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.And then Phil saw that the place was simply alive with cats: black, white, topaz, silver, taupe; striped,mottled, banded, pied; short haired, Angora, Persian, Siamese and Siamese mutant.They dripped fromchair tops and shelves; they peered brightly from under little tables and dully from suffocating-lookingcrevices between cushions; they pattered about or posed sublimely still.One stretched full length on thewoven Koran in the center of a Moslem prayer rug; another lay on a tarnished silver pentacle inlaid in adark, low table.One was battling a phylactery hanging from the wall, making the little leather box swingand jump; another was nosing a small steatopygous, multi-mammiferous figurine; yet another was lazilyentangling itself in a rosary; two were lapping dirty looking milk from a silver chalice set with amethysts.And then for a second time Phil was gulping his heart, for in the center of a mantelpiece over a realfireplace, and midway between a gilded icon and a tin Mexican devil-mask, there posed most sublimelystill of all, with forelegs straight as spears & the green cat.As Phil walked hypnotically forward, he heard Sacheverell say gently, No, that is not his true self, buthis simulacrum, his ancient Egyptian harbinger, a figure of Bast, the Lady of Life and Love. And as Phil came closer, he saw it truly was the bronze statue of a cat, encrusted with verdigris almostexactly the hue of Lucky s coat.Coming up beside him, Sacheverell explained, As soon ashe came, Irouted out all our relics of Bast.Most of them are in there, he indicated the black velvet curtains, around the altar.But a few are here. And he pointed out, beside the bronze statue, a small mummycase and inside it the linen-banded mummy of a cat, looking like a little sack with a blob at the top.AsSacheverell was explaining the tiny Canopic jar of preserved cat entrails beside it, a six-toed Siamesewandered up and sniffed the mummy thoughtfully.Finally Phil found his voice. Then you actually do have Lucky? Sacheverell s high curved eyebrows curved still higher. Lucky? The green cat, Phil added.file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruisw.r/Fritz%20Leiber%20-%20The%20Green%20Millennium.html (44 of 141)19-2-2006 20:28:04 The Green MillenniumSacheverell s face grew serenely grave. No one has the green cat, he reproved Phil. It would not bepermitted.He has us.We are his humble worshippers, his primal hierophants. But I want to see him, Phil said. That will be permitted, Sacheverell assured Phil, when he wakes and the world changes.Meanwhile,compose yourself, er & Phil Gish, you say? Phil & philo & love & an auspicious name. Why the mucking hell is this green cat so important, anyhow? What is it? The two men turned.Juno was still standing on the threshold.She was swayed forward a little, huggingher elbows, yet had her shoulders squared and was glaring at them surlily, like a rebellious schoolgirl. The green cat is love, Sacheverell told her softly. The love that blossoms even from hate. There was another interruption.This one took the form of a coy, girlish snicker.Phil turned to the sideof the room he had not yet inspected closely, the one facing the fireplace.In it was a deep, wide baywindow closely shuttered with gray jalousies, as were all the other windows in the room except for onefronting on darkness beside the fireplace.In the bay was a semicircular couch on which Mary Akeleysprawled adolescently, still in black sweater and stiff, red skirt. You know, she said, I just can t get used to the idea of loving everything.Sacheverell says I ve got tobe nice to my little people and stop sticking hatpins in them and things, but it s hard. For a morbid moment Phil thought she was referring to the cats.Then he saw that there were a series ofnarrow shelves behind her, starting at the top of the couch and going halfway up the bay and that theseshelves were crowded with dolls.Moving closer, he saw they were not ordinary dolls, but extremelyrealistic human figures, most of them about six inches high.He had never seen dolls so perfectly formedor realistically dressed.There must have been two or three hundred.They stood behind Mary like thecross-section of a crowded three-level street in some tiny living world [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.And then Phil saw that the place was simply alive with cats: black, white, topaz, silver, taupe; striped,mottled, banded, pied; short haired, Angora, Persian, Siamese and Siamese mutant.They dripped fromchair tops and shelves; they peered brightly from under little tables and dully from suffocating-lookingcrevices between cushions; they pattered about or posed sublimely still.One stretched full length on thewoven Koran in the center of a Moslem prayer rug; another lay on a tarnished silver pentacle inlaid in adark, low table.One was battling a phylactery hanging from the wall, making the little leather box swingand jump; another was nosing a small steatopygous, multi-mammiferous figurine; yet another was lazilyentangling itself in a rosary; two were lapping dirty looking milk from a silver chalice set with amethysts.And then for a second time Phil was gulping his heart, for in the center of a mantelpiece over a realfireplace, and midway between a gilded icon and a tin Mexican devil-mask, there posed most sublimelystill of all, with forelegs straight as spears & the green cat.As Phil walked hypnotically forward, he heard Sacheverell say gently, No, that is not his true self, buthis simulacrum, his ancient Egyptian harbinger, a figure of Bast, the Lady of Life and Love. And as Phil came closer, he saw it truly was the bronze statue of a cat, encrusted with verdigris almostexactly the hue of Lucky s coat.Coming up beside him, Sacheverell explained, As soon ashe came, Irouted out all our relics of Bast.Most of them are in there, he indicated the black velvet curtains, around the altar.But a few are here. And he pointed out, beside the bronze statue, a small mummycase and inside it the linen-banded mummy of a cat, looking like a little sack with a blob at the top.AsSacheverell was explaining the tiny Canopic jar of preserved cat entrails beside it, a six-toed Siamesewandered up and sniffed the mummy thoughtfully.Finally Phil found his voice. Then you actually do have Lucky? Sacheverell s high curved eyebrows curved still higher. Lucky? The green cat, Phil added.file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruisw.r/Fritz%20Leiber%20-%20The%20Green%20Millennium.html (44 of 141)19-2-2006 20:28:04 The Green MillenniumSacheverell s face grew serenely grave. No one has the green cat, he reproved Phil. It would not bepermitted.He has us.We are his humble worshippers, his primal hierophants. But I want to see him, Phil said. That will be permitted, Sacheverell assured Phil, when he wakes and the world changes.Meanwhile,compose yourself, er & Phil Gish, you say? Phil & philo & love & an auspicious name. Why the mucking hell is this green cat so important, anyhow? What is it? The two men turned.Juno was still standing on the threshold.She was swayed forward a little, huggingher elbows, yet had her shoulders squared and was glaring at them surlily, like a rebellious schoolgirl. The green cat is love, Sacheverell told her softly. The love that blossoms even from hate. There was another interruption.This one took the form of a coy, girlish snicker.Phil turned to the sideof the room he had not yet inspected closely, the one facing the fireplace.In it was a deep, wide baywindow closely shuttered with gray jalousies, as were all the other windows in the room except for onefronting on darkness beside the fireplace.In the bay was a semicircular couch on which Mary Akeleysprawled adolescently, still in black sweater and stiff, red skirt. You know, she said, I just can t get used to the idea of loving everything.Sacheverell says I ve got tobe nice to my little people and stop sticking hatpins in them and things, but it s hard. For a morbid moment Phil thought she was referring to the cats.Then he saw that there were a series ofnarrow shelves behind her, starting at the top of the couch and going halfway up the bay and that theseshelves were crowded with dolls.Moving closer, he saw they were not ordinary dolls, but extremelyrealistic human figures, most of them about six inches high.He had never seen dolls so perfectly formedor realistically dressed.There must have been two or three hundred.They stood behind Mary like thecross-section of a crowded three-level street in some tiny living world [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]