petak, 27. ožujka 2026.
One might pass Dr. Auvray's house twenty times without suspecting the miracles that are wrought there. It is a modest establishment near the end of Montaigne Avenue, between Prince Soltikoff's Gothic palace and the gymnasium. The unpretentious iron gates open into a small garden, filled with lilacs and rosebushes. The porter's lodge is on the left side of the gateway; the wing containing the doctor's office and the apartments of his wife and daughter are on the right; while the main building stands with its back to the street and its south windows overlook a small grove of horsechestnuts and lindens. It is there that the doctor treats, and generally cures, cases of mental aberration. I would not introduce you into his house, however, if you incurred any risk of meeting frenzied lunatics or hopeless imbeciles. You will be spared all such harrowing sights. Dr. Auvray is a specialist, and treats cases of monomania only. He is an extremely kind-hearted man, endowed with plenty of shrewdness and good sense; a true philosopher, an untiring student, and an enthusiastic follower of the famous Esquirol. Having come into possession of a small fortune soon after the completion of his medical course, he married, and founded the establishment which we have described. Had there been a spark of charlatanism in his composition, he could easily have amassed a fortune, but he had been content to merely earn a living. He shunned notoriety, and when he effected a wonderful cure, he never proclaimed it upon the housetops. His very enviable reputation had been acquired without any effort on his part, and almost against his will. Would you have a proof of this? Well, his treatise on monomania, published by Baillière in 1852, has passed through six editions, though the author has never sent a single copy to the newspapers. Modesty is a good thing, certainly, but one may carry it too far. Mademoiselle Auvray will have a dowry of only twenty thousand francs, and she will be twenty-two in April. About a month ago a hired coupé stopped in front of Dr. Auvray's door, from which two men alighted and entered the office. The servant asked them to be seated, and await his master's return. One of the visitors was about fifty years of age, a tall, stout, dark-complexioned but ruddy-faced man, rather ungainly in figure and appearance. He had thick, stubby hands and enormous thumbs. Picture a laboring man, dressed in his employer's clothes, and you have M. Morlot. His nephew, Francis Thomas, is a young man, about twenty-three years old; but it is very difficult to describe him, as there is nothing distinctive either in his manner or appearance. He is neither tall nor short, handsome nor ugly, stout nor thin—in short, he is commonplace and mediocre in every respect, with chestnut hair, and of an extremely retiring disposition, manner and attire. When he entered Dr. Auvray's office, he seemed to be greatly excited. He walked wildly to and fro, as if unable to remain in one place; looked at twenty different things in the same instant, and would certainly have handled them all if his hands had not been tied. "Compose yourself, my dear Francis," said his uncle, soothingly. "What I am doing is for your own good. You will be perfectly comfortable and happy here, and the doctor is sure to cure you." "I am not sick. There is nothing whatever the matter with me. Why have you tied my hands?" "Because you would have thrown me out of the window, if I had not. You are not in your right mind, my poor boy, but Dr. Auvray will soon make you well again." "I am as sane as you are, uncle; and I can't imagine what you mean. My mind is perfectly clear and my memory excellent. Shall I recite some poetry to you, or construe some Latin? I see there is a Tacitus here in the bookcase. Or, if you prefer, I will solve a problem in algebra or geometry. You don't desire it? Very well, then listen while I tell you what you have been doing this morning. "You came to my room at eight o'clock, not to wake me, for I was not asleep, but to get me out of bed. I dressed myself without any assistance from Germain. You asked me to accompany you to Dr. Auvray's; I refused; you insisted; then Germain aided you in tying my hands. I shall dismiss him this evening. I owe him thirteen days' wages; that is to say, thirteen francs, as I promised to pay him thirty francs a month. You, too, owe him something, as you are the cause of his losing his New Year's gift. Isn't this a tolerably clear statement of the facts? Do you still intend to try to make me out a lunatic? Ah, my dear uncle, let your better nature assert itself. Remember that my mother was your sister. What would my poor mother say if she saw me here? I bear you no ill-will, and everything can be amicably arranged. You have a daughter." "Ah, there it is again. You must certainly see that you are not in your right mind. I have a daughter—I? Why, I am a bachelor, as you know perfectly well." "You have a daughter—" repeated Francis, mechanically. "My poor nephew, listen to me a moment. Have you a cousin?" "A cousin? No, I have no cousin. Oh, you won't catch me there. I have no cousin, either male or female." "But I am your uncle, am I not?" "Yes; you are my uncle, of course, though you seem to have forgotten the fact this morning." "Then if I had a daughter, she would be your cousin; but as you have no cousin, I can have no daughter." "You are right, of course. I had the pleasure of meeting her at Ems last summer with her mother; I love her; I have reason to believe that she is not indifferent to me, and I have the honor to ask you for her hand in marriage." "Whose hand, may I ask?" "Your daughter's hand." "Just hear him," Morlot said to himself. "Dr. Auvray must certainly be very clever if he succeeds in curing him. I am willing to pay him six thousand francs a year for board and treatment. Six thousand francs from thirty thousand leaves twenty-four thousand. How rich I shall be! Poor Francis!" He seated himself again, and picked up a book that chanced to be lying on a table near him. "Calm yourself," he said soothingly, "and I will read you something. Try to listen. It may quiet you." Opening the volume, he read as follows: "'Monomania is opinionativeness on one subject; a persistent clinging to one idea; the supreme ascendency of a single passion. It has its origin in the heart. To cure the malady, the cause must be ascertained and removed. It arises generally from love, fear, vanity, overweening ambition or remorse, and betrays itself by the same symptoms as any other passion; sometimes by boisterousness, gaiety, and garrulousness; sometimes by extreme timidity, melancholy, and silence.'" As M. Morlot read on, Francis became more quiet, and at last appeared to fall into a peaceful slumber. "Bravo!" thought the uncle, "here is a triumph of medical skill already. It has put to sleep a man who was neither hungry nor sleepy!" Francis was not asleep, but he was feigning sleep to perfection. His head drooped lower and lower, and he regulated his heavy breathing with mathematical exactness. Uncle Morlot was completely deceived. He went on reading for some time in more and more subdued tones; then he yawned; then he stopped reading; then he let the book drop from his hands and closed his eyes, and in another minute he was sound asleep, to the intense delight of his nephew, who was watching him maliciously out of the corner of his eye. Francis began operations by scraping his chair on the uncarpeted floor, but M. Morlot moved no more than a post. Francis then tramped noisily up and down the room, but his uncle snored the louder. Then the nephew approached the doctor's desk, picked up an eraser that was lying there, and with it finally succeeded in cutting the rope that bound his hands. On regaining his liberty he uttered a smothered exclamation of joy; then he cautiously approached his uncle. In two minutes, M. Morlot himself was securely bound, but it had been done so gently and so adroitly that his slumbers had not been disturbed in the least. Francis stood admiring his work for a moment; then he stooped and picked up the book that had fallen to the floor. It was Dr. Auvray's treatise on monomania. He carried it off into a corner of the room and began to read it with much apparent interest, while awaiting the doctor's coming. II It is necessary to revert briefly to the antecedents of this uncle and nephew. Francis Thomas was the only son of a former toy-merchant, on the Rue de Saumon. The toy trade is an excellent business, about one hundred per cent profit being realized on most of the articles; consequently, since his father's death, Francis had been enjoying that ease generally known as honest ease; possibly because it enables one to live without stooping to sordid acts; possibly, too, because it enables one to keep one's friends honest, also. In short, he had an income of thirty thousand francs a year. His tastes were extremely simple, as I have said before. He detested show, and always selected gloves, waistcoats, and trousers of those sober hues shading from dark brown to black. He never carried an eyeglass for the very good reason, he said, that he had excellent eyesight; he wore no scarf-pin, because he needed no pin to hold his cravat securely; but the fact is, he was afraid of exciting comment. He would have been wretched had his sponsors bestowed upon him any save the most commonplace names; but, fortunately, his cognomens were as modest and unpretending as if he had chosen them himself. His excessive modesty prevented him from adopting a profession. When he left college, he considered long and carefully the seven or eight different paths open before him. A legal career seemed to be attended with too much publicity; the medical profession was too exciting; business too complicated. The responsibilities of an instructor of youth were too onerous; the duties of a government official too confining and servile. As for the army, that was out of the question, not because he feared the enemy, but because he shuddered at the thought of wearing a uniform; so he finally decided to live on his income, not because it was the easiest thing to do, but because it was the most unobtrusive. But it was in the presence of the fair sex that his weakness became most apparent. He was always in love with somebody. Whenever he attended a play or a concert he immediately began to gaze around him in search of a pretty face. If he found one to his taste, the play was admirable, the music perfection; if he failed, the whole performance was detestable, the actors murdered their lines, and all the singers sang out of tune. He worshiped these divinities in secret, however, for he never dared to speak to one of them. When he fancied himself a victim to the tender passion, he spent the greater part of his time in composing the most impassioned declarations of love, which never passed his lips, however. In imagination he addressed the tenderest words of affection to his adored one, and revealed the innermost depths of his soul to her; he held long conversations with her, delightful interviews, in which he furnished both the questions and answers. His burning protestations of undying love would have melted a heart of ice, but none of his divinities were ever aware of his aspirations and longings. It chanced, however, in the month of August of that same year, about four months before he so adroitly bound his uncle's hands, that Francis had met at Ems a young lady almost as shy and retiring as himself, a young lady whose excessive timidity seemed to imbue him with some of the courage of an ordinary mortal. She was a frail, delicate Parisienne—pale as a flower that had blossomed in the shade, and with a skin as transparent as an infant's. She was at Ems in company with her mother, who had been advised to try the waters for an obstinate throat trouble, chronic laryngitis, if I remember right. The mother and daughter had evidently led a very secluded life, for they watched the noisy crowd with undisguised curiosity and amazement. Francis was introduced to them quite unexpectedly by one of his friends who was returning from Italy by way of Germany. After that, Francis was with them almost constantly for a month; in fact, he was their sole companion. For sensitive, retiring souls, a crowd is the most complete of solitudes; the more people there are around them, the more persistently they retreat to a corner to commune with themselves. Of course, the mother and daughter soon became well acquainted with Francis, and they grew very fond of him. Like the navigator who first set foot on American soil, they discovered some new treasure every day. They never inquired whether he was rich or poor; it was enough for them to know that he was good. Francis, for his part, was inexpressibly delighted with his own transformation. Have you ever heard how spring comes in the gardens of Russia? One day everything is shrouded in snow; the next day a ray of sunshine appears and puts grim winter to flight. By noon the trees are in bloom; by night they are covered with leaves; a day or two more and the fruit appears. The heart of Francis underwent a similar metamorphosis. His reserve and apparent coldness disappeared as if by magic, and in a few short weeks the timid youth was transformed into a resolute, energetic man—at least to all appearances. I do not know which of the three persons first mentioned marriage, but that is a matter of no consequence. Marriage is always understood when two honest hearts avow their love. Now Francis was of age, and undisputed master of himself and his possessions, but the girl he loved had a father whose consent must be obtained, and it was just here that this young man's natural timidity of disposition reasserted itself. True, Claire had said to him: "You can write to my father without any misgivings. He knows all about our attachment. You will receive his consent by return mail." Francis wrote and rewrote his letter a hundred times, but he could not summon up the courage to send it. Surely the ordeal was an easy one, and it would seem as though the most timorous mind could have passed through it triumphantly. Francis knew the name, position, fortune, and even the disposition of his prospective father-in-law. He had been initiated into all the family secrets, he was virtually a member of the household. The only thing he had to do was to state in the briefest manner who he was and what he possessed. There was no doubt whatever as to the response; but he delayed so long that at the end of a month Claire and her mother very naturally began to doubt his sincerity. I think they would have waited patiently another fortnight, however, but the father would not permit it. If Claire loved the young man, and her lover was not disposed to make known his intentions, the girl must leave him at once. Perhaps Mr. Francis Thomas would then come and ask her hand in marriage. He knew where to find her. Thus it chanced that, one morning when Francis went to invite the ladies to walk as usual, the proprietor of the hotel informed him that they had returned to Paris, and that their apartments were already occupied by an English family. This crushing blow, falling so unexpectedly, destroyed the poor fellow's reason, and, rushing out of the house like a madman, he began a frantic search for Claire in all the places where he had been in the habit of meeting her. At last he returned to his own hotel with a violent sick headache, which he proceeded to doctor in the most energetic manner. First he had himself bled, then he took baths in boiling hot water, and applied the most ferocious mustard plasters; in short, he avenged his mental tortures upon his innocent body. When he believed himself cured, he started for France, firmly resolved to have an interview with Claire's father before even changing his clothes. He traveled with all possible speed, jumped off the train before it stopped, forgetting his baggage entirely, sprang into a cab, and shouted to the coachman: "Drive to her home as quick as you can!" "Where, sir?" "To the house of Monsieur—on the—the Rue—I can't remember." He had forgotten the name and address of the girl he loved. "I will go home," he said to himself, "and it will come back to me." So he handed his card to the coachman, who took him to his own home. His concierge was an aged man, with no children, and named Emmanuel. On seeing him, Francis bowed profoundly, and said: "Sir, you have a daughter, Mlle. Claire Emmanuel. I intended to write and ask you for her hand in marriage, but decided it would be more seemly to make the request in person." They saw that he was mad, and his uncle Morlot, in the Faubourg Saint Antoine, was immediately summoned. Now Uncle Morlot was the most scrupulously honest man on the Rue Charonne, which, by the way, is one of the longest streets in Paris. He manufactured antique furniture with conscientious care, but only mediocre skill. He was not a man to pass off ebonized pine for real ebony, or a cabinet of his own make for a medieval production; and yet, he understood the art of making new wood look old and full of apparent worm-holes as well as anybody living; but it was a principle of his never to cheat or deceive any one. With almost absurd moderation for a follower of this trade, he limited his profits to five per cent over and above the expenses of the business, so he had gained more esteem than money. When he made out a bill, he invariably added up the items three times, so afraid was he of making a mistake in his own favor. After thirty years of close attention to business he was very little better off than when he finished his apprenticeship. He had merely earned his living, just like the humblest of his workmen, and he often asked himself rather enviously how his brother-in-law had managed to acquire a competence. If this brother-in-law, with the natural arrogance of a parvenu, rather looked down on the poor cabinet-maker, the latter, with all the pride of a man who has not tried to succeed financially, esteemed himself all the more highly. He gloried in his poverty, as it were; and said to himself with plebeian pride: "I, at least, have the satisfaction of knowing that I owe nothing to any one." Man is a strange animal: I am not the first person who has made that remark. This most estimable M. Morlot, whose overscrupulous probity made him almost a laughing-stock, experienced a singular feeling of elation in his secret heart when he was apprised of his nephew's condition. An insinuating voice whispered softly: "If Francis is insane, you will become his guardian." "You will be none the richer," responded Conscience, promptly. "And why not?" persisted the Tempter. "The expenses of an insane person never amount to thirty thousand francs a year. Besides, you will be put to a great deal of trouble and have to neglect your business, very probably, so it is only right that you should receive some compensation. You will not be wronging any one by taking part of the money." "But one ought to expect no compensation for such services to a member of one's family," retorted the voice of Conscience. "Then why have the members of our family never done anything for me? I have been in straitened circumstances again and again, and have found it almost impossible to meet my obligations, but neither my nephew Francis nor his deceased father ever rendered me the slightest assistance." "Nonsense," replied his better nature; "this attack of insanity is nothing serious. Francis will be himself again in a few days." "It is just as probable that the malady will wear him out and that you will come into possession of the entire property," persisted the wily Tempter. The worthy cabinet-maker tried to close his ears to the insidious voice, but his ears were so large that the subtle, persistent voice glided in, despite all his efforts. The establishment on the Rue Charonne was intrusted to the care of the foreman, and the uncle took up his abode in his nephew's comfortable apartments. He slept in an excellent bed, and enjoyed it very much; he sat down to a well-spread table, and the indigestion, which had tormented him for years, vanished as if by enchantment. He was waited upon and shaved by Germain, his nephew's valet, and he speedily came to regard such attentions as a necessity. Gradually, too, he became accustomed to seeing his nephew in this deplorable condition, and to quite reconcile himself to the idea that he would never be cured, but all the while he kept repeating to himself, as if to ease his conscience, "I am wronging nobody." At the expiration of three months he had become very tired of having an insane person shut up in the house with him—for he had long since begun to consider himself at home—and his nephew's incessant maundering, and continual requests for Mlle. Claire's hand in marriage, became an intolerable bore. He therefore resolved to get rid of him by placing him in Dr. Auvray's insane asylum. "After all, my nephew will be much better cared for there," he said to himself, "and I shall be much easier in mind. Every one admits that the best way to divert a lunatic's mind is to give him a change of scene, so I am only doing my duty." It was with this very thought in his mind that he fell asleep just before Francis bound his hands. What an awakening was his! The doctor entered with a smiling excuse for his long delay. Francis rose, laid his book on the table, and proceeded with volubility to explain the business that had brought him there. "It is my uncle on my mother's side that I desire to intrust to your care," he began. "He is, as you see, a man between forty-five and fifty years of age, accustomed to manual labor and the economy and privations of a humble and busy life; moreover, he was born of healthy, hard-working parents, in a family where no case of mental aberration was ever before known. You will not, therefore, be obliged to contend with a hereditary malady. His is probably one of the most peculiar cases of monomania that has ever come under your observation. His mood changes almost instantaneously from one of extreme gaiety to profound melancholy. In fact, it is a strange compound of monomania and melancholy." "He has not lost his reason entirely?" "Oh, no; he is never violent; in fact, he is insane upon one subject only." "What is the nature of his malady?" "Alas! the besetting sin of the age, sir; cupidity. He has become deeply imbued with the spirit of our times. After working hard from childhood, he finds himself still comparatively poor, while my father, who began life under like circumstances, was able to leave me a snug little fortune. My uncle began by being envious of me; then the thought occurred to him that, being my only relative, he would become my heir in case of my death, and my guardian in case I became insane; and as it is very easy for a weak-minded person to believe whatever he desires to believe, the unfortunate man soon persuaded himself that I had lost my reason. He has told everybody that this is the case; and he will soon tell you so. In the carriage, though his hands were tied, he really believed that it was he who was bringing me here." "When did this malady first show itself?" "About three months ago. He came to my concierge and said to him, in the wildest manner: 'Monsieur Emmanuel, you have a daughter. Let me in, and then come and assist me in binding my nephew.'" "Is he aware of his condition? Does he know that his mind is affected?" "No, sir, and I think that is a favorable sign. I should add, however, that his physical health is somewhat impaired, and he is much troubled with indigestion and insomnia." "So much the better; an insane person who sleeps and eats regularly is generally incurable. Suppose you allow me to wake him." Dr. Auvray placed his hand gently on the shoulder of the sleeper, who instantly sprang to his feet. The first movement he made was to rub his eyes. When he discovered that his hands were tied, he instantly suspected what had taken place while he was asleep, and burst into a hearty laugh. "A good joke, a very good joke!" he exclaimed. Francis drew the doctor a little aside. "Sir, in five minutes he will be in a towering rage," he whispered. "Let me manage him. I know how to take him." The good doctor smiled on the supposed patient as one smiles on a child one wishes to amuse. "Well, you wake in very good spirits, my friend; did you have a pleasant dream?" he asked affably. "No, I had no dream at all; I'm merely laughing to find myself tied up like a bundle of fagots. One would suppose that I was the madman, instead of my nephew." "There, I told you so," whispered Francis. "Have the goodness to untie my hands, doctor. I can explain better when I am free." "I will unbind you, my friend, but you must promise to give no trouble." "Can it be, doctor, that you really take me for an insane person?" "No, my friend, but you are ill, and we will take care of you, and, I hope, cure you. See, your hands are free; don't abuse your liberty." "What the devil do you imagine I'll do? I came here merely to bring my nephew." "Very well, we will talk about that matter by and by. I found you sound asleep. Do you often fall asleep in the daytime?" "Never! It was that stupid book that—" "Oh, oh! This is a serious case," muttered the author of the book referred to. "So you really believe that your nephew is insane?" "Dangerously so, doctor. The fact that I was obliged to bind his hands with this very rope is proof of that." "But it was your hands that were bound. Don't you recollect that I just untied them?" "But let me explain—" "Gently, gently, my friend, you are becoming excited. Your face is very red; I don't want you to fatigue yourself. Just be content to answer my questions. You say that your nephew is ill?" "Mad, mad, mad, I tell you!" "And it pleases you to see him mad?" "What?" "Answer me frankly. You don't wish him to be cured, do you?" "Why do you ask me that?" "Because his fortune is under your control. Don't you wish to be rich? Are you not disappointed and discouraged because you have toiled so long without making a fortune? Don't you very naturally think that your turn has come now?" M. Morlot made no reply. His eyes were riveted on the floor. He asked himself if he was not dreaming, and tried his best to decide how much of this whole affair was real, and how much imaginary, so completely bewildered was he by the questions of this stranger, who read his heart as if it had been an open book. "Do you ever hear voices?" inquired Dr. Auvray. Poor M. Morlot felt his hair stand on end, and remembering that relentless voice that was ever whispering in his ear, he replied mechanically, "Sometimes." "Ah, he is the victim of an hallucination," murmured the doctor. "No, there is nothing whatever the matter with me, I tell you. Let me get out of here. I shall be as crazy as my nephew if I remain much longer. Ask my friends. They will all tell you that I am perfectly sane. Feel my pulse. You can see that I have no fever." "Poor uncle!" murmured Francis. "He doesn't know that insanity is delirium unattended with fever." "Yes," added the doctor, "if we could only give our patients a fever, we could cure every one of them." M. Morlot sank back despairingly in his armchair. His nephew began to pace the floor. "I am deeply grieved at my uncle's deplorable condition," he remarked feelingly, "but it is a great consolation to me to be able to intrust him to the care of a man like yourself. I have read your admirable treatise on monomania. It is the most valuable work of the kind that has appeared since the publication of the great Esquirol's Treatise upon Mental Diseases. I know, moreover, that you are truly a father to your patients, so I will not insult you by commending M. Morlot to your special care. As for the compensation you are to receive, I leave that entirely to you." As he spoke, he drew from his pocket-book a thousand-franc note and laid it on the mantel. "I shall do myself the honor to call again some time during the ensuing week. At what hour are your patients allowed to see visitors?" "From twelve to two, only; but I am always at home. Good day, sir." "Stop him! stop him!" shouted Uncle Morlot. "Don't let him go. He is the one that is mad; I will tell you all about it." "Calm yourself, my dear uncle," said Francis, starting toward the door. "I leave you in Dr. Auvray's care; he will soon cure you, I trust." M. Morlot sprang up to intercept his nephew, but the doctor detained him. "What a strange fatality!" cried the poor uncle. "He has not uttered a single senseless remark. If he would only rave as usual, you would soon see that I am not the one who is mad, but—" Francis already had his hand on the door-knob, but turning suddenly, he retraced his steps as if he had forgotten something and, walking straight up to the doctor, said: "My uncle's malady was not the only thing that brought me here." "Ah," murmured M. Morlot, seeing a ray of hope, at last. "You have a daughter," continued the young man. "At last!" shouted the poor uncle. "You are a witness to the fact that he said: 'You have a daughter.'" "Yes," replied the doctor, addressing Francis. "Will you kindly explain—" "You have a daughter, Mlle. Claire Auvray." "There, there! didn't I tell you so?" cried the uncle. "Yes," again replied the doctor. "She was at Ems three months ago with her mother." "Bravo! Bravo!" yelled M. Morlot. "Yes," responded the physician for the third time. M. Morlot rushed up to the doctor, and cried: "You are not the doctor, but a patient in the house." "My friend, if you are not more quiet we shall have to give you a douche." M. Morlot recoiled in terror. His nephew continued calmly: "I love your daughter, sir; I have some hope that I am loved in return, and if her feelings have not changed since the month of September, I have the honor to ask her hand in marriage." "Is it to Monsieur Francis Thomas that I have the honor of speaking?" inquired the doctor. "The same, sir. I should have begun by telling you my name." "Then you must permit me to say, sir, that you have been guilty of no unseemly haste—" But just then the good doctor's attention was diverted by M. Morlot, who was rubbing his hands in a frenzied manner. "What is the matter with you, my friend?" the doctor asked in his kind, fatherly way. "Nothing, nothing! I am only washing my hands. There is something on them that troubles me." "Show me what it is. I don't see anything." "Can't you see it? There, there, between my fingers. I see it plainly enough." "What do you see?" "My nephew's money. Take it away, doctor. I'm an honest man; I don't want anything that belongs to anybody else." While the physician was listening attentively to M. Morlot's first ravings, an extraordinary change took place in Francis. He became as pale as death, and seemed to be suffering terribly from cold, for his teeth chattered so violently that Dr. Auvray turned and asked what was the matter with him. "Nothing," he replied. "She is coming, I hear her! It is joy, but it overpowers me. It seems to be falling on me and burying me beneath its weight like a snowdrift. Winter will be a dreary time for lovers. Oh, doctor, see what is the matter with my head!" But his uncle rushed up to him, crying: "Enough, enough! Don't rave so! I don't want people to think you mad. They will say I stole your reason from you. I'm an honest man. Doctor, look at my hands, examine my pockets, send to my house on the Rue Charonne. Search the cupboard. Open all the drawers. You will find I have nothing that belongs to any other person." Between his two patients the doctor was at his wits' end, when a door opened, and Claire came in to tell her father that breakfast was on the table. Francis leaped up out of his chair, as if moved by a spring, but though his will prompted him to rush toward Mlle. Auvray, his flesh proved weak, and he fell back in his chair like lead. He could scarcely murmur the words: "Claire, it is I! I love you. Will you—" He passed his hand over his forehead. His pale face became a vivid scarlet. His temples throbbed almost to bursting; it seemed to him that an iron band was contracting more and more around his head, just above his brows. Claire, frightened nearly to death, seized both his hands; his skin was so dry, and his pulse so rapid that the poor girl was terrified. It was not thus that she had hoped to see him again. In a few minutes, a yellowish tinge appeared about his nostrils; nausea ensued, and Dr. Auvray recognized all the symptoms of a bilious fever. "How unfortunate!" he said to himself. "If this fever had only attacked his uncle, it would have cured him!" He rang. A servant appeared, and shortly afterward Mme. Auvray, who scarcely knew Francis, so greatly had he changed. It was necessary that the sick man should be got to bed without delay, and Claire relinquished her own pretty room to him. While they were installing him there, his uncle wandered excitedly about the parlor, tormenting the doctor with questions, embracing the sick man, seizing Mme. Auvray's hand and exclaiming wildly: "Save him, save him! He shall not die! I will not have him die! I forbid it. I have a right to. I am his uncle and guardian. If you do not care for him, people will say I killed him. You are witnesses to the fact that I ask for none of his property! I shall give all his possessions to the poor! Some water—please give me some water to wash my hands!" He was taken to the building occupied by the patients, where he became so violent that it was necessary to put him in a strait-jacket. Mme. Auvray and her daughter nursed Francis with the tenderest care. Confined in the sick-room day and night, the mother and daughter spent most of their leisure time discussing the situation. They could not explain the lover's long silence or his sudden reappearance. If he loved Claire, why had he left her in suspense for three dreary months? Why did he feel obliged to give his uncle's malady as an excuse for presenting himself at Dr. Auvray's house? But if he had recovered from his infatuation, why did he not take his uncle to some other physician? There were plenty of them in Paris. Possibly he had believed himself cured of his folly until the sight of Claire undeceived him? But no, he had asked her father for her hand in marriage before he saw her again. But, in his delirium, Francis answered all or nearly all of these questions. Claire, bending tenderly over him, listened breathlessly to his every word, and afterward repeated them to her mother and to the doctor, who was not long in discovering the truth. They soon knew that he had lost his reason and under what circumstances; they even learned how he had been the innocent cause of his uncle's insanity. Fears of an entirely different nature now began to assail Mlle. Auvray. Was the terrible crisis which she had unwittingly brought about likely to cure his mental disorder? The doctor assured his daughter that a fever, under such circumstances, was almost certain to put an end to the insanity, but there is no rule without its exception, especially in medicine. And even if he seemed to be cured, was there not danger of a recurrence of the malady? "So far as I am concerned, I am not in the least afraid," said Claire, smiling sadly. "I am the cause of all his troubles. Therefore, it is my duty to console him. After all, his madness consists merely in continually asking my hand. There will be no need of doing that after I become his wife, so we really have nothing to fear. The poor fellow lost his reason through his excessive love; so cure him, my dear father, but not entirely. Let him remain insane enough to love me as much as I love him!" "We will see," replied Dr. Auvray. "Wait until this fever passes off. If he seems ashamed of having been demented, if he appears gloomy, or melancholy after his recovery, I can not vouch for him; if, on the contrary, he remembers his temporary aberration of mind without mortification or regret—if he speaks of it without any reserve, and if he is not averse to seeing the persons who nursed him through his illness, there is not the slightest reason to apprehend a return of the malady." On the 25th of December, Francis, fortified by a cup of chicken broth and half the yolk of a soft boiled egg, sat up in bed, and without the slightest hesitancy or mortification, and in a perfectly lucid manner, gave the history of the past three months without any emotion save that of quiet joy. Claire and Mme. Auvray wept as they listened to him; the doctor pretended to be taking notes, or rather to be writing under dictation, but something besides ink fell on the paper. When the story ended, the convalescent added, by way of conclusion: "And now on this, the 25th day of December, I say to my good doctor, and much loved father—Dr. Auvray, whose street and number I shall never again forget—'Sir, you have a daughter, Mlle. Claire Auvray, whom I met at Ems, with her mother. I love her; she has proved that she loves me in return, and if you have no fears that I will become insane again, I have the honor to ask her hand in marriage." The doctor was so deeply affected that he could only bow his head in token of assent, but Claire put her arms around the sick man's neck and kissed him tenderly on the forehead. I am sure I should desire no better response under like circumstances. That same day, M. Morlot, who had become much more quiet and tractable, and who had long since been released from the bondage of a strait jacket, rose about eight o'clock in the morning, as usual. On getting out of bed, he picked up his slippers, examined and reexamined them inside and out, then handed them to a nurse for inspection, begging him to see for himself that they contained no thirty thousand francs. Until positively assured of this fact he would not consent to put them on. Then he carefully shook each of his garments out of the window, but not until after he had searched every fold and pocket in them. After his toilet was completed, he called for a pencil, and wrote on the walls of his chamber: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's money, nor anything that is his." Dr. Auvray is confident of his ability to cure him, but it will take time. It is in the summer and autumn that physicians are most successful in their endeavors to cure insanity.
