keep my mind on the climate, any more than on the lighting. For I wasnât alone. Standing close about me, looking down on meâbut with their long-nosed masks still on, so that I couldnât judge their expressionâwere my captors, rescuers, kidnapers, what you will. I gazed at their snow kit with the dull amazement of a very small child looking for the first time at a diver in his inflated suit and valve-fitted helmet. And then my amazement turned to dismayâdismay, disgust, yes, horror. I was, you see, trying to make sense of these peopleâto pierce, as it were, their disguise: trying to judge, behind their masks, what their intentions were toward me. And thenâit was as bad as seeing ghostsâI suddenly saw that they werenât disguised; they werenât wrapped up. They hadnât any clothes on, not a stitch! Then what did they have on?âthese bulky, booted, masked fellows?
âI say againââhis voice cracked with a very convincing accent of dismayââthey had no clothes on, and yet, true enough, they were ableâjust as I saw them equipped thenâto trot about in subzero cold.
âYouâve guessed? No, you couldnât. I know I struggled I donât know how long against believing my eyes, for the light, though pulsing, was like a torrent of floodlighting. There was, I tell you, never a momentâs doubt as to what I was seeing. The resistance came from my owning up to the clear meaning of what I saw. I struggled with all my might to believe that I was looking at masked kidnapers, inquisitors, anything you like, however dangerous and dreadful, as long as it was human. And all the time my eyes kept on saying to meâyes, and will you believe me?âthe last, unnerving touch, my nose, too was saying it: What you are looking atâthese things that are close enough for you to smell, are big, giant big, bigger than most men, but not menâtheyâre big bipeds, big stalking birds! Yes, that was it. Under that insanely colored sky, as though in some grotesque, glass-lidded aviary, I lay, shrunken like Alice after sheâd eaten the mushroom, looked down on by those large, powerful birds.
âI own, at that, my last vestiges of interest in topography fled. I remember recalling instead, and most infelicitously, Wellsâs grim story, Aepyornis Island , about the man who came within an ace of being pecked to death by his pet, a giant bird.
âAnd I was these creaturesâ captive. They swayed their heads a little. Their glassy eyes regarded me, but what I regarded was the way the glittering varicolored light ran up and down their long, strong, polished, pointed beaks. I donât know whether the next thing was a relief. It ought to have been. For at least it made clear that my immediate fear wasnât going to be practiced on me without delay. But the way I learned that was itself so shocking that I think I was more upset then than ever. I suppose we fear madness more than pain or death. And this forced me, I felt, one step nearer madness.
âThese creatures werenât disguised men. Iâd faced up to that shockâa nasty enough one, in all conscience. And then there was another one, right onâas one might sayâthe other side of the jaw of my reason. For this shock was just the reverse of the first. I couldnât resist the evidence of my ears as Iâd tried to hold out against that of my eyes. These creatures, these birds, were talking to each otherâtalking about me. Of course, I couldnât understand a word. But when half-a-dozen stout old gentlemen, standing around a man on his back, look at him, point fat, flipperish hands at him, and then turn and quack at each other and then look at him and quack againâWell, then I say itâs no use; the gameâs up: they are birdsâwhich is bad enoughâand they are discussing his disposal.
âOf course, you see what is coming,
âI say againââhis voice cracked with a very convincing accent of dismayââthey had no clothes on, and yet, true enough, they were ableâjust as I saw them equipped thenâto trot about in subzero cold.
âYouâve guessed? No, you couldnât. I know I struggled I donât know how long against believing my eyes, for the light, though pulsing, was like a torrent of floodlighting. There was, I tell you, never a momentâs doubt as to what I was seeing. The resistance came from my owning up to the clear meaning of what I saw. I struggled with all my might to believe that I was looking at masked kidnapers, inquisitors, anything you like, however dangerous and dreadful, as long as it was human. And all the time my eyes kept on saying to meâyes, and will you believe me?âthe last, unnerving touch, my nose, too was saying it: What you are looking atâthese things that are close enough for you to smell, are big, giant big, bigger than most men, but not menâtheyâre big bipeds, big stalking birds! Yes, that was it. Under that insanely colored sky, as though in some grotesque, glass-lidded aviary, I lay, shrunken like Alice after sheâd eaten the mushroom, looked down on by those large, powerful birds.
âI own, at that, my last vestiges of interest in topography fled. I remember recalling instead, and most infelicitously, Wellsâs grim story, Aepyornis Island , about the man who came within an ace of being pecked to death by his pet, a giant bird.
âAnd I was these creaturesâ captive. They swayed their heads a little. Their glassy eyes regarded me, but what I regarded was the way the glittering varicolored light ran up and down their long, strong, polished, pointed beaks. I donât know whether the next thing was a relief. It ought to have been. For at least it made clear that my immediate fear wasnât going to be practiced on me without delay. But the way I learned that was itself so shocking that I think I was more upset then than ever. I suppose we fear madness more than pain or death. And this forced me, I felt, one step nearer madness.
âThese creatures werenât disguised men. Iâd faced up to that shockâa nasty enough one, in all conscience. And then there was another one, right onâas one might sayâthe other side of the jaw of my reason. For this shock was just the reverse of the first. I couldnât resist the evidence of my ears as Iâd tried to hold out against that of my eyes. These creatures, these birds, were talking to each otherâtalking about me. Of course, I couldnât understand a word. But when half-a-dozen stout old gentlemen, standing around a man on his back, look at him, point fat, flipperish hands at him, and then turn and quack at each other and then look at him and quack againâWell, then I say itâs no use; the gameâs up: they are birdsâwhich is bad enoughâand they are discussing his disposal.
âOf course, you see what is coming,
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