The Infinite Matrix | Michael Swanwick & Francisco Goya | The Sleep Of

Reason 43

12.26.02

the sleep of reason

by Michael Swanwick

with illustrations by

Francisco JosÉ de Goya y Lucientes

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Digital image © copyright

Davison Art Center,

Wesleyan University

DAC permission required

for any other use.

43. [Plate 15]

Elena's Day of Rest

Even a man-eater can get tired. There came a time when Elena grew weary

of conquest, jaded with intrigue, sick to death of watching faces sag,

dicks wilt, and eyes flood with tears. Really, men are so predictable in

the ways they despair! When a Nobel-winning poet cries, "You have ruined

me! I cannot go on living without you," one realizes that originality is

dead.

So Elena retreated from the world. She sat in a chair in an empty room in

an empty house in a neighborhood where nothing ever happens. One of her

favorite procuresses (she had no friends, now that Grace was gone) kept

her company.

For one long, glorious day, Elena did absolutely nothing. She listened to

the muted sounds of traffic on the street outside. She watched the slant

of sunlight from the window creep from one side of the varnished floor to

the other. Dust motes jittered and danced within it, like a tiny galaxy

ruled by Brownian motion alone. She felt the breath pass in and out of

her body. Occasionally she languidly fanned herself.

The procuress offered no conversation. Elena elicited none. A distant

clock monotonously divided time into one-second hacks, but she lacked the

initiative to stand up and still its pendulum.

Elena had never known tedium before. In its novelty, it was experienced

by her as a kind of ecstasy.

She knew now what a world without men would be like: vast, empty,

eventless, still, and very, very slow. It was an existence utterly

without excitement. It was a life absolutely devoid of adventure or

purpose.

It was good beyond all her expectations.

Renewed by her day of rest, Elena returned to her vocation with fresh

vigor.

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This is the 43rd of 80 stories by Michael Swanwick written to accompany

Francisco Goya's Los Caprichos. For a listing of the most recently

available stories, go to The Sleep of Reason.

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