četvrtak, 26. ožujka 2026.
This garden of our childhood, said Monsieur Bergeret, this garden that one could pace off in twenty steps, was for us a whole world, full of smiles and surprises. “Lucien, do you recall Putois?” asked Zoe, smiling as usual, the lips pressed, bending over her work. “Do I recall Putois! Of all the faces I saw as a child that of Putois remains the clearest in my remembrance. All the features of his face and his character are fixed in my mind. He had a pointed cranium...” “A low forehead,” added Mademoiselle Zoe. And the brother and sister recited alternately, in a monotonous voice, with an odd gravity, the points in a sort of description: “A low forehead.” “Squinting eyes.” “A shifty glance.” “Crow’s-feet at the temples.” “The cheek-bones sharp, red and shining.” “His ears had no rims to them.” “The features were devoid of all expression.” “His hands, which were never still, alone expressed his meaning.” “Thin, somewhat bent, feeble in appearance...” “In reality he was unusually strong.” “He easily bent a five-franc piece between the first finger and the thumb...” “Which was enormous.” “His voice was drawling...” “And his speech mild.” Suddenly Monsieur Bergeret exclaimed: “Zoe! we have forgotten ‘Yellow hair and sparse beard.’ Let us begin all over again.” Pauline, who had listened with astonishment to this strange recital, asked her father and aunt how they had been able to learn by heart this bit of prose, and why they recited it as if it were a litany. Monsieur Bergeret gravely answered: “Pauline, what you have heard is a text, I may say a liturgy, used by the Bergeret family. It should be handed down to you so that it may not perish with your aunt and me. Your grandfather, my daughter, your grandfather, Eloi Bergeret, who was not amused with trifles, thought highly of this bit, principally because of its origin. He called it ‘The Anatomy of Putois.’ And he used to say that he preferred, in certain respects, the anatomy of Putois to the anatomy of Quaresmeprenant. ‘If the description by Xenomanes,’ he said, ‘is more learned and richer in unusual and choice expressions, the description of Putois greatly surpasses it in clarity and simplicity of style.’ He held this opinion because Doctor Ledouble, of Tours, had not yet explained chapters thirty, thirty-one, and thirty-two of the fourth book of Rabelais.” “I do not understand at all,” said Pauline. “That is because you did not know Putois, my daughter. You must understand that Putois was the most familiar figure in my childhood and in that of your Aunt Zoe. In the house of your grandfather Bergeret we constantly spoke of Putois. Each believed that he had seen him.” Pauline asked: “Who was this Putois?” Instead of replying, Monsieur Bergeret commenced to laugh, and Mademoiselle Bergeret also laughed, her lips pressed tight together. Pauline looked from one to the other. She thought it strange that her aunt should laugh so heartily, and more strange that she should laugh with and in sympathy with her brother. It was indeed singular, as the brother and sister were quite different in character. “Papa, tell me what was Putois? Since you wish me to know, tell me.” “Putois, my daughter, was a gardener. The son of honest market-gardeners, he set up for himself as nurseryman at Saint-Omer. But he did not satisfy his customers and got in a bad way. Having given up business, he went out by the day. Those who employed him could not always congratulate themselves.” At this, Mademoiselle Bergeret, laughing, rejoined; “Do you recall, Lucien, when our father could not find his ink, his pens, his sealing-wax, his scissors, he said: ‘I suspect Putois has been here’?” “Ah!” said Monsieur Bergeret, “Putois had not a good reputation.” “Is that all?” asked Pauline. “No, my daughter, it is not all. Putois was remarkable in this, that while we knew him and were familiar with him, nevertheless—” “—He did not exist,” said Zoe. Monsieur Bergeret looked at his sister with an air of reproach. “What a speech, Zoe! and why break the charm like that? Do you dare say it, Zoe? Zoe, can you prove it? To maintain that Putois did not exist, that Putois never was, have you sufficiently considered the conditions of existence and the modes of being? Putois existed, my sister. But it is true that his was a peculiar existence.” “I understand less and less,” said Pauline, discouraged. “The truth will be clear to you presently, my daughter. Know then that Putois was born fully grown. I was still a child and your aunt was a little girl. We lived in a little house, in a suburb of Saint-Omer. Our parents led a peaceful, retired life, until they were discovered by an old lady named Madame Cornouiller, who lived at the manor of Montplaisir, twelve miles from town, and proved to be a great-aunt of my mother’s. By right of relationship she insisted that our father and mother come to dine every Sunday at Montplaisir, where they were excessively bored. She said that it was the proper thing to have a family dinner on Sunday and that only people of common origin failed to observe this ancient custom. My father was bored to the point of tears at Montplaisir. His desperation was painful to contemplate. But Madame Cornouiller did not notice it. She saw nothing, My mother was braver. She suffered as much as my father, and perhaps more, but she smiled.” “Women are made to suffer,” said Zoe. “Zoe, every living thing is destined to suffer. In vain our parents refused these fatal invitations. Madame Cornouiller came to take them each Sunday afternoon. They had to go to Montplaisir; it was an obligation from which there was absolutely no escape. It was an established order that only a revolt could break. My father finally revolted and swore not to accept another invitation from Madame Cornouiller, leaving it to my mother to find decent pretexts and varied reasons for these refusals, for which she was the least capable. Our mother did not know how to pretend.” “Say, Lucien, that she did not like to. She could tell a fib as well as any one.” “It is true that when she had good reasons she gave them rather than invent poor ones. Do you recall, my sister, that one day she said at table: ‘Fortunately, Zoe has the whooping-cough; we shall not have to go to Montplaisir for some time’?” “That was true!” said Zoe. “You got over it, Zoe. And one day Madame Cornouiller said to my mother: Dearest, I count on your coming with your husband to dine Sunday at Montplaisir.’ Our mother, expressly bidden by her husband to give Madame Cornouiller a good reason for declining, invented, in this extremity, a reason that was not the truth. ‘I am extremely sorry, dear Madame, but that will be impossible for us. Sunday I expect the gardener.’ “On hearing this, Madame Cornouiller looked through the glass door of the salon at the little wild garden, where the prickwood and the lilies looked as though they had never known the pruning-knife and were likely never to know it. ‘You expect the gardener! What for?’ “‘To work in the garden.’ “And my mother, having involuntarily turned her eyes on this little square of weeds and plants run wild, that she had called a garden, recognized with dismay the improbability of her excuse. “‘This man,’ said Madame Cornouiller, ‘could just as well work in your garden Monday or Tuesday. Moreover, that will be much better.’ One should not work on Sunday.’ “‘He works all the week.’ “I have often noticed that the most absurd and ridiculous reasons are the least disputed: they disconcert the adversary. Madame Cornouiller insisted, less than one might expect of a person so little disposed to give up. Rising from her armchair, she asked: “‘What do you call your gardener, dearest?’ “‘Putois,’ answered my mother without hesitation. “Putois was named. From that time he existed. Madame Cornouiller took herself off, murmuring: ‘Putois! It seems to me that I know that name. Putois! Putois! I must know him. But I do not recollect him. Where does he live?’ “‘He works by the day. When one wants him one leaves word with this one or that one.’ “‘Ah! I thought so, a loafer and a vagabond—a good-for-nothing. Don’t trust him, dearest.’ “From that time Putois had a character.’” II Messieurs Goubin and Jean Marteau having arrived, Monsieur Bergeret put them in touch with the conversation. “We were speaking of him whom my mother caused to be born gardener at Saint-Omer and whom she christened. He existed from that time on.” “Dear master, will you kindly repeat that?” said Monsieur Goubin, wiping the glass of his monocle. “Willingly,” replied Monsieur Bergeret. “There was no gardener. The gardener did not exist. My mother said: ‘I am waiting for the gardener.’ At once the gardener was. He lived.” “Dear master,” said Monsieur Goubin, “how could he live since he did not exist?” “He had a sort of existence,” replied Monsieur Bergeret. “You mean an imaginary existence,” Monsieur Goubin replied, disdainfully. “Is it nothing then, but an imaginary existence?” exclaimed the master. “And have not mythical beings the power to influence men! Consider mythology, Monsieur Goubin, and you will perceive that they are not real beings but imaginary beings that exercise the most profound and lasting influence on the mind. Everywhere and always, beings who have no more reality than Putois have inspired nations with hatred and love, terror and hope, have advised crimes, received offerings, made laws and customs. Monsieur Goubin, think of the eternal mythology. Putois is a mythical personage, the most obscure, I grant you, and of the lowest order. The coarse satyr, who in olden times sat at the table with our peasants in the North, was considered worthy of appearing in a picture by Jordaens and a fable by La Fontaine. The hairy son of Sycorax appeared in the noble world of Shakespeare. Putois, less fortunate, will be always neglected by artists and poets. He lacks bigness and the unusual style and character. He was conceived by minds too reasonable, among people who knew how to read and write, and who had not that delightful imagination in which fables take root. I think, Messieurs, that I have said enough to show you the real nature of Putois.” “I understand it,” said Monsieur Goubin. And Monsieur Bergeret continued his discourse. “Putois was. I can affirm it. He was. Consider it, gentlemen, and you will admit that a state of being by no means implies substance, and means only the bonds attributed to the subject, expresses only a relation.” “Undoubtedly,” said Jean Marteau; “but a being without attributes is a being less than nothing. I do not remember who at one time said, ‘I am that I am.’ Pardon my lapse of memory. One cannot remember everything. But the unknown who spoke in that fashion was very imprudent. In letting it be understood by this thoughtless observation that he was deprived of attributes and denied all relations, he proclaimed that he did not exist and thoughtlessly suppressed himself. I wager that no one has heard of him since.”—“You have lost,” answered Monsieur Bergeret. “He corrected the bad effect of these egotistical expressions by employing quantities of adjectives, and he is often spoken of, most often without judgment.”—“I do not understand,” said Monsieur Goubin.—“It is not necessary to understand,” replied Jean Marteau. And he begged Monsieur Bergeret to speak of Putois.—“It is very kind of you to ask me,” said the master.—“Putois was born in the second half of the nineteenth century, at Saint-Omer. He would have been better off if he had been born some centuries before in the forest of Arden or in the forest of Brocéliande. He would then have been a remarkably clever evil spirit.”—“A cup of tea, Monsieur Goubin,” said Pauline.—“Was Putois, then, an evil spirit?” said Jean Marteau.—“He was evil,” replied Monsieur Bergeret; “he was, in a way, but not absolutely. It was true of him as with those devils that are called wicked, but in whom one discovers good qualities when one associates with them. And I am disposed to think that injustice has been done Putois. Madame Cornouiller, who, warned against him, had at once suspected him of being a loafer, a drunkard, and a robber, reflected that since my mother, who was not rich, employed him, it was because he was satisfied with little, and asked herself if she would not do well to have him work instead of her gardener, who had a better reputation, but expected more. The time had come for trimming the yews. She thought that if Madame Eloi Bergeret, who was poor, did not pay Putois much, she herself, who was rich, would give him still less, for it is customary for the rich to pay less than the poor. And she already saw her yews trimmed in straight hedges, in balls and in pyramids, without her having to pay much. ‘I will keep an eye open,’ she said, ‘to see that Putois does not loaf or rob me. I risk nothing, and it will be all profit. These vagabonds sometimes do better work than honest laborers. She resolved to make a trial, and said to my mother: ‘Dearest, send me Putois. I will set him to work at Mont-plaisir.’ My mother would have done so willingly. But really it was impossible. Madame Cornouiller waited for Putois at Montplaisir, and waited in vain. She followed up her ideas and did not abandon her plans. When she saw my mother again, she complained of not having any news of Putois. ‘Dearest, didn’t you tell him that I was expecting him?’—‘Yes! but he is strange, odd.’—‘Oh, I know that kind. I know your Putois by heart. But there is no workman so crazy as to refuse to come to work at Montplaisir. My house is known, I think. Putois must obey my orders, and quickly, dearest. It will be sufficient to tell me where he lives; I will go and find him myself.’ My mother answered that she did not know where Putois lived, that no one knew his house, that he was without hearth or home. ‘I have not seen him again, Madame. I believe he is hiding.’ What better could she say?” Madame Cornouiller heard her distrustfully; she suspected her of misleading, of removing Putois from inquiry, for fear of losing him or making him ask more. And she thought her too selfish. “Many judgments accepted by the world that history has sanctioned are as well founded as that.”—“That is true,” said Pauline.—“What is true?” asked Zoe, half asleep.—“That the judgments of history are often false. I remember, papa, that you said one day: ‘Madame Roland was very ingenuous to appeal to the impartiality of posterity, and not perceive that, if her contemporaries were ill-natured monkeys, their posterity would be also composed of ill-natured monkeys.’”—“Pauline,” said Mademoiselle Zoe severely, “what connection is there between the story of Putois and this that you are telling us?”—“A very great one, my aunt.”—“I do not grasp it.”—Monsieur Bergeret, who was not opposed to digressions, answered his daughter: “If all injustices were finally redressed in the world, one would never have imagined another for these adjustments. How do you expect posterity to pass righteous judgment on the dead? How question them in the shades to which they have taken flight? As soon as we are able to be just to them we forget them. But can one ever be just? And what is justice? Madame Cornouiller, at least, was finally obliged to recognize that my mother had not deceived her and that Putois was not to be found. However, she did not give up trying to find him. She asked all her relatives, friends, neighbors, servants, and tradesmen if they knew Putois, Only two or three answered that they had never heard of him. For the most part they believed they had seen him. ‘I have heard that name,’ said the cook, ‘but I cannot recall his face.’—‘Putois! I must know him,’ said the street-sweeper, scratching his ear. ‘But I cannot tell you who it is.’ The most precise description came from Monsieur Blaise, receiver of taxes, who said that he had employed Putois to cut wood in his yard, from the 19th to the 28d of October, the year of the comet. One morning, Madame Cornouiller, out of breath, dropped into my father’s office. ‘I have seen Putois. Ah! I have seen him.’—‘You believe it?’—‘I am sure. He was passing close by Monsieur Tenchant’s wall. Then he turned into the Rue des Abbesses, walking quickly. I lost him.’—‘Was it really he?’—‘Without a doubt. A man of fifty, thin, bent, the air of a vagabond, a dirty blouse.’—‘It is true,’” said my father, “‘that this description could apply to Putois.’—‘You see! Besides, I called him. I cried: “Putois!” and he turned around.’—‘That is the method,’ said my father, ‘that they employ to assure themselves of the identity of evil-doers that they are hunting for.’—‘I told you that it was he! I know how to find him, your Putois. Very well! He has a bad face. You had been very careless, you and your wife, to employ him. I understand physiognomy, and though I only saw his back, I could swear that he is a robber, and perhaps an assassin. The rims of his ears are flat, and that is a sign that never fails.’—‘Ah! you noticed that the rims of his ears were flat?’—‘Nothing escapes me. My dear Monsieur Bergeret, if you do not wish to be assassinated with your wife and your children, do not let Putois come into your house again. Take my advice: have all your locks changed.’—Well, a few days afterward, it happened that Madame Cornouiller had three melons stolen from her vegetable garden. The robber not having been found, she suspected Putois. The gendarmes were called to Montplaisir, and their report confirmed the suspicions of Madame Cornouiller. Bands of marauders were ravaging the gardens of the countryside. But this time the robbery seemed to have been committed by one man, and with singular dexterity. No trace of anything broken, no footprints in the damp earth. The robber could be no one but Putois. That was the opinion of the corporal, who knew all about Putois, and had tried hard to put his hand on that bird. The ‘Journal of Saint-Omer’ devoted an article to the three melons of Madame Cornouiller, and published a portrait of Putois from descriptions furnished by the town. ‘He has,’ said the paper, ‘a low forehead, squinting eyes, a shifty glance, crow’s-feet, sharp cheek-bones, red and shining. No rims to the ears. Thin, somewhat bent, feeble in appearance, in reality he is unusually strong. He easily bends a five-franc piece between the first finger and the thumb.’ There were good reasons for attributing to him a long series of robberies committed with surprising dexterity. The whole town was talking of Putois. One day it was learned that he had been arrested and locked up in prison. But it was soon recognized that the man that had been taken for him was an almanac seller named Rigobert. As no charge could be brought against him, he was discharged after fourteen months of detention on suspicion. And Putois remained undiscoverable. Madame Cornouiller was the victim of another robbery, more audacious than the first. Three small silver spoons were taken from her sideboard. She recognized in this the hand of Putois, had a chain put on the door of her bedroom, and was unable to sleep.... About ten o’clock in the evening, Pauline having gone to her room, Mademoiselle Bergeret said to her brother: “Do not forget to relate how Putois betrayed Madame Cornouiller’s cook.”—“I was thinking of it, my sister,” answered Monsieur Bergeret. “To omit it would be to lose the best of the story. But everything must be done in order. Putois was carefully searched for by the police, who could not find him. When it was known that he could not be found, each one considered it his duty to find him; the shrewd ones succeeded. And as there were many shrewd ones at Saint-Omer and in the suburbs, Putois was seen simultaneously in the streets, in the fields, and in the woods. Another trait was thus added to his character. He was accorded the gift of ubiquity, the attribute of many popular heroes. A being capable of leaping long distances in a moment, and suddenly showing himself at the place where he was least expected, was honestly frightening. Putois was the terror of Saint-Omer. Madame Cornouiller, convinced that Putois had stolen from her three melons and three little spoons, lived in a state of fear, barricaded at Montplaisir. Bolts, bars, and locks did not reassure her. Putois was for her a frightfully subtle being who could pass through doors. Trouble with her servants redoubled her fear. Her cook having been betrayed, the time came when she could no longer hide her misfortune. But she obstinately refused to name her betrayer.”—“Her name was Gudule,” said Mademoiselle Zoe.—“Her name was Gudule, and she believed that she was protected from danger by a long, forked bead that she wore on her chin. The sudden appearance of a beard protected the innocence of that holy daughter of the king that Prague venerates. A beard, no longer youthful, did not suffice to protect the virtue of Gudule. Madame Cornouiller urged Gudule to tell her the man. Gudule burst into tears, but kept silent. Prayers and menaces had no effect. Madame Cornouiller made a long and circumstantial inquiry. She adroitly questioned her neighbors and tradespeople, the gardener, the street-sweeper, the gendarmes; nothing put her on the track of the culprit. She tried again to obtain from Gudule a complete confession. ‘In your own interest, Gudule, tell me who it is.’ Gudule remained mute. All at once a ray of light flashed through the mind of Madame Cornouiller: ‘It is Putois!’ The cook cried, but did not answer. ‘It is Putois! Why did I not guess it sooner? It is Putois! Miserable! miserable! miserable!’ and Madame Cornouiller remained convinced that it was Putois. Everybody at Saint-Omer, from the judge to the lamplighter’s dog, knew Gudule and her basket At the news that Putois had betrayed Gudule, the town was filled with surprise, wonder, and merriment.... With this reputation in the town and its environs he remained attached to our house by a thousand subtle ties. He passed before our door, and it was believed that he sometimes climbed the wall of our garden. He was never seen face to face. At any moment we would recognize his shadow, his voice, his footsteps. More than once we thought we saw his back in the twilight, at the corner of a road. To my sister and me he gradually changed in character. He remained mischievous and malevolent, but he became childlike and very ingenuous. He became less real and, I dare say, more poetical. He entered in the artless Cycle of childish traditions. He became more like Croquemitaine,* like Père Fouettard, or the sand man who closes the children’s eyes when evening comes. *The national “bugaboo” or “bogy man.” It was not that imp that tangled the colts’ tails at night in the stable. Less rustic and less charming, but equally and frankly roguish, he made ink mustaches on my sister’s dolls. In our bed, before going to sleep, we listened; he cried on the roofs with the cats, he howled with the dogs, he filled the mill hopper with groans, and imitated the songs of belated drunkards in the streets. What made Putois ever-present and familiar to us, what interested us in him, was that the remembrance of him was associated with all the objects about us. Zoe’s dolls, my school books, in which he had many times rumpled and besmeared the pages; the garden wall, over which we had seen his red eyes gleam in the shadow; the blue porcelain jar that he cracked one winter’s night, unless it was the frost; the trees, the streets, the benches—everything recalled Putois, the children’s Putois, a local and mythical being. He did not equal in grace and poetry the dullest satyr, the stoutest fawn of Sicily or Thessaly. But he was still a demigod. He had quite a different character for our father; he was symbolical and philosophical. Our father had great compassion for men. He did not think them altogether rational; their mistakes, when they were not cruel, amused him and made him smile. The belief in Putois interested him as an epitome and a summary of all human beliefs. As he was ironical and a joker, he spoke of Putois as if he were a real being. He spoke with so much insistence sometimes, and detailed the circumstances with such exactness, that my mother was quite surprised and said to him in her open-hearted way: ‘One would say that you spoke seriously, my friend: you know well, however...’ He replied gravely: ‘All Saint-Omer believes in the existence of Putois. Would I be a good citizen if I deny him? One should look twice before setting aside an article of common faith.’ Only a perfectly honest soul has such scruples. At heart my father was a Gassendiste.* He keyed his own particular sentiment with the public sentiment, believing, like the countryside, in the existence of Putois, but not admitting his direct responsibility for the theft of the melons and the betrayal of the cook. Finally, he professed faith in the existence of a Putois, to be a good citizen; and he eliminated Putois in his explanations of the events that took place in the town. By doing so in this instance, as in all others, he was an honorable and a sensible man. * A follower of Gassendi (d. 1655), an exponent of Epicurus. “As for our mother, she reproached herself somewhat for the birth of Putois, and not without reason. Because, after all, Putois was the child of our mother’s invention, as Caliban was the poet’s invention. Without doubt the faults were not equal, and my mother was more innocent than Shakespeare. However, she was frightened and confused to see her little falsehood grow inordinately, and her slight imposture achieve such a prodigious success, that, without stopping, extended all over town and threatened to extend over the world. One day she even turned pale, believing that she would see her falsehood rise up before her. That day, a servant she had, new to the house and the town, came to say to her that a man wished to see her. He wished to speak to Madame. ‘What man is it?’—‘A man in a blouse. He looks like a laborer.’—‘Did he give his name?’—‘Yes, Madame.’—‘Well! what is his name?’—‘Putois.’—‘He told you that was his name?’—‘Putois, yes, Madame.’—‘He is here?’—‘Yes, Madame. He is waiting in the kitchen.’—‘You saw him?’—‘Yes, Madame.’—‘What does he want?’—‘He did not say. He will only tell Madame.’—‘Go ask him.’ “When the servant returned to the kitchen Putois was gone. This meeting of the new servant with Putois was never cleared up. But from that day I think my mother commenced to believe that Putois might well exist and that she had not told a falsehood after all.”
srijeda, 25. ožujka 2026.
