthe chain to open the skylight, to help air the room.A couple of plops of snow fell inand sat there not melting, it was that cold in the damn place.He went to build up afire, pulled open the iron door of the stove.The fire caught, then flared, and the shadows detached themselves and movedas shadows will, but these shadows moved fast, across the room, at him before hecould reaister what they were.Excent that there- 275 - were three, or four, or five, and they were wearing black clothes, and black charon their faces, and their heads were wrapped in colored scarves Like the ones he hadbought for Elphaba, for Sarima.On the shoulder of One he saw the glint of a gildedepaulet: a senior member of the Gale Force.There was a club and it beat down onhim, like the kick of a horse, Like the falling limb of a tree hit by lightning.There mustbe pain, but he was too surprised to notice.That must be his blood, squirting a rubystain on the white cat, making it flinch.He saw its eyes open, twin golden greenmoons, befitting of the season, and the cat then scarpered through the open skylightand was lost in the snowy night.The youngest maunt was obliged to answer the convent door if the bell soundedduring mealtime.In fact she was clearing away the remains of pumpkin soup and ryebrisks, the other maunts already wafting, in a cerebral mood, toward their cloisterchapel upstairs.She hesitated before deciding to answer the bell-in another threeminutes she too would have been losing herself in devotions, and the bell wouldhave gone unheeded.She had rather get the dishes to soak, frankly.But the seasonalcheer bullied her into charity.She opened the huge door to find a figure crouched like a monkey in the darkcorner of the stone porch.Beyond, snow was wrinkling the facade of the adjacentChurch of Saint Glinda, making it look like a reflection in water, only right way up.Thestreets were empty and a noise of choirs came filtering out of the candle-lit church."What is it?" said the novice, remembering then to add, "Good Lurlinemas, myfriend."She decided, once she saw the blood on the odd green wrists, and the dartinglook in the eyes, that holiday decency required her to drag the creature inside.Butshe could hear her sister maunts assembling in their private chapel, and the mother- 276 - maunt beginning to sing a prelude in her silvery contralto.This was the novice's firstbig liturgical event as a member of this community, and she didn't want to miss amoment of it."Come with me, dolly," she said, and the creature-a young woman a year or twoolder than she was-managed to straighten up enough to walk, or hobble, like acripple, like a person so malnourished that their extensors cannot flex and their limbslook as if they are about to snap.The novice stopped in a washroom to rinse the blood off the wrists, and to makecertain that it was indeed splattered mess from the beheading of some hen for aholiday supper, and not a sad attempt at suicide.But the stranger recoiled from thesight of water, and looked so deranged and unhappy that the novice stopped.Sheused a dry towel instead.The maunts were beginning antiphonal chants upstairs! How maddening! Thenovice took the path of least resistance.She dragged the forlorn thing down towardthe winter salon, where the old retired biddies lived out their lives in a haze ofamnesia and the discreetly placed clumps of marginium plants, whose sweet miasmahelped mask the odors of the old and incontinent.The crones lived in a time of theirown, they couldn't be carted upstairs to the sacred chapel anyway."Look, I'll sit you down here," she said to the woman."I don't know if you needsanctuary or food or a bath or forgiveness, whatever.But you can stop here, warmand dry and safe and quiet.I'll come back to you after midnight.It's the feast day, yousee.It's the vigil service.Watch and wait, and hope."She pushed the hunted, haunted woman into a soft chair, and found a blanket.Most of the crones were snoring away, their heads nodding on their breastbones,dribbling softly onto bibs ornamented with green and gold berries and leaves.A fewwere telling their beads.The courtyard, open in summer, was now welled in with- 277 - glass panels for the winter, so it looked like a square fish tank in an aquarium; snowfalling in it always made them peaceful."Look, you can see the snow, white as the grace of the Unnamed God," said thenovice, remembering her pastoral requirements."Think on that, and rest, and sleep.Here's a pillow.Here's a stool for your feet.Upstairs we'll be singing and praising theUnnamed God.I'll pray for you.""Don't-" said the green ghostly guest, then slumped her head against the pillow."It's my pleasure to," said the novice, a bit aggressively, and fled, just in time tocatch the processional hymn.For a while the winter salon was still.It was like a fishbowl into which a newacquisition has been dropped.The snow moved as if done by a machine, gently andmesmerizingly, with a soft churr.The blossoms of the mareinium plants closed a bit inthe strengthening cold of the room.Oil lamps issued their funereal crepe ribbons intothe air.On the other side of the garden-hardly visible through the snow and the twowindows-a decrepit haunt, with a more precise grasp of the calendar than her sisters,began to hum a saucy old pagan hymn to Lurline [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.