Read Online Time and Again by Jack Finney, Paul Hecht - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jack Finney, Paul Hecht
Tags: Fiction, General, detective, Science-Fiction, Historical, Fantasy, Man-Woman Relationships, Time travel, New York (N.Y.), Masterwork, sf_social, sf_detective
Ads: Link
tepees; all of them full-blooded Crow Indians. Come on."
In our felt boots, moving almost soundlessly on the narrow metal grill, we walked on across space, again crossing over a wall. We stopped high above a triangular-shaped area and stood directly over its shortest side facing ahead toward its farthest point. A white stone building rose from the floor almost to our feet. Again, it wasn't what it seemed from its front and one side; there were only two walls, supported at their backs by iron-pipe scaffolding. Extending outward from the base of these walls lay a rough stone pavement. Between the cracks of the pavement four men in overalls were planting narrow strips of sod and little clumps of weeds which they took from baskets. The rough slab paving ended in a short grassy slope which led down to what seemed to be an actual river. Water flowed there, brown and sluggish, moving along one side of the triangular area toward its point, off ahead.
Something about this pseudo building of white stone, which ended only a yard or two under our feet, was becoming familiar, and I walked on along the catwalk to where I could get a better view of its front. The side wall along which I walked was flying-buttressed, and then I saw that the front rose into twin square towers. From the sides of the towers projected carved stone figures; one was nearly close enough to reach down and touch. The figures were winged gargoyles and the buttressed wall and twin towers were those of a cathedral; this was Notre Dame of Paris; now I recognized it from movies and photographs.
Watching my face, Rube saw that I understood what we were seeing, and now he pointed across the river. I saw winding dirt roads trailing off into the distances of the other side; a few score of low wooden or stone structures; most of the area was farmland or woods. "Medieval Paris in the spring of 1451." Rube smiled. "It will be, that is, if we ever get the damn thing finished." His arm lifted, his forefinger pointing again, and now, across the river and far ahead, I saw a man in tan cotton pants and blue work shirt streaked with paint — a giant standing before houses and trees that reached no higher than his knees. A palette lay on his left forearm, and he was carefully painting in an extension of the forest, drawn in charcoal on the area wall on the other side of the brown, slow-flowing Seine. "Hell of a lot more work to be done here," said Rube. "Every stone of the cathedral to be aged with acid washes and stain; after all, in 1451 it was already several centuries old. In a sense this is our most ambitious project, but I doubt if even Danziger really thinks it can work. Ready? Let's move on."
Without stopping we walked over an empty area roughly rectangular in shape, one end a little wider than the other. Far below two men on hands and knees were marking off the area with strips of cloth tape and with colored chalk. "I don't quite remember what's going in here," Rube said, "but I think it will be a field hospital of the AEF near Vimy Ridge, France, 1918."
We looked down at a section of a snow-covered North Dakota farm in the dead of winter of 1924. The air over it was sharply cold; within half a minute we were shivering. We stood over a Denver street corner of 1901; it included a cobbled street with streetcar tracks, and a little grocery store with a tattered awning, into which two overalled men were wheeling supplies. Leaning on the rail beside me Rube murmured, ''Reconstructed from seventy-odd photographs and snapshots, including one magnificently clear stereoscope view. Together with Lord knows how many present-day, on-the-site measurements. We're not finished yet; they're stocking the store now, everything absolutely authentic to the time. When it's done, it'll be the way it was, you can be certain of that." He glanced at his watch. "There are a few others, but it's time to meet Danziger now." We turned to walk back, Rube just behind me. "And our New York site doesn't
In our felt boots, moving almost soundlessly on the narrow metal grill, we walked on across space, again crossing over a wall. We stopped high above a triangular-shaped area and stood directly over its shortest side facing ahead toward its farthest point. A white stone building rose from the floor almost to our feet. Again, it wasn't what it seemed from its front and one side; there were only two walls, supported at their backs by iron-pipe scaffolding. Extending outward from the base of these walls lay a rough stone pavement. Between the cracks of the pavement four men in overalls were planting narrow strips of sod and little clumps of weeds which they took from baskets. The rough slab paving ended in a short grassy slope which led down to what seemed to be an actual river. Water flowed there, brown and sluggish, moving along one side of the triangular area toward its point, off ahead.
Something about this pseudo building of white stone, which ended only a yard or two under our feet, was becoming familiar, and I walked on along the catwalk to where I could get a better view of its front. The side wall along which I walked was flying-buttressed, and then I saw that the front rose into twin square towers. From the sides of the towers projected carved stone figures; one was nearly close enough to reach down and touch. The figures were winged gargoyles and the buttressed wall and twin towers were those of a cathedral; this was Notre Dame of Paris; now I recognized it from movies and photographs.
Watching my face, Rube saw that I understood what we were seeing, and now he pointed across the river. I saw winding dirt roads trailing off into the distances of the other side; a few score of low wooden or stone structures; most of the area was farmland or woods. "Medieval Paris in the spring of 1451." Rube smiled. "It will be, that is, if we ever get the damn thing finished." His arm lifted, his forefinger pointing again, and now, across the river and far ahead, I saw a man in tan cotton pants and blue work shirt streaked with paint — a giant standing before houses and trees that reached no higher than his knees. A palette lay on his left forearm, and he was carefully painting in an extension of the forest, drawn in charcoal on the area wall on the other side of the brown, slow-flowing Seine. "Hell of a lot more work to be done here," said Rube. "Every stone of the cathedral to be aged with acid washes and stain; after all, in 1451 it was already several centuries old. In a sense this is our most ambitious project, but I doubt if even Danziger really thinks it can work. Ready? Let's move on."
Without stopping we walked over an empty area roughly rectangular in shape, one end a little wider than the other. Far below two men on hands and knees were marking off the area with strips of cloth tape and with colored chalk. "I don't quite remember what's going in here," Rube said, "but I think it will be a field hospital of the AEF near Vimy Ridge, France, 1918."
We looked down at a section of a snow-covered North Dakota farm in the dead of winter of 1924. The air over it was sharply cold; within half a minute we were shivering. We stood over a Denver street corner of 1901; it included a cobbled street with streetcar tracks, and a little grocery store with a tattered awning, into which two overalled men were wheeling supplies. Leaning on the rail beside me Rube murmured, ''Reconstructed from seventy-odd photographs and snapshots, including one magnificently clear stereoscope view. Together with Lord knows how many present-day, on-the-site measurements. We're not finished yet; they're stocking the store now, everything absolutely authentic to the time. When it's done, it'll be the way it was, you can be certain of that." He glanced at his watch. "There are a few others, but it's time to meet Danziger now." We turned to walk back, Rube just behind me. "And our New York site doesn't
Similar Books
