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

Reason 56

04.07.03

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.

56. [Plate 55]

The Empress Herself

Even a witch can be star-struck. Celebrities, after all, are not like you

and me. They're... well, you know. Famous. Young Faustina, giddy from

years of poring over Royalty Today and Titled People managed at last to

wangle a meeting with the Empress herself.

The Empress was as famous as famous could be. Hers was the very best kind

of fame, too, for it was inherited. She didn't have to do a thing for it.

In fact, the less she did, the better. Deeds which any subject felt free

to perform daily would have landed her on the front page of the tabloids.

EMPRESS CHEATS ON DIET! SYMBOL OF EMPIRE PICKS HER NOSE! 'PRESSIE CURSES

ASSHOLE ON FREEWAY! So she had people to do all those things for her.

"Anton," she would say, "be a dear and pick my nose. Gustav, please give

that bastard the finger."

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T H A N K S !

Almost swooning, Faustina curtsied before, kissed the ring of, and gushed

her admiration upon the old woman. "Oh, I'm such a big fan of yours," she

said. "I bought the towels, and the plates, and all the little ceramic

castles. I named my Corgis after your children."

The old bat merely nodded. Anyone else would have been flattered. But to

her, this sort of behavior was commonplace.

Then Faustina brought out her present. "I saved for months to buy this

hat, I know how much you adore hats, it's from Etienne Sainte-Fromage."

"Oh?" The Empress's eyes lit up. She had a passion for haute couture,

hats in particular, and most especially the hats of Etienne

Sainte-Fromage. Her tastes had been formed in her youth, when she was

renowned as a great beauty, and in all the intervening decades, nobody

had dared suggest that she shift over to designers more flattering to the

mature woman.

Complacently, she settled the frilly trifle on her head.

"Oh, my!" Faustina gasped. It would be unfair to say that at that instant

an imp of the perverse entered her #151;# she was an imp of the perverse.

So she was merely being true to her own nature when she said, " You're so

elegant! So regal! You've got to, got to, got to model clothing

professionally."

"Do you really think so?" the daft old thing cooed.

"Oh, really! Absolutely! Any Parisian house would kill to have you!

They'd build their show around you! They'd fashion an entire line just

for you!" She turned to the Empress's courtiers, all young, all male.

"Isn't that so?"

"The nation of men will fall in love with you and despair," said Gustav

with a roll of his eyes. Hiding a snicker Anton cried, "Madame, it is

your destiny!" They hated the old harridan intensely, as only lackeys and

toadies can.

For a long, still moment, the Empress considered the proposition. But in

the end, she was saved by her enormous vanity. "No," she decided with a

sigh of regret. "It would be Work, and only commoners do that."

So close! Lying in bed that night, Faustina touched herself as she

imagined what might have been. Clarions would have sounded. Down the

runway the Empress would have come, walking in a stiff and angular

manner. How ungainly she would have looked! How the crowd would have

hooted and laughed! The things they would have thrown!

Reality and fantasy melted into one warm glow. Oh! Faustina thought, the

regal grace with which the Empress would have ignored it all! How

effortlessly she would have risen above the indignity! It would have been

her greatest moment.

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This is the 56th 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.

Eileen K. Gunn.

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