boucher book oct28.pdf - Index of

Man’s Reach 279
Mme. Storm looked smug. “I don’t think,” she said, “that the President is going
to like me.”
Gradually the night began to clear. Music meant something more than the surf.
And there might be meaning even in a life without Kleinbach, even in a life under
the Academy.
And there was Faustina.
Most of her nonworking time they now spent together. Casually they ignored the
fact that he was no longer the Great Critic who could build her career. They talked as
fellow workers in music, planning productions, discussing repertory, making notes
on the new translations he would prepare for some of her roles.
He decided to move from the hut to the Resident Laboratory when Mme. Storm
asked him to give her pupils a series of lectures in music history. It was by then quite
natural that Faustina should help him move such few possessions as he had.
And afterwards when they were sitting on the cliff she said, “I listened today to some
of the tapes I made when I first came here. You know, I don’t think I like that girl.”
“That’s funny,” he said. “I was in love with her, in a way.”
“She’s too much like Mar— You were what?”
“In love with her.”
“I must say this is a fine time to mention it!”
“Hardly realized it myself till now. Of course it wasn’t anything comparable to
being in love with you.”
She took both his hands in hers. “And you are, aren’t you?” she said gravely.
“You’d better be … It’s ridiculous, I’ve learned so much from Mme. Storm, I think
I’ve even learned how to be me from her, but I haven’t learned how to flirt.” He
kissed her hands gently. “So I’d better,” she went on, “just plain say I love you, and
we’ll both know where we are.”
“We are,” he said quietly, “on a cliff on Venus which might well be the Big Sur
on that blue star up there. That far an Academist might go. But of course the correct
answer is simply We are, period.”
After a long time, when her mouth was finally not otherwise occupied, she began
to sing. She started with Plaisir d’amour: “Love’s pleasure lasts but an instant, love’s
regrets for a lifetime …”
There is such a voluptuous sweetness to sad songs when you are unbearably
happy.
And she sang this and that, and Greensleeves and Stardust. And the beauty of her
voice and the beauty of her body and the beauty of her love were one.
That night had ended the night.
The next day Jon Arthur knew what he must do, and it was not to give a series
of lectures on the history of music.
Mme. Storm protested. “You, yes, young man. Do what you will. But not
Parva. I’m not through; she’s only great, she—” But she capitulated finally. “If you
promise to bring her back—and as many other robots that well trained as you can
find. I’ll make wonderful people of them too.” And the invisible fan bestowed a
parting benediction.