“Prisoner,” said the president of the court-martial, “have you anything to add in your defense?” “Yes, my colonel,” responded the accused; “you have given me a little advocate who has defended me according to his idea. I want to defend myself according to my own. “My name is Martin—Louis Joseph; I am fifty-five years old. My father was a locksmith. He had a little shop in the upper part of the Faubourg Saint-Martin and did a small business. We just about lived. I learned to read in Le National, which was, I believe, the paper of Monsieur Thiers. “The 27th of July, 1830, my father went out early in the morning. That evening at ten o’clock they brought him back to us dying on a litter. He had received a bullet in the chest. By his side upon the litter was his musket. “‘Take it,’ he said to me; ‘I give it to you, and every time there is to be an insurrection, be against the government—always! always! always!’ “An hour afterward he was dead. I went out in the night. At the first barricade I stopped and offered myself. A man examined me by the light of a lantern. ‘A child!’ he cried. I was not yet fifteen. I was very small, quite undersized. I answered: ‘A child, that’s possible; but my father was killed about two hours ago. He gave me his musket. Teach me how to use it.’ “Starting with that moment, I became what I have been always, for forty years: an insurgent! If I fought during the Commune, it was neither from compulsion nor for the thirty sous, it was from taste, from pleasure, from habit, from routine. “In 1830, I bore myself rather bravely at the attack on the Louvre. That gamin who—the first—climbed the iron fence under the bullets of the Swiss—that was I. I received the medal of July; but the bourgeoisie gave us a king. Everything had to be done over again. I joined a secret society, I learned to mould bullets, to make powder. In short, I completed my education—and I waited. “I had to wait nearly two years. The 5th of June, 1832, at midday, before the Madeleine, I began by unhitching one of the horses from the hearse of General Lamarque. I passed the day shouting, ‘Vive Lafayette!’ and the night in making barricades. The next morning we were attacked by the soldiers. That afternoon towards four o’clock we were pocketed, cannonaded, fired upon with grape-shot, crushed, in the Church of St. Méry. I had a bullet and three bayonet thrusts in my body when I was picked up by the soldiers on the flag-stones of a little chapel on the right—the chapel of St. John. I used often to return to that little chapel—not to pray, I was not brought up in those ideas—but to see the trace of my blood which is still marked upon the stones. “Because of my youth, I got only ten years in prison. I was sent to Mont-Saint-Michel. That was why I didn’t take any part in the uprisings of 1834. If I had been free, I should have been fighting in the Rue Transnonian as I had fought in the Rue St. Méry. Against the government—always!—always!—always! That was the last word of my father, that was my gospel, my religion! I called that my catechism in six words. I got out of prison in 1842 and again I began to wait. “The revolution of ’48 made itself—without help. The bourgeoisie were stupid and cowardly. They were neither for us nor against us. The City Guards alone defended themselves. We had a little trouble in capturing the post of the Château-d’Eau. The evening of the 24th of February I stayed three or four hours on the Place de l’Hôtel-de-Ville. The members of the Provisional Government one after another made speeches to us, said to us that we were ‘heroes,’ ‘noble citizens,’ ‘the first people of the world;’ that we had shaken off the yoke of tyranny. After having regaled us with these fine words, they gave us a republic which wasn’t any better than the monarchy which we had tumbled to the ground. “In June I took up my musket again—but that time things were not successful. I was arrested, condemned, sent to Cayenne. It seems that out there I behaved myself well. One day I saved a captain of marines who was drowning. They thought that very fine. Notice that I would very cheerfully have shot at that captain—if he had been on one side of a barricade and I on the other; but a man who is drowning, who is dying——. In short, I received my pardon. I got back to France in 1852, after the Coup d’État. I had missed the insurrection of 1851. “At Cayenne I had made a friend, a tailor named Bernard. Six months after my departure for France, Bernard died. I went to see his widow. She was in destitution. I married her. We had a son in 1854. You will understand all in good time why I speak of my wife and of my son. Only, you ought already to suspect that an insurgent who marries the widow of an insurgent does not have royalist children. “Under the Empire, nothing was going on. The police held a firm grip. We were dispersed, disarmed. I worked, I brought up my son in the ideas that my father had given me. The wait was long—Rochefort, Gambetta, public reunions; all those things put us in motion again. “On the first serious occasion I showed myself. I was of that little band that assaulted the barracks of the firemen of Villette. Only, there a stupid thing was done. They killed a fireman unnecessarily. I was taken, thrown into prison; but the government of the Fourth of September set us free—from which I concluded that we had done quite right in attacking that barracks and in killing that fireman, even unnecessarily. “The siege commenced. At once I was against the government, and for the Commune. I marched against the Hôtel-de-Ville on the 31st of October and the 22d of January. I loved revolt for the sake of revolt. An insurgent, I told you at the start, I am an insurgent. I cannot see a club without joining it, an insurrection without running after it, a barricade without bringing my paving-stone to it. That goes with my blood. “And then, besides, I wasn’t altogether ignorant, and I said to myself: ‘We only need to succeed some day, clear to the foundations, and then in our turn we shall be the government and things will go a little better than with all these lawyers who get behind us during the battle, and who pass ahead of us after the victory.’ “The 18th of March came, and naturally I was in it. I cried ‘Hurrah for the military!’ I fraternized with the soldiers. I went to the Hôtel-de-Ville. I found there a government at work—absolutely as on the 24th of February. “Now you tell me that that insurrection was not legitimate. That’s possible, but I don’t quite see why. I begin to be muddled, I do, between these insurrections which are a duty and those insurrections which are a crime! I do not clearly see the difference. “I fired on the Versailles troops in 1871, as I fired on the Royal Guards in 1830, and on the City Guards in 1848. After 1830 I received the medal of July. After 1848, the compliments of Monsieur Lamartine. This time, I’m going to have transportation or death. “There are some insurrections that please you. You raise columns to them, you give their names to streets, you distribute among yourselves the offices, the promotions, the big salaries; and we others, who made the revolution, you call us—noble citizens, heroes, a nation of brave men, etc., etc. It is with such money that we are paid. “And then, there are some other insurrections that displease you. As a result of those, you distribute to us exile, transportation, death. Well, see here: if you hadn’t paid us so many compliments after the first, perhaps we would not have done the last. If you had not raised the Column of July at the entrance to our quarter, perhaps we should not have gone to demolish the Vendôme Column in your quarter. Those two penny-trumpets were not in harmony. The one had to discord with the other, and that is what came about. “Now, I am going to tell you why I threw away my captain’s uniform at the street corner on the 26th of May, why I was in a blouse when I was arrested. When I learned that these gentlemen of the Commune, instead of coming to fire with us upon the barricades, were distributing thousand-franc notes to themselves at the Hôtel-de-Ville, shaving their beards, dyeing their hair, and going to hide themselves in caves, I didn’t wish to keep the shoulder-straps they had given me. “Besides, they embarrassed me, those shoulder straps. ‘Captain Martin,’ that was silly. ‘Insurgent Martin,’ quite as it should be. I wanted to end as I had begun, to die as my father had died, an insurrectionist in an insurrection, a barricader in a barricade. “I couldn’t get myself killed. I got taken. I belong to you. Only, I wish you would do me one favor. I have a son, a child of seventeen, he is at Cherbourg, on the hulks. He has fought, it is true, and he will not deny it; but it was I who put the musket in his hand, it was I who told him that his duty was there. He listened to me. He obeyed me. That alone is his crime. Do not condemn him too harshly. “As for me, you have hold of me—do not let me go; that’s the advice I give you. I’m too old to mend, and, besides, what would you have? Nothing can change what is: I was born on the wrong side of the barricade.”
utorak, 24. ožujka 2026.
One evening in November, the Eve of Saint Catherine, the iron gate of the Central Prison of Auberive turned on its hinges and allowed a woman of about thirty years to pass out. She was clad in a faded woollen gown, and her head was surmounted by a bonnet of linen that in an odd fashion framed her face—pallid and puffed by that grayish fat which is born of prison fare. She was a prisoner whom they had just liberated. Her fellow-convicts called her La Bretonne. Condemned for infanticide, it was just six years since the prison van had brought her to la Centrale. At length, after having donned again her street clothes, and drawing from the registry the stock of money which had been saved for her, she found herself once more free, with her road-pass viséed for Langres. The post-cart for Langres had left; so, cowed and awkward, she directed her way stumblingly toward the principal inn of the place, and in scarcely a confident voice asked a lodging for the night. The inn was full, and the landlady, who did not care to harbor “one of those jail-birds,” advised her to push on as far as the little public-house situated at the other end of the village. La Bretonne, more awkward and frightened than ever, went on her way, and knocked at the door of the public-house, which, to speak precisely, was only a drinking place for laborers. This proprietress also cast over her a distrustful eye, doubtless scenting a woman from la Centrale, and finally turned her away on the pretense that she did not keep lodgers. La Bretonne dared not insist, she merely moved away with her head down, while from the depths of her soul arose a sullen hate against this world which so repulsed her. She had no other recourse than to travel to Langres on foot. In late November night comes quickly. Soon she found herself enveloped in darkness, on the gray road which stretched between the edges of the woods, and where the north wind whistled rudely as it drove the heaps of dead leaves hither and yon. After six years of sedentary life as a recluse, she no longer knew how to walk; and the joints of her knees were rickety; her feet, accustomed to sabots, were tortured in her new shoes. After about a league they were blistered, and she herself was exhausted. She sat down on a milestone, shivering and asking herself if she must die of cold and hunger in this black night, under that icy wind which so chilled her. Suddenly, in the solitude of the road, over the squalls of wind she seemed to hear the trailing sounds of a voice in song. She strained her ears and distinguished the cadence of one of those caressing and monotonous chants with which one lulls children to sleep. Thereupon, rising again to her feet, she pressed on in the direction of the voice, and at the turn of a cross-road she saw a light which reddened through the branches. Five minutes later she reached a mud hovel, whose roof, covered with clods of earth, leaned against the rock, and whose single window had sent forth that luminous ray. With anxious heart she decided to knock. The song ceased and a peasant opened the door—a woman of the same age as la Bretonne, but already faded and aged by work. Her bodice, torn in places, showed a rough and swarthy skin; her red hair escaped dishevelled from under a little cloth cap; her gray eyes regarded with amazement this stranger whose figure revealed something of loneliness. “Well, good evening,” said she, raising higher the lamp which she held in her hand. “What do you want?” “I can go no further,” murmured la Bretonne in a voice broken by a sob. “The town is far, and if you will lodge me for this night, you’ll render me a service. I have some money, and will pay you for your trouble.” “Come in!” replied the other, after a moment of hesitation; then she continued in a tone more of curiosity than of suspicion, “Why didn’t you sleep at Auberive?” “They were not willing to lodge me”—and, lowering her blue eyes, la Bretonne, seized with a scruple, added—“because, you see, I come from the Central Prison, and that does not give folks confidence.” “Ah! Come in all the same. I, who never knew anything but poverty—I fear nothing! I have a conscience against turning a Christian from the door on a night like this. I’ll go make you a bed by strewing some heather.” She proceeded to take from under a shed several bundles of dry sweet-heather and spread them in a corner before the chimney. “You live here alone?” timidly asked la Bretonne. “Yes, with my youngster, who is nearly seven years old. I earn our living by working in the woods.” “Your man is dead?” “I never had one,” said la Fleuriotte bruskly. “The poor child hasn’t any father. As the saying is, ‘to each his sorrow.’ There, your bed is made, and here are two or three potatoes which are left over from supper—it’s all I have to offer you.” She was interrupted by a childish voice coming from a dark closet, separated from the main room by a board partition. “Good night!” she repeated. “I must go look up the little one—she’s crying. Have a good night’s sleep!” She took the lamp and went to the adjacent closet, leaving la Bretonne in darkness. Soon she was stretched upon her bed of heather. After having eaten, she tried to close her eyes, but sleep would not come. Through the partition she heard la Fleuriotte talking softly with her baby, whom the arrival of the stranger had awakened, and who did not wish to go to sleep again. La Fleuriotte petted her, she embraced her with caressing words—naïve expressions which strangely stirred la Bretonne. The outburst of tenderness awakened a confused instinct of motherhood buried deep in the soul of that girl who had once been condemned for having stifled her new-born babe. La Bretonne reflected that “if things had not gone badly” with her, her own child would have been just as old as this little girl. At that thought, and at the sound of the childish voice, she shuddered in her inmost soul; something tender and loving was born in that embittered heart, and she felt an overwhelming need for tears. “Come, my pet,” said la Fleuriotte, “hurry off to sleep. If you are good, I’ll take you to-morrow to the fête of Saint Catherine.” “Saint Catherine’s—that’s the fête for little girls, isn’t it, Mamma?” “Yes, my own.” “Is it true, then, that on this day Saint Catherine gives playthings to the children?” “Yes—sometimes.” “Why doesn’t she ever bring anything to our house?” “We live too far away; and, besides, we are too poor.” “Then, she brings them only to rich children! Why? I—I’d love to have some playthings.” “Ah, well! Some day—if you are quite good—if you go to sleep nicely—perhaps she will bring you some.” “All right—I’m going to sleep—so that she’ll bring me some to-morrow.” Silence. Then regular and gentle breathing. The child had fallen asleep, and the mother too. Only la Bretonne did not sleep. An emotion both poignant and tender wrung her heart, and she thought more fixedly than ever of that little one whom long ago she had stifled. This lasted until the first gleams of dawn. At early daylight la Fleuriotte and her child still slept. La Bretonne furtively glided out of the house, and, walking hastily in the direction of Auberive, did not pause until she reached the first houses. Once there, she again passed slowly up the single street, scanning the signs of the shops. At last one of these seemed to fix her attention. She rapped upon the window-shutter, and by and by it was opened. It was a dry-goods shop, but they also had some children’s playthings—poor shopworn toys—paper dolls, a Noah’s ark, a sheep-fold. To the great amazement of the shopkeeper, la Bretonne bought them all, paid, and went out. She was again on the road to la Fleuriotte’s hovel when a hand was laid heavily on her shoulder. Tremblingly she turned and found herself facing a corporal of gensdarmes. The unhappy woman had forgotten that convicts were not permitted after their release to remain in the neighborhood of the prison! “Instead of loafing here, you should be already at Langres,” said the corporal severely. “Go along—on your way!” She sought to explain—her pains were lost! In the twinkling of an eye a cart was requisitioned, she was put in under the escort of a gendarme, and the driver whipped up his horse. The cart rumbled joltingly over the frozen road. Poor la Bretonne heart-brokenly clutched the package of playthings in her chilled fingers. At a turn of the highway she recognized the cross-path through the woods. Her heart leaped, and she pleaded with the gendarme to stop—she had an errand for la Fleuriotte, a woman who lived there, only a couple of steps away. She pleaded with so much earnestness that the gendarme, a good fellow at heart, allowed himself to be persuaded. They tied the horse to the tree and went up the path. In front of her door la Fleuriotte was chopping up wood into faggots. Upon seeing her visitor back again, accompanied by a gendarme, she stood open-mouthed, her arms hanging. “Chut!” said la Bretonne, “is the little one still asleep?” “Yes, but——” “Lay these playthings gently on her bed, and tell her that Saint Catherine sent them. I went back to Auberive to hunt for them, but it seems that I hadn’t the right to do so, and they are sending me to Langres.” “Holy Mother of God!” cried la Fleuriotte. “Pshaw!” She drew near the bed. Followed always by her guard, la Bretonne spread over the coverlet the dolls, the ark, and the flock of sheep. Then she kissed the bare arm of the sleeping child, and, turning toward the gendarme, who stood staring: “Now,” said she, “we can go on.”
ponedjeljak, 23. ožujka 2026.
MILLENNIUM BY EVERETT B. COLE - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/24779/pg24779-images.html
There are devices a high-level culture could produce that simply don't belong in the hands of incompetents of lower cultural evolution. The finest, and most civilized of tools can be made a menace ...
In the time of King Louis, there lived in France a poor juggler, native of Compiègne, named Barnabas, who went among the villages doing feats of strength and skill. On market days he would spread out on the public square an old carpet very much worn, and, after having attracted the children and the gazing bumpkins by some suitable pleasantries which he had adopted from an old juggler and which he never changed at all, he would assume grotesque attitudes and balance a plate on his nose. The crowd at first looked at him with indifference. But when, standing on his hands with his head downward, he tossed in the air six copper balls which glittered in the sun, and caught them again with his feet; or when, by bending backward until his neck touched his heels, he gave his body the form of a perfect wheel, and in that posture juggled with twelve knives, a murmur of admiration rose from the onlookers, and pieces of money rained upon the carpet. However, like the majority of those who live by their talents, Barnabas of Compiègne had much difficulty in living. Earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, he bore more than his part of the miseries connected with the fall of Adam, our father. Moreover, he was unable to work as much as he would have wished. In order to show off his fine accomplishment, he needed the warmth of the sun and the light of day, just as do the trees in order to produce their blossoms and fruits. In winter he was nothing more than a tree despoiled of its foliage and to appearance dead. The frozen earth was hard for the juggler. And, like the grasshopper of which Marie of France tells, he suffered from cold and from hunger in the bad season. But, since he possessed a simple heart, he bore his ills in patience. He had never reflected upon the origin of riches, nor upon the inequality of human conditions. He believed firmly that, if this world is evil, the other cannot fail to be good, and this hope sustained him. He did not imitate the thieving mountebanks and miscreants who have sold their souls to the devil. He never blasphemed the name of God; he lived honestly, and, although he had no wife, he did not covet his neighbor’s, for woman is the enemy of strong men, as appears from the history of Samson, which is reported in the Scriptures. In truth, he had not a spirit which turned to carnal desires, and it would have cost him more to renounce the jugs than the women. For, although without failing in sobriety, he loved to drink when it was warm. He was a good man, fearing God and very devout toward the Holy Virgin. He never failed, when he entered a church, to kneel before the image of the Mother of God and address to her this prayer: “Madame, take care of my life until it may please God that I die, and when I am dead, cause me to have the joys of paradise.” II. Well, then, on a certain evening after a day of rain, while he was walking, sad and bent, carrying under his arm his balls and knives wrapped up in his old carpet, and seeking for some barn in which he might lie down supperless, he saw on the road a monk who was travelling the same way, and saluted him decorously. As they were walking at an equal pace, they began to exchange remarks. “Comrade,” said the monk, “how comes it that you are habited all in green? Is it not for the purpose of taking the character of a fool in some mystery-play?” “Not for that purpose, father,” responded Barnabas. “Such as you see me, I am named Barnabas, and I am by calling a juggler. It would be the most beautiful occupation in the world if one could eat every day.” “Friend Barnabas,” replied the monk, “take care what you say. There is no more beautiful calling than the monastic state. Therein one celebrates the praises of God, the Virgin, and the saints, and the life of a monk is a perpetual canticle to the Lord.” Barnabas answered: “Father, I confess that I have spoken like an ignoramus. Your calling may not be compared with mine, and, although there is some merit in dancing while holding on the tip of the nose a coin balanced on a stick, this merit does not approach yours. I should like very well to sing every day, as you do, Father, the office of the most Holy Virgin, to whom I have vowed a particular devotion. I would right willingly renounce my calling, in which I am known from Soissons to Beauvais, in more than six hundred towns and villages, in order to embrace the monastic life.” The monk was touched by the simplicity of the juggler, and, as he did not lack discernment, he recognized in Barnabas one of those men of good purpose whereof our Lord said: “Let peace abide with them on earth!” This is why he replied to him: “Friend Barnabas, come with me, and I will enable you to enter the monastery of which I am the prior. He who conducted Mary the Egyptian through the desert has placed me on your path to lead you in the way of salvation.” This is how Barnabas became a monk. In the monastery where he was received, the brethren emulously solemnized the cult of the Holy Virgin, and each one employed in her service all the knowledge and all the ability which God had given him. The prior, for his part, composed books which, according to the rules of scholasticism, treated of the virtues of the Mother of God. Friar Maurice with a learned hand copied these dissertations on leaves of vellum. Friar Alexander painted fine miniatures, wherein one could see the Queen of Heaven seated upon the throne of Solomon, at the foot of which four lions kept vigil. Around her haloed head fluttered seven doves, which are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: gifts of fear, piety, science, might, counsel, intelligence, and wisdom. She had for companions six golden-haired Virgins: Humility, Prudence, Retirement, Respect, Virginity, and Obedience. At her feet two small figures, nude and quite white, were standing in a suppliant attitude. They were souls who implored her all-powerful intercession for their salvation—and certainly not in vain. On another page Friar Alexander represented Eve gazing upon Mary, so that thus one might see at the same time the sin and the redemption, the woman humiliated and the Virgin exalted. Furthermore, in this book one might admire the Well of Living Waters, the Fountain, the Lily, the Moon, the Sun, and the closed Garden which is spoken of in the Canticle, the Gate of Heaven and the Seat of God, and there were also several images of the Virgin. Friar Marbode was, similarly, one of the most affectionate children of Mary. He carved images in stone without ceasing, so that his beard, his eyebrows, and his hair were white with dust, and his eyes were perpetually swollen and tearful; but he was full of strength and joy in his advanced age, and, visibly, the Queen of Paradise protected the old age of her child. Marbode represented her seated on a bishop’s throne, her brow encircled by a nimbus whose orb was of pearls, and he took pains that the folds of her robe should cover the feet of one of whom the prophet said: “My beloved is like a closed garden.” At times, also, he gave her the features of a child full of grace, and she seemed to say: “Lord, thou art my Lord!”—“Dixi de ventre matris meæ: Deus meus es tu.” (Psalm 21, 11.) They had also in the monastery several poets, who composed, in Latin, both prose and hymns in honor of the most happy Virgin Mary, and there was even found one Picardian who set forth the miracles of Our-Lady in ordinary language and in rhymed verses. III. Seeing such a concourse of praises and such a beautiful in-gathering of works, Barnabas lamented to himself his ignorance and his simplicity. “Alas!” he sighed as he walked along in the little garden of the convent, “I am very unfortunate not to be able, like my brothers, to praise worthily the Holy Mother of God to whom I have pledged the tenderness of my heart. Alas! Alas! I am a rude and artless man, and I have for your service, Madam the Virgin, neither edifying sermons, nor tracts properly divided according to the rules, nor fine paintings, nor statues exactly sculptured, nor verses counted by feet and marching in measure. I have nothing, alas!” He moaned in this manner and abandoned himself to sadness. One night that the monks were recreating by conversing, he heard one of them relate the history of a religious who did not know how to recite anything but the Ave Maria. This monk was disdained for his ignorance; but, having died, there came forth from his lips five roses in honor of the five letters in the name of Maria, and his sanctity was thus manifested. While listening to this recital Barnabas admired once again the bounty of the Virgin; but he was not consoled by the example of that happy death, for his heart was full of zeal, and he desired to serve the glory of his Lady who was in Heaven. He sought the means without being able to find them, and every day he grieved the more. One morning, however, having awakened full of joy, he ran to the chapel and stayed there alone for more than an hour. He returned there after dinner. And beginning from that moment he went every day into the chapel at the hour when it was deserted, and there he passed a large part of the time which the other monks consecrated to the liberal and the mechanical arts. No more was he sad and no longer did he complain. A conduct so singular aroused the curiosity of the monks. They asked themselves in the community why Friar Barnabas made his retreats so frequent. The Prior, whose duty it is to ignore nothing in the conduct of his monks, resolved to observe Barnabas during his solitudes. One day that he was closeted in the chapel as his custom was, Dom Prior went, accompanied by two elders of the monastery, to observe through the windows of the door what was going on in the interior. They saw Barnabas, who—before the altar of the Holy Virgin, head downward, feet in air—was juggling with six brass balls and twelve knives. He was doing in honor of the Holy Mother of God the feats which had brought to him the most applause. Not comprehending that this simple man was thus placing his talent and his knowledge at the service of the Holy Virgin, the two elders cried out at the sacrilege. The Prior understood that Barnabas had an innocent heart; but he thought that he had fallen into dementia. All three were preparing to drag him vigorously from the chapel when they saw the Holy Virgin descend the steps of the altar in order to wipe with a fold of her blue mantle the sweat which burst from the brow of her juggler. Then the Prior, prostrating his face against the marble slabs, recited these words: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God!” “Amen,” responded the elders as they kissed the earth.
nedjelja, 22. ožujka 2026.