- 274 - The audience filed into the theatre.The children shrieked their song in the street,awash with greed and joy.The carriage that had brought Madame Morrible aroundwas able to draw up in front of the theatre and start its long wait for her to come outagain.Fiyero paused, unsure, in case there was a backup plan, in case Elphaba hadsomething else up her sleeve, in case the theatre exploded.Then he began to worry that, in the few minutes of losing sight of her, Elphabahad been rounded up by the Gale Force.Could they have whisked her out of sightthat fast? What should he do if she became one of the disappeared?At a clip, he headed back across town.Mercifully he found a waiting cab, and hehad the cab drive him directly to the street of warehouses adjacent to the militarygarrison in the city's ninth district.In a state of profound agitation he arrived back at Elphaba's little eyrie atop thecorn exchange.As he climbed the stairs, his bowels turned suddenly to water, and itwas only with effort he managed to make it to the chamber pot.His insides sloppednoisily, wetly out, and he held his perspiring face in his hands.The cat was perchedatop the wardrobe, glaring down at him.Voided, washed down, and at least looselydone up again, he tried to coax Malky with a bowl of milk.She would have none of it.He found a couple of dried crackers, and ate them miserably, and then pulled onthe chain to open the skylight, to help air the room.A couple of plops of snow fell inand sat there not melting, it was that cold in the damn place.He went to build up afire, pulled open the iron door of the stove.The fire caught, then flared, and the shadows detached themselves and movedas shadows will, but these shadows moved fast, across the room, at him before hecould reaister what they were.Excent that there- 275 - were three, or four, or five, and they were wearing black clothes, and black charon their faces, and their heads were wrapped in colored scarves Like the ones he hadbought for Elphaba, for Sarima.On the shoulder of One he saw the glint of a gildedepaulet: a senior member of the Gale Force.There was a club and it beat down onhim, like the kick of a horse, Like the falling limb of a tree hit by lightning.There mustbe pain, but he was too surprised to notice.That must be his blood, squirting a rubystain on the white cat, making it flinch.He saw its eyes open, twin golden greenmoons, befitting of the season, and the cat then scarpered through the open skylightand was lost in the snowy night.The youngest maunt was obliged to answer the convent door if the bell soundedduring mealtime.In fact she was clearing away the remains of pumpkin soup and ryebrisks, the other maunts already wafting, in a cerebral mood, toward their cloisterchapel upstairs.She hesitated before deciding to answer the bell-in another threeminutes she too would have been losing herself in devotions, and the bell wouldhave gone unheeded.She had rather get the dishes to soak, frankly.But the seasonalcheer bullied her into charity.She opened the huge door to find a figure crouched like a monkey in the darkcorner of the stone porch.Beyond, snow was wrinkling the facade of the adjacentChurch of Saint Glinda, making it look like a reflection in water, only right way up.Thestreets were empty and a noise of choirs came filtering out of the candle-lit church."What is it?" said the novice, remembering then to add, "Good Lurlinemas, myfriend."She decided, once she saw the blood on the odd green wrists, and the dartinglook in the eyes, that holiday decency required her to drag the creature inside.Butshe could hear her sister maunts assembling in their private chapel, and the mother- 276 - maunt beginning to sing a prelude in her silvery contralto.This was the novice's firstbig liturgical event as a member of this community, and she didn't want to miss amoment of it."Come with me, dolly," she said, and the creature-a young woman a year or twoolder than she was-managed to straighten up enough to walk, or hobble, like acripple, like a person so malnourished that their extensors cannot flex and their limbslook as if they are about to snap.The novice stopped in a washroom to rinse the blood off the wrists, and to makecertain that it was indeed splattered mess from the beheading of some hen for aholiday supper, and not a sad attempt at suicide.But the stranger recoiled from thesight of water, and looked so deranged and unhappy that the novice stopped.Sheused a dry towel instead.The maunts were beginning antiphonal chants upstairs! How maddening! Thenovice took the path of least resistance.She dragged the forlorn thing down towardthe winter salon, where the old retired biddies lived out their lives in a haze ofamnesia and the discreetly placed clumps of marginium plants, whose sweet miasmahelped mask the odors of the old and incontinent.The crones lived in a time of theirown, they couldn't be carted upstairs to the sacred chapel anyway."Look, I'll sit you down here," she said to the woman."I don't know if you needsanctuary or food or a bath or forgiveness, whatever.But you can stop here, warmand dry and safe and quiet.I'll come back to you after midnight.It's the feast day, yousee.It's the vigil service.Watch and wait, and hope."She pushed the hunted, haunted woman into a soft chair, and found a blanket.Most of the crones were snoring away, their heads nodding on their breastbones,dribbling softly onto bibs ornamented with green and gold berries and leaves.A fewwere telling their beads.The courtyard, open in summer, was now welled in with- 277 - glass panels for the winter, so it looked like a square fish tank in an aquarium; snowfalling in it always made them peaceful."Look, you can see the snow, white as the grace of the Unnamed God," said thenovice, remembering her pastoral requirements."Think on that, and rest, and sleep.Here's a pillow.Here's a stool for your feet.Upstairs we'll be singing and praising theUnnamed God.I'll pray for you.""Don't-" said the green ghostly guest, then slumped her head against the pillow."It's my pleasure to," said the novice, a bit aggressively, and fled, just in time tocatch the processional hymn.For a while the winter salon was still.It was like a fishbowl into which a newacquisition has been dropped.The snow moved as if done by a machine, gently andmesmerizingly, with a soft churr.The blossoms of the mareinium plants closed a bit inthe strengthening cold of the room.Oil lamps issued their funereal crepe ribbons intothe air.On the other side of the garden-hardly visible through the snow and the twowindows-a decrepit haunt, with a more precise grasp of the calendar than her sisters,began to hum a saucy old pagan hymn to Lurline [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]