Read Online Enchantment by Orson Scott Card - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Orson Scott Card
Tags: Fiction
Ads: Link
purpose, this dream. All his fears could be placed under the leaves in that forest, and then be left behind when he boarded the airplane and left Russia behind him. Safe at last, the monster forever trapped under a distant bed.
Now that he was a happy, well-adjusted adult, he should have no more need for such a tale. Yet he could not stop thinking about the woman, the chasm, the guardian that stirred the leaves as it passed. So there was something else going on here, some hunger that was still unsatisfied. Ah, yes. It wasn’t just the monster that made the dream haunt him. It was the woman on the island. He had been just the age for such inexplicable dreams when he first thought up this personal myth—the hormones of puberty were flowing, but no physical changes had yet begun, so he had all kinds of desires but no idea yet what the object of those desires might be. A chaste princess on an island in the forest! Dry leaves instead of water in the moat. The princess on a pedestal, covered by dead plants, which swirl away from his feet as soon as he tries to cross the meadow-chasm to save her.
Now, as an adult, he could laugh at his own fantasies, pretend to be amused at his younger self. But he was not good at fooling himself, not deliberately, anyway. He was still afraid. More afraid than ever. Coming back down the road he had to pass the same place, and tired as he was, he sprinted past it. Let nothing leap from the woods, except to find me already running as fast as the wind to get away from it.
Soon enough, he was home, sweating and hungry, to join Marek at the breakfast table. Only Marek wasn’t there.
“Still milking?” asked Ivan.
“Oh, no, he’s plowing,” Sophia explained. “He takes bread and cheese and sausage with him. Can’t waste a moment getting the ground ready for planting, once the soil thaws in the spring.”
Ivan looked at the table, covered with bread, fritters, a bowl of kasha, open-faced sandwiches, canned peas. “So you and I have to eat this huge breakfast between us?”
She laughed again. “Oh, I don’t even eat breakfast anymore, just tea and a nibble of bread.”
“This is for
me
?”
“Only as much as you want. I know you eat so much better every day, fine hamburgers and milkshakes, but—”
“Don’t talk about that vile American food when I have
this
to eat!” Faking gusto, he sat down and began to wolf it down. No doubt about it, he was going to have to get Marek to take him to the fields tomorrow. He might not be any good at plowing, but he couldn’t take another breakfast like this.
After breakfast, Ivan tried to help with the housework, but was met with stubborn refusal. Sophia was not going to have a man doing women’s work in her house. It was against nature. So, using his nonexistent woodman’s skills, Ivan went out to the tractor shed and followed the trail of the heavy equipment until he found the field that Cousin Marek was plowing that day. Sure enough, there was the tractor, in the middle of a half-plowed field, and yonder was Marek in the shade of a tree, eating bread and cheese and sausage. Marek saw him and waved to him, called to him.
Ivan utterly refused the offer of food. “I just ate enough breakfast to feed Napoleon’s army. If he’d run across your wife, Cousin Marek, he would have taken Moscow and history would have changed utterly.”
Marek laughed. “You think Sophia cooks too much food? Wrong, my young friend. She cooks exactly the amount of food needed by a man who works himself to the point of exhaustion every day. The problem is not to get her to cook less. The problem is to work hard enough that her meals are exactly right for you!”
“There isn’t that much work in all the world.”
“You say that because you read so many books, so you think that thinking is work.”
“I notice
you
didn’t eat breakfast this morning.”
“Because I was going to sit on a tractor and drive it around all day.”
“So give me some job to do
Now that he was a happy, well-adjusted adult, he should have no more need for such a tale. Yet he could not stop thinking about the woman, the chasm, the guardian that stirred the leaves as it passed. So there was something else going on here, some hunger that was still unsatisfied. Ah, yes. It wasn’t just the monster that made the dream haunt him. It was the woman on the island. He had been just the age for such inexplicable dreams when he first thought up this personal myth—the hormones of puberty were flowing, but no physical changes had yet begun, so he had all kinds of desires but no idea yet what the object of those desires might be. A chaste princess on an island in the forest! Dry leaves instead of water in the moat. The princess on a pedestal, covered by dead plants, which swirl away from his feet as soon as he tries to cross the meadow-chasm to save her.
Now, as an adult, he could laugh at his own fantasies, pretend to be amused at his younger self. But he was not good at fooling himself, not deliberately, anyway. He was still afraid. More afraid than ever. Coming back down the road he had to pass the same place, and tired as he was, he sprinted past it. Let nothing leap from the woods, except to find me already running as fast as the wind to get away from it.
Soon enough, he was home, sweating and hungry, to join Marek at the breakfast table. Only Marek wasn’t there.
“Still milking?” asked Ivan.
“Oh, no, he’s plowing,” Sophia explained. “He takes bread and cheese and sausage with him. Can’t waste a moment getting the ground ready for planting, once the soil thaws in the spring.”
Ivan looked at the table, covered with bread, fritters, a bowl of kasha, open-faced sandwiches, canned peas. “So you and I have to eat this huge breakfast between us?”
She laughed again. “Oh, I don’t even eat breakfast anymore, just tea and a nibble of bread.”
“This is for
me
?”
“Only as much as you want. I know you eat so much better every day, fine hamburgers and milkshakes, but—”
“Don’t talk about that vile American food when I have
this
to eat!” Faking gusto, he sat down and began to wolf it down. No doubt about it, he was going to have to get Marek to take him to the fields tomorrow. He might not be any good at plowing, but he couldn’t take another breakfast like this.
After breakfast, Ivan tried to help with the housework, but was met with stubborn refusal. Sophia was not going to have a man doing women’s work in her house. It was against nature. So, using his nonexistent woodman’s skills, Ivan went out to the tractor shed and followed the trail of the heavy equipment until he found the field that Cousin Marek was plowing that day. Sure enough, there was the tractor, in the middle of a half-plowed field, and yonder was Marek in the shade of a tree, eating bread and cheese and sausage. Marek saw him and waved to him, called to him.
Ivan utterly refused the offer of food. “I just ate enough breakfast to feed Napoleon’s army. If he’d run across your wife, Cousin Marek, he would have taken Moscow and history would have changed utterly.”
Marek laughed. “You think Sophia cooks too much food? Wrong, my young friend. She cooks exactly the amount of food needed by a man who works himself to the point of exhaustion every day. The problem is not to get her to cook less. The problem is to work hard enough that her meals are exactly right for you!”
“There isn’t that much work in all the world.”
“You say that because you read so many books, so you think that thinking is work.”
“I notice
you
didn’t eat breakfast this morning.”
“Because I was going to sit on a tractor and drive it around all day.”
“So give me some job to do
Similar Books
