Report on Probability A by Brian W. Aldiss Read Free Book Online

itself slightly to meet the hand, in order to brush back a curl of the hair that had escaped from the confinement of metal clips on the crown of the skull.
    When all the objects had been removed from the sink, the woman stepped away from it, turning and moving towards the rear of the kitchen, where an impoverishment of light made her difficult to see through the telescope.
    When S removed the telescope from his eye, she became only a vague movement in the lower left-hand window of the house set on a slight rise in the ground beyond the asparagus beds. He blinked, rubbed his closed eye on his sleeve, and then reapplied the instrument to the pupil of his right eye.
    Now the circle of his vision moved restlessly to and fro across the kitchen window with its metal frame, the left third of which opened outwards and was secured by a perforated metal bar, as it sought to follow the movements of the woman in the kitchen.
    The woman was far enough into the room to be encompassed by its shadows; what she was doing could not be distinguished. But she moved slowly behind a table, thus coming to be viewed through the middle and unopening portion of the kitchen window that was divided into six panes. S was now gazing at her through six thicknesses of glass, four of them being in the telescope, one being the square central pane of the nine small panes that together comprised the round window in the old brick building, which had last housed a coach forty-eight years before Mr. Mary had purchased the property, and the final one being the unopening middle portion of the kitchen window. The woman moved to the near side of the kitchen table, coming close enough to the window for her to be revealed using a white towel. This white towel was held at breast level; it was in constant motion as the woman’s two hands rubbed themselves dry in it. The woman, continuing her progress, moved over to the section of the window which remained closed, and leant her elbows on a ledge or shelf that stretched to this side of the sink as it did to the other; although her hands were still engaged in drying themselves on the towel, this new posture enabled the woman to lean forwards from the waist up; the weight of her breasts could vaguely be seen, indicated by the swell of the apron which she wore over her blue cardigan, and which she had not removed. In thus leaning forward, the woman brought her face within a few centimetres of the closed window, so that it was clearly revealed in the light.
    As the face was tilted slightly upwards, so the nose became somewhat the predominant feature; it was a button nose with nostril flanges that spread slightly in the direction of either cheek. It could be seen to have a slight pinkness that almost exactly matched the colour in the cheeks; the cheek bones were relatively high, and set wide apart, giving the whole face width. The face tapered towards a smoothly rounded chin that at present seemed to protrude because of the stance the woman adopted.
    The woman rested her elbows on a ledge or shelf that extended to the side of the sink. She clasped in her hands a white towel that partially concealed her face, in particular her right cheek; the irregular shape of the towel contrasted with the smooth sweep of her visible left cheek. The high bones of this cheek, concealed but evident, gave to her eyes the effect of being set rather deeply in her face; this effect was emphasized by the heaviness of the eyelids that covered the eyes. These features might be regarded as belonging to a fleshy face; yet the effect was not heavy when the face was in movement.
    At present the face was in movement; it lay within the circle of vision of the telescope with its mouth at the centre of this circle.
    The mouth moved. The lips moved; the lower lip seemed to be plump, yet as it moved it extended itself slightly so as to seem less plump. These lips were viewed through six thicknesses of glass, four consisting of the little lenses in the