Dan ceased his questioning, content for the moment to drink in the
beauty about him and then Galatea returned bearing a crystal bowl of the
strange fruits. They were piled in colorful disorder, red, purple,
orange and yellow, pear-shaped, egg-shaped, and clustered
spheroids--fantastic, unearthly. He selected a pale, transparent ovoid,
bit into it, and was deluged by a flood of sweet liquid, to the
amusement of the girl. She laughed and chose a similar morsel; biting a
tiny puncture in the end, she squeezed the contents into her mouth. Dan
took a different sort, purple and tart as Rhenish wine, and then
another, filled with edible, almond-like seeds. Galatea laughed
delightedly at his surprises, and even Leucon smiled a grey smile.
Finally Dan tossed the last husk into the brook beside them, where it
danced briskly toward the river.
"Galatea," he said, "do you ever go to a city? What cities are in
Paracosma?"
"Cities? What are cities?"
"Places where many people live close together."
"Oh," said the girl frowning. "No. There are no cities here."
"Then where are the people of Paracosma? You must have neighbors."
The girl looked puzzled. "A man and a woman live off there," she said,
gesturing toward a distant blue range of hills dim on the horizon. "Far
away over there. I went there once, but Leucon and I prefer the valley."
"But Galatea!" protested Dan. "Are you and Leucon alone in this valley?
Where--what happened to your parents--your father and mother?"
"They went away. That way--toward the sunrise. They'll return some day."
"And if they don't?"
"Why, foolish one! What could hinder them?"
"Wild beasts," said Dan. "Poisonous insects, disease, flood, storm,
lawless people, death!"
"I never heard those words," said Galatea. "There are no such things
here." She sniffed contemptuously. "Lawless people!"
"Not--death?"
"What is death?"
"It's--" Dan paused helplessly. "It's like falling asleep and never
waking. It's what happens to everyone at the end of life."
"I never heard of such a thing as the end of life!" said the girl
decidedly. "There isn't such a thing."
"What happens, then," queried Dan desperately, "when one grows old?"
"Nothing, silly! No one grows old unless he wants to, like Leucon. A
person grows to the age he likes best and then stops. It's a law!"
Dan gathered his chaotic thoughts. He stared into Galatea's dark, lovely
eyes. "Have you stopped yet?"
The dark eyes dropped; he was amazed to see a deep, embarrassed flush
spread over her cheeks. She looked at Leucon nodding reflectively on his
bench, then back to Dan, meeting his gaze.
"Not yet," he said.
"And when will you, Galatea?"
"When I have had the one child permitted me. You see"--she stared down
at her dainty toes--"one cannot--bear children--afterwards."
"Permitted? Permitted by whom?"
"By a law."
"Laws! Is everything here governed by laws? What of chance and
accidents?"
"What are those--chance and accidents?"
"Things unexpected--things unforeseen."
"Nothing is unforeseen," said Galatea, still soberly. She repeated
slowly, "Nothing is unforeseen." He fancied her voice was wistful.
Leucon looked up. "Enough of this," he said abruptly. He turned to Dan,
"I know these words of yours--chance, disease, death. They are not for
Paracosma. Keep them in your unreal country."
"Where did you hear them, then?"
"From Galatea's mother," said the Grey Weaver, "who had them from your
predecessor--a phantom who visited here before Galatea was born."