The Infinite Moment Read Free Page A

nambypamby colour, anyway? Fleshcolour? Symbolic of an ardency for the flesh which I had insufficiently gratified? I scarcely thought so. Not pink. Surely a burning red... I don't think I know anyone who can be really ardent in a pink way...
    While we waited, a feeling that there was something wrong with the gatehouse grew upon me. The structure was a singlestorey building, standing against the left, inner side of the archway, and coloured to match it. The woodwork was pale blue, and there were white net curtains at the windows. The door opened, and a middleaged woman in a white blouseandtrouser suit came out. She was bareheaded, with a few grey locks in her short, dark hair. Seeing me, she raised her hand in the same sign the Amazons had used, though perfunctorily, and walked over to open the gates. It was only as she pushed them back to admit us that I suddenly saw how small she wascertainly not over four feet tall. And that explained what was wrong with the gatehouse: it was built entirely to her scale..
    I went on staring at her and her little house as we passed. Well, what about that? Mythology is rich in gnomes and "little people," and they are fairly pervasive of dreams, too, so somebody, I am sure, must have decided that they are a standard symbol of something, but for the moment I did not recall what it was. Would it be repressed philoprogenitiveness, or was that too unsubtle? I stowed that away, too, for later contemplation and brought my attention back to the surroundings.
    We were on our way, unhurriedly, along something more like a drive than a road, with surroundings that suggested a compromise between a public garden and a municipal housingestate. There were wide lawns of an unblemished velvet green, set here and there with flowerbeds, delicate groups of silver birch, and occasional, larger, single trees. Among them stood pink, three. storey blocks, dotted about, seemingly to no particular plan.
    A couple of the Amazontypes in singlets and trousers of a faded rustred were engaged in plantingout a bed close beside the drive, and we had to pause while they dragged their handcart full of tulips on to the grass to let us pass. They gave me the unusual salute and amiable grin as we went by.
    A moment later I had a feeling that something had gone wrong with my sight, for as we passed one block we came in sight of another. It was white instead of pink, but otherwise exactly similar to the restexcept that it was scaled down by at least onethird...
    I blinked at it and stared hard, but it continued to seem just the same size.
    A little further on, a grotesquely huge woman in pink draperies was walking slowly and heavily across a lawn.
    She was accompanied by three of the small, whitesuited women looking, in contrast, like children, or very animated dolls: one was involuntarily reminded of tugs fussing round a liner.
    I began to feel swamped: the proliferation and combination of symbols was getting well out of my class.
    The car forked to the right, and presently we drew up before a flight of steps leading to one of the pink buildingsa normalsized building, but still not free from oddity, for the steps were divided by a central balustrade; those to the left of it were normal, those to the right, smaller and more numerous.
    Three toots on the horn announced our arrival. In about ten seconds half a dozen small women appeared in the doorway and came running down the righthand side of the steps. A door slammed as the driver got out and went to meet them. When she came into my range of view I saw that she was one of the little ones, too, but not in white as the rest were; she wore a shining pink suit like a livery that exactly matched the car.
    They had a word together before they came round to open the door behind me, then a voice said brightly: "Welcome, Mother Orchis. Welcome home."
    The couch, or stretcher, slid back on runners, and between them they lowered it to the ground. One young woman whose blouse was badged with a