The Science Fiction Anthology. Fritz Leiber
here,” she complained.
“It was Labuerre’s studio,” he told her defiantly. “He left it to me when he died. Things weren’t so rundown in his time. I studied under him; he was one of the last. He had a joke—’They don’t really want my stuff, but they’re ashamed to let me starve.’ He warned me that they wouldn’t be ashamed to let me starve, but I insisted and he took me in.”
Halvorsen drank some milk and ate some bread. He thought of the change from the ten dollars in his pocket and decided not to mention it. Then he remembered that the doctor had gone through his pockets.
“I can pay you for this,” he said. “It’s very kind of you, but you mustn’t think I’m penniless. I’ve just been too preoccupied to take care of myself.”
“Sure,” said the girl. “But we can call this an advance. I want to sign up for some classes.”
“Be happy to have you.”
“Am I bothering you?” asked the girl. “You said something odd when you fainted—’Orpheus.’“
“Did I say that? I must have been thinking of Milles’ Orpheus Fountain in Copenhagen. I’ve seen photos, but I’ve never been there.”
“Germany? But there’s nothing left of Germany.”
“Copenhagen’s in Denmark. There’s quite a lot of Denmark left. It was only on the fringes. Heavily radiated, but still there.”
“I want to travel, too,” she said. “I work at La Guardia and I’ve never been off, except for an orbiting excursion. I want to go to the Moon on my vacation. They give us a bonus in travel vouchers. It must be wonderful dancing under the low gravity.”
Spaceport? Off? Low gravity? Terms belonging to the detested electronic world of the stereopantograph in which he had no place.
“Be very interesting,” he said, closing his eyes to conceal disgust.
“I am bothering you. I’ll go away now, but I’ll be back Tuesday night for the class. What time do I come and what should I bring?”
“Eight. It’s charcoal—I sell you the sticks and paper. Just bring a smock.”
“All right. And I want to take the oils class, too. And I want to bring some people I know to see your work. I’m sure they’ll see something they like. Austin Malone’s in from Venus—he’s a special friend of mine.”
“Lucretia,” he said. “Or do some people call you Lucy?”
“Lucy.”
“Will you take that little bronze you liked? As a thank you?”
“I can’t do that!”
“Please. I’d feel much better about this. I really mean it.”
She nodded abruptly, flushing, and almost ran from the room.
Now why did I do that? he asked himself. He hoped it was because he liked Lucy Grumman very much. He hoped it wasn’t a cold-blooded investment of a piece of sculpture that would never be sold, anyway, just to make sure she’d be back with class fees and more groceries.
III
She was back on Tuesday, a half-hour early and carrying a smock. He introduced her formally to the others as they arrived: a dozen or so bored young women who, he suspected, talked a great deal about their art lessons outside, but in class used any excuse to stop sketching.
He didn’t dare show Lucy any particular consideration. There were fierce little miniature cliques in the class. Halvorsen knew they laughed at him and his line among themselves, and yet, strangely, were fiercely jealous of their seniority and right to individual attention.
The lesson was an ordeal, as usual. The model, a muscle-bound young graduate of the barbell gyms and figure-photography studios, was stupid and argumentative about ten-minute poses. Two of the girls came near a hair-pulling brawl over the rights to a preferred sketching location. A third girl had discovered Picasso’s cubist period during the past week and proudly announced that she didn’t feel perspective in art.
But the two interminable hours finally ticked by. He nagged them into cleaning up—not as bad as the Saturdays with oils—and stood by the open door. Otherwise they would have stayed all night, cackling about absent students and snarling sulkily among themselves. His well-laid plans went sour, though. A large and flashy car drove up as the girls were leaving.
“That’s Austin Malone,” said Lucy. “He came to pick me up and look at your work.”
That was all the wedge her fellow-pupils needed.
“Aus-tin Ma-lone! Well!”
“Lucy, darling, I’d love to meet a real spaceman.”
“Roald, darling, would you mind very much if I stayed a moment?”
“I’m certainly not going to miss this and I don’t care if you mind or not, Roald, darling!”
Malone was an impressive figure. Halvorsen thought: he looks as though he’s been run through an esthetikon set for ‘brawny’ and ‘determined.’ Lucy made a hash of the introductions and the spaceman didn’t rise to conversational bait dangled enticingly by the girls.
In a clear voice, he said to Halvorsen: “I don’t want to take up too much of your time. Lucy tells me you have some things for sale. Is there any place we can look at them where it’s quiet?”
The students made sulky exits.
“Back here,” said the artist.
The girl and Malone followed him through the curtains. The spaceman made a slow circuit of the studio, seeming to repel questions.
He sat down at last and said: “I don’t know what to think, Halvorsen. This place stuns me. Do you know you’re in the Dark Ages?”
People who never have given a thought to Chartres and Mont St. Michel usually call it the Dark Ages, Halvorsen thought wryly. He asked, “Technologically, you mean? No, not at all. My plaster’s better, my colors are better, my metal is better—tool metal, not casting metal, that is.”
“I mean hand work,” said the spaceman. “Actually working by hand.”
The artist shrugged. “There have been crazes for the techniques of the boiler works and the machine shop,” he admitted. “Some interesting things were done, but they didn’t stand up well. Is there anything here that takes your eye?”
“I like those dolphins,” said the spaceman, pointing to a perforated terra-cotta relief on the wall. They had been commissioned by an architect, then later refused for reasons of economy when the house had run way over estimate. “They’d look bully over the fireplace in my town apartment. Like them, Lucy?”
“I think they’re wonderful,” said the girl.
Roald saw the spaceman go rigid with the effort not to turn and stare at her. He loved her and he was jealous.
Roald told the story of the dolphins and said: “The price that the architect thought was too high was three hundred and sixty dollars.”
Malone grunted. “Doesn’t seem unreasonable—if you set a high store on inspiration.”
“I don’t know about inspiration,” the artist said evenly. “But I was awake for two days and two nights shoveling coal and adjusting drafts to fire that thing in my kiln.”
The spaceman looked contemptuous. “I’ll take it,” he said. “Be something to talk about during those awkward pauses. Tell me, Halvorsen, how’s Lucy’s work? Do you think she ought to stick with it?”
“Austin,” objected the girl, “don’t be so blunt. How can he possibly know after one day?”
“She