On the twenty-second of January, 1793, about eight o’clock in the evening, an old lady was walking down the steep hill that ends in front of the church of Saint Laurent, in the Faubourg Saint Martin in Paris. It had snowed so much throughout the day that foot-falls could scarcely be heard. The streets were deserted. The very natural dread inspired by the silence was augmented by all the terror which at that time caused France to groan; then, too, the old lady had not as yet met any one; her sight had long been feeble, so for this and for other reasons she could not discern by the lights of the lanterns the few distant passers-by, who were scattered like phantoms on the broad highway of the quarter. She went on courageously alone through that solitude, as though her age were a talisman which would preserve her from all evil. When she had passed the rue des Morts, she thought she could distinguish the heavy and resolute steps of a man walking behind her. She fancied that she had heard that sound before; she was frightened at having been followed, and tried to walk more rapidly in order to reach a brightly lighted shop, hoping to be able in the light to settle the suspicions that had seized her. As soon as she found herself within the direct rays of light which came from the shop, she quickly turned her head and glimpsed a human form in the haze; that indistinct vision sufficed. She faltered a moment under the weight of the terror which oppressed her, for she doubted no longer that she had been followed by the stranger from the first step that she had taken outside of her home, but the desire to escape from a spy lent her strength. Incapable of reasoning, she doubled her pace, as though she could escape from a man who was, necessarily, more agile than she. After running for several minutes she reached the shop of a pastry-cook, rushed in, and tumbled rather than sat down upon a chair in front of the counter. The moment she rattled the door-latch, a young woman who was occupied in embroidering raised her eyes, recognized through the glass partition the old-fashioned mantle of violet silk in which the old lady was enveloped, and hastened to open a drawer, as though to take out something which she intended to give her. Not only did the young woman’s movement and expression indicate a wish to be rid promptly of the unknown, as if she were one of those persons whom one is not glad to see, but she even allowed an expression of impatience to escape her upon finding that the drawer was empty; then, without looking at the lady, she rushed from the counter, turned toward the back shop, and called her husband, who appeared immediately. “Now, where did you put—,” she demanded of him, with a mysterious air, and designated the old lady by a turn of the eye, without finishing her sentence. Although the pastry-cook could see only the immense black silk bonnet, surrounded by knots of violet ribbons, which formed the head-dress of the unknown, he turned away, after having given his wife a look which seemed to say, “Did you suppose that I would leave that on your counter?” and quickly disappeared. Astounded by the old lady’s silence and immobility, the tradeswoman walked toward her, and as she examined her she was conscious of a feeling of compassion, and perhaps also of curiosity. Although the stranger’s complexion was naturally pallid, like that of a person vowed to secret austerities, it was easy to recognize that some recent emotion had given her an extraordinary pallor. Her head-dress was so disposed as to hide her hair—doubtless whitened by age, since the neatness of the collar of her dress proclaimed that she did not use hair-powder. That article of adornment lent to her figure a sort of religious severity. Her features were grave and dignified. Formerly the manners and the habitudes of people of quality were so different from those of people belonging to the other classes that one easily divined a person of the nobility. So the young woman was herself persuaded that the unknown was a member of the outlawed nobility, and that she had belonged to the court. “Madame—” she said to her, involuntarily, and with respect, forgetting that this title was proscribed. The old lady did not respond. She held her eyes fixed upon the window of the shop, as if some terrifying object had there been descried. “What is the matter, Citizeness?” asked the proprietor of the shop who reappeared at that moment. The citizen pastry-cook aroused the lady from her revery by handing to her a little pasteboard box, covered with blue paper. “Nothing, nothing, my friends,” she replied in a mild voice. She raised her eyes to the pastry-cook as though to cast upon him a glance of gratitude; but upon seeing him with a red bonnet upon his head, she allowed a cry to escape her: “Ah! you have betrayed me!” The young woman and her husband replied by a gesture of horror which caused the Unknown to blush—perhaps for having suspicion, perhaps from pleasure. “Excuse me,” she said, with a childlike gentleness. Then, taking a louis d’or from her pocket, she presented it to the pastry-cook. “Here is the price agreed upon,” she added. There is an indigence which the poor know how to divine. The pastry-cook and his wife looked at each other and watched the old lady, while they exchanged the same thought. That louis d’or seemed to be the last. The hands of the lady trembled in offering that piece, which she looked upon with sadness and without avarice, for she seemed to realize the full extent of the sacrifice. Fasting and misery were graven upon that face in lines quite as legible as those of fear and her habits of asceticism. There were in her garments some vestiges of magnificence: the silk was threadbare, the cloak neat though old-fashioned, the lace carefully mended—in short, the tatters of opulence! The tradespeople, placed between pity and self-interest, commenced to solace their consciences by words: “But Citizeness, you seem very feeble—” “Perhaps Madame would like to take some refreshment?” asked the woman, cutting the words of her husband short. “We are not so black as we are painted!” cried the pastry-cook. “It’s so cold! Madame was perhaps chilled by her walk? But you may rest here and warm yourself a little.” Won by the tone of benevolence which animated the words of the charitable shopkeepers, the lady avowed that she had been followed by a stranger, and that she was afraid to return home alone. “It is no more than that?” replied the man with the red hat. “Wait for me, Citizeness.” He gave the louis to his wife; then, moved by that species of restitution which glides into the conscience of a merchant when he has received an exorbitant price for merchandise of mediocre value, he went to put on his uniform of the National Guard, took his chapeau, thrust his sabre into his belt, and reappeared under arms; but his wife had had time to reflect. As in many other hearts, reflection closed the hand opened by beneficence. Disturbed, and fearing to see her husband in a bad affair, the pastry-cook’s wife essayed to stop him by tugging at the skirt of his coat. But, obedient to a sentiment of charity, the brave man offered to escort the old lady at once. “It seems that the man who frightened the Citizeness is still prowling about the shop,” said the young woman nervously. “I am afraid so,” artlessly replied the lady. “If he should be a spy! If it should be a conspiracy! Don’t go; and take back from her the box.” These words, breathed into the ear of the pastry-cook by his wife, froze the impromptu courage which had possessed him. “Eh’ I’ll just go out and say two words to him, and rid you of him quickly,” cried the pastry-cook, opening the door and rushing out. The old lady, passive as an infant, and almost dazed, reseated herself upon the chair. The honest merchant was not slow in reappearing; his face, naturally red, and still more flushed by the heat of his oven, had suddenly become livid; such a great fright agitated him that his legs trembled and his eyes looked like those of a drunken man. “Do you wish to have our heads cut off, miserable aristocrat?” he shrieked at her with fury. “Just show us your heels, never come back here again, and don’t count any more on me to furnish you the stuff for conspiracy.” As he ejaculated these words, the pastry-cook tried to take from the old lady the little box which she had put in one of her pockets. But scarcely had the bold hands of the pastry-cook touched her vestments than the Unknown, preferring to face the dangers of her way home without other defense than God, rather than to lose that which she had come to purchase, recovered the agility of her youth; she darted toward the door, opened it abruptly, and disappeared before the eyes of the stupefied and trembling woman and her husband. As soon as the Unknown found herself outside, she began walking rapidly; but her strength soon failed her, for she heard the spy by whom she was pitilessly followed make the snow craunch under the pressure of his heavy steps. She was obliged to stop—he stopped. She dared neither to speak to him nor to look at him, whether on account of the fear with which she was seized or from lack of intelligence. She continued her way, walking slowly; thereupon the man slackened his steps so as to remain standing at a distance which permitted him to keep his eye upon her. He seemed to be the very shadow of that old woman. Nine o’clock was striking when the silent couple repassed in front of the church of Saint Laurent. It is in the nature of all souls, even the most infirm, that a feeling of calm should succeed one of violent agitation, for if our feelings are infinite, our organs are limited. And so the Unknown, not experiencing any harm from her supposed persecutor, chose to see in him a secret friend, eager to protect her. She reconstructed all the circumstances which had accompanied the Stranger’s appearances, as if to find plausible arguments for that consoling opinion, and she then took pleasure in recognizing in him good rather than evil intentions. Forgetting the fright which that man had inspired in the pastry-cook, she advanced with a firm step into the higher regions of the Faubourg Saint-Martin. After a half-hour of walking, she reached a house situated near the junction formed by the main street of the Faubourg and that which leads to the Barrière de Pantin. Even to-day that spot is one of the most deserted of all Paris. The north wind, passing over the Buttes Chaumont and from Bellville, whistles athwart the houses, or rather the hovels, scattered about in that almost uninhabited valley where the dividing lines are walls made of earth and bones. That desolate place seemed to be the natural asylum of misery and despair. The man who had persisted in the pursuit of the poor creature who had the hardihood to traverse those silent streets at night seemed impressed by the spectacle presented to his eyes. He rested pensively, standing and in an attitude of hesitation, in the feeble light of a lantern whose uncertain rays with difficulty pierced the mist. Fear gave eyes to the old woman, who fancied that she could perceive something sinister in the features of the Stranger. She felt her terrors reawake, and profited by the sort of uncertainty which had retarded the man’s advance to glide in the darkness toward the door of the lonely house. She pressed a spring, and disappeared like a ghost. The Stranger, immobile, contemplated that house, which stood in some sort as the type of the miserable habitations of the quarter. That rickety hovel, built of rubble, was covered by a coat of yellow plaster, so deeply cracked that one thought to see it tumble before the least effort of the wind. The roof, of brown tiles and covered with moss, had so sunk in several places as to make it seem likely to give way under the weight of the snow. Each floor there had three windows, whose sashes, rotted by dampness and disjointed by the action of the sun, announced that the cold must penetrate into the room. That isolated house resembled an old tower which time had forgotten to destroy. A feeble light shone through the windows which irregularly cleft the mansard roof by which the poor edifice was crowned, while all the rest of the house was in complete obscurity. The old woman climbed, not without difficulty, the steep and rough staircase, whose length was supplied with a rope in the guise of a baluster. She knocked mysteriously at the door of the apartment which she found in the attic, and dropped hastily upon a chair which an old man offered her. “Hide! hide yourself!” she said to him. “Although we go out very rarely, our movements are known, our footsteps are spied upon.” “What is there new in that?” demanded another old lady, seated beside the fire. “The man who has been prowling around the house since yesterday followed me to-night.” At these words the three occupants of the attic regarded one another, allowing signs of profound terror to appear on their faces. The old man was the least agitated of the three, perhaps because he was in the greatest danger. Under the weight of a great calamity, or under the yoke of persecution, a courageous man begins, so to say, by making the sacrifice of himself; he looks upon his days as just so many victories won back from destiny. The looks of the two women, fastened upon this old man, made it easy to divine that he was the sole object of their intense solicitude. “Why despair of God, my sisters?” said he in a voice low but impressive. “We sang His praises amid the cries which the assassins raised, and the groans of the dying at the Carmelite convent. If He decreed that I should be saved from that butchery, it was doubtless in order to reserve me for a destiny which I must accept without murmuring. God protects his own, He may dispose of them at His pleasure. It is of you, and not of me, that we must think.” “No,” said one of the old ladies; “what are our lives in comparison with that of a priest?” “When once I found myself outside of the Abbey of Chelles, I considered myself as dead,” said that one of the two nuns who had not gone out. “Here,” replied the one who had come in, handing the priest the little box, “here are the wafers.... But,” she cried, “I hear some one mounting the stairs!” All three thereupon listened intently. The sounds ceased. “Do not be affrighted,” said the priest, “if some one should essay to enter. A person upon whose fidelity we can count has undoubtedly taken all needful measures to pass the frontier, and will come to seek the letters which I have written to the Duc de Langeais and to the Marquis de Beauséant, asking them to consider the means of rescuing you from this terrible country, from the death or the misery which awaits you here.” “You do not mean to go with us, then?” cried the two nuns gently, manifesting a sort of despair. “My place is where there are victims,” said the priest with simplicity. They remained silent, and gazed at their companion with devout admiration. “Sister Martha,” he said, addressing the nun who had gone to get the wafers, “that messenger I speak of will reply ‘Fiat voluntas’ to the word ‘Hosanna.’” “There is some one on the stairs!” cried the other nun, opening the door of a hiding-place under the roof. This time they could easily hear, amid the most profound silence, the footsteps of a man resounding upon the stairs, whose treads were covered with ridges made by the hardened mud. The priest crept with difficulty into a species of cupboard, and the nun threw over him some garments. “You may close the door, Sister Agatha,” said he in a muffled voice. The priest was scarcely hidden before three taps on the door gave a shock to the two saintly women, who consulted each other with their eyes, without daring to pronounce a single word. They each seemed to be about sixty years old. Separated from the world for forty years, they were like plants habituated to the air of a hothouse, which wilt if they are taken from it. Accustomed to the life of a convent, they were no longer able to conceive of any other. One morning, their grating having been shattered, they shuddered to find themselves free. One can easily imagine the species of artificial imbecility which the events of the Revolution had produced in their innocent hearts. Incapable of reconciling their conventual ideas with the difficulties of life, and not even comprehending their situation, they resembled those children who have been zealously cared for hitherto, and who, abandoned by their motherly protector, pray instead of weeping. And so, in face of the danger which they apprehended at that moment, they remained mute and passive, having no conception of any other defense than Christian resignation. The man who desired to enter interpreted that silence in his own manner. He opened the door and appeared suddenly before them. The two nuns shuddered as they recognized the man who for some time had been prowling about their house and making inquiries about them. They remained stock-still, but gazed at him with anxious curiosity, after the manner of savage children, who examine strangers in silence. The man was tall and large; but nothing in his demeanor, in his air, nor in his physiognomy indicated an evil man. He imitated the immobility of the nuns, and moved his eyes slowly about the room in which he found himself. Two straw mats, laid upon boards, served the two nuns as beds. A single table was in the middle of the room and upon it they had placed a copper candlestick, a few plates, three knives, and a round loaf of bread. The fire on the hearth was meagre. A few sticks of wood piled in a corner attested the poverty of the two recluses. The walls, coated with an ancient layer of paint, proved the bad state of the roof, for stains like brown threads marked the infiltrations of the rainwater. A relic, rescued doubtless from the pillage of the Abbey of Chelles, adorned the chimney mantel. Three chairs, two coffers, and a wretched chest of drawers completed the furniture of the room. A door beside the chimney allowed one to conjecture the existence of a second chamber. The inventory of the cell was speedily made by the person who had thrust himself under such alarming auspices into the midst of that group. A sentiment of commiseration painted itself upon his face, and he cast a benevolent glance upon the two women, at least as embarrassed as they. The singular silence preserved by all three lasted but a short time, for the Stranger at last divined the moral simplicity and the inexperience of the two poor creatures, and he said to them in a voice which he tried to soften: “I do not come here as an enemy, Citizenesses.” He paused, and then resumed: “My sisters, if there should come to you any misfortune, believe that I have not contributed to it.... I have a favor to ask of you.” They still maintained their silence. “If I seem importunate, if ... I embarrass you, tell me so freely.... I will go; but understand that I am entirely devoted to you; that if there is any good office that I am able to render you, you may employ me without fear; and that I alone, perhaps, am above the law, since there is no longer a king.” There was such an accent of truth in these words that Sister Agatha, the one of the two nuns who belonged to the family of Langeais, and whose manners seemed to say that she had formerly known the magnificence of fêtes and had breathed the air of the court, instantly pointed to one of the chairs, as if to ask their guest to be seated. The Stranger manifested a sort of joy mingled with sadness as he recognized that gesture; and he waited until the two venerable women were seated, before seating himself. “You have given shelter,” he continued, “to a venerable unsworn priest, who has miraculously escaped the massacre at the Carmelites.” “Hosanna!” said Sister Agatha, interrupting the Stranger, and gazing at him with anxious inquiry. “I don’t think that is his name,” he replied. “But, monsieur,” said Sister Martha hastily, “we haven’t any priest here, and——” “In that case, you must be more careful and more prudent,” retorted the Stranger gently, reaching to the table and taking up a breviary. “I do not believe that you understand Latin, and——” He did not continue, for the extraordinary emotion depicted on the faces of the two poor nuns made him feel that he had gone too far; they were trembling, and their eyes were filled with tears. “Reassure yourselves,” he said to them in a cheery voice; “I know the name of your guest, and yours; and three days ago I was informed of your destination and of your devotion to the venerable Abbé of——” “Chut!” said Sister Agatha naïvely, putting her finger to her lips. “You see, my sisters, that if I had formed the horrible design of betraying you, I might already have accomplished it more than once.” When he heard these words, the priest emerged from his prison and reappeared in the middle of the room. “I cannot believe, monsieur,” he said to the Stranger, “that you can be one of our persecutors, and I have faith in you. What do you want of me?” The saintlike confidence of the priest, the nobility that shone in all his features, would have disarmed assassins. The mysterious personage who had enlivened that scene of misery and resignation gazed for a moment at the group formed by these three; then he assumed a confidential tone, and addressed the priest in these words: “Father, I have come to implore you to celebrate a mortuary mass for the repose of the soul of a—a consecrated person, whose body, however, will never repose in holy ground.” The priest involuntarily shuddered. The two nuns, not understanding as yet of whom the Stranger was speaking, stood with necks outstretched, and faces turned towards the two speakers in an attitude of curiosity. The ecclesiastic scrutinized the Stranger; unfeigned anxiety was depicted upon his face, and his eyes expressed the most ardent supplication. “Very well,” replied the priest; “to-night, at midnight, return, and I shall be ready to celebrate the only funeral service which we can offer in expiation of the crime of which you speak.” The Stranger started; but a satisfaction, at once gentle and solemn, seemed to triumph over some secret grief. After having respectfully saluted the priest and the two holy women, he disappeared, manifesting a sort of mute gratitude which was comprehended by those three noble hearts. About two hours after this scene the Stranger returned, knocked discreetly at the attic door, and was admitted by Mademoiselle de Beauséant, who conducted him into the second room of that modest retreat, where everything had been prepared for the ceremony. Between the flues of the chimney the two nuns had carried the old chest of drawers, whose decrepit outlines were concealed beneath a magnificent altar-cloth of green moiré silk. A large crucifix of ebony and ivory was fastened upon the yellow wall, which served to emphasize its nakedness, and irresistibly drew the eye. Four little fluttering wax-tapers, which the sisters had succeeded in fixing upon that improvised altar by means of sealing wax, threw a light pale and sickly, which was reflected by the wall. That feeble glow scarcely illuminated the rest of the room, but by shedding its glory only over those holy things upon that unadorned altar, it seemed a ray from the torch of heaven. The floor was damp. The roof, which on two sides declined abruptly, as in a loft, had several cracks, through which passed an icy wind. Nothing displayed less pomp, and yet perhaps nothing could have been more solemn than that sad ceremony. A profound silence that would have permitted them to hear the faintest sound on distant thoroughfares diffused a sort of sombre majesty over that nocturnal scene. In short, the grandeur of the occasion contrasted so strongly with the poverty of the surroundings that the result was a sentiment of religious awe. On either side of the altar, the two old nuns, kneeling on the damp floor, heedless of the deadly moisture, prayed in concert with the priest, who, clad in his pontifical vestments, prepared a golden chalice ornamented with precious stones, a consecrated vessel rescued doubtless from the pillage of the Abbey of Chelles. Beside that pyx, a monument of royal magnificence, were the water and wine destined for the sacrament, contained in two glasses scarcely worthy of the lowest tavern. In default of a missal, the priest had placed his breviary on a corner of the altar. A common plate was provided for the washing of those innocent hands, pure of bloodshed. All was majestic, and yet paltry; poor, but noble; profane and holy at the same time. The Stranger knelt piously between the two nuns. But suddenly, when he noticed a band of crape on the chalice and on the crucifix—for, having nothing to indicate the purpose of that mortuary mass, the priest had draped God Himself in mourning—he was assailed by such an overpowering memory that drops of sweat gathered upon his broad forehead. The four silent actors in that scene gazed at one another mysteriously; then their hearts, acting upon one another, communicated their sentiments to one another and flowed together into a single religious commiseration; it was as if their thoughts had evoked the martyr whose remains had been devoured by quicklime, and whose shade stood before them in all its royal majesty. They celebrated an obit without the body of the deceased. Beneath those disjointed tiles and laths, four Christians had come to intercede before God for a king of France, and perform his obsequies without a bier. It was the purest of all possible devotions, an astounding act of fidelity, accomplished without a selfish thought. Doubtless, in the eyes of God, it was like the cup of cold water which balances the greatest virtues. The whole of monarchy was there, in the prayers of a priest and of two poor women; but perhaps also the Revolution was represented, by that man whose face betrayed too much remorse not to cause a belief that he was fulfilling the vows of an immense repentance. In lieu of pronouncing the Latin words, “Introibo ad altare Dei,” etc., the priest, by a divine inspiration, looked at the three assistants who represented Christian France, and said to them, in order to efface the poverty of that wretched place: “We are about to enter into the sanctuary of God!” At these words, uttered with an impressive unction, a holy awe seized the assistant and the two nuns. Beneath the arches of St. Peter’s at Rome God could not have appeared with more majesty than He then appeared in that asylum of poverty, before the eyes of those Christians; so true is it that between man and Him every intermediary seems useless, and that He derives His grandeur from Himself alone. The fervor of the Stranger was genuine, and so the sentiment which united the prayers of those four servitors of God and the king was unanimous. The sacred words rang out like celestial music amid the silence. There was a moment when tears choked the Stranger; it was during the paternoster. The priest added to it this Latin prayer, which was evidently understood by the Stranger: “Et remitte scelus regicidis sicut Ludovicus eis remisit semetipse! (And pardon the guilt of the regicides even as Louis himself forgave them!)” The two nuns saw two great tears leave a humid trace adown the manly cheeks of the Stranger, and fall upon the floor. The Office for the Dead was recited. The Domine salvum fac regem, chanted in a deep voice, touched the hearts of those faithful royalists, who reflected that the infant king, for whom at that moment they were supplicating the Most High, was a prisoner in the hands of his enemies. The Stranger shuddered at the thought that there might yet be committed a new crime, in which he would doubtless be forced to participate. When the funeral service was terminated, the priest made a sign to the two nuns, who retired. As soon as he found himself alone with the Stranger, he walked towards him with a mild and melancholy expression, and said to him in a paternal voice: “My son, if you have dipped your hands in the blood of the martyr king, confess yourself to me. There is no sin which, in the eyes of God, may not be effaced by repentance as touching and sincere as yours seems to be.” At the first words pronounced by the ecclesiastic, the Stranger allowed an involuntary movement of terror to escape him; but he resumed a calm countenance, and regarded the astonished priest with assurance. “Father,” he said to him in a perceptibly altered voice, “no one is more innocent than I of bloodshed.” “I am bound to believe you,” said the priest. There was a pause, during which he examined his penitent more closely; then, persisting in taking him for one of those timid members of the Convention who sacrificed an inviolable and consecrated head in order to preserve their own, he continued in a solemn voice: “Remember, my son, that it is not enough, in order to be absolved from that great crime, not to have actually taken part in it. Those who, when they might have defended the king, left their swords in the scabbard, will have a very heavy account to render before the King of the Heavens.... Ah, yes!” added the old priest, shaking his head with an expressive movement, “yes, very heavy; for, by remaining idle, they became the involuntary accomplices of that hideous crime.” “Do you think,” demanded the stupefied Stranger, “that an indirect participation will be punished?... The soldier who is ordered to join the shooting-squad, is he also culpable?” The priest hesitated. Pleased with the dilemma in which he had placed that puritan of royalty by planting him between the dogma of passive obedience, which, according to the partisans of monarchy, dominates the military codes, and the no less important dogma which consecrates the respect due to the persons of kings, the Stranger was ready to see in the hesitation of the priest a favorable solution of the doubts by which he seemed to be tormented. Then, in order not to allow the venerable Jansenist any more time to reflect, he said to him: “I should blush to offer you any sort of compensation for the funeral service which you have celebrated for the repose of the king’s soul and for the relief of my conscience. One cannot pay for an inestimable thing except by an offering which is also priceless. Deign, then, monsieur, to accept the gift of a blessed relic which I offer you. A day will come, perhaps, when you will understand its value.” As he said these words, the Stranger handed the ecclesiastic a small box of light weight; the priest took it involuntarily, so to speak, for the solemnity of the man’s words, the tone in which he said them, and the respect with which he handled the box, had plunged him into a profound surprise. They then returned to the room where the two nuns were awaiting them. “You are,” said the Stranger, “in a house whose owner, Mucius Scaevola, the plasterer who occupies the first floor, is celebrated throughout the section for his patriotism; but he is secretly attached to the Bourbons. He used to be a huntsman of Monseigneur the Prince of Conti, and to him he owes his fortune. If you do not go out of his house, you are in greater safety here than in any place else in France. Stay here. Devout hearts will attend to your necessities, and you may await without danger less evil times. A year hence, on the twenty-first of January”—(in uttering these words he could not conceal an involuntary movement)—“if you continue to adopt this dismal place of asylum, I will return to celebrate with you the expiatory mass.” He said no more. He bowed to the silent occupants of the attic, cast a last glance upon the evidences which testified of their indigence, and went away. To the two innocent nuns, such an adventure had all the interest of a romance; and so, as soon as the venerable abbé informed them of the mysterious gift so solemnly bestowed upon him by that man, the box was placed upon the table and the three faces, unquiet, dimly lighted by the candle, betrayed an indescribable curiosity. Mademoiselle de Langeais opened the box, and found therein a handkerchief of very fine linen, drenched with perspiration; and, on unfolding it, they recognized stains. “It is blood!” said the priest. “It is marked with the royal crown!” cried the other nun. The two sisters dropped the precious relic with horror. To those two naïve souls the mystery in which the Stranger was enveloped became altogether inexplicable; and as for the priest, from that day he did not even seek an explanation. The three prisoners were not slow in perceiving that in spite of the Terror a powerful arm was stretched over them. In the first place, they received some wood and some provisions; then the two nuns realized that a woman must be associated with their protector, when some one sent them linen and clothing which enabled them to go out without being remarked on account of the aristocratic fashion of the garments which they had been forced to retain; and lastly, Mucius Scaevola gave them two cards of citizenship. Often, advice necessary to the priest’s safety reached him by devious ways; and he found this advice so opportune that it could have been given only by one initiated in secrets of state. Despite the famine which prevailed in Paris, the outcasts found at the door of their lodging rations of white bread which were regularly brought there by invisible hands; nevertheless, they believed that they could recognize in Mucius Scaevola the mysterious agent of that benefaction, which was always as ingenious as it was discerning. The noble occupants of the attic could not doubt that their protector was the person who had come to ask the priest to celebrate the expiatory mass on the night of the twenty-second of January, 1793; so that he became the object of a peculiar cult of worship to those three beings, who had no hope except in him, and lived only through him. They had added special prayers for him to their devotions; night and morning those pious hearts lifted their voices for his happiness, for his prosperity, for his health, and supplicated God to deliver him from all snares, to deliver him from his enemies, and to accord him a long and peaceable life. Their gratitude, renewed every day, so to speak, was necessarily accompanied by a sentiment of curiosity which became more lively from day to day. The circumstances which had accompanied the appearance of the Stranger were the subject of their conversations; they formed a thousand conjectures regarding him, and the diversion afforded them by their thoughts of him was a benefaction of a new kind. They promised themselves not to allow the Stranger to evade their friendship on the evening when he should return, according to his promise, to commemorate the sad anniversary of the death of Louis XVI. That night, so impatiently awaited, came at last. At midnight the sound of the Stranger’s heavy steps was heard on the old wooden staircase; the room had been arrayed to receive him, the altar was dressed. This time the sisters opened the door beforehand and both pressed forward to light the stairway. Mademoiselle de Langeais even went down a few steps in order to see her benefactor the sooner. “Come,” she said to him in a tremulous and affectionate voice, “come, we are waiting for you.” The man raised his head, cast a sombre glance upon the nun, and made no reply. She felt as if a garment of ice had fallen upon her, and she said no more; at his aspect the gratitude and curiosity expired in all their hearts. He was perhaps less cold, less taciturn, less terrible, than he appeared to those hearts, the exaltation of whose feelings disposed to outpourings of friendliness. The three poor prisoners, understanding that the man desired to remain a Stranger to them, resigned themselves. The priest fancied that he detected upon the Stranger’s lips a smile that was promptly repressed the moment he saw the preparations that had been made to receive him. He heard the mass, and prayed; but he disappeared after having responded negatively to a few words of polite invitation upon the part of Mademoiselle de Langeais to partake of the little collation they had prepared. After the ninth of Thermidor, the nuns and the Abbé de Marolles were able to go about Paris without incurring the least danger. The first errand of the old priest was to a perfumer’s shop, at the sign of La Reine des Fleurs, kept by Citizen and Citizeness Ragon, formerly perfumers to the Court, who had remained faithful to the royal family, and of whose services the Vendeans availed themselves to correspond with the princes and the royalist committee in Paris. The abbé, dressed according to the style of that epoch, was standing on the doorstep of that shop, between Saint-Roch and Rue des Frondeurs, when a crowd which filled the Rue Saint-Honoré prevented him from going out. “What is it?” he asked Madame Ragon. “It is nothing,” she replied; “just the tumbril and the executioner, going to the Place Louis XV. Ah, we saw him very often last year; but to-day, four days after the anniversary of the twenty-first of January, we can look at that horrible procession without distress.” “Why so?” said the abbé. “It is not Christian, that which you say.” “Eh, it’s the execution of the accomplices of Robespierre. They defended themselves as long as they could, but they’re going now themselves where they have sent so many innocents.” The crowd passed like a flood. Over the sea of heads, the Abbé de Marolles, yielding to an impulse of curiosity, saw standing on the tumbril the man who, three days before, had listened to his mass. “Who is that?” he said, “that man who——” “That is the headsman,” replied Monsieur Ragon, calling the executioner of the great by his monarchical name. “My friend, my friend,” cried Madame Ragon, “monsieur l’abbé is fainting!” And the old woman seized a phial of salts, in order to bring the old priest to himself. “Without doubt he gave me,” said he, “the handkerchief with which the King wiped his brow when he went to his martyrdom.... Poor man! ... That steel knife had a heart, when all France had none!” The perfumers thought that the unhappy priest was delirious.
