"Charles L. Grant - Glow of Candles, Unicorn's eye" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

file:///G|/rah/Glow%20of%20Candles,%20a%20Unicorn's%20Eye.txt

Version 0.5 dtd 033100



A GLOW OF CANDLES,
A UNICORN'S EYE*

Charles L. Grant

I mentioned the fact that writers need to serve an apprenticeship in order to master their craft.
Charles Grant surely did, In one of the hardest and most thankless jobs any writer has ever taken
on. His exalted title was Executive Secretary of the Science Fiction Writers of America; but the
reality behind-the hyperbole was that he was the person who did everything the volunteer committee
people and officers of SFWA were supposed to do, but didn't. And he learned-as Is proven by
stories like "A Glow of Candles, A Unicorn's Eye."

There are no gods but those that are muses. You may quote me on that if you are in need of an
argument. It's original. One of the few truly original things I have done with my life, in my
life, throughout my life, which has been spent in mostly running. Bad grammar that, I suppose. But
nevertheless true for the adverb poorly placed.
And how poorly placed have I been.
Not that I am complaining, you understand. I could have, and with cause, some thirty years
ago, and for the first thirty-seven I did-though the causes were much more nebulous. But the
complaints I have now are of the softer kind, the kind that grows out of loving, and are meant-in
loving-not to be heard, not to be taken seriously.
For example, consider my beard. Helena loved it, once she became accustomed to its prickly
assaults. But I do not need it anymore. There is no need for the hiding because I have been
forgiven my sins-or so it says here on this elegant paper I must carry with me in case the message
has been lost-forgiven my

*Winner, Nebula, for Best Novelette of 1978.
trespasses. But I like the stupid beard now. Its lacing of gray lends a certain dignity to a face
that is never the same twice in one week. And it helps me to forget what I am beneath the costumes
and the makeup and the words that are not mine. Yet it's not a forgetting that is demanded by
remorse, nor is it a forgetting necessitated by a deep and agonizing secret.
It is a forgetting of years, to keep me from weeping.
Because the secret is out.
Has been, in fact, since the first evening I presented this prologues device not original,
but originally apt.
No secret, then.
But I like the beard anyway.
And so did my Helena, whose hair-such hairl-was once so wonderfully long.
Attend then--or so says the script I no longer need to guide me-but before you decide
where applause is warranted, be sure that you understand, be sure that you know exactly what you
are applauding. We are still, after all, and in the last sight of the law, criminals, you know. I
nearly murdered, and she nearly surrendered.
And I think that they will catch up with us at the last. Not because we have escaped and
were pardoned. But because we have escaped and have been free.