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.He was joking, but there was something in the wordsthat made a shiver run up my spine. When people talk about reincarnation they alwayspicture themselves as kings and princesses, I said. More likely I d have been a slave or a peasant, andmy memories of this pyramid wouldn t be so pleasant. You are thinking of the terrible tales of human sac-rifice, I suppose.But that was not necessarily donehere. No? Danny tugged at my hand. Sit down, youtwo, you make me tired standing there.Sit down andtell me all about human sacrifice.That s one of the fewthings I do remember about the Aztecs that gory bitabout cutting out the heart of the victim as an offeringto the gods. The Aztecs, certainly. Ivan sat down, asThe Night of Four Hundred Rabbits / 83neatly as a cat. Twenty thousand sacrifices a year, therecords say. He shook his head with a kind of fascin-ated admiration. But these people at Teotihuacan werenot the Aztecs.They are the mystery people ofAnahuac; even today archaeologists call them only bythe name of the site.They were not Toltecs; they werehere, in their splendid city, when the Toltecs came.And when the Aztecs followed the Toltecs down fromthe north, the Teotihuacans were gone, vanished intothe limbo of lost races.Danny listened intently. I d like to read about it, he said. Can you suggestsome books? Certainly, I will give you a list.But you must talkwith George, this is his hobby the pre-Aztec peoplesof Mexico.Particularly their art.His voice was perfectly casual.Neither Danny norI said anything.Ivan added, George does not care for the Aztecs.I presume hedoes not approve of human sacrifice. Who does? Danny reached in his pocket. Smoke?I felt myself stiffening.Ivan glanced unconcernedlyat the clumsy brown cigarettes and shook his head. Marijuana? No, thank you, I do not indulge. Why not? Danny lit his cigarette.He wasn t usu-ally that blunt, and I knew that Ivan s indifference irkedhim.84 / Elizabeth Peters Oh, I have experimented, of course, when I wasyoung. It was not a tactful comment, and Ivan musthave sensed it, for he added, almost apologetically,  Ithas always been available here, so perhaps, for us, thenovelty has worn off.There were bright red spots on Danny s cheeks.Sunburn? Maybe, but I hadn t noticed them before. You think that s the only reason for its use in theStates? Novelty? Oh, but surely you are too intelligent to be unawareof that factor. Ivan smiled at him. With your youngpeople it is a symbol of rebellion, a way to slap theparents in the face.It is also the  in thing to do.Cool,as you say.Groovy? A wonderfully expressive lan-guage, English.I don t know how he did it.In their analytical detach-ment, the words were almost insulting.But his smile,his tone, implied that he wasn t talking about Danny;that he and Danny were both sophisticated enough tosee how ridiculous these motives were.Danny nodded thoughtfully. Sure, those are factors, he said. But they aren tthe only reasons. No, of course, there is the  high, the euphoria.Itis a pleasant enough feeling, as I recall.So mild, com-pared with other methods of intoxication,The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits / 85that I find myself wondering why there is such a fussabout it. That s just my point, Danny said eagerly. If theylegalize pot  He broke off, and his eyes narrowed. You mentioned other forms of intoxication.Whichones have you tried? All of them. Acid? Danny said incredulously. Snow? These are your terms for LSD and heroin, are theynot? Ivan sounded a little bored. Yes, I have sampledLSD, also badoh negro, the seeds of the morning glory;teonanacatl, the sacred mushroom; and peyote.Heroin,no.I had no ambition to become a sedentary vegetable.The hallucinogens at least promise mind expansion;heroin leaves the user with no mind at all. So does LSD, I said.I didn t like the look on Danny s face.I had gotworried about acid, after all the scare stories startedcoming out, about people who kept tripping involun-tarily [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]