Part 53 (1/2)
He was raging, though. ”Yellow people! Black people! Brown people! Why
not green people, too? Why not purple people? Their faces! Their eyes!
And the clothes they wear! Who let them in? What are they all doing here?”
”Uncle,” she said, reaching down surrept.i.tiously to give his adrenaline
damper a little downtwist. your country, its greatness, its downfall. To
speak with the general, to hear from his lips the reminiscences of
his days of battle, the actual descriptions of the warfare-it would be
ecstasy for me. Ecstasy. Do you understand my words?”
”His Imperial Highness Norton the Fourteenth!” cried a man with an
enormous voice. Carlotta looked around. A ground-effect palanquin
bedecked with gaudy banners was floating solemnly up the street toward
the plaza.
”You've got to go now,” Carlotta said. ”Look, the Emperor's arriving.”
”But later, perhaps?”
”Well-”
”It is for the sacred purpose of scholars.h.i.+p only. Half an hour to speak
with this great man-”