THE MUSIC FESTIVAL

78.

Lunch was in the same dining room in which they had had breakfast. It was full of Alphans, and with them were Trevize and Pelorat, made thoroughly welcome. Bliss and Fallom ate separately, and more or less privately, in a small annex.

There were several varieties of fish, together with soup in which there were strips of what might well have been boiled kid. Loaves of bread were there for the slicing, butter and jam for the spreading. A salad, large and diffuse, came afterward, and there was a notable absence of any dessert, although fruit juices were passed about in apparently inexhaustible pitchers. Both Foundationers were forced to be abstemious after their heavy breakfast, but everyone else seemed to eat freely.

“How do they keep from getting fat?” wondered Pelorat in a low voice.

Trevize shrugged. “Lots of physical labor, perhaps.”

It was clearly a society in which decorum at meals was not greatly valued. There was a miscellaneous hubbub of shouting, laughing, and thumping on the table with thick, obviously unbreakable, cups. Women were as loud and raucous as men, albeit in higher pitch.

Pelorat winced, but Trevize, who now (temporarily, at least) felt no trace of the discomfort he had spoken of to Hiroko, felt both relaxed and good-natured.

He said, “Actually, it has its pleasant side. These are people who appear to enjoy life and who have few, if any, cares. Weather is what they make it and food is unimaginably plentiful. This is a golden age for them that simply continues and continues.”

He had to shout to make himself heard, and Pelorat shouted back, “But it’s so noisy.”

“They’re used to it.”

“I don’t see how they can understand each other in this riot.”

Certainly, it was all lost on the two Foundationers. The queer pronunciation and the archaic grammar and word order of the Alphan language made it impossible to understand at the intense sound levels. To the Foundationers, it was like listening to the sounds of a zoo in fright.

It was not till after lunch that they rejoined Bliss in a small structure, which Trevize found to be rather inconsiderably different from Hiroko’s quarters, and which had been assigned them as their own temporary living quarters. Fallom was in the second room, enormously relieved to be alone, according to Bliss, and attempting to nap.

Pelorat looked at the door-gap in the wall and said uncertainly, “There’s very little privacy here. How can we speak freely?”

“I assure you,” said Trevize, “that once we pull the canvas barrier across the door, we won’t be disturbed. The canvas makes it impenetrable by all the force of social custom.”

Pelorat glanced at the high, open windows. “We can be overheard.”

“We need not shout. The Alphans won’t eavesdrop. Even when they stood outside the windows of the dining room at breakfast, they remained at a respectful distance.”

Bliss smiled. “You’ve learned so much about Alphan customs in the time you