this moujik of Briansk had been brought from the village to Moscow when he was a little boy; he had run errands at a merchant’s warehouse in Iliyinka; he used to fly like an arrow to taverns to get hot water for tea: seizing the tea kettle, he would dash through the galleries of the Stariya Riyady—the Old Shops—drawing, with a dark jet of water, the figure eight upon the gray floor.... On a brisk winter day, perhaps with a light snow falling, the Iliyinka thoroughfare would be black with people; the horses of the cabbies would be shufflingly trotting along,—but he, in just his shirt and without a cap (his head resembling a rusty hedgehog), would jump out of the house, dart off the sidewalk, and start sliding on his soles upon the ice in the gutter.... Imagine, then, how strange it is to see this moujik in the tropics, at the equator! He is sitting in his office in an old-fashioned house of Dutch architecture. Beyond the window lies the white city in the blaze of the sun; there are naked black rickshaw-men, shops of Australian wares and of precious stones, hotels filled with tourists from all the ends of the world; in the warm green water of the harbour float American and Japanese steamers; beyond the harbour, along the lowlands of the shores, grow cocoanut groves.... Clad all in white, tall, knotty, with flaming red hair, with a blueish freckled skin, pale, energetically exhilarated (or, to put it more simply, just [Pg 35]daft) from the heat, from nervousness, from constant tipsiness and from business activity,—he is, to look at him, either a Swede or an Englishman. His desk is all cluttered with papers, with bills. The air is filled with the crisp rattling of typewriters. An old Hindu, bare-footed, in robe and turban, noiselessly and rapidly changes with his dark, exquisite, silver-ringed hands little bottles of cold soda water, and every minute, with a mysterious expression on his face, announces the visitors, adding “Sir” at every word. But the “Sir” is completely absorbed in conversation with his friend from Russia, before whom he is playing the rôle of the affable lord of this tropical island. Upon the table are several open boxes of the most expensive cigars; of Turkish, Egyptian, English and Havana cigarettes. He is a connoisseur of tobaccos,—as well as of everything else, by the way. He regales his guest now with this brand, now with the other, saying, as though in passing: “This, I think isn’t at all bad....” Throwing a casual glance at some paper submitted to him, he, in the midst of the conversation, firmly and abruptly dashes off his signature upon it. Upon seeing a visitor enter, he changes the expression on his face, disposes of the matter in hand in two or three phrases, and again renews the interrupted conversation. When receiving some dispatch, his manner of opening it is especially negligent; for a moment, as he runs through it, he frowns: “What idiots!” he will say vehemently, in vexation; and throwing the dispatch to one side, immediately forgets about it,—or pretends that he does so.... All are idiots to him. He has already succeeded in astonishing his guest with his self-assurance, his decisive and sceptical mind, his enormous worldly experience [Pg 36]and his wide acquaintance with people of the most diverse classes and stations. No matter who among the celebrities of Moscow is named,—merchants, administrators, physicians, journalists,—he knows them all, and knows well, besides, the price of each and all. And what information does he not possess concerning back-stage mysteries, exceptional careers, and shady histories! His guest had heard a great deal about him while still at Port Said from a certain friend of this man; which friend had said, with a cynical gaiety, that Zotov had gone through fire, water, and brazen pipes. “Ye-es,” this friend had said, shaking his head with a derisive and enigmatic smile, “he’s a fine lad!” On the spot the guest came to know still more, and chiefly through the fragmentary phrases of Zotov himself. Strangely and unexpectedly do talents manifest themselves in Russia, and they work miracles when lucky lots fall to their share! For he had drawn an unusually lucky lot when he had come as an urchin to Moscow. He had an uncle there; a well-fed, clever moujik, who had already attained to a competence and a consciousness of his own worth; who knew how, adroitly, without lowering himself, to do a good turn for any decent gentleman. This uncle worked in the Sandunovskiya baths, and many of those whom he enveloped in clouds of hot and fragrant soapy foam called him by name and liked to chat with him. And one of these was Nechaev, a liberal, educated Crœsus, a large-built, stout merchant in gold spectacles. Was it a hard thing, having thrown a fine, slippery sheet over the pink, steamed body, to put in a word about his urchin nephew? And this urchin did not get to twisting waxen thread, nor to blowing up the fire under sad-irons, [Pg 37]but got into a sombre, clean and quiet warehouse on the Iliyinka. All the rest was a matter of his personal liveliness and aptitude. Everyone knows how these lucky fellows and born geniuses begin: during the day the urchin runs errands; of evenings, by his own volition, without any guidance, he pours by the dim light of a candle-end, learning to read and write; in the morning, before the clerks get in, he, without understanding, but stubbornly, overcomes the newspaper, and, let the clerks but open their mouths, he is right there on the spot, all alert and obedient, catching every word, every glance.... When he was about twelve this urchin, who had aroused his employer’s special interest, was taken into the latter’s home; while in his eighteenth year he was already in Germany, studying the paper industry, working as hard as any German,—the foreigners, it would seem, did not want to believe that he was a Russian. “They often don’t believe it even now, the blockheads!” said Zotov, roughly and abruptly, as is his wont, throwing away one cigarette and immediately lighting another.... “But, after all, does he resemble a European so very greatly?” the guest wonders as he looks at his host. He is thirty-seven years of age, but seems older. Yes,—in appearance he is altogether an Englishman; even his hands are English, the red hair upon them so thick that they seem to be covered with tow. “But then,” the guest reflects, “would an Englishman talk so amazingly much and so animatedly?” Hands really English would not be trembling at his age, and, moreover, if possessing such strength as Zotov’s, an Englishman’s face would not be so pale, so uneasy without any visible cause. Zotov is wearing black spectacles for the second day now, because [Pg 38]one of his eye-brows is injured,—he slipped, so he says, on a banana peel in a bar; which means that he was rather far gone! And yet here, on this island, he is a personage because of his position. His hold on his guest’s curiosity and attention does not flag for a minute. This man, audacious to the verge of insolence, infects one with his audacity, his energy,—at times even enraptures. But, listening to him, wondering at him, one looks upon him and thinks: “But he is drunk,—he is drunk!” He is always tipsy,—from nervousness, from the heat, from whiskey; Englishmen drink a great deal, but, of course, not a single one of them in all this white city drinks as much as Zotov, nor swallows iced soda water as avidly, nor smokes such a quantity of cigars and cigarettes, nor speaks so much and so confusedly.... After his training abroad he worked at home and enjoyed the unbounded trust of the man who had brought him up. But he no longer wanted to know any mean in his independence, as well as in his expenditures. Sent into Central Asia, he suddenly, on some trifling pretext, quarrelled with Nechaev, severing all connections with him,—and, from a man steadily and surely climbing upward, was transformed into something very like an adventurer. He had traversed all of Siberia; had been in Amur, in China, consumed with impatience to found some enterprise all his own,—let it be something new, let it be something he was not familiar with, let it even be of a predatory nature,—but an enterprise such as would quickly lead to riches. Having returned to Russia he had insinuated himself into a great tea firm, besides having arranged two other posts for himself,—and it is now the sixth year that he has been living here in the [Pg 39]tropics, clad in no mean powers.... It is a rare European who would have so easily cancelled his fate, amazing in its successfulness,—or even his specialty, which had taken so many years of toil to acquire! No European would have yielded himself to the whims of chance, or have shouldered not only a governmental post, but also a steamship agency and a tea business; or have started, along with all these, certain affairs with pearl-bearing shells; or would have maintained a black mistress all his own,—a rare beauty, according to rumour,—to the wonder of the whole city.... He keeps his counsel very much to himself, but at times he is very tactless; reveals, with equal force, now great firmness of character, now unrestraint; now secretiveness, now loquacity. He flaunts his common origin and at the same time boasts of his acquaintance with people of rank; swears, for all he is worth, at the Russian Government,—and with evident pride keeps on his desk a photographic portrait of a Russian Grand Duke, handsome and rather young, who had personally bestowed this portrait upon him, with a short signature in autograph. When he is narrating something that, in his opinion, is humorous, he frequently does not comprehend that the point of this amusing matter may be interpreted not at all to his advantage,—for example, it was from no other source than his own stories that the guest found out that Zotov had appeared as far too omniscient, almost as a passer-by, to those men of affairs in Siberia and Manchuria with whom he so rapidly attained to terms of intimacy, whom he so quickly charmed at first with his obligingness and sociability, his mannerisms of a man used to living on a grand scale, a man conversant with what is what, in absolutely all things, beginning [Pg 40]with cigars, wine, women, and culminating with some excavations on the Philippine Islands, rather lethal, it would seem, on account of an earthly microbe.... In the evening the guest rides with him beyond the city. Beyond the city, on the shore of the ocean, stands a small but a very fashionable restaurant, where the tourists and the residents rest from the sultriness of the city, drinking tea, brandy, and champagne, and admiring the sunset from the front piazza of the restaurant. They come there in tiny rickshaws, following one another, over an endless road amid age-old vegetation, past bungalows and past the huts of the savages. And for a whole hour the guest from Russia sees before him only the naked body of a brown man, carrying him at a run farther and farther under the green vault of the branches of spreading trees; and beyond him, beyond this body and black-haired head, the big white figure of Zotov, sitting high and erect in his little carriage. Halfway to their destination he suddenly turns around and, raising his stick, calls out to his guest: “Would you care to drive in?” For answer the guest assents,—Zotov had pointed out a small Buddhistic monastery,—and the savages, breathing heavily, bathed in perspiration, roll up along the passage way, lying between the cabins, that stand underneath the palms and all other species of trees. “Well, isn’t this like a bit of our own; isn’t this Russian?” Zotov is saying, stepping out of his carriage. “Only in our country is there so unconscionably much of this verdure, of this forest, so many of these hovels, so many dirty urchins like these! Just look!” he is saying, pointing with his stick at the trees, at the huts [Pg 41]and their roofs of leaves and of rushes, at the naked children, and at the natives, young and old, who have surrounded the little carriages in their curiosity. “And the evening, too, is like one of our own,—oppressive, and so wearisome, so wearisome!” he is saying in irritation, going in the direction of the old idol temple standing on a knoll underneath slender cocoanut palms, where a priest is already waiting, clad in a yellow mantle, with his right shoulder bared,—his shaven head is small and pressed in at the temples, and his eyes are black, almost insane, and have an intense gaze. Having entered the dark little sanctuary, the compatriots take off their helmets, wet with perspiration and cool on the inner side. The priest points a finger at their heads and shakes his head: as much as to say that this is not required. “A lot you know, you fool,” says Zotov in Russian; and for a long while, with a certain strange gravity, gazes at the fourteen-foot wooden statue, gilded and painted in red and yellow, lying on its side beyond a sacrificial altar of black stone, upon which are heaped small coins and nickel rings, and with the slenderest of brown joss-sticks sending forth thin jets of aromatic smoke standing upon it. “And how he is painted and lacquered all over, though!” says Zotov jerkily. “Every bit just like the wooden bowls and cups sold at our fairs!” And he carelessly tosses a heavy gold coin upon the silver plate extended by the priest.... When they arrive at the restaurant, his face is almost chalky, and it is a frightful thing to see the black spectacles upon it. “For two whole hours I have not been [Pg 42]poisoning myself with anything, have drunk nothing, nor have I smoked; and because of all that I have become dead tired,” he is saying. And just as soon as he is seated at a small table on the little terrace before the restaurant, over the steep shore, cumbered below with blue bowlders that eternally bathe in the warm water of the ocean, he immediately orders champagne. The wine is very chill, and they both drink it avidly, rapidly growing tipsy, and contemplate the darkening lilac ocean, the infinitely distant sunset, turbidly and tenderly roseate. A faint, warm breeze is stirring; the cicadas are drowsily strumming in the brushwood.... And suddenly Zotov flings his cigarette far from him, quickly lights another, and again, with the pertinacity of a maniac, begins talking of the similarity of this island and Russia. The guest smiles. Zotov, hurriedly and not at all clearly, argues with him. The matter does not lie, he urges, merely in an outward resemblance.... And it was not even the resemblance that he had in view, but rather his reactions.... Perhaps these reactions are not firm, are unwholesome,—but then, that is another matter.... The devil himself would go out of his mind in a climate like this,—it is not a climate to be trifled with.... But now, in a discussion of all the various dangers of the Far East, people somehow forget entirely about that fact; messieurs the Aryans, and especially we Russians, ought to carry out our conquering expeditions into the tropics with extreme cautiousness, recalling with a greater frequence our forefathers and their conquest of Hindustan, so significantly terminating in Buddhism,—when all is said and done, it is we, the Aryans, after Thibet intruding ourselves [Pg 43]into the tropics, who have given birth to this teaching, with its appallingly inapplicable wisdom! And then he warmly begins to asseverate that “all the force of the thing” lies in that he had already seen, had already felt the tropics even before his arrival here, at some time very remote, perhaps a thousand years ago,—with the eyes and the soul of his most distant ancestor.... He tells,—with a subtlety, passionateness and an eloquence never to be expected from him,—that he had experienced extraordinary sensations on the way over here, on those sultry, starry nights when he had first beheld the Southern Cross, Canopus, and those first-created starry mists that are called the Clouds of Magellan; when he had beheld the Coal Sacks, those funereal fissures into the infinitude of universal voids; and the awesome magnificence of the Alpha of the Centaur, glimmering upon the utterly empty horizon, where some immeasurable Nothingness, unattainable to our reason, seemed to be in its inception. “Yes, yes!” exclaims he insistently, fixing the guest with his spectacles: “The horizon was utterly empty about the Alpha! A spectacle of a new world, of new heavens, was opened before me, but it seemed to me,—and this sensation was vivid to the verge of terror within me, I assure you!—it seemed to me that I had seen them before, once upon a time. All the days and all the nights a smooth, dead swell rocked us wide on the ocean. We were sailing toward an Eastern monsoon; it blew sharp and strong, and its ceaseless current of air made the sailyards hum and blurred the vision, and made our speed seem rapid.... Awaking at night in the hot darkness of my cabin, I, in order to rest after the exhausting sleep, would go on the upper decks, out into the [Pg 44]wind, under the stars,—altogether different from those I had seen all my life, from my very birth, and with which I had already grown intimate; stars that were altogether, altogether different,—yet at the same not altogether new, seemingly, but as though they were dimly recalled. Under their dim light hovered the ceaseless noise of the sea, the steamer rolled slowly from one side to the other, and, like strangled suicides in gray shrouds, with arms outspread, the long canvas ventilators swayed and quivered near the funnel, avidly catching with their orifices the freshness of the monsoon, upon which was already borne toward us the hot breath of the dread Land of our First Parents. And at such times I would be seized by such melancholy,—a melancholy of some infinitely remote recollection,—that one can not express in human speech even a hundredth part of it!” A faint, delightful breeze is stirring; there is a drowsy strumming in the brushwood. The twilight begins to swell as with sap with that faery orange-aureate colour which always arises in the tropics when some time had elapsed after the sunset. The surf boils up in orange-aureate foam; the faces and the white costumes are bathed in an orange-aureate light.... “How connect that with which he amazed me to-day with what he is amazing me now?” the guest from Russia is reflecting, almost in fear, about his astonishing compatriot. But the latter, is looking at him through his black spectacles and is stubbornly reiterating: “Yes, yes,—I have already been here.... And, in general, I am a doomed man.... If you but knew how dreadfully muddled my affairs are! Even more, it would seem, than my soul and my thoughts.... Oh, well, there [Pg 45]is a way out of everything! Just jerk back the trigger of your revolver, having thrust its muzzle as far as possible into your mouth,—and all these affairs, thoughts, and emotions will fly into pieces to the devil and his dam!”
Aaron, subs. (thieves’).—‘The Aaron,’ says H. O. Manton in Slangiana, ‘is the chief or captain of a gang or school of thieves. The title is invariably preceded by the prefix The—par excellence the first—similar to the eldest representatives of certain Irish and Scotch clans or families, such as The O’Connor Don, The Chisholm, etc. As Aaron was the first high priest … it is probably of Jewish origin in its slang application. An Aaron was an old cant term for one of a class of cadgers, who combined begging with acting as guide to the summits of mountains, chiefly to evade the laws against vagabondage, no doubt a play, in its slang sense, on its Hebrew equivalent, lofty.’ In this last connection a closer relationship probably exists than that just stated, inasmuch as Gesenius thinks that the Hebrew Aaron is a derivative of Hāron, a mountaineer. It is to be remarked that leaders of the church were also called Aarons.
Abscotchalater, subs. (thieves’).—Quoted by H. O. Manton in Slangiana as ‘one who is hiding away from the police.’ Cf., Absquatulate
slang and its analogues past and present
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/78263/pg78263-images.html
subota, 21. ožujka 2026.
what does it matter of whom we speak? Any that have lived and that live upon this earth deserve to be the subject of our discourse. Once upon a time Chang had come to know the universe and the captain, his master, to whom his earthly existence had become linked. And six entire years have run since then,—have run like the sands in a ship’s hourglass. It is again night,—dream or reality? And again comes morning,—reality or dream? Chang is old, Chang is a drunkard,—he is always dozing. Outside, in the city of Odessa, it is winter. The weather is nasty, sullen,—far worse than that of China was when Chang and the captain met each other. Fine, stinging snow whirls through the air; it flies obliquely over the ice-covered, slippery asphalt of the desolate seaside boulevard, and painfully lashes the face of every running Jew who, with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, and with his shoulders hunched up, is zigzagging to the left and right,—awkwardly, Hebraically. Beyond the harbour, likewise deserted, beyond the bay, hazy from the snow, the barren shores, low and flat, are faintly visible. The jetty is hazy all the time with a thick, gray haze: the sea, in foamy, bellying waves, surges over it from morn till night. The wind whistles and reverberates among the telephone wires overhead.... On such days life in the city does not start at an early [Pg 10]hour. Nor do Chang and the captain awake early. Six years,—is it a long time, or short? In six years Chang and the captain have grown old, although the captain is not yet forty; and their lot has harshly changed. They no longer sail the seas,—they live “on shore,” as seamen say; nor are they living in the same place they lived in at one time, but in a narrow and rather dark street, in a garret; the house is redolent of anthracite, and is occupied by Jews,—of the sort that come to their families only toward evening and who sup with their hats shoved on the back of their heads. Chang and the captain have a low ceiling; their room is large and chill. Besides that, it is always gloomy and dark inside; the two windows placed in the sloping wall-roof are small and round, reminding one of port-holes. Something in the nature of a chest of drawers stands between the windows, and against the wall to the left is an old iron bed,—and there you have all the furnishings of this bleak dwelling,—unless the fireplace, out of which a fresh wind is always blowing, be included. Chang sleeps in the nook behind the fireplace; the captain on the bed. What sort of a bed this is, sagging almost to the floor, and what kind of mattress it has, any one who has lived in garrets can easily imagine; as for the dirty pillow, it is so scanty that the captain is forced to put his jacket under it. However, the captain sleeps very peacefully even on this bed; he lies on his back, his eyes shut and his face ashen, as motionless as though he were dead. What a splendid bed had formerly been his! Well built, high, with chests underneath; the bedding was thick and snug, the sheets fine and smooth, and the snowy-white pillows were chilling! But even [Pg 11]then, even when lulled by the rolling of the waves, he had not slept as heavily as he sleeps now: now he gets very tired during the day, and besides that, what has he to worry about now,—what can he oversleep, and with what can the new day gladden him? At one time there had been two truths in this world, that had constantly stood sentry in turns: the first was, that life is unutterably beautiful; and the second, that life holds a meaning only for lunatics. Now the captain affirms that there is, has been, and will be for all eternity but one truth,—the ultimate truth, the truth of Job the Hebrew, the truth of Ecclesiastes, the sage of an unknown tribe. Often does the captain say now, as he sits in some beer shop: “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them!” Still the days and nights go on as before, and now there has again been a night, and again morning is coming on. And the captain and Chang are awaking. But, having waked, the captain does not change his position and does not open his eyes. His thoughts at that moment are not known even to Chang, who is lying on the floor beside the fireless hearth from which the freshness of the sea had come all night. Chang is aware of only one thing,—that the captain will lie thus for not less than an hour. Chang, after casting a look at the captain out of the corner of his eye, again closes his lids, and again dozes off. Chang, too, is a drunkard; in the morning he, too, is befuddled, weak, and beholds the universe with that languid queasiness which is so familiar to all those travelling on ships and suffering from sea-sickness. And because of that, as he dozes off, in this [Pg 12]morning hour, Chang sees a dream that is tormenting, wearisome.... He sees: An old, rheumy-eyed Chinaman has clambered up onto a steamer’s deck, and has squatted down on his heels; whiningly, he importunes all those who pass by him to buy a wicker-basket of spoilt small fish which he has brought with him. It is a dusty and a chill day on a broad Chinese river. In the boat with a bamboo sail, swaying in the muddy water of the river, a puppy is sitting,—a little rusty dog, having about it something of the fox and something of the wolf, with thick, coarse fur at its neck; sternly and intelligently his black eyes look up and down the high iron side of the steamer, and his ears are cocked. “Better sell your dog!” gaily and loudly, as though to a deaf man, the young captain of the ship, who was standing idling on his bridge, yelled to the Chinaman. The Chinaman,—Chang’s first master,—cast his eyes upward; confused, both by the yell and by joy, he began bowing and lisping: “Ve’y good dog, ve’y good.”