Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | страница 10

trade my heron-tapestry for a husband. I know," said Parth.
"I never said it—did I?" inquired her mother, and went weeding on
away between the lettuce-rows.
Falk came up the path, the baby on his shoulder squinting in the glare
and smiling benignly. He put her down on the grass and said, as if to a
grown person, "It's hotter up here, isn't it?" Then turning to Parth with the
grave candor that was characteristic of him he asked, "Is there an end to
the Forest, Parth?"
"So they say. The maps are all different. But that way lies the sea at
last—and that way the prairie."
"Prairie?"
"Open lands, grasslands. Like the Clearing but going on for a
thousand miles to the mountains."
"The mountains?" he asked, innocently relentless as any child.
"High hills, with snow on their tops all year. Like this." Pausing to
reset her shuttle, Parth put her long, round, brown fingers together in the
shape of a peak.
Falk's yellow eyes lit up suddenly, and his face became intense.
"Below the white is blue, and below that the—the lines—the hills far
away—"
Parth looked at him, saying nothing. A great part of all he knew had
come straight from her, for she had always been the one who could teach
him. The remaking of his life had been an effect and a part of the growth
of her own. Their minds were very closely interwoven.
"I see it—have seen it. I remember it," the man stammered.
"A projection, Falk?"
"No. Not from a book. In my mind. I do remember it. Sometimes
going to sleep I see it. I didn't know its name: the Mountain."
"Can you draw it?"
Kneeling beside her he sketched quickly in the dust the outline of an
irregular cone, and beneath it two lines of foothills. Garra craned to see the
sketch, asking, "And it's white with snow?"
"Yes. It's as if I see it through something—a big window, big and high
up…Is it from your mind, Parth?" he asked a little anxiously.
~8~