“Why,” he cried to the sky, “was I born! I am unworthy of the gift of life. I accused My Lady Charlotina, Lord Jagged and the Duke of Queens of base emotions, cynical motives, yet none are baser or more cynical than mine! Would I turn my anger against my victim, blame her for my misery, attack a little child because she tempted me? That is what my diseased mind would do. Thus do I seek to excuse myself my crimes. Ah, I am vile! I am vile!”
He considered going to visit Mongrove, for he dearly wished to abase himself before his old friend, to tell Mongrove that the giant’s contempt had been only too well founded; but he had lost the will to move; a terrible lassitude had fallen upon him. Hating himself, he knew that all must hate him, and while he knew that he had earned every scrap of their hatred, he could not bear to go abroad and run the risk of suffering it.
What would one of his heroes of Romance have done? How would Casablanca Bogard or Eric of Marylebone have exonerated themselves, even supposing they could have committed such an unbelievable deed in the first place?
He knew the answer.
It drummed louder and louder in his ears. It was implacable and grim. But still he hesitated to follow it. Perhaps some other, more original act of retribution would occur to him? He racked his writhing brain. Nothing presented itself as an alternative.
At length he rose from his chair of unpolished quartz. Slowly, his pace measured, he walked towards the window, stripping off his power rings so that they clattered to the flagstones.
He stepped upon the ledge and stood looking down at the rocks a mile below at the base of the tower. Some jolting of a power ring as it fell had caused a wind to spring up and to blow coldly against his naked body. “The Wind of Justice,” he thought.
He ignored his parachute. With one final cry of “Catherine! Forgive me!” and an unvoiced hope that he would be found long after it proved impossible to resurrect him, he flung himself, unsupported, into space.
Down he fell and death leapt to meet him. The breath fled from his lungs, his head began to pound, his sight grew dim, but the spikes of black rock grew larger until he knew that he had struck them, for his body was a-flame, broken in a hundred places, and his sad, muddled, doom-clouded brain was chaff upon the wailing breeze. Its last coherent thought was: Let none say Werther did not pay the price in full. And thus did he end his life with a proud negative.
VI. IN WHICH WERTHER DISCOVERS CONSOLATION
“Oh, Werther, what an adventure!”
It was Catherine Gratitude looking down on him as he opened his eyes. She clapped her hands. Her blue eyes were full of joy.
Lord Jagged stood back with a smile. “Re-born, magnificent Werther, to sorrow afresh!” he said.
He lay upon a bench of marble in his own tower. Surrounding the bench were My Lady Charlotina, the Duke of Queens, Gaf the Horse in Tears, the Iron Orchid, Li Pao, O’Kala Incarnadine and many others. They all applauded.
“A splendid drama!” said the Duke of Queens.
“Amongst the best I have witnessed,” agreed the Iron Orchid (a fine compliment from her).
Werther found himself warming to them as they poured their praise upon him; but then he remembered Catherine Gratitude and what he had meant himself to be to her, what he had actually become, and although he felt much better for having paid his price, he stretched out his hand to her, saying again, “Forgive me.”
“Silly Werther! Forgive such a perfect role? No, no! If anyone needs forgiving, then it is I.” And Catherine Gratitude touched one of the many power rings now festooning her fingers and returned herself to her original appearance.
“It is you!” He could make no other response as he looked upon the Everlasting Concubine. “Mistress Christia?”
“Surely you suspected towards the end?” she said. “Was it not everything you told me you wanted? Was it not a fine ‘sin’, Werther?”
“I suffered…” he began.
“Oh, yes! How you suffered! It was unparallelled. It was equal, I am sure, to anything in History. And, Werther, did you not find the ‘guilt’ particularly exquisite?”
“You did it for me?” He was overwhelmed. “Because it was what I said I wanted most of all?”
“He is still a little dull,” explained Mistress Christia, turning to their friends. “I believe that is often the case after a resurrection.”
“Often,” intoned Lord Jagged, darting a sympathetic glance at Werther. “But it will pass, I hope.”
“The ending, though it could be anticipated,” said the Iron Orchid, “was absolutely right.”
Mistress Christia put her arms around him and kissed him. “They are saying that your performance rivals Jherek Carnelian’s,” she whispered. He squeezed her hand. What a wonderful woman she was, to be sure, to have added to his experience and to have increased his prestige at the same time.
He sat up. He smiled a trifle bashfully. Again they applauded.
“I can see that this was where ‘Rain’ was leading,” said Bishop Castle. “It gives the whole thing point, I think.”
“The exaggerations were just enough to bring out the essential mood without being too prolonged,” said O’Kala Incarnadine, waving an elegant hoof (he had come as a goat).
“Well, I had not…” began Werther, but Mistress Christia put a hand to his lips.
“You will need a little time to recover,” she said.
Tactfully, one by one, still expressing their most fulsome congratulations, they departed, until only Werther de Goethe and the Everlasting Concubine were left.
“I hope you did not mind the deception, Werther,” she said. “I had to make amends for ruining your rainbow and I had been wondering for ages how to please you. My Lady Charlotina helped a little, of course, and Lord Jagged – though neither knew too much of what was going on.”
“The real performance was yours,” he said. “I was merely your foil.”
“Nonsense. I gave you the rough material with which to work. And none could have anticipated the wonderful, consummate use to which you put it!”
Gently, he took her hand. “It was everything I have ever dreamed of,” he said. “It is true, Mistress Christia, that you alone know me.”
“You are kind. And now I must leave.”
“Of course.” He looked out through his window. The comforting storm raged again. Familiar lightnings flickered; friendly thunder threatened; from below there came the sound of his old consoler the furious sea flinging itself, as always, at the rock’s black fangs. His sigh was contented. He knew that their liaison was ended; neither had the bad taste to prolong it and thus produce what would be, inevitably, an anti-climax, and yet he felt regret, as evidently did she.
“If death were only permanent,” he said wistfully, “but it cannot be. I thank you again, granter of my deepest desires.”
“If death,” she said, pausing at the window, “were permanent, how would we judge our successes and our failures? Sometimes, Werther, I think you ask too much of the world.” She smiled. “But you are satisfied for the moment, my love?”
“Of course.”
It would have been boorish, he thought, to have claimed anything else.
THE GERNSBACK CONTINUUM
William Gibson
William Gibson is an American-Canadian novelist most closely associated with the science fiction subgenre cyberpunk. He has won many awards for his fiction, including the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award in addition to numerous nominations and other recognition in the field. Many of his works have been made into feature films, such as Johnny Mnemonic. “The Gernsback Continuum” was first published in Universe 11 in 1981.
Mercifully, the whole thing is starting to fade, to become an episode. When I do still catch the odd glimpse, it’s peripheral; mere fragments of mad-doctor chrome, confining themselves to the corner of the eye. There was that flying-wing liner over San Francisco last week, but it was almost translucent. And the shark-fin roadsters have gotten scarcer, and freeways discreetly avoid unfolding themselves into the gleaming eighty-lane monsters I was forced to drive last month in my rented Toyota. And I know that none of it will follow me to New York; my vision is narrowing to a single wavelength of probability. I’ve worked hard for that. Television helped a lot.