[*] And the puppy was purchased,—for only a single silver rouble,—was called Chang, and sailed off on that very day with his new master to Russia; and, in the beginning, for three whole weeks, he suffered so with sea-sickness, and was in such a daze, that he saw nothing: neither the ocean nor Singapore, nor Colombo.... [*]In English in the original. Trans. It had been the beginning of autumn in China; the weather was bad. And Chang felt qualmish when they had barely passed into the estuary. They were met by lashing rain and mist; white-caps glimmered over the [Pg 13]plain of waters; the gray-green swell swayed, rushed, plashed, many-pointed and senseless; meanwhile, the flat shores were spreading, losing themselves in the fog,—and there was more and more water all around. Chang, in his fur coat, silvery from the rain, and the captain, in a waterproof great-coat with the hood raised, were on the bridge, whose height could be felt now more than before. The captain issued commands, while Chang shivered and tossed his head in the wind. The water was widening, embracing all the inclement horizon, blending with the misty sky. The wind tore the spray from the great noisy swell, swooping down from any and every direction; it whistled through the sail-yards and boomingly slapped the canvas awnings below; the sailors, in the meanwhile, in iron-shod boots and wet capes, were untying, catching and furling them. The wind was seeking the best spot from which to strike its strongest blow, and just as soon as the steamer, slowly bowing before it, had taken a sharper turn to the right, the wind raised it up on such a huge, boiling roller, that it could not hold back; it plunged down from the ridge of the roller, burying itself in the foam,—and in the pilot’s round-house a coffee cup, forgotten upon a little table by the waiter, shattered against the floor with a ring.... And then the fun began! There were all sorts of days after that: now the sun would blaze down scorchingly out of the radiant azure; now clouds would pile up in mountains and burst with peals of terrifying thunder; or raging torrents of rain descended in floods upon the steamer and the sea; or else there was rocking,—yes, rocking, even when the ship was at anchor. Utterly worn out, Chang during all the three [Pg 14]weeks did not once forsake his corner in the hot, half-dark corridor of the second-class cabins on the poop, where he lay near the high threshold of the door leading onto the deck. Only once a day was this door opened, when the captain’s orderly brought food to Chang. And of the entire voyage to the Red Sea Chang’s memory has retained only the creaking of the ship’s partitions, his nausea, and the sinking of his heart, now flying downward into some abyss together with the quivering stern, now rising up to heaven with it; also did he remember his prickly, deathly terror whenever, with the sound of a cannon firing, a whole mountain of water would splash against this stern, after it had been raised high and had again careened to one side, with its propeller roaring in the air; the water would extinguish the daylight in the port holes, and then would run down in opaque torrents over their thick glass. The sick Chang heard the distant cries of commands, the thundering whistle of the boatswain, the tramp of sailors’ feet somewhere overhead; he heard the plash and the noise of the water; he could distinguish through his half-shut eyes the semi-dark corridor filled with jute bails of tea,—and Chang went daft, became tipsy, from nausea, heat, and the strong odour of tea.... But here Chang’s dream breaks off. Chang starts and opens his eyes: that was no wave hitting against the stern with a sound of a cannon firing,—it was the jarring of a door somewhere below, flung back with force by somebody or other. And after this the captain coughingly clears his throat and slowly arises from his sagging couch. He puts on and laces his battered shoes, dons his black coat with the brass buttons, [Pg 15]taking it out from under the pillow; Chang, in the meanwhile, in his rusty, worn fur coat, yawns discontentedly, with a whine, having risen from the floor. Upon the chest of drawers is a bottle of vodka, some of which has already been drunk. The captain drinks straight out of the bottle, and, slightly out of breath, wiping his moustache, he goes toward the fireplace and pours out some vodka into a little bowl standing near Chang for him as well. Chang starts lapping it greedily. As for the captain, he begins smoking and lies down again, to await the hour when it will be full day. The distant rumble of the tramway can already be heard; already, far below in the street, flows the ceaseless clamping of horses’ hoofs; but it is still too early to go out. And the captain lies and smokes. Having done with his lapping, Chang, too, lies down. He jumps up onto the bed, curls up in a ball at the feet of the captain, and slowly floats away into that blissful state which vodka always bestows. His half-shut eyes grow misty, he looks faintly at his master, and, feeling a constantly increasing tenderness toward him, thinks what in human speech may be expressed as follows: “Oh, you foolish, foolish fellow! There is but one truth in this world, and if you but knew what a wonderful truth it is!” And again, in something between thought and dream, Chang reverts to that distant morning, when the steamer, after carrying the captain and Chang from China over the tormented restless ocean, had entered the Red Sea.... He dreams: As they passed Perim, the steamer swayed less and less, as though it were lulling him asleep, and Chang fell into a sweet and sound sleep. And suddenly he started, [Pg 16]awake. And, when he had become awake, he was astonished beyond all measure: it was quiet everywhere; the stern was rhythmically vibrating, without any downward plunges; the noise of the water, rushing somewhere beyond the walls, was even; the warm odour from the kitchen, creeping out on deck from underneath a door, was enchanting.... Chang got up on his hind legs and looked into the deserted general cabin,—there, in the obscurity, was a softly radiant, aureately-lilac something; a something barely perceptible to the eye, but extraordinarily joyous; there the rear port holes were open to the sunlit blue void, open to the spaciousness, to the air, while over the low ceiling streamed sinuous rills of light reflected from mirrors,—they flowed on, without flowing away.... And the same thing happened to Chang that had also happened more than once in those days to his master, the captain: he suddenly comprehended that there existed in this universe not one truth, but two truths: one, that to be living in this world and to sail the seas was a dreadful thing, and the other.... But Chang did not have time to think of the other,—through the door, unexpectedly flung open, he saw the trap-ladder leading to the spar-deck, the black, glistening mass of the steamer’s funnel, the clear sky of a summer morning, and, coming rapidly from under the ladder, out of the engine room, the captain. He had shaved and washed; there was the fragrance of fresh Eau-de-cologne about him; his fair moustache turned upward, after the German fashion; the glance of his light, keen eyes was sparkling, and everything upon him was tight-fitting and snowy white. And upon beholding all this Chang darted forward so joyously that the captain caught him in the air, [Pg 17]kissed him resoundingly on the head, and, turning him about, carrying him in his arms, with a hop, skip and a jump came out on the spar-deck, then the upper deck, and from there still higher, to that very bridge where it had been so terrible in the estuary of the great Chinese river. On the bridge the captain entered the pilot’s round-house, while Chang, who had been dropped to the floor, sat for a space, his fox-like brush unfurled to its full length over the smooth boards. It was very hot and radiant behind Chang, from the low-lying sun. It must also have been hot in Arabia, that was passing by so near on the right, with its shore of gold, with its black-brown mountains, its peaks, that resembled the mountains of some dead planet, also all deeply strewn with gold dust; Arabia, its entire sandy and mountainous waste visible with such extraordinary distinctness that it seemed as if one could jump over there. And above, on the bridge, the morning could still be felt, there was still the pull of a light, fresh coolness; the captain’s mate,—the very same who later on used so often to make Chang furious by blowing into his nose,—a man in white clothes, with a white helmet and wearing fearful black spectacles, was sauntering briskly back and forth over the bridge, constantly looking up at the sharp tip of the front mast that reached up to the sky, and over which was curling the flimsiest wisp of a cloud.... Then the captain called out from the round-house: “Here, Chang! Come on and have coffee!” and Chang immediately jumped up, circled the round-house, and deftly dashed over its brass threshold. And beyond the threshold it proved to be even better than on the bridge: there was a broad [Pg 18]leather divan, fixed to the wall; over it hung certain things like wall-clocks, their glass and hands glistening; and on the floor was a slop-bowl with a mixture of sweet milk and bread. Chang began lapping it greedily, while the captain busied himself with his work. Upon the counter, placed under the window opposite the divan, he unrolled a large maritime chart, and, placing a ruler over it, firmly drew a long line upon it with scarlet ink. Chang, having finished his lapping, with milk on his muzzle, jumped up on the counter and sat down near the very window, out of which he could see the blue turned-over collar of a sailor in a roomy blouse, who, with his back to the window, was standing at the many-horned wheel. And at this point the captain, who, as it turned out afterward, was very fond of having a chat when he was all alone with Chang, said to him: “You see, brother, this is the Red Sea itself. You and I have to pass through it as cleverly as we can,—just see how gaily coloured it is! I have to land you in Odessa in good order, because they already know there of your existence. I have already blabbed about you to a most capricious little girl; I have bragged to her about your lordship, over a sort of long cable, d’you understand, that has been laid down by clever people over the bottom of all the seas and oceans.... For after all, Chang, I am an awfully lucky fellow, so lucky that you can’t even imagine it, and for that reason I am terribly averse to getting stuck on one of these reefs, to have no end of disgrace on my first distant cruise....” And, saying this, the captain suddenly gave Chang a stern look and slapped his muzzle: [Pg 19] “Paws off!” he cried commandingly. “Don’t you dare climb on government property!” And Chang, with a toss of his head, growled and puckered up his face. This was the first slap he had ever received, and he was offended; it again seemed to him that to be living in this world and to be sailing the seas was an atrocious thing. He turned away, his translucently yellow eyes dimming and contracting, and with a low growl he bared his wolfish fangs. But the captain did not consider Chang’s offended feelings of any importance. He lit a cigarette and returned to the divan; having taken a gold watch out of a side pocket of his piqué jacket, he pried back its lids with a strong nail, and looking upon a glistening, unusually animated, bustling something which ran and resoundingly whispered within the watch, again began speaking in a comradely tone. He again told Chang that he was bringing him to Odessa, to Elissavetinskaya Street; that in Elissavetinskaya Street he, the captain, had apartments, first of all; secondly, a wife who was a beauty; and, thirdly, a wonderful little daughter; and that he, the captain, was a very lucky fellow after all. “A lucky fellow, after all, Chang!” said the captain, and then added: “This daughter of mine, Chang, is a lively little girl, full of curiosity and persistence,—it is going to be bad for you at times, especially for your tail! But if you only knew, Chang, what a beautiful creature she is! I love her so much, brother, that at times I am even afraid of my love: she is all the world to me,—well, almost all, let us say; but is that as it should be? And, [Pg 20]in general, should any one be loved so greatly?” he asked. “For, were all these Buddhas of yours more foolish than you and I? And yet, just you listen to what they say about this love of the universe and all things corporeal, beginning with sunlight, with a wave, with the air, and winding up with woman, with an infant, with the scent of white acacia! Or else,—do you know what sort of a thing this Tao is, that has been thought up by nobody else but you Chinamen? I know it but poorly myself, brother, but then, everybody knows it poorly; but, as far as it is possible to understand it, just what is it, after all? The Abyss, our First Mother; She gives birth to all things that exist in this universe, and She devours them as well, and, devouring them, gives birth to them anew; or, to put it in other words, It is the Path of all that exists, which nothing that exists may resist. But we resist It every minute; every minute we want to turn to our desire not only the soul of a beloved woman, let us say, but even the entire universe as well! It is an eerie thing to be living in this world, Chang,” said the captain; “it’s a most pleasant thing, but still an eerie one, and especially for such as I! For I am too avid of happiness, and all too often do I lose the way: dark and evil is this Path,—or is it entirely, entirely otherwise?” And, after a silence, he added further: “For after all, what is the main thing? When you love somebody, there is no power on earth that can make you believe that the one you love can possibly not love you. And that is just where the devil comes in, Chang. But how magnificent life is; my God, how magnificent!” Made red hot by the now high risen sun, and quivering slightly as it ran, the steamer was tirelessly cleaving the [Pg 21]Red Sea, now stilled in the abyss of the sultry empyrean spaciousness. The radiant void of the tropical sky was peeping in through the door of the round-house. Noonday was approaching; the brass threshold simply blazed in the sun. The glassy swell rolled more and more slowly over the side, flaring up with a blinding glitter, and lighting up the round-house. Chang was sitting on the divan, listening to the captain. The captain, who had been patting Chang on the head, shoved him to the floor: “No, it’s too hot, brother!” said he; but this time Chang was not offended,—it was too fine a thing to be living in this world on this joyous noonday. And then.... But here again Chang’s dream is interrupted. “Come on, Chang!” says the captain, dropping his feet down from the bed. And again in astonishment Chang sees that he is not on a steamer on the Red Sea, but in a garret in Odessa, and that it really is noonday outside,—not a joyous noonday, however, but a dark, dreary, inimical one, and he growls softly at the captain who has disturbed him. But the captain, paying no attention to him, puts on his old uniform cap and his old uniform great coat, and, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and all hunched up, goes toward the door. Willy-nilly, Chang, too, has to jump down from the bed. It is a hard thing for the captain to descend the stairs and he has no heart for it, as though he were doing it under the compulsion of harsh necessity. Chang rolls along rather rapidly,—he is still enlivened by that yet unallayed irritation with which the blissful state induced by vodka always ends.... Yes,—it is two years now since Chang and the captain [Pg 22]have been occupied, day in and day out, in visiting one restaurant after another. There they drink, have snacks, contemplate the other drunkards who drink and have snacks alongside of them, amid the noise, tobacco smoke, and all sorts of bad odours. Chang lies on the floor, at the captain’s feet. As for the captain, he sits and smokes, his elbows firmly planted on the table,—a habit he has acquired at sea; he is awaiting that hour when it will be necessary, in accordance with some law which he had himself mentally formulated, to migrate to some other restaurant or coffee-house: Chang and the captain breakfast in one place, drink coffee in another, dine in a third, and sup in a fourth. Usually the captain is silent. But there are times when the captain meets some one of his erstwhile friends, and then he talks all day long without cease of the insignificance of life, and every minute regales with wine now himself, now his vis à vis, now Chang,—the last always has some bit of china on the floor before him. They would pass the present day also in precisely the same way: they had agreed to breakfast this day with a certain old friend of the captain’s, an artist in a high silk hat. And that meant that at first they would sit in a certain malodorous beer-shop, among red-faced Germans,—stolid, business-like people, who worked from morn till night with, of course, the sole aim of drinking, eating, working all over again, and propagating others of their kind. Then they would go to a coffee-house filled to overflowing with Greeks and Jews, whose entire existence, likewise senseless but exceedingly perturbed, was swallowed up in ceaseless expectation of stock-exchange news: and from the coffee-house they would set out for a restaurant whither flocked all sorts of human rag-tag, [Pg 23]and there they would sit far into the night.... A winter day is short, but with a bottle of wine, sitting in conversation with a friend, it is still shorter. And now Chang, the captain, and the artist had already been both in the beer-shop and in the coffee-house, and it is the sixth hour that they have been sitting and drinking in the restaurant. And again the captain, having put his elbows on the table, is ardently assuring the artist that there is but one truth in this world,—a truth evil and base. “You just look about you,” he is saying, “you just recall all those that you and I see every day in the beer-shop, in the coffee-house, and out on the street! My friend, I have seen the entire earthly globe—life is like that all over! Everything that these people pretend as constituting their life is all bosh and a lie: they have neither God, nor conscience, nor a sensible purpose in existing, nor love, nor friendship, nor honesty,—there is even no common pity. Life is a dreary, winter day in a filthy tavern, no more....” And Chang, lying under the table, hears all this in the fog of a tipsiness, in which there is no longer any exhilaration. Does he agree with the captain, or does he not? It is impossible to answer this definitely,—but since it is impossible, it means that things are in a bad way. Chang does not know, does not understand, whether the captain is right; but then, it is only when we experience sorrow that we all say: “I do not know, I do not understand,”—whereas when joy is its portion every living being is convinced that it knows all things, understands all things.... But suddenly a ray of sunlight seems to cut through this fog of tipsiness: there is a sudden tapping of a baton against a music stand on the [Pg 24]band-stand of the restaurant—and a violin begins to sing, followed by a second, a third.... They sing more and more passionately, more and more sonorously,—and a minute later Chang’s soul overflows with an entirely different yearning, with an entirely different sadness. His soul quivers from an incomprehensible rapture, from some sweet torment, from a longing for something indefinite,—and Chang no longer distinguishes whether he is in a dream or awake. He yields with all his being to the music, submissively follows it into some other world—and once more he sees himself on the threshold of that beautiful world; silly, with a faith in the universe, a puppy on board a steamer in the Red Sea.... “Yes, but how was it?” he half-thinks, half-dreams. “Yes, I remember: it was a good thing to be alive on that hot noonday on the Red Sea!” Chang and the captain were sitting in the round-house; later on they stood on the ship’s bridge.... Oh, how much light there was; what a deep blue the sea was, and how azure the sky! How amazingly vivid against the background of the sky were all these white, red, and yellow sailors’ blouses hung out to dry at the prow! Then, afterwards, Chang and the captain and the other men of the ship (whose faces were brick-red, with oily eyes, whereas their foreheads were white and perspiring), breakfasted in the hot general cabin of first-class, under an electric ventilator buzzing and blowing out of a corner. After breakfast Chang took a little nap; after tea he had dinner, and after dinner he was again sitting aloft, before the pilot’s round-house, where a steward had placed a canvas chair for the captain, and gazing far out at the sea; at the [Pg 25]sunset, tenderly green among the many-coloured and many-formed little clouds; at the sun, wine-red and shorn of its beams, that, as soon as it had touched the turbid horizon, lengthened out and took on the semblance of a dark-flamed mitre.... Rapidly did the steamer run in pursuit of it; over the side the smooth, watery humps simply flashed by, giving off a sheen of blueish-lilac shagreen. But the sun hastened on and on,—the sea seemed to be absorbing it,—and kept on decreasing and decreasing, and became an elongated, glowing ember. It began to quiver and went out; and, as soon as it had gone out, the shadow of some sadness immediately fell upon all the world, and the wind, constantly blowing harder as the night came on, became still more turbulent. The captain, gazing at the dark flame of the sunset, was sitting with his head bared, his hair a-flutter in the wind, and his face was pensive, proud, and sad. And one felt that he was happy none the less, and that not only this entire steamer, running on at his will, but all the universe as well was in his power; because at that moment all the universe was in his soul,—and also because even then there was the odour of wine on his breath.... And when the night fell, it was awesome and magnificent. It was black, disquieting, with an unruly wind, and with such a vivid glow from the waves swirling up around the steamer that Chang, who was trotting behind the captain as the latter rapidly and ceaselessly paced the deck, would jump away with a yelp from the side of the ship. And the captain again picked Chang up in his arms, and putting his cheek against Chang’s beating heart,—for it beat in precisely the same way as the captain’s—walked with him to the very end of the deck, on [Pg 26]to the poop, and stood there for a long time in the darkness, bewitching Chang with a wondrous and horrible spectacle: from under the towering, enormous stern, from under the dully raging propeller, myriads of white-flamed needles were pouring forth with a crisp swishing; they extricated themselves and were instantly whirled away into the snowy, sparkling path that the steamer was laying down. Now, again, there would be enormous blue stars: now some sort of tightly-coiled blue globes that would explode vividly, and, fading out, smoulder mysteriously with pale-green phosphorescence within the boiling watery hummocks. The wind, coming from all directions, beat strongly and softly upon Chang’s muzzle, ruffling and chilling the thick fur upon his chest; and, nestling closely to the captain, as though they were both of the same kin, Chang scented an odour that seemed to be that of cold sulphur, breathed in the air coming from the furrowed inmost depths of the sea. And the stern kept on quivering; it was lowered and lifted by some great and unutterably free force, and Chang swayed and swayed, excitedly contemplating this blind and dark, yet an hundredfold living, dully turbulent Bottomless Gulf. And at times some especially mischievous and ponderous wave, noisily flying past the stern, would illumine the hands and the silvery clothes of the captain with an eldritch glow.... On this night the captain for the first time brought Chang into his large and cozy cabin, softly illuminated by a lamp under a red silk shade. Upon the writing table, that was squeezed in tightly near the captain’s bed, in the light and shade thrown by the lamp, stood two narrow frames, holding two photographic portraits: one of [Pg 27]a pretty little petulant girl in curly locks, seated at her capricious ease in a deep arm-chair; and the other that of a young woman, taken almost at full length, with a white lace parasol over her shoulder, in a large lace hat, and wearing a smart spring dress,—she was stately, slender, beautiful and pensive, like some Georgian tsarevna. And the captain said, as he undressed to the noise of the black waves beyond the open window: “This woman won’t like you and me, Chang! There are some feminine souls, brother, which languish eternally in a certain pensive yearning for love, and who just for that very same reason never love anybody. There are such,—and how shall they be judged for all their heartlessness, falsehood, their dreams of going on the stage, of owning an automobile, of yachting picnics, of some sportsman or other, who pretends to be an Englishman, and tortures his hair, all greasy with pomatum, into a straight parting? Who shall divine them? Everyone according to his or her lights, Chang; and are they not fulfilling the innermost secret behests of Tao Itself, even as they are being fulfilled by some sea-creature that is now freely going upon its way in these black, fiery-armoured waves?” “Oo-oo!” said the captain, sitting down on a chair and unlacing his white shoe. “What didn’t I go through, Chang, when I felt for the first time that she was not entirely mine,—on that night when for the first time she had gone alone to the Yacht Club ball and had returned toward morning, like a wilted rose, pale from fatigue and her still unabated excitement, with her eyes all dark, widened, and distant from me! If you only knew how inimitably she wanted to hoodwink me, [Pg 28]with what artless wonder she asked: ‘But aren’t you asleep yet, poor dear?’ Right then I could not have uttered even a word, and she understood me at once and became silent; she merely threw a quick glance at me,—and began undressing in silence. I wanted to kill her, but she dryly and calmly said: ‘Help me unfasten my dress at the back,’—and I submissively approached her and began with trembling hands to unfasten all these hooks and snaps,—and just as soon as I saw her body through the open dress, saw her back between the shoulder blades, and her chemise, dropping off the shoulders and tucked into the corset; just as soon as I felt the scent of her black hair and caught a glimpse of her breasts, raised up by the corset, reflected in the bright pier glass....” And, without finishing, the captain waved his hand in a hopeless gesture. He undressed, lay down, and extinguished the light, and Chang, turning and settling in the morocco chair near the writing table, saw how the black cerement of the sea was furrowed by rows of white flame, flaring up and fading out; saw how some lights flashed up ominously upon the black horizon; saw how an awesome living wave would run up from thence and with a menacing noise would grow higher than the side of the ship, and look into the cabin,—like some serpent of fairy tale shining through and through with eyes of the natural colours of precious stones, shining through and through with translucent emeralds and sapphires. And he saw how the steamer thrust it aside and evenly kept on in its course, amid the ponderous and vacillant masses of this [Pg 29]primordial element, now foreign and inimical to us, that is called Ocean.... In the night the captain emitted some sudden cry; and, frightened himself by this cry, which rang with some basely-plaintive passion, he instantly awoke. Having lain for a minute in silence, he sighed and said mockingly: “Yes, there’s a story for you! ‘As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman!...’ Thrice right art thou, Solomon, Sage of Sages!” He found in the darkness his cigarette case and lit a cigarette, but, having taken two deep puffs at it, he let his hand drop,—and fell asleep so, with the little red glow of the cigarette in his hand. And again it grew quiet—only the waves glittered, swayed, and noisily rushed past the ship’s side. The Southern Cross from behind the black clouds.... But here Chang is deafened by an unexpected thunder peal. He jumps up in terror. What has happened? Has the steamer again struck against underwater rocks through the fault of the intoxicated captain, as was the case three years ago? Has the captain again fired a pistol at his beautiful and pensive wife? No; this is not night all about them now; neither are they at sea, nor in Elissavetinskaya Street on a wintry noonday,—but in a brightly-lit restaurant, filled with noise and smoke. It is the intoxicated captain, who had struck his fist against the table, and is now shouting to the artist: “Bosh, bosh! As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout,—that’s what your Woman is! ‘I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen [Pg 30]of Egypt.... Come, let us take our fill of love ... for the goodman is not at home....’ Bah! Woman! ‘For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead....’ But that is enough, that is enough, my friend. It is time to go,—they are closing up this place; come on!” And a minute later the captain, Chang, and the artist are already in the street, where the wind and the snow make the street-lamps flicker. The captain embraces and kisses the artist, and they go in different directions. Chang, sullen and half asleep, is running sidewise over the sidewalk after the captain, who walks rapidly and unsteadily.... Again a day has passed,—dream or reality?—and again darkness, cold, and fatigue reign over the universe.... No, the captain is right, most assuredly right: life is simply poisonous and malodorous alcohol, nothing more.... Thus, monotonously, do the days and nights of Chang pass. But suddenly one morning the universe, like a steamer, runs at full speed against an underwater reef, hidden from heedless eyes. Awaking on a certain wintry morning, Chang is struck by the great silence reigning in the room. He quickly jumps up from his place, rushes toward the captain’s bed,—and sees that the captain is lying with his head convulsively thrown back, with his face grown pallid and chill, with his eyelashes half-open and unmoving. And, upon seeing these eyelashes, Chang emits a howl as despairing as if he had been thrown off his feet and cut in two by a speeding automobile.... Then, when the door of the room has been taken off its hinges, when people enter, depart, and arrive again, speaking loudly,—the most diversified people: porters, police-men, [Pg 31]the artist in the high silk hat, and all sorts of other gentlemen who used to sit in restaurants with the captain,—then Chang seems to turn to stone.... Oh, how fearfully the captain had said at one time: “On that day the keepers of the house shall tremble ... and those that look out of the windows be darkened ... also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way ... because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.... For the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern....” But Chang does not feel even terror now. He lies on the floor, his muzzle toward the corner; he has shut his eyes tight that he might not behold the universe, might forget it. And the universe murmurs over him dully and distantly, like the sea over one who descends deeper and deeper into its abyss. But when he does come to himself again, it is near the doors of a chapel, in the porch. He sits near them with drooping head; dull, half-dead,—only he is all shaking in a chill. And suddenly the chapel door is flung open,—and a wondrous scene, all mellifluously chanting, strikes the eyes and the heart of Chang. Before Chang is a semi-dark Gothic chamber, with the red stars of flames, a whole forest of tropical plants, a coffin of oak raised high upon a black scaffolding. There is a black throng of people; there are two women wondrous in their marble-like beauty and their deep mourning, who seem just like two sisters of different ages; and, over all this, reverberations, thunder peals, a choir,—of men sonorously clamorous of some sorrowful joy of the angels. Solemnity, confusion, pomp,—and chantings not of this earth, drowning all else in their strains. And Chang’s every hair [Pg 32]stands up on end from anguish and rapture before this sonorous vision. And the artist, who, with reddened eyes, stepped out of the chapel at that moment, stops in amazement: “Chang!” he says in alarm, stooping down to him, “Chang, what is the matter with you?” And, laying a hand that has begun to tremble upon Chang’s head, he stoops still lower,—and their eyes, filled with tears, meet with such love for each other, that Chang’s entire being cries out inaudibly to all the universe: “Ah, no, no,—there is upon earth some third truth, that has not been made known to me!” That day, having returned from the cemetery, Chang moves into the house of his third master,—again up aloft, to a garret; but a garret warm, redolent of cigars, with rugs upon the floor, with antique furniture placed about it, and hung with brocaded stuffs.... It is growing dark; the fireplace is filled with glowing, sombrely-scarlet lumps of heat; Chang’s new master is seated in a chair. He had not even taken off his overcoat and his high silk hat upon returning home; he had sat down with his cigar in a deep chair, and is now smoking and gazing into the dusk of his atelier. As for the fatigued, tortured-out Chang,—he is lying on a rug near the fireplace, his eyes shut, his muzzle resting on his front paws. And he dreams, he sees as in a vision: Some One is lying there, beyond the darkening city, beyond the enclosure of the cemetery, in that which is called a crypt, a grave. But this Some One is not the captain,—no. If Chang loves and feels the captain, if he sees him with the vision of memory,—that divine thing within him which he does not understand himself,—it [Pg 33]means that the captain is still with him: in that universe, without beginning and without end, which is inaccessible to Death. In this universe there must be but one truth,—the third; but what that truth is, is known only to that last Master to whom Chang must now soon return.
petak, 20. ožujka 2026.
