Journal From Ellipsia: A Novel by Hortense Calisher Read Free Book Online

would be to take the boat that went down the Thames to the Greenwich Observatory, where time was monitored for the world over. Take a girl there for the day, that’s what he would. He turned back to Sir Harry.
    “Even beings like us, hmm? Or not too much different.” He was surprised to find himself hoping so; never would have thought he held that much brief for the race. But now he could feel for his fellow beings with the possibly kindred passion of a man left behind.
    “Bllmmph—ha!” The ejaculation was enough to startle some heads up front. Sorted from the old man’s repertoire, it appeared to be a major sneeze of amusement.
    “Anders!” he said out of his handkerchief, when able. “That’s what he thinks. Told me so at your party. ‘Universal biochemistry, first off!’ he says. ‘Check!’ says I. ‘Or that’s what they say.’ ‘Convergence,’ he says then. ‘Beings with the same needs, molded by the same natural forces, come to resemble. I assume you grant that!’ ‘Granted,’ says I. ‘Or that’s what they tell me. I’m only an astronomer.’ Well, Sir Harry,’ he says in the most benevolent way, nodding that conic section he uses for a head, ‘don’t you worry now, they’re going to be very like you and me.’” The old man exploded into laughter again, where Linhouse joined him. He continued. “‘Oh, good-oh, very nice,’ says I, ‘but you know I do worry a bit. Hope they won’t be too like us, you know. Don’t know about you, Anders, but I’ve got to have a woman once in a while.’ … May Rachel—that’s my wife—forgive me … And do you know what he said then? Trying to chaff, of course. ‘I’ve allowed for that,’ he said.
    “At heart he meant it though, don’t you see,” said Sir Harry. “Poor dreary little snipe, they’re always the ones, aren’t they. Fancies his own image just like God did, poor little bugger.”
    Linhouse was silent for a while. With an effort, he wrenched himself away from that doorstep. “Bright, though.” Since Anders first shone in his cradle, it must have been the thing to say.
    “Oh, very. Left your government, you know—Project Ozma—to do radio-telescopic work on his own. Broadcasting directional signals, electrical impulses. Hoping to receive. That sort of thing.”
    “Ozmo,” said Linhouse dreamily. “The way they name them. As if they themselves can’t quite believe. As if they still have to personify, in order to keep sane. The way primitives do. To keep their place in nature.” Too late, he remembered that his seatmate belonged to those he called “they.”
    “Like your hurricanes here,” the old man said slyly. “What was that last one in the newspapers— Edna? ”
    “They do it alphabetically.” Linhouse grinned, and suddenly stretched as high as the plane’s confines would let him. Edna, Frances, Grace, Inez—no—Helen, Inez—Janice. He felt healthier, suddenly. The thing always to keep in mind, when a woman got one down, was that there were such a lot of them. “I’m misplaced at the Center, you know. I’m only a phil—classicist. The Carthaginian heresies are about the last I’ve heard of. Or is it Carthusian?” He felt lightheaded, if not gay. “Tell me. What Anders is doing—is it tenable?”
    “Oh, quite. What a government pays money for usually is, you know. Your place just gives him more leeway. To go off on his own track. Yes, quite tenable.” He looked at his seat-mate with that benevolence Linhouse had grown used to receiving at the Center—the distant pity with which Linhouse himself two hundred years ago might have gazed at men who professed no Latin. “There’s a cosmic evolution going on all the time, you know—new stars, new galaxies. Someday an Anders will hit the right one. We’re just—out of touch.”
    “Oh God,” said Linhouse. Frivolity was the only answer. “More messages. What hath God wrought, and so on. The music of the spheres, on Princess