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Comments
and has an arm lifted in a gesture of rebellion. The other is more
conservative: she is rather quiet, wearing clothes in a style of
Antiquity, with sun rays around her head—a transfer of the royal symbol
to the Republic—and is accompanied by many symbols (wheat, a plough and the fasces of the Roman lictors).
These two, rival Mariannes represent two ideas of the Republic, a
bourgeois representation and a democratic and social representation –
the June Days Uprising hadn't yet occurred."
Egyptia was standing at the foot of the Grand Stairway that leads up
to the Theatra Concordacis. She was wearing gilt makeup, and a blue
velvet mantle lined with lemon silk, and people were looking at her. A
topaz hung in the center of her forehead. She made a wild gesture at me.
"Jane! Jane!"
"Hallo."
"Oh, Jane."
"Yes?"
"Oh, Jane. Oh, Jane."
"Shall we go up?"
She
flung up her arm, and I blushed. She made me feel insignificant,
superior and uneasy. As I was analyzing this, I saw someone hurrying
over, a man, who grasped Egyptia's raised arm excitedly.
"All right," he said. "Tell me your number."
Egyptia and I stared at him. His eyes were popping.
"Go away," Egyptia said. Her own eyes filled with tears. She couldn't bear the stupid things life did to her.
"No.
I can pay. I've never seen anything like it. I heard it was lifelike,
but Jesus. You. I'll take you. Just give me your registration
number—wait—you don't have one, do you, that's the other type. Okay,
it's alphabetical, isn't it? Somebody said it's to do with the metal.
You'd be gold, wouldn't you? G.O.L.D.? Am I right?"
Egyptia lifted her eyes to the tall building tops, like Jehane at the stake. Suddenly I knew what was happening.
"You've made a mistake," I said to the man.
"You
can't have it," he said. "What do you want it for? Mirror-Biased, are
you? Well, you go and find a real girl. Young bit of stuff like you
shouldn't have any trouble."
"She isn't," I insisted.
"She? It's an it."
"No." I felt on fire. "She's my friend. She isn't a Sophisticated Format robot."
"Yes it is. They said. Operating on the Grand Stairway."
"No."
"Oh, God!" cried Egyptia. Unlike the rest of us, He didn't answer.
"It's
all right, Egyptia. Please, please," I said to the man, "she isn't a
robot. Go away, or I'll press my code for the police."
I wished at
once I hadn't said it. He, like Egyptia and me, was rich, and would
have his own code round his neck or on his wrist or built into a button.
I felt I'd been very discourteous and rash, but I couldn't think of
anything else to do.
"Well," he said. "I'll write to Electronic Metals and complain. A piece of my mind."
(I saw this as some sort of surgical operation, the relevant slice delivered in a box.)
But
Egyptia spun to him abruptly. She fixed him with her eyes which matched
the topaz, and screeched wordlessly like a mad bird of prey. The man
who thought she was a robot backed sideways along the steps. Egyptia
seemed to close her soul to us both. She flung her mantle round herself
and stalked away up the stairs.
I watched her go, not really wanting to follow. Mother would say I should, in order to observe and be responsible.
What is this sorcery!?
As the moon sets, the sun must rise.