Madame Maraud was born and grew up in Lausanne, in a strict, honest, industrious family. She did not marry young, but she married for love. In March, 1876, among the passengers on an old French ship, the Auvergne, sailing from Marseilles to Italy, was the newly married couple. The weather was calm and fresh; the silvery mirror of the sea appeared and disappeared in the mists of the spring horizon. The newly married couple never left the deck. Every one liked them, every one looked at their happiness with friendly smiles; his happiness showed itself in the energy and keenness of his glance, in a need for movement, in the animation of his welcome to those around him; hers showed itself in the joy and interest with which she took in each detail.... The newly married couple were the Marauds. He was about ten years her elder; he was not tall, with a swarthy face and curly hair; his hand was dry and his voice melodious. One felt in her the presence of some other, non-Latin blood; she was over medium height, although her figure was charming, and she had dark hair and blue-grey eyes. After touching at Naples, Palermo, and Tunis, they arrived at the Algerian town of Constantine, where M. Maraud had obtained a rather good post. And their life in Constantine, for the fourteen years since that happy spring, gave them everything with which people are normally satisfied: wealth, family happiness, healthy and beautiful children. During the fourteen years the Marauds had greatly changed in appearance. He became as dark as an Arab; from his work, from travelling, from tobacco and the sun, he had grown grey and dried up--many people mistook him for a native of Algeria. And it would have been impossible to recognize in her the woman who sailed once in the Auvergne: at that time there was even in the boots which she put outside her door at night the charm of youth; now there was silver in her hair, her skin had become more transparent and more of a golden colour, her hands were thinner and in her care of them, of her linen, and of her clothes she already showed a certain excessive tidiness. Their relations had certainly changed too, although no one could say for the worse. They each lived their own life: his time was filled with work--he remained the same passionate, and, at the same time, sober man that he had been before; her time was filled up with looking after him and their children, two pretty girls, of whom the elder was almost a young lady: and every one with one voice agreed that in all Constantine there was no better hostess, no better mother, no more charming companion in the drawing-room than Madame Maraud. Their house stood in a quiet, clean part of the town. From the front rooms on the second floor, which were always half dark with the blinds drawn down, one saw Constantine, known the world over for its picturesqueness. On steep rocks stands the ancient Arab fortress which has become a French city. The windows of the living-rooms looked into a garden where in perpetual heat and sunshine slumbered the evergreen eucalyptuses, the sycamores, and palms behind high walls. The master was frequently away on business, and the lady led the secluded existence to which the wives of Europeans are doomed in the colonies. On Sundays she always went to church. On weekdays she rarely went out, and she visited only a small and select circle. She read, did needle-work, talked or did lessons with the children; sometimes taking her younger daughter, the black-eyed Marie, on her knee, she would play the piano with one hand and sing old French songs, in order to while away the long African day, while the great breath of hot wind blew in through the open windows from the garden.... Constantine, with all its shutters closed and scorched pitilessly by the sun, seemed at such hours a dead city: only the birds called behind the garden wall, and from the hills behind the town came the dreary sound of pipes, filled with the melancholy of colonial countries, and at times there the dull thud of guns shook the earth, and you could see the flashing of the white helmets of soldiers. The days in Constantine passed monotonously, but no one noticed that Madame Maraud minded that. In her pure, refined nature there was no trace of abnormal sensitiveness or excessive nervousness. Her health could not be called robust, but it gave no cause of anxiety to M. Maraud. Only one incident once astonished him: in Tunis once, an Arab juggler so quickly and completely hypnotized her that it was only with difficulty that she could be brought to. But this happened at the time of their arrival from France; she had never since experienced so sudden a loss of will-power, such a morbid suggestibility. And M. Maraud was happy, untroubled, convinced that her soul was tranquil and open to him. And it was so, even in the last, the fourteenth year of their married life. But then there appeared in Constantine Emile Du-Buis. Emile Du-Buis, the son of Madame Bonnay, an old and good friend of M. Maraud, was only nineteen. Emile was the son of her first husband and had grown up in Paris where he studied law, but he spent most of his time in writing poems, intelligible only to himself; he was attached to the school of "Seekers" which has now ceased to exist. Madame Bonnay, the widow of an engineer, also had a daughter, Elise. In May, 1889, Elise was just going to be married, when she fell ill and died a few days before her wedding, and Emile, who had never been in Constantine, came to the funeral. It can be easily understood how that death moved Madame Maraud, the death of a girl already trying on her wedding dress; it is also known how quickly in such circumstances an intimacy springs up between people who have hardly met before. Besides, to Madame Maraud Emile was, indeed, only a boy. Soon after the funeral Madame Bonnay went for the summer to stay with her relations in France. Emile remained in Constantine, in a suburban villa which belonged to his late step-father, the villa "Hashim," as it was called in the town, and he began coming nearly every day to the Marauds. Whatever he was, whatever he pretended to be, he was still very young, very sensitive, and he needed people to whom he could attach himself for a time. "And isn't it strange?" some said; "Madame Maraud has become unrecognizable! How lively she has become, and how her looks have improved!" However, these insinuations were groundless. At first there was only this, that her life had become a little bit jollier, and her girls too had become more playful and coquettish, since Emile, every now and then forgetting his sorrow and the poison with which, as he thought, the fin de siècle had infected him, would for hours at a time play with Marie and Louise as if he were their age. It is true that he was all the same a man, a Parisian, and not altogether an ordinary man. He had already taken part in that life, inaccessible to ordinary mortals, which Parisian writers live; he often read aloud, with a hypnotic expressiveness, strange but sonorous poems; and, perhaps it was entirely owing to him that Madame Maraud's walk had become lighter and quicker, her dress at home imperceptibly smarter, the tones of her voice more tender and playful. Perhaps, too, there was in her soul a drop of purely feminine pleasure that here was a man to whom she could give her small commands, with whom she could talk, half seriously and half jokingly as a mentor, with that freedom which their difference in age so naturally allowed--a man who was so devoted to her whole household, in which, however, the first person--this, of course, very soon became clear--was for him, nevertheless, she herself. But how common all that is! And the chief thing was that often what she really felt for him was only pity. He honestly thought himself a born poet, and he wished outwardly too to look like a poet; his long hair was brushed back with artistic modesty; his hair was fine, brown, and suited his pale face just as did his black clothes; but the pallor was too bloodless, with a yellow tinge in it; his eyes were always shining, but the tired look in his face made them seem feverish; and so flat and narrow was his chest, so thin his legs and hands, that one felt a little uncomfortable when one saw him get very excited and run in the street or garden, with his body pushed forward a little, as though he were gliding, in order to hide his defect, that he had one leg shorter than the other. In company he was apt to be unpleasant, haughty, trying to appear mysterious, negligent, at times elegantly dashing, at times contemptuously absent-minded, in everything independent; but too often he could not carry it through to the end, he became confused and began to talk hurriedly with naïve frankness. And, of course, he was not very long able to hide his feelings, to maintain the pose of not believing in love or in happiness on earth. He had already begun to bore his host by his visits; every day he would bring from his villa bouquets of the rarest flowers, and he would sit from morn to night reading poems which were more and more unintelligible--the children often heard him beseeching some one that they should die together--while he spent his nights in the native quarter, in dens where Arabs, wrapped in dirty white robes, greedily watch the danse de ventre, and drank fiery liqueurs.... In a word it took less than six weeks for his passion to change into God knows what. His nerves gave way completely. Once he sat for nearly the whole day in silence; then he got up, bowed, took his hat and went out--and half an hour later he was carried in from the street in a terrible state; he was in hysterics and he wept so passionately that he terrified the children and servants. But Madame Maraud, it seemed, did not attach any particular importance to this delirium. She herself tried to help him recover himself, quickly undid his tie, told him to be a man, and she only smiled when he, without any restraint in her husband's presence, caught her hands and covered them with kisses and vowed devotion to her. But an end had to be put to all this. When, a few days after this outbreak, Emile, whom the children had greatly missed, arrived calm, but looking like some one who has been through a serious illness, Madame Maraud gently told him everything which is always said on such occasions. "My friend, you are like a son to me," she said to him, for the first time uttering the word son, and, indeed, almost feeling a maternal affection. "Don't put me in a ridiculous and painful position." "But I swear to you, you are mistaken!" he exclaimed, with passionate sincerity. "I am only devoted to you. I only want to see you, nothing else!" And suddenly he fell on his knees--they were in the garden, on a quiet, hot, dark evening--impetuously embraced her knees, nearly fainting with passion. And looking at his hair, at his thin white neck, she thought with pain and ecstasy: "Ah yes, yes, I might have had such a son, almost his age!" However, from that time until he left for France he behaved reasonably. This essentially was a bad sign, for it might mean that his passion had become deeper. But outwardly everything had changed for the better--only once did he break down. It was on a Sunday after dinner at which several strangers were present, and he, careless of whether they noticed it, said to her: "I beg you to spare me a minute." She got up and followed him into the empty, half-dark drawing-room. He went to the window through which the evening light fell in broad shafts, and, looking straight into her face, said: "To-day is the day on which my father died. I love you!" She turned and was about to leave him. Frightened, he hastily called after her: "Forgive me, it is for the first and last time!" Indeed, she heard no further confessions from him. "I was fascinated by her agitation," he noted that night in his diary in his elegant and pompous style; "I swore never again to disturb her peace of mind: am I not blessed enough without that?" He continued to come to town--he only slept at the villa Hashim--and he behaved erratically, but always more or less properly. At times he was, as before, unnaturally playful and naïve, running about with the children in the garden; but more often he sat with her and "sipped of her presence," read newspapers and novels to her, and "was happy in her listening to him." "The children were not in the way," he wrote of those days, "their voices, laughter, comings and goings, their very beings acted like the subtlest conductors for our feelings; thanks to them, the charm of those feelings was intensified; we talked about the most everyday matters, but something else sounded through what we said: our happiness; yes, yes, she, too, was happy--I maintain that! She loved me to read poetry; in the evenings from the balcony we looked down upon Constantine, lying at our feet in the bluish moonlight...." At last, in August Madame Maraud insisted that he should go away, return to his work; and during his journey he wrote: "I'm going away! I am going away, poisoned by the bitter sweet of parting! She gave me a remembrance, a velvet ribbon which she wore round her neck as a young girl. At the last moment she blessed me, and I saw tears shine in her eyes, when she said: 'Good-bye, my dear son.'" Was he right in thinking that Madam Maraud was also happy in August? No one knows. But that his leaving was painful to her--there is no doubt of that. That word "son," which had often troubled her before, now had a sound for her which she could not bear to hear. Formerly when friends met her on the way to church, and said to her jokingly: "What have you to pray for, Madame Maraud? You are already without sin and without troubles!" she more than once answered with a sad smile: "I complain to God that he has not given me a son." Now the thought of a son never left her, the thought of the happiness that he would constantly give her by his mere existence in the world. And once, soon after Emile's departure, she said to her husband: "Now I understand it all. I now believe firmly that every mother ought to have a son, that every mother who has no son, if she look into her own heart and examine her whole life, will realize that she is unhappy. You are a man and cannot feel that, but it is so.... Oh how tenderly, passionately a woman can love a son!" She was very affectionate to her husband during that autumn. It would happen sometimes that, sitting alone with him, she would suddenly say bashfully: "Listen, Hector.... I am ashamed to mention it again to you, but still ... do you ever think of March, '76? Ah, if we had had a son!" "All this troubled me a good deal," M. Maraud said later, "and it troubled me the more because she began to get thin and out of health. She grew feeble, became more and more silent and gentle. She went out to our friends more and more rarely, she avoided going to town unless compelled.... I have no doubt that some terrible, incomprehensible disease had been gradually getting hold of her, body and soul!" And the governess added that that autumn, Madame Maraud, if she went out, invariably put on a thick white veil, which she had never done before, and that, on coming home, she would immediately take it off in front of the glass and would carefully examine her tired face. It is unnecessary to explain what had been going on in her soul during that period. But did she desire to see Emile? Did he write to her and did she answer him? He produced before the court two telegrams which he alleged she sent him in reply to letters of his. One was dated November 10: "You are driving me mad. Be calm. Send me a message immediately." The other of December 23: "No, no, don't come, I implore you. Think of me, love me as a mother." But, of course, the truth that the telegrams had been sent by her could not be proved. Only this is certain, that from September to January the life which Madame Maraud lived was miserable, agitated, morbid. The late autumn of that year in Constantine was cold and rainy. Then, as is always the case in Algeria, there suddenly came a delightful spring. And a liveliness began again to return to Madame Maraud, that happy, subtle intoxication which people who have already lived through their youth feel at the blossoming of spring. She began to go out again; she drove out a good deal with the children and used to take them to the deserted garden of the villa Hashim; she intended to go to Algiers, and to show the children Blida near which there is in the hills a wooded gorge, the favourite haunt of monkeys. And so it went on until January 17 of the year 1893. On January 17 she woke up with a feeling of gentle happiness which, it seemed, had agitated her the whole night. Her husband was away on business, and in his absence she slept alone in the large room; the blinds and curtains made it almost dark. Still from the pale bluishness which filtered in one could see that it was very early. And, indeed, the little watch on the night table showed that it was six o'clock. She felt with delight the morning freshness coming from the garden, and, wrapping the light blanket round her, turned to the wall.... "Why am I so happy?" she thought as she fell asleep. And in vague and beautiful visions she saw scenes in Italy and Sicily, scenes of that far-off spring when she sailed in a cabin, with its windows opening on to the deck and the cold silvery sea, with doorhangings which time had worn and faded to a rusty silver colour, with its threshold of brass shining from perpetual polishings.... Then she saw boundless bays, lagoons, low shores, an Arab city all white with flat roofs and behind it misty blue hills and mountains. It was Tunis, where she had only once been, that spring when she was in Naples, Palermo.... But then, as though the chill of a wave had passed over her, with a start, she opened her eyes. It was past eight; she heard the voices of the children and the governess. She got up, put on a wrap, and, going out on to the balcony, went down to the garden and sat in the rocking-chair. It stood on the sand by a round table under a blossoming mimosa tree which made a golden arbour heavily scented in the sun. The maid brought her coffee. She again began to think of Tunis, and she remembered the strange thing which had happened to her there, the sweet terror and happy silence of the moment before death which she had experienced in that pale-blue city in a warm pink twilight, half lying in a rocking-chair on the hotel roof, faintly seeing the dark face of the Arab hypnotizer and juggler, who squatted in front of her and sent her to sleep by his hardly audible, monotonous melodies and the slow movements of his thin hands. And suddenly, as she was thinking and was looking mechanically with wide-open eyes at the bright silver spark which shone in the sunlight from the spoon in the glass of water, she lost consciousness.... When with a start she opened her eyes again, Emile was standing over her. All that followed after that unexpected meeting is known from the words of Emile himself, from his story, from his answers in cross-examination. "Yes, I came to Constantine out of the blue!" he said; "I came because I felt that the Powers of Heaven themselves could not stop me. In the morning of January 17 straight from the railway station, without any warning, I arrived at M. Maraud's house and ran into the garden. I was overwhelmed by what I saw, but no sooner had I taken a step forward than she woke up. She seemed to be amazed both by the unexpectedness of my appearance and by what had been happening to her, but she uttered no cry. She looked at me like a person who has just woken up from a sound sleep, and then she got up, arranging her hair. "It is just what I anticipated," she said without expression; "you did not obey me!" And with a characteristic movement she folded the wrap round her bosom, and taking my head in her two hands kissed me twice on the forehead. I was bewildered with passionate ecstasy, but she quietly pushed me from her and said: "Come, I am not dressed; I'll be back presently; go to the children." "But, for the love of God, what was the matter with you just now?" I asked, following her on to the balcony. "Oh, it was nothing, a slight faintness; I had been looking at the shining spoon," she answered, regaining control of herself, and beginning to speak with animation. "But what have you done, what have you done!" I could not find the children anywhere; it was empty and quiet in the house. I sat in the dining-room, and heard her suddenly begin to sing in a distant room in a strong, melodious voice, but I did not understand then the full horror of that singing, because I was trembling with nervousness. I had not slept at all all night; I had counted the minutes while the train was hurrying me to Constantine; I jumped into the first carriage I met, raced out of the station; I did not expect as I came to the town.... I knew I, too, had a foreboding that my coming would be fatal to us; but still what I saw in the garden, that mystical meeting, and that sudden change in her attitude towards me, I could not expect that! In ten minutes she came down with her hair dressed, in a light grey dress with a shade of blue in it. "Ah," she said, while I kissed her hand, "I forgot that to-day is Sunday; the children are at church, and I overslept.... After church the children will go to the pine-wood--have you ever been there?" And, without waiting for my answer, she rang the bell, and told them to bring me coffee. She began to look fixedly at me, and, without listening to my replies, to ask me how I lived, and what I was doing; she began to speak of herself, of how, after two or three very bad months during which she had become "terribly old"--those words were uttered with an imperceptible smile--she now felt so well, as young, as never before.... I answered, listened, but a great deal I did not understand. Both of us said meaningless things; my hands grew cold at the thought of another terrible and inevitable hour. I do not deny that I felt as though I were struck by lightning when she said "I have grown old...." I suddenly noticed that she was right; in the thinness of her hands, and faded, though youthful, face, in the dryness of some of the outlines of her figure, I noticed the first signs of that which, painfully and somehow awkwardly--but still more painfully--makes one's heart contract at the sight of an ageing woman. Oh yes, how quickly and sharply she had changed, I thought. But still she was beautiful; I grew intoxicated looking at her. I had been accustomed to dream of her endlessly; I had never for an instant forgotten when, in the evening of July 11, I had embraced her knees for the first time. Her hands, too, trembled slightly, as she arranged her hair and spoke and smiled and looked at me; and suddenly--you will understand the whole catastrophic power of that woman--suddenly that smile somehow became distorted, and she said with difficulty, but yet firmly: "You must go home, you must rest after your journey--you are not looking yourself; your eyes are so terribly suffering, your lips so burning that I cannot bear it any longer.... Would you like me to come with you, to accompany you?" And, without waiting for my answer, she got up and went to put on her hat and cloak.... We drove quickly to the villa Hashim. I stopped for a moment on the terrace to pick some flowers. She did not wait for me, but opened the door herself. I had no servants; there was only a watchman, but he did not see us. When I came into the hall, hot and dark with its drawn blinds, and gave her the flowers, she kissed them; then, putting one arm round me, she kissed me. Her lips were dry from excitement, but her voice was clear. "But listen ... how shall we ... have you got anything?" she asked. At first I did not understand her; I was so overwhelmed by the first kiss, the first endearment, and I murmured: "What do you mean?" She shrank back. "What!" she said, almost sternly. "Did you imagine that I... that we can live after this? Have you anything to kill ourselves with?" I understood, and quickly showed her my revolver, loaded with five cartridges, which I always kept on me. She walked away quickly ahead of me from one room to the other. I followed her with that numbness of the senses with which a naked man on a sultry day walks out into the sea; I heard the rustle of her skirts. At last we were there; she threw off her cloak and began to untie the strings of her hat. Her hands were still trembling and in the half-light I again noticed something, pitiful and tired in her face.... But she died with firmness. At the last moment she was transformed; she kissed me, and moving her head back so as to see my face, she whispered to me such tender and moving words that I cannot repeat them. I wanted to go out and pick some flowers to strew on the death-bed. She would not let me; she was in a hurry and said: "No, no, you must not ... there are flowers here ... here are your flowers," and she kept on repeating: "And see, I beseech you by all that is sacred to you, kill me!" "Yes, and then I will kill myself," I said, without for a moment doubting my resolution. "Oh, I believe you, I believe you," she answered, already apparently half-unconscious.... A moment before her death she said very quietly and simply: "My God, this is unspeakable!" And again: "Where are the flowers you gave me? Kiss me--for the last time." She herself put the revolver to her head. I wanted to do it, but she stopped me: "No, that is not right; let me do it. Like this, my child.... And afterwards make the sign of the cross over me and lay the flowers on my heart...." When I fired, she made a slight movement with her lips, and I fired again.... She lay quiet; in her dead face there was a kind of bitter happiness. Her hair was loose; the tortoise-shell comb lay on the floor. I staggered to my feet in order to put an end to myself. But the room, despite the blinds, was light; in the light and stillness which suddenly surrounded me, I saw clearly her face already pale.... And suddenly madness seized me; I rushed to the window, undid and threw open the shutters, began shouting and firing into the air.... The rest you know...." [In the spring, five years ago, while wandering in Algeria, the writer of these lines visited Constantine.... There often comes to him a memory of the cold, rainy, and yet spring evenings which he spent by the fire in the reading-room of a certain old and homely French hotel. In the heavy, elaborate book-case were much-read illustrated papers, and in them you could see the faded photographs of Madame Maraud. There were photographs taken of her at different ages, and among them the Lausanne portrait of her as a girl.... Her story is told here once more, from a desire to tell it in one's own way.
četvrtak, 19. ožujka 2026.
THE WEAKLING By EVERETT B. COLE - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/28486/pg28486-images.html
A strong man can, of course, be dangerous, but he doesn’t approach the vicious deadliness of a weakling—with a weapon!
In the cemetery above a fresh mound of earth stands a new cross of oak--strong, heavy, smooth, a pleasant thing to look at. It is April, but the days are grey. From a long way off one can see through the bare trees the tomb-stones in the cemetery--a spacious, real country or cathedral town cemetery; the cold wind goes whistling, whistling through the china wreath at the foot of the cross. In the cross itself is set a rather large bronze medallion, and in the medallion is a portrait of a smart and charming school-girl, with happy, astonishingly vivacious eyes. It is Olga Meschersky. As a little girl there was nothing to distinguish her in the noisy crowd of brown dresses which made its discordant and youthful hum in the corridors and class-rooms; all that one could say of her was that she was just one of a number of pretty, rich, happy little girls, that she was clever, but playful, and very careless of the precepts of her class-teacher. Then she began to develop and to blossom, not by days, but by hours. At fourteen, with a slim waist and graceful legs, there was already well developed the outline of her breasts and all those contours of which the charm has never yet been expressed in human words; at fifteen she was said to be a beauty. How carefully some of her school friends did their hair, how clean they were, how careful and restrained in their movements! But she was afraid of nothing--neither of ink-stains on her fingers, nor of a flushed face, nor of dishevelled hair, nor of a bare knee after a rush and a tumble. Without a thought or an effort on her part, imperceptibly there came to her everything which so distinguished her from the rest of the school during her last two years--daintiness, smartness, quickness, the bright and intelligent gleam in her eyes. No one danced like Olga Meschersky, no one could run or skate like her, no one at dances had as many admirers as she had, and for some reason no one was so popular with the junior classes. Imperceptibly she grew up into a girl and imperceptibly her fame in the school became established, and already there were rumours that she is flighty, that she cannot live without admirers, that the schoolboy, Shensin, is madly in love with her, that she, too, perhaps loves him, but is so changeable in her treatment of him that he tried to commit suicide.... During her last winter, Olga Meschersky went quite crazy with happiness, so they said at school. It was a snowy, sunny, frosty winter; the sun would go down early behind the grove of tall fir-trees in the snowy school garden; but it was always fine and radiant weather, with a promise of frost and sun again to-morrow, a walk in Cathedral Street, skating in the town park, a pink sunset, music, and that perpetually moving crowd in which Olga Meschersky seemed to be the smartest, the most careless, and the happiest. And then, one day, when she was rushing like a whirlwind through the recreation room with the little girls chasing her and screaming for joy, she was unexpectedly called up to the headmistress. She stopped short, took one deep breath, with a quick movement, already a habit, arranged her hair, gave a pull to the corners of her apron to bring it up on her shoulders, and with shining eyes ran upstairs. The headmistress, small, youngish, but grey-haired, sat quietly with her knitting in her hands at the writing-table, under the portrait of the Tsar. "Good morning, Miss Meschersky," she said in French, without lifting her eyes from her knitting. "I am sorry that this is not the first time that I have had to call you here to speak to you about your behaviour." "I am attending, madam," answered Olga, coming up to the table, looking at her brightly and happily, but with an expressionless face, and curtsying so lightly and gracefully, as only she could. "You will attend badly--unfortunately I have become convinced of that," said the headmistress, giving a pull at the thread so that the ball rolled away over the polished floor, and Olga watched it with curiosity. The headmistress raised her eyes: "I shall not repeat myself, I shall not say much," she said. Olga very much liked the unusually clean and large study; on frosty days the air in it was so pleasant with the warmth from the shining Dutch fire-place, and the fresh lilies-of-the-valley on the writing-table. She glanced at the young Tsar, painted full-length in a splendid hall, at the smooth parting in the white, neatly waved hair of the headmistress; she waited in silence. "You are no longer a little girl," said the headmistress meaningly, beginning to feel secretly irritated. "Yes, madam," answered Olga simply, almost merrily. "But neither are you a woman yet," said the headmistress, still more meaningly, and her pale face flushed a little. "To begin with, why do you do your hair like that? You do it like a woman." "It is not my fault, madam, that I have nice hair," Olga replied, and gave a little touch with both hands to her beautifully dressed hair. "Ah, is that it? You are not to blame!" said the headmistress. "You are not to blame for the way you do your hair; you are not to blame for those expensive combs; you are not to blame for ruining your parents with your twenty-rouble shoes. But, I repeat, you completely forget that you are still only a schoolgirl...." And here Olga, without losing her simplicity and calm, suddenly interrupted her politely: "Excuse me, madam, you are mistaken--I am a woman. And, do you know who is to blame for that? My father's friend and neighbour, your brother, Alexey Mikhailovitch Malyntin. It happened last summer in the country...." And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ungainly and of plebeian appearance, who had absolutely nothing in common with Olga Meschersky's circle, shot her on the platform of the railway station, in a large crowd of people who had just arrived by train. And the incredible confession of Olga Meschersky, which had stunned the headmistress, was completely confirmed; the officer told the coroner that Meschersky had led him on, had had a liaison with him, had promised to marry him, and at the railway station on the day of the murder, while seeing him off to Novocherkask had suddenly told him that she had never thought of marrying him, that all the talk about marriage was only to make a fool of him, and she gave him her diary to read with the pages in it which told about Malyntin. "I glanced through those pages," said the officer, "went out on to the platform where she was walking up and down, and waiting for me to finish reading it, and I shot her. The diary is in the pocket of my overcoat; look at the entry for July 10 of last year." And this is what the coroner read: "It is now nearly two o'clock in the morning. I fell sound asleep, but woke up again immediately.... I have become a woman to-day! Papa, mamma, and Tolya had all gone to town, and I was left alone. I cannot say how happy I was to be alone. In the morning I walked in the orchard, in the field, and I went into the woods, and it seemed to me that I was all by myself in the whole world, and I never had such pleasant thoughts before. I had lunch by myself; then I played for an hour, and the music made me feel that I should live for ever, and be happier than any one else had ever been. Then I fell asleep in papa's study, and at four o'clock Kate woke me, and said that Alexey Mikhailovitch had come. I was very glad to see him; it was so pleasant to receive him and entertain him. He came with his pair of Viatka horses, very beautiful, and they stood all the time at the front door, but he stayed because it was raining, and hoped that the roads would dry towards evening. He was very sorry not to find papa at home, was very animated and treated me very politely, and made many jokes about his having been long in love with me. Before tea we walked in the garden, and the weather was charming, the sun shining through the whole wet garden; but it grew quite cold, and he walked with me, arm in arm, and said that he was Faust with Margarete. He is fifty-six, but still very handsome, and always very well dressed--the only thing I didn't like was his coming in a sort of cape--he smells of English eau-de-Cologne, and his eyes are quite young, black; his beard is long and elegantly parted down the middle, it is quite silvery. We had tea in the glass verandah, and suddenly I did not feel very well, and lay down on the sofa while he smoked; then he sat down near me, and began to say nice things, and then to take my hand and kiss it. I covered my face with a silk handkerchief, and several times he kissed me on the lips through the handkerchief.... I can't understand how it happened; I went mad; I never thought I was like that. Now I have only one way out.... I feel such a loathing for him that I cannot endure it...." The town in these April days has become clean and dry, its stones have become white, and it is easy and pleasant to walk on them. Every Sunday, after mass, along Cathedral Street which leads out of the town, there walks a little woman in mourning, in black kid gloves, and with an ebony sunshade. She crosses the yard of the fire-station, crosses the dirty market-place by the road where there are many black smithies, and where the wind blows fresher from the fields; in the distance, between the monastery and the gaol, is the white slope of the sky and the grey of the spring fields; and then, when you have passed the muddy pools behind the monastery wall and turn to the left, you will see what looks like a large low garden, surrounded by a white wall, on the gates of which is written "The Assumption of Our Lady." The little woman makes rapid little signs of the cross, and always walks on the main path. When she gets to the bench opposite the oak cross she sits down, in the wind and the chilly spring, for an hour, two hours, until her feet in the light boots, and her hand in the narrow kid glove, grow quite cold. Listening to the birds of spring, singing sweetly even in the cold, listening to the whistling of the wind through the porcelain wreath, she sometimes thinks that she would give half her life if only that dead wreath might not be before her eyes. The thought that it is Olga Meschersky who has been buried in that clay plunges her into astonishment bordering upon stupidity: how can one associate the sixteen-year-old school-girl, who but two or three months ago was so full of life, charm, happiness, with that mound of earth and that oak cross. Is it possible that beneath it is the same girl whose eyes shine out immortally from this bronze medallion, and how can one connect this bright look with the horrible event which is associated now with Olga Meschersky? But in the depths of her soul the little woman is happy, as are all those who are in love or are generally devoted to some passionate dream. The woman is Olga Meschersky's class-mistress, a girl over thirty, who has for long been living on some illusion and putting it in the place of her actual life. At first the illusion was her brother, a poor lieutenant, in no way remarkable--her whole soul was bound up in him and in his future, which, for some reason, she imagined as splendid, and she lived in the curious expectation that, thanks to him, her fate would transport her into some fairyland. Then, when he was killed at Mukden, she persuaded herself that she, very happily, is not like others, that instead of beauty and womanliness she has intellect and higher interests, that she is a worker for the ideal. And now Olga Meschersky is the object of all her thoughts, of her admiration and joy. Every holiday she goes to her grave--she had formed the habit of going to the cemetery after the death of her brother--for hours she never takes her eyes off the oak cross; she recalls Olga Meschersky's pale face in the coffin amid the flowers, and remembers what she once overheard: once during the luncheon hour, while walking in the school garden, Olga Meschersky was quickly, quickly saying to her favourite friend, the tall plump Subbotin: "I have been reading one of papa's books--he has a lot of funny old books--I read about the kind of beauty which woman ought to possess. There's such a lot written there, you see, I can't remember it all; well, of course, eyes black as boiling pitch--upon my word, that's what they say there, boiling pitch!--eye-brows black as night, and a tender flush in the complexion, a slim figure, hands longer than the ordinary--little feet, a fairly large breast, a regularly rounded leg, a knee the colour of the inside of a shell, high but sloping shoulders--a good deal of it I have nearly learnt by heart, it is all so true; but do you know what the chief thing is? Gentle breathing! And I have got it; you listen how I breathe; isn't it gentle?" Now the gentle breathing has again vanished away into the world, into the cloudy day, into the cold spring wind....
srijeda, 18. ožujka 2026.
