I was tempted to shout, yet I feared to dislodge him from his unsteady perch. I forced my voice to a conversational tone. “What the devil is that?” I demanded.
He blinked down the slick roof at me. “Byron,” he said.
I snorted. “No doubt. And what the devil are you doing up there?”
De Laurency gave me a quick smile; a smile that departed as quickly as it had come. “In a moment,” he said, “I propose to step onto these tiles and slip to my death on the cobbles below.”
I was tempted to tell him to try to hit head first, as he might otherwise simply be crippled.
“And why,” I asked, “should you want to do that?”
He closed his eyes, and with real pain in his voice said, “I am unworthy! Truly I love her, and yet I am not her true love!”
“Ah! Kissed her at last, did we?”
He blinked down at me, with some hostility.
“About bloody time,” I said. “Mooning about like a silly git. All right, you’ve had your smoochie, didn’t work, carry on, eh? Come on in and I’ll fix you a brandy.”
“Is it you,” he said bitterly, “your age, or the age? The age of machines and mechanical magic, all passion and glory a barely remembered palimpsest? Or you, a dried-up old didactic prune with no remembrance of what it is to love and be loved in the glory of the springtime moon? Or were you always a pedant?”
I looked up at him at a loss for a time. Finally, I said, “Oh, I was a pedant always; an insufferable youth, I fear, and barely more tolerable in middle age. And yes, this is a practical age. But I, I know more of love than three of you, de Laurency; for I have three to love, who love me dearly in return.”
De Laurency looked at me incredulously. “You?” he said. “You have three lovers?”
“Oh yes,” I said. “My darling Janet, my sweet Clarice, and littlest Amelia.”
“Oh,” he said with dismissal. “Your children.”
“My children, yes,” I said. “And will you know what that is like if you dash your fool brains out on the cobbles below?”
He straightened up, scowling. “Know this,” he said. “I love Meg truly; I have worshiped her since first I saw her, gloried in the scent of her golden hair, longed to see the light of her eyes. I have felt her slow, shallow breath; in dreams have I seen her life amid the court of Northumbria, the gallant knights who served her, the adoration of her royal father.” Here I could not restrain a snort; you’d think a prospective archaeologist would better understand the misery of such a primitive and barbaric life. “And I feel we have communed, one spirit to another! And so I gathered my courage, my every hope, and with my lips I gently kissed her! And still she did not stir!”
“Yes, well, so did von Stroheim and the Prince—”
“They did not love her!”
“And you do? You puppy! You pismire! You love yourself rather more than you love her! What vanity, striding about the moor and reciting Byron! I’ll wager you spent more time contemplating what a Romantic figure you cut, against the heather, with your windblown hair, then considering the beauties of nature or the nature of beauty! Love! What do mean by that? Agape or eros? Do you know the difference? Do you care?”
He stared at me, thunderstruck. “Of course I know! Do you think me ignorant? And agape, of course; I would hardly dare to desire her, to—”
He sobbed, and swayed, barely holding onto the chimney.
It occurred to me that the lad badly needed a rogering by some down-to-earth, buxom lass. But I dared not suggest such a course.
Love, indeed.
“Come in, Robert,” I said at last. “The night is cold, the lady sleeps, and I have brandy waiting.”
And to my surprise, he did.
And, oh dear, what was I to do with her? The finest minds of magic could not help her. If ever she had had her own true love, he was centuries dead, and to love without knowing is an impossibility. She would sleep, sleep on, and sleep forever, if I had my guess.
Hire her out for a shilling a peck? Pshaw.
Leave her be on my guest armchair? Well, you know. I rather need the space.
De Laurency said once that she was a person, not an artifact. True, in its fashion; but she might as well be an artifact, you know. A fine specimen of Medieval English maidenhood, 765 A.D. (est), Kingdom of Northumbria. You could tie a tag to her toe and stick her in a case.
And why not?
The great and good of England had shown up to gawk at her; and if they, why not the masses? Edify the people of England, preserve the specimen for future study. That is the function of a great museum.
After I packed de Laurency off home, I looked down at the poor dear, and kissed her.
On the forehead, not the lips; I am a happily married man. And though I love her, in a fashion, I have already my own true love.
And the next day I sent a telegraph the British Museum.
Poor darling Meg; I hope she is happy here, ’tween Athene and Megatherium; surely happier, at any rate, than buried in Alcroft’s clay.
Greg Costikyan says: “‘And Still She Sleeps’ was the first short story I wrote after a three year hiatus that resulted from severe depression. Depression is sometimes a treatable psychiatric condition, and sometimes a completely normal response to external events — in my case, the collapse of my marriage. One shouldn’t put too much emotional freight onto a story that is fundamentally wry and rather light in tone, but ‘And Still She Sleeps’ is, in some sense, an attempt to grapple with the nature of love — a matter of obvious concern, given my immediate experiences, and a subject I still can only claim to have the haziest grip on. The story of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ is one of the ur-stories that shapes our society’s notion of Romantic love — and thinking about it, and what’s wrong with the image of love it presents, was the proximate cause of the urge to write this piece.”
Snow in Summer
JANE YOLEN
Jane Yolen lives part of the year in Hatfield, Massachusetts, and part of the year in St. Andrews, Scotland. She has won the World Fantasy Award, the Nebula Award, three Mythopoeic Society Awards, a runner-up for the National Book Award, and other medals, statuettes, plaques, and medallions too numerous to mention. Yolen has over two hundred published books; her best known include The Devil’s Arithmetic; Owl Moon, Briar Rose; Sleeping Ugly; the Commander Toad books; the Pit Dragon Trilogy; and the novels about White Jenna.
They call that white flower that covers the lawn like a poplin carpet Snow in Summer. And because I was born in July with a white caul on my head, they called me that, too. Mama wanted me to answer to Summer, which is a warm, pretty name. But my Stepmama, who took me in hand just six months after Mama passed away, only spoke the single syllable of my name, and she didn’t say it nicely.
“Snow!” It was a curse in her mouth. It was a cold, unfeeling thing. “Snow, where are you, girl? Snow, what have you done now?”
I didn’t love her. I couldn’t love her, though I tried. For Papa’s sake I tried. She was a beautiful woman, everyone said. But as Miss Nancy down at the postal store opined, “Looks ain’t nothing without a good heart.” And she was staring right at my Stepmama when she said it. But then Miss Nancy had been Mama’s closest friend ever since they’d been little ones, and it nigh killed her, too, when Mama was took by death.