A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, October 1950 — page 85: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

34 A. MERRITT’S FANTASY the child’s mind and in making him forget still more completely (it seemed) what- ever faint vestige of the one-time past life remained to him, smiled very sagely. Sometimes he would even lean upon his spade, of a sunny morning and watch the lad’s exploits, or go out with him to the target on the pony-shed and there for a quarter of an hour observe this childish pleasure and enthusiasm—making, the while, a note or two. A few times he even patted Totor on the head, with words of praise. Once, after an especially creditable score, he remarked : “You are a brave garcgon, my lad! When you grow up,” and now his intona- tion became peculiar, “I know you surely will carry off the Grand Prix of the Na- tional Toxophilite Society. Stick to your exercise, Totor. It will keep you strong and well; you need something of this sort to help you, for, remember, you have had brain fever here.” Dennison smiled that shy, elusive smile of his. “T’ll practise, my uncle,” he answered. “IT love it! And do you think I shall some time make a record score ?”’ “‘No doubt of it!” exclaimed the patri- arch. ‘‘No doubt of it at all! Remember, practise makes perfect.”” With which salutary motto he returned to his digging and his delving in the garden. Totor wistfully fondled his bow with an affection touching in its evident sim- plicity. - The third week Totor did not shoot. Another of those strange, periodic ill- nesses of his—which Vecchio called re- lapses of the brain fever—confined him for a few days within doors. When little Jean-Paul came eagerly seeking his new playmate who lived in the bighouse and had such an amazing pleth- ora of toys, Lombard gruffly informed him that his playmate was sick and would not be able to see him for a long, long time. Jean-Paul cried, in spite of the box-kite that Vecchio gave him, and went away down the mountain again, to his own mean hovel on Rue Louis Blanc. Never 7a was he allowed to visit Mount St. r For, had he done so, he must inevitably have carried with him so strange a story that it would either have got him a beat- ing for falsehood, or else have raised end- less discussions through all the town, con- cerning I] Vecchio’s domain up there on the height. The little ragged fellow would have told, with fear, that Master Totor no longer seemed a boy of ten or twelve, about his own age, though rather larger. No, he would have said the old man’s nephew had in some strange, mysterious nianner, changed; that now he had grown smaller, lighter, younger in every way; that now he seemed no more than a mere child of eight. Such a story nobody could have be- lieved; yet it would have been true in every word. For when again the wretched Totor emerged from the house and once more showed himself, the change which had taken place in him was evident at a glance. | [¢ VECCHI1O, sitting with book and cigar upon the broad, seaward-looking. piazza, observed him with tremendous satisfaction. ‘“‘See, Stasia,”” he murmured to his niece, who sat in a big wicker-chair close by, listlessly working at some raffia in which she took no interest whatsoever. “You see, he has quite forgotten. Nothing remains now of his past. I count on you, on you who never yet have disobeyed me, to maintain the illusion. Ah! the admir- able effects of science!”’ The girl made no answer, nor did she even lift her eyes, which seemed red as with secret weeping, fringed with dark circles as with sleepless nights. I] Vecchio, however, saw nothing of this. His gaze, eager and vulpine, was fixed upon his victim, who now—faithful to his new toy in spite of his recent loss of strength— had begun his archery practise once again. “You see—” began Il Vecchio. But Stasia, arising suddenly disappeared into the house. Her fancy-work, unheeded, lay on the porch floor. The old man frowned and stroked his beard. **So?” he muttered. ‘Well—we shall see! We shall see—and soon!”’ For some days, life went on quietly. Vecchio worked among his trees, read. (C(O) nn) (C 6)(0)©) S (C(O)