On the yellow card with a nobleman's coronet the young porter at the Hotel "Versailles" somehow managed to read the Christian name and patronymic "Kasimir Stanislavovitch."[1] There followed something still more complicated and still more difficult to pronounce. The porter turned the card this way and that way in his hand, looked at the passport, which the visitor had given him with it, shrugged his shoulders--none of those who stayed at the "Versailles" gave their cards--then he threw both on to the table and began again to examine himself in the silvery, milky mirror which hung above the table, whipping up his thick hair with a comb. He wore an overcoat and shiny top-boots; the gold braid on his cap was greasy with age--the hotel was a bad one. Kasimir Stanislavovitch left Kiev for Moscow on April 8th, Good Friday, on receiving a telegram with the one word "tenth." Somehow or other he managed to get the money for his fare, and took his seat in a second-class compartment, grey and dim, but really giving him the sensation of comfort and luxury. The train was heated, and that railway-carriage heat and the smell of the heating apparatus, and the sharp tapping of the little hammers in it, reminded Kasimir Stanislavovitch of other times. At times it seemed to him that winter had returned, that in the fields the white, very white drifts of snow had covered up the yellowish bristle of stubble and the large leaden pools where the wild-duck swam. But often the snow-storm stopped suddenly and melted; the fields grew bright, and one felt that behind the clouds was much light, and the wet platforms of the railway-stations looked black, and the rooks called from the naked poplars. At each big station Kasimir Stanislavovitch went to the refreshment-room for a drink, and returned to his carriage with newspapers in his hands; but he did not read them; he only sat and sank in the thick smoke of his cigarettes, which burned and glowed, and to none of his neighbours--Odessa Jews who played cards all the time--did he say a single word. He wore an autumn overcoat of which the pockets were worn, a very old black top-hat, and new, but heavy, cheap boots. His hands, the typical hands of an habitual drunkard, and an old inhabitant of basements, shook when he lit a match. Everything else about him spoke of poverty and drunkenness: no cuffs, a dirty linen collar, an ancient tie, an inflamed and ravaged face, bright-blue watery eyes. His side-whiskers, dyed with a bad, brown dye, had an unnatural appearance. He looked tired and contemptuous. The train reached Moscow next day, not at all up to time; it was seven hours late. The weather was neither one thing nor the other, but better and drier than in Kiev, with something stirring in the air. Kasimir Stanislavovitch took a cab without bargaining with the driver, and told him to drive straight to the "Versailles." "I have known that hotel, my good fellow," he said, suddenly breaking his silence, "since my student days." From the "Versailles," as soon as his little bag, tied with stout rope, had been taken up to his room, he immediately went out. It was nearly evening: the air was warm, the black trees on the boulevards were turning green; everywhere there were crowds of people, cars, carts. Moscow was trafficking and doing business, was returning to the usual, pressing work, was ending her holiday, and unconsciously welcomed the spring. A man who has lived his life and ruined it feels lonely on a spring evening in a strange, crowded city. Kasimir Stanislavovitch walked the whole length of the Tverskoy Boulevard; he saw once more the cast-iron figure of the musing Poushkin, the golden and lilac top of the Strasnoy Monastery.... For about an hour he sat at the Café Filippov, drank chocolate, and read old comic papers. Then he went to a cinema, whose flaming signs shone from far away down the Tverskaya, through the darkling twilight. From the cinema he drove to a restaurant on the boulevard which he had also known in his student days. He was driven by an old man, bent in a bow, sad, gloomy, deeply absorbed in himself, in his old age, in his dark thoughts. All the way the man painfully and wearily helped on his lazy horse with his whole being, murmuring something to it all the time and occasionally bitterly reproaching it--and at last, when he reached the place, he allowed the load to slip from his shoulders for a moment and gave a deep sigh, as he took the money. "I did not catch the name, and thought you meant 'Brague'!" he muttered, turning his horse slowly; he seemed displeased, although the "Prague" was further away. "I remember the 'Prague' too, old fellow," answered Kasimir Stanislavovitch. "You must have been driving for a long time in Moscow." "Driving?" the old man said; "I have been driving now for fifty-one years." "That means that you may have driven me before," said Kasimir Stanislavovitch. "Perhaps I did," answered the old man dryly. "There are lots of people in the world; one can't remember all of you." Of the old restaurant, once known to Kasimir Stanislavovitch, there remained only the name. Now it was a large, first-class, though vulgar, restaurant. Over the entrance burnt an electric globe which illuminated with its unpleasant, heliotrope light the smart, second-rate cabmen, impudent, and cruel to their lean, short-winded steeds. In the damp hall stood pots of laurels and tropical plants of the kind which one sees carried on to the platforms from weddings to funerals and vice versa. From the porters' lodge several men rushed out together to Kasimir Stanislavovitch, and all of them had just the same thick curl of hair as the porter at the "Versailles." In the large greenish room, decorated in the rococo style, were a multitude of broad mirrors, and in the corner burnt a crimson icon-lamp. The room was still empty, and only a few of the electric lights were on. Kasimir Stanislavovitch sat for a long time alone, doing nothing. One felt that behind the windows with their white blinds the long, spring evening had not yet grown dark; one heard from the street the thudding of hooves; in the middle of the room there was the monotonous splash-splash of the little fountain in an aquarium round which gold-fish, with their scales peeling off, lighted somehow from below, swam through the water. A waiter in white brought the dinner things, bread, and a decanter of cold vodka. Kasimir Stanislavovitch began drinking the vodka, held it in his mouth before swallowing it, and, having swallowed it, smelt the black bread as though with loathing. With a suddenness which gave even him a start, a gramophone began to roar out through the room a mixture of Russian songs, now exaggeratedly boisterous and turbulent, now too tender, drawling, sentimental.... And Kasimir Stanislavovitch's eyes grew red and tears filmed them at that sweet and snuffling drone of the machine. Then a grey-haired, curly, black-eyed Georgian brought him, on a large iron fork, a half-cooked, smelly shashlyk, cut off the meat on to the plate with a kind of dissolute smartness, and, with Asiatic simplicity, with his own hand sprinkled it with onions, salt, and rusty barbery powder, while the gramophone roared out in the empty hall a cake-walk, inciting one to jerks and spasms. Then Kasimir Stanislavovitch was served with cheese, fruit, red wine, coffee, mineral water, liquers.... The gramophone had long ago grown silent; instead of it there had been playing on the platform an orchestra of German women dressed in white; the lighted hall, continually filling up with people, grew hot, became dim with tobacco smoke and heavily saturated with the smell of food; waiters rushed about in a whirl; drunken people ordered cigars which immediately made them sick; the head-waiters showed excessive officiousness, combined with an intense realization of their own dignity; in the mirrors, in the watery gloom of their abysses, there was more and more chaotically reflected something huge, noisy, complicated. Several times Kasimir Stanislavovitch went out of the hot hall into the cool corridors, into the cold lavatory, where there was a strange smell of the sea; he walked as if on air, and, on returning to his table, again ordered wine. After midnight, closing his eyes and drawing the fresh night air through his nostrils into his intoxicated head, he raced in a hansom-cab on rubber tyres out of the town to a brothel; he saw in the distance infinite chains of light, running away somewhere down hill and then up hill again, but he saw it just as if it were not he, but some one else, seeing it. In the brothel he nearly had a fight with a stout gentleman who attacked him shouting that he was known to all thinking Russia. Then he lay, dressed, on a broad bed, covered with a satin quilt, in a little room half-lighted from the ceiling by a sky-blue lantern, with a sickly smell of scented soap, and with dresses hanging from a hook on the door. Near the bed stood a dish of fruit, and the girl who had been hired to entertain Kasimir Stanislavovitch, silently, greedily, with relish ate a pear, cutting off slices with a knife, and her friend, with fat bare arms, dressed only in a chemise which made her look like a little girl, was rapidly writing on the toilet-table, taking no notice of them. She wrote and wept--of what? There are lots of people in the world; one can't know everything.... On the tenth of April Kasimir Stanislavovitch woke up early. Judging from the start with which he opened his eyes, one could see that he was overwhelmed by the idea that he was in Moscow. He had got back after four in the morning. He staggered down the staircase of the "Versailles," but without a mistake he went straight to his room down the long, stinking tunnel of a corridor which was lighted only at its entrance by a little lamp smoking sleepily. Outside every room stood boots and shoes--all of strangers, unknown to one another, hostile to one another. Suddenly a door opened, almost terrifying Kasimir Stanislavovitch; on its threshold appeared an old man, looking like a third-rate actor acting "The Memoirs of a Lunatic," and Kasimir Stanislavovitch saw a lamp under a green shade and a room crowded with things, the cave of a lonely, old lodger, with icons in the corner, and innumerable cigarette boxes piled one upon another almost to the ceiling, near the icons. Was that the half-crazy writer of the lives of the saints, who had lived in the "Versailles" twenty-three years ago? Kasimir Stanislavovitch's dark room was terribly hot with a malignant and smelly dryness.... The light from the window over the door came faintly into the darkness. Kasimir Stanislavovitch went behind the screen, took the top-hat off his thin, greasy hair, threw his overcoat over the end of his bare bed.... As soon as he lay down, everything began to turn round him, to rush into an abyss, and he fell asleep instantly. In his sleep all the time he was conscious of the smell of the iron wash-stand which stood close to his face, and he dreamt of a spring day, trees in blossom, the hall of a manor house and a number of people waiting anxiously for the bishop to arrive at any moment; and all night long he was wearied and tormented with that waiting.... Now in the corridors of the "Versailles" people rang, ran, called to one another. Behind the screen, through the double, dusty window-panes, the sun shone; it was almost hot.... Kasimir Stanislavovitch took off his jacket, rang the bell, and began to wash. There came in a quick-eyed boy, the page-boy, with fox-coloured hair on his head, in a frock-coat and pink shirt. "A loaf, samovar, and lemon," Kasimir Stanislavovitch said without looking at him. "And tea and sugar?" the boy asked with Moscow sharpness. And a minute later he rushed in with a boiling samovar in his hand, held out level with his shoulders; on the round table in front of the sofa he quickly put a tray with a glass and a battered brass slop-basin, and thumped the samovar down on the tray.... Kasimir Stanislavovitch, while the tea was drawing, mechanically opened the Moscow Daily, which the page-boy had brought in with the samovar. His eye fell on a report that yesterday an unknown man had been picked up unconscious.... "The victim was taken to the hospital," he read, and threw the paper away. He felt very bad and unsteady. He got up and opened the window--it faced the yard--and a breath of freshness and of the city came to him; there came to him the melodious shouts of hawkers, the bells of horse-trams humming behind the house opposite, the blended rap-tap of the cars, the musical drone of church-bells.... The city had long since started its huge, noisy life in that bright, jolly, almost spring day. Kasimir Stanislavovitch squeezed the lemon into a glass of tea and greedily drank the sour, muddy liquid; then he again went behind the screen. The "Versailles" was quiet. It was pleasant and peaceful; his eye wandered leisurely over the hotel notice on the wall: "A stay of three hours is reckoned as a full day." A mouse scuttled in the chest of drawers, rolling about a piece of sugar left there by some visitor.... Thus half asleep Kasimir Stanislavovitch lay for a long time behind the screen, until the sun had gone from the room and another freshness was wafted in from the window, the freshness of evening. Then he carefully got himself in order: he undid his bag, changed his underclothing, took out a cheap, but clean handkerchief, brushed his shiny frock-coat, top-hat, and overcoat, took out of its torn pocket a crumpled Kiev newspaper of January 15, and threw it away into the corner.... Having dressed and combed his whiskers with a dyeing comb, he counted his money--there remained in his purse four roubles, seventy copecks--and went out. Exactly at six o'clock he was outside a low, ancient, little church in the Molchanovka. Behind the church fence a spreading tree was just breaking into green; children were playing there--the black stocking of one thin little girl, jumping over a rope, was continually coming down--and he sat there on a bench among perambulators with sleeping babies and nurses in Russian costumes. Sparrows prattled over all the tree; the air was soft, all but summer--even the dust smelt of summer--the sky above the sunset behind the houses melted into a gentle gold, and one felt that once more there was somewhere in the world joy, youth, happiness. In the church the chandeliers were already burning, and there stood the pulpit and in front of the pulpit was spread a little carpet. Kasimir Stanislavovitch cautiously took off his top-hat, trying not to untidy his hair, and entered the church nervously; he went into a corner, but a corner from which he could see the couple to be married. He looked at the painted vault, raised his eyes to the cupola, and his every movement and every gasp echoed loudly through the silence. The church shone with gold; the candles sputtered expectantly. And now the priests and choir began to enter, crossing themselves with the carelessness which comes of habit, then old women, children, smart wedding guests, and worried stewards. A noise was heard in the porch, the crunching wheels of the carriage, and every one turned their heads towards the entrance, and the hymn burst out "Come, my dove!" Kasimir Stanislavovitch became deadly pale, as his heart beat, and unconsciously he took a step forward. And close by him there passed--her veil touching him, and a breath of lily-of-the-valley--she who did not know even of his existence in the world; she passed, bending her charming head, all flowers and transparent gauze, all snow-white and innocent, happy and timid, like a princess going to her first communion.... Kasimir Stanislavovitch hardly saw the bridegroom who came to meet her, a rather small, broad-shouldered man with yellow, close-cropped hair. During the whole ceremony only one thing was before his eyes: the bent head, in the flowers and the veil, and the little hand trembling as it held a burning candle tied with a white ribbon in a bow.... About ten o'clock he was back again in the hotel. All his overcoat smelt of the spring air. After coming out of the church, he had seen, near the porch, the car lined with white satin, and its window reflecting the sunset, and behind the window there flashed on him for the last time the face of her who was being carried away from him for ever. After that he had wandered about in little streets, and had come out on the Novensky Boulevard.... Now slowly and with trembling hands he took off his overcoat, put on the table a paper bag containing two green cucumbers which for some reason he had bought at a hawker's stall. They too smelt of spring even through the paper, and spring-like through the upper pane of the window the April moon shone silvery high up in the not yet darkened sky. Kasimir Stanislavovitch lit a candle, sadly illuminating his empty, casual home, and sat down on the sofa, feeling on his face the freshness of evening.... Thus he sat for a long time. He did not ring the bell, gave no orders, locked himself in--all this seemed suspicious to the porter who had seen him enter his room with his shuffling feet and taking the key out of the door in order to lock himself in from the inside. Several times the porter stole up on tiptoe to the door and looked through the key-hole: Kasimir Stanislavovitch was sitting on the sofa, trembling and wiping his face with a handkerchief, and weeping so bitterly, so copiously that the brown dye came off, and was smeared over his face. At night he tore the cord off the blind, and, seeing nothing through his tears, began to fasten it to the hook of the clothes-peg. But the guttering candle flickered and the paper bag, and terrible dark waves swam and flickered over the locked room: he was old, weak--and he himself was well aware of it.... No, it was not in his power to die by his own hand! In the morning he started for the railway station about three hours before the train left. At the station he quietly walked about among the passengers, with his eyes on the ground and tear-stained; and he would stop unexpectedly now before one and now before another, and in a low voice, evenly but without expression, he would say rather quickly: "For God's sake ... I am in a desperate position.... My fare to Briansk.... If only a few copecks...." And some passengers, trying not to look at his top-hat, at the worn velvet collar of his overcoat, at the dreadful face with the faded violet whiskers, hurriedly, and with confusion, gave him something. And then, rushing out of the station on to the platform, he got mixed in the crowd and disappeared into it, while in the "Versailles," in the room which for two days had as it were belonged to him, they carried out the slop-pail, opened the windows to the April sun and to the fresh air, noisily moved the furniture, swept up and threw out the dust--and with the dust there fell under the table, under the table cloth which slid on to the floor, his torn note, which he had forgotten with the cucumbers: "I beg that no one be accused of my death. I was at the wedding of my only daughter who...."
utorak, 17. ožujka 2026.
The Blue Behemoth By LEIGH BRACKETT - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/62349/pg62349-images.html
Shannon's Imperial Circus was a jinxed
space-carny leased for a mysterious tour
of the inner worlds. It made a one-night
pitch on a Venusian swamp-town—to
find that death stalked it from the
jungle in a tiny ball of flame.
The stranger was a little guy. He even made me look big. He was dressed in dark-green synthesilk, very conservative. There was a powdering of grey in his hair and his skin was pink, soft, and shaved painfully clean. He had the kind of a face that nice maiden-ladies will trust with their last dime. I looked for his strong-arm squad.
It was awfully lonesome out there, with the desert cold and restless under the two moons. There's a smell to Mars, like something dead and dried long past decay, but still waiting. An unhappy smell. The blown red dust gritted in my teeth.
the gentleman from San Francisco—neither at Naples nor at Capri had any one remembered his name—was going to the Old World for two whole years, with wife and daughter, solely for the sake of pleasure. He was firmly convinced that he was fully entitled to rest, to pleasure, to prolonged and comfortable travel, and to not a little else besides. For such a conviction he had his reasons,—that, in the first place, he was rich, and, in the second, that he was only now beginning to live, despite his eight and fifty years. Until now he had not lived, but had merely existed,—not at all badly, it is true, but, never the less, putting all his hopes on the future. He had laboured with never a pause for rest,—the coolies, whom he had imported by whole thousands, well knew what this meant!—and finally he saw that much had already been accomplished, that he had almost come abreast of those whom he had at one time set out to emulate, and he decided to enjoy breathing space. It was a custom among the class of people to which he belonged to commence their enjoyment of life with a journey to Europe, to India, to Egypt. He, too, proposed to do the same. [Pg 281]Of course he desired, first of all, to reward himself for his years of toil; however, he rejoiced on account of his wife and daughter as well. His wife had never been distinguished for any special sensitiveness to new impressions,—but then, all elderly American women are fervid travellers. As for his daughter,—a girl no longer in her first youth, and somewhat sickly,—travel was a downright necessity for her: to say nothing of the benefit to her health, were there no fortuitous encounters during travels? It is while travelling that one may at times sit at table with a milliardaire, or scrutinize frescoes by his side. The itinerary worked out by the gentleman from San Francisco was an extensive one. In December and January he hoped to enjoy the sun of Southern Italy, the monuments of antiquity, the tarantella, the serenades of strolling singers, and that which men of his age relish with the utmost finesse: the love of little, youthful Neapolitaines, even though it be given not entirely without ulterior motives; he contemplated spending the Carnival in Nice, in Monte Carlo, whither the very pick of society gravitates at that time,—that very society upon which all the benefits of civilization depend: not merely the cut of tuxedos, but, as well, the stability of thrones, and the declaration of wars, and the prosperity of hotels,—Monte Carlo, where some give themselves up with passion to automobile and sail races; others to roulette; a third group to that which it is the custom to call flirting; a fourth, to trap-shooting, in which the pigeons, released from their cotes, soar up most gracefully above emerald-green swards, against the background of a sea that is the colour of forget-me-nots,—only, in the same minute, to strike against the ground as little, crumpled clods of white.... [Pg 282]The beginning of March he wanted to devote to Florence; about the time of the Passion of Our Lord to arrive at Rome, in order to hear the Miserere there; his plans also embraced Venice, and Paris, and bull-fighting in Seville, and sea-bathing in the British Islands, and Athens, and Constantinople, and Palestine, and Egypt, and even Japan,—of course, be it understood, already on the return trip.... And everything went very well at first. It was the end of November; almost as far as Gibraltar it was necessary to navigate now through an icy murk, now amidst a blizzard of wet snow; but the ship sailed in all safety and even without rolling; the passengers the steamer was carrying proved to be many, and all of them people of note; the ship—the famous Atlantida—resembled the most expensive of European hotels, with all conveniences: an all-night bar, Turkish baths, a newspaper of its own,—and life upon it flowed in accordance with a most complicated system of regulations: people got up early, to the sounds of bugles, stridently resounding through the corridors at that dark hour when day was so slowly and inimically dawning over the grayish-green desert of waters, ponderously turbulent in the mist. Putting on their flannel pyjamas, the passengers drank coffee, chocolate, cocoa; then they got into marble baths, did their exercises, inducing an appetite and a sense of well-being, performed their toilet for the day, and went to breakfast. Until eleven one was supposed to promenade the decks vigorously, inhaling the fresh coolness of the ocean, or to play at shuffle-board and other games for the sake of arousing the appetite anew, and, at eleven, to seek sustenance in bouillon and sandwiches; having refreshed [Pg 283]themselves, the passengers perused their newspaper with gusto and calmly awaited lunch, a meal still more nourishing and varied than the breakfast. The next two hours were sacred to repose,—the decks were then encumbered with chaises longues, upon which the travellers reclined, covered up with plaids, contemplating the cloud-flecked sky and the foaming hummocks flashing by over the side, or else pleasantly dozing off; at five o’clock, refreshed and put in good spirits, they were drenched with strong fragrant tea, served with cookies; at seven they were apprized by bugle signals of a dinner of nine courses.... And thereupon the gentleman from San Francisco, in an access of animal spirits, would hurry to his resplendent cabine de luxe, to dress. In the evening the tiers of the Atlantida gaped through the dusk as though they were fiery, countless eyes, and a great multitude of servants worked with especial feverishness in the kitchens, sculleries, and wine vaults. The ocean, heaving on the other side of the walls, was awesome; but none gave it a thought, firmly believing it under the sway of the captain,—a red-haired, man of monstrous bulk and ponderousness, always seeming sleepy, resembling, in his uniform frock-coat, with its golden chevrons, an enormous idol; it was only very rarely that he left his mysterious quarters to appear in public. A siren on the forecastle howled every minute in hellish sullenness and whined in frenzied malice, but not many of the diners heard the siren,—it was drowned by the strains of a splendid stringed orchestra, playing exquisitely and ceaselessly in the two-tiered hall, decorated with marble, its floors covered with velvet rugs; festively flooded with the lights of crystal lustres and gilded girandoles, filled [Pg 284]to overflowing with diamond-bedecked ladies in décoletté and men in tuxedos, graceful waiters and deferent maitres d’hôtel,—among whom one, who took orders for wines exclusively, even walked about with a chain around his neck, like a lord mayor. A tuxedo and perfect linen made the gentleman from San Francisco appear very much younger. Spare, not tall, clumsily but strongly built, groomed until he shone and moderately animated, he sat in the aureate-pearly refulgence of this palatial room, at a table with a bottle of amber Johannesberg, with countless goblets, small and large, of the thinnest glass, with a curly bouquet of curly hyacinths. There was something of the Mongol about his yellowish face with clipped silvery moustache; his large teeth gleamed with gold fillings; his stalwart, bald head glistened like old ivory. Rich, yet in keeping with her years, was the dress of his wife,—a big woman, expansive and calm; elaborate, yet light and diaphanous, with an innocent frankness, was that of his daughter,—tall, slender, with magnificent hair, exquisitely dressed, with breath aromatic from violet cachous and with the tenderest of tiny, rosy pimples about her lips and between her shoulder blades, just the least bit powdered.... The dinner lasted for two whole hours, while after dinner there was dancing in the ball room, during which the men,—the gentleman from San Francisco among their number, of course,—with their feet cocked up, determined, upon the basis of the latest political and stock-exchange news, the destinies of nations, smoking Habana cigars and drinking liqueurs until they were crimson in the face, seated in the bar, where the waiters were negroes in red jackets, the whites of their eyes resembling hard boiled eggs with the shell off. The [Pg 285]ocean, with a dull roar, was moiling in black mountains on the other side of the wall; the snow-gale whistled mightily through the sodden rigging; the whole steamer quivered as it mastered both the gale and the mountains, sundering to either side, as though with a plough, their shifting masses, that again and again boiled up and reared high, with tails of foam; the siren, stifled by the fog, was moaning with a deathly anguish; the lookouts up in their crow’s-nest froze from the cold and grew dazed from straining their attention beyond their strength. Like to the grim and sultry depths of the infernal regions, like to their ultimate, their ninth circle, was the womb of the steamer, below the water line,—that womb where dully gurgled the gigantic furnaces, devouring with their incandescent maws mountains of hard coal, cast into them by men stripped to the waist, purple from the flames, and with smarting, filthy sweat pouring over them; whereas here, in the bar, men threw their legs over the arms of their chairs with never a care, sipping cognac and liqueurs, and were wafted among clouds of spicy smoke as they indulged in well-turned conversation; in the ball room everything was radiant with light and warmth and joy; the dancing couples were now awhirl in waltzes, now twisting in the tango,—and the music insistently, in some delectably-shameless melancholy, was suppliant always of the one, always of the same thing.... There was an ambassador among this brilliant throng,—a lean, modest little old man; there was a great man of riches,—clean-shaven, lanky, of indeterminate years, and with the appearance of a prelate, in his dress-coat of an old-fashioned cut; there was a well-known Spanish writer; there was a world-celebrated beauty, already just the very least trifle [Pg 286]faded and of an unenviable morality; there was an exquisite couple in love with each other, whom all watched with curiosity and whose happiness was unconcealed: he danced only with her; sang—and with great ability—only to her accompaniment; and everything they did was carried out so charmingly, that the captain was the only one who knew that this pair was hired by Lloyd’s to play at love for a good figure, and that they had been sailing for a long time, now on one ship, now on another. At Gibraltar everybody was gladdened by the sun,—it seemed to be early spring; a new passenger, whose person aroused the general interest, made his appearance on board the Atlantida,—he was the hereditary prince of a certain Asiatic kingdom, travelling incognito; a little man who somehow seemed to be all made of wood, even though he was alert in his movements; broad of face, with narrow eyes, in gold-rimmed spectacles; a trifle unpleasant through the fact that his skin showed through his coarse black moustache like that of a cadaver; on the whole, however, he was charming, unpretentious, and modest. On the Mediterranean Sea there was a whiff of winter again; the billows ran high, and were as multi-coloured as the tail of a peacock; they had snowy-white crests, lashed up—although the sun was sparkling brightly and the sky was perfectly clear—by a tramontana, a chill northern wind from beyond the mountains, that was joyously and madly rushing to meet the ship.... Then, on the second day, the sky began to pale, the horizon became covered with mist, land was nearing; Ischia, Capri appeared; through the binoculars Naples—lumps of sugar strewn at the foot of some dove-coloured mass—could be seen; while over it and this dove-coloured thing were visible [Pg 287]the ridges of distant mountains, vaguely glimmering with the dead whiteness of snows. There was a great number of people on deck; many of the ladies and gentlemen had already put on short, light fur coats, with the fur outside; Chinese boys, never contradictory and never speaking above a whisper, bow-legged striplings with pitch-black queues reaching to their heels and with eye-lashes as long and thick as those of young girls, were already dragging, little by little, sundry plaids, canes, and portmanteaux and grips of alligator hide toward the companion-ways.... The daughter of the gentleman from San Francisco was standing beside the prince, who had been, through a fortuitous circumstance, presented to her yesterday evening, and she pretended to be looking intently into the distance, in a direction he was pointing out to her, telling, explaining something or other to her, hurriedly and quietly. On account of his height he seemed a boy by contrast with others,—he was queer and not at all prepossessing of person, with his spectacles, his derby, his English great coat, while his scanty moustache looked just as if it were of horse-hair, and the swarthy, thin skin seemed to be drawn tightly over his face, and somehow had the appearance of being lacquered,—but the young girl was listening to him, without understanding, in her agitation, what he was saying; her heart was thumping from an incomprehensible rapture before his presence and from pride that he was speaking with her, and not some other; everything about him that was different from others,—his lean hands, his clear skin, under which flowed the ancient blood of kings, even his altogether unpretentious, yet somehow distinctively neat, European dress,—everything held a secret, inexplicable charm, evoked a [Pg 288]feeling of amorousness. As for the gentleman from San Francisco himself,—he, in a high silk hat, in gray spats over patent-leather shoes, kept on glancing at the famous beauty, who was standing beside him,—a tall blonde of striking figure, her eyes were painted in the latest Parisian fashion; she was holding a diminutive, hunched-up, mangy lap dog on a silver chain and was chattering to it without cease. And the daughter, in some vague embarrassment, tried not to notice her father. Like all Americans of means, he was very generous on his travels, and, like all of them, believed in the full sincerity and good-will of those who brought him food and drink with such solicitude, who served him from morn till night, forestalling his least wish; of those who guarded his cleanliness and rest, lugged his things around, summoned porters for him, delivered his trunks to hotels. Thus had it been everywhere, thus had it been on the ship, and thus was it to be in Naples as well. Naples grew, and drew nearer; the musicians, the brass of their instruments flashing, had already clustered upon the deck, and suddenly deafened everybody with the triumphant strains of a march; the gigantic captain, in his full dress uniform, appeared upon his stage, and, like a condescending heathen god, waved his hand amiably to the passengers,—and to the gentleman from San Francisco it seemed that it was for him alone that the march so beloved by proud America was thundering, that it was he whom the captain was felicitating upon a safe arrival. And every other passenger felt similarly about himself—or herself. And when the Atlantida did finally enter the harbour, had heaved to at the wharf with her many-tiered mass, black with people, and the gang-planks clattered down,—what [Pg 289]a multitude of porters and their helpers in caps with gold braid, what a multitude of different commissionaires, whistling gamins, and strapping ragamuffins with packets of coloured postal cards in their hands, made a rush toward the gentleman from San Francisco, with offers of their services! And he smiled, with a kindly contemptuousness, at these ragamuffins, as he went toward the automobile of precisely that hotel where there was a possibility of the prince’s stopping as well, and drawled through his teeth, now in English, now in Italian: “Go away![*] Via!” Life at Naples at once assumed its wonted, ordered current: in the early morning, breakfast in the sombre dining room with its damp draught from windows opening on some sort of a stony little garden; the sky was usually overcast, holding out but little promise, and there was the usual crowd of guides at the door of the vestibule; then came the first smiles of a warm, rosy sun; there was, from the high hanging balcony, a view of Vesuvius, enveloped to its foot by radiant morