She murmured, "I can promise and then break my promise." She drew his
head down; their lips touched, and he felt a fragrance and a taste like
honey in her kiss. "At least," she breathed. "I can give you a name by
which to love you. Philometros! Measure of my love!"
"A name?" muttered Dan. A fantastic idea shot through his mind--a way of
proving to himself that all this was reality, and not just a page that
any one could read who wore old Ludwig's magic spectacles. If Galatea
would speak his name! Perhaps, he thought daringly, perhaps then he
could stay! He thrust her away.
"Galatea!" he cried. "Do you remember my name?"
She nodded silently, her unhappy eyes on his.
"Then say it! Say it, dear!"
She stared at him dumbly, miserably, but made no sound.
"Say it, Galatea!" he pleaded desperately. "My name, dear--just my
name!" Her mouth moved; she grew pale with effort and Dan could have
sworn that his name trembled on her quivering lips, though no sound
came.
At last she spoke. "I can't, dearest one! Oh, I can't! A law forbids
it!" She stood suddenly erect, pallid as an ivory carving. "Leucon
calls!" she said, and darted away. Dan followed along the pebbled path,
but her speed was beyond his powers; at the portal he found only the
Grey Weaver standing cold and stern. He raised his hand as Dan appeared.
"Your time is short," he said. "Go, thinking of the havoc you have
done."
"Where's Galatea?" gasped Dan.
"I have sent her away." The old man blocked the entrance; for a moment
Dan would have struck him aside, but something withheld him. He stared
wildly about the meadow--there! A flash of silver beyond the river, at
the edge of the forest. He turned and raced toward it, while motionless
and cold the Grey Weaver watched him go.
"Galatea!" he called. "Galatea!"
He was over the river now, on the forest bank, running through columned
vistas that whirled about him like mist. The world had gone cloudy; fine
flakes danced like snow before his eyes; Paracosma was dissolving around
him. Through the chaos he fancied a glimpse of the girl, but closer
approach left him still voicing his hopeless cry of "Galatea!"
After an endless time, he paused; something familiar about the spot
struck him, and just as the red sun edged above him, he recognized the
place--the very point at which he had entered Paracosma! A sense of
futility overwhelmed him as for a moment he gazed at an unbelievable
apparition--a dark window hung in midair before him through which glowed
rows of electric lights. Ludwig's window!
It vanished. But the trees writhed and the sky darkened, and he swayed
dizzily in turmoil. He realized suddenly that he was no longer standing,
but sitting in the midst of the crazy glade, and his hands clutched
something smooth and hard--the arms of that miserable hotel chair. Then
at last he saw her, close before him--Galatea, with sorrow-stricken
features, her tear-filled eyes on his. He made a terrific effort to
rise, stood erect, and fell sprawling in a blaze of coruscating lights.
He struggled to his knees; walls--Ludwig's room--encompassed him; he
must have slipped from the chair. The magic spectacles lay before him,
one lens splintered and spilling a fluid no longer water-clear, but
white as milk.
"God!" he muttered. He felt shaken, sick, exhausted, with a bitter sense
of bereavement, and his head ached fiercely. The room was drab,
disgusting; he wanted to get out of it. He glanced automatically at his
watch: four o'clock--he must have sat here nearly five hours. For the
first time he noticed Ludwig's absence; he was glad of it and walked
dully out of the door to an automatic elevator. There was no response
to his ring; someone was using the thing. He walked three flights to the
street and back to his own room.
In love with a vision! Worse--in love with a girl who had never lived,
in a fantastic Utopia that was literally nowhere! He threw himself on
his bed with a groan that was half a sob.
He saw finally the implication of the name Galatea. Galatea--Pygmalion's
statue, given life by Venus in the ancient Grecian myth. But _his_
Galatea, warm and lovely and vital, must remain forever without the gift
of life, since he was neither Pygmalion nor God.
* * * * *
He woke late in the morning, staring uncomprehendingly about for the
fountain and pool of Paracosma. Slow comprehension dawned; how
much--_how much_--of last night's experience had been real? How much was
the product of alcohol? Or had old Ludwig been right, and was there no
difference between reality and dream?
He changed his rumpled attire and wandered despondently to the street.
He found Ludwig's hotel at last; inquiry revealed that the diminutive
professor had checked out, leaving no forwarding address.
What of it? Even Ludwig couldn't give what he sought, a living Galatea.
Dan was glad that he had disappeared; he hated the little professor.
Professor? Hypnotists called themselves "professors." He dragged through
a weary day and then a sleepless night back to Chicago.
It was mid-winter when he saw a suggestively tiny figure ahead of him in
the Loop. Ludwig! Yet what use to hail him? His cry was automatic.
"Professor Ludwig!"
The elfin figure turned, recognized him, smiled. They stepped into the
shelter of a building.
"I'm sorry about your machine, Professor. I'd be glad to pay for the
damage."
"_Ach_, that was nothing--a cracked glass. But you--have you been ill?
You look much the worse."
"It's nothing," said Dan. "Your show was marvelous,
Professor--marvelous! I'd have told you so, but you were gone when it
ended."
Ludwig shrugged. "I went to the lobby for a cigar. Five hours with a wax
dummy, you know!"
"It was marvelous!" repeated Dan.
"So real?" smiled the other. "Only because you co-operated, then. It
takes self-hypnosis."
"It was real, all right," agreed Dan glumly. "I don't understand
it--that strange beautiful country."
"The trees were club-mosses enlarged by a lens," said Ludwig. "All was
trick photography, but stereoscopic, as I told you--three dimensional.
The fruits were rubber; the house is a summer building on our
campus--Northern University. And the voice was mine; you didn't speak at
all, except your name at the first, and I left a blank for that. I
played your part, you see; I went around with the photographic apparatus
strapped on my head, to keep the viewpoint always that of the observer.
See?" He grinned wryly. "Luckily I'm rather short, or you'd have seemed
a giant."
"Wait a minute!" said Dan, his mind whirling. "You say you played my
part. Then Galatea--is _she_ real too?"
"Tea's real enough," said the Professor. "My niece, a senior at
Northern, and likes dramatics. She helped me out with the thing. Why?
Want to meet her?"
Dan answered vaguely, happily. An ache had vanished; a pain was eased.
Paracosma was attainable at last!