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Gioia sidled gong the catwalk until she was at his side. 'The
guide was talking before you came,' she said, pointing. 'Do you see
that place over there, under the mirror? Someone standing there and
looking into the mirror gets a view of ships at sea that can't be
seen from here by the naked eye. The mirror magnifies things.'
'Do you believe that?'
She nodded towards the guide. 'It said so. And it also told
us that if you look in a certain way, you can see right across the
water into the city of Constantinople.'
She is like a child, he thought. They all are. He said, 'You
told me yourself this very morning that it isn't possible to see
that far. Besides, Constantinople doesn't exist right now.'
'It
will,' she replied. '«You» said that to me, this very morning. And
when it does, it'll be reflected in the Lighthouse mirror. That's
the truth. I'm absolutely certain of it.' ...
'We'll go to Constantinople together. We'll leave tomorrow,
eh? What do you say? We'll charter a boat. It's a quick little hop,
right across the Mediterranean. Sailing to Byzantium! There was a
poem, you know, in my time. Not forgotten, I guess, because they've
programmed it into me. All these thousands of years, and someone
still remembers old Yeats. «The young in one another's arms, birds
in the trees». Come with me to Byzantium, Gioia.' ...
Robert Silverberg,
Sailing to Byzantium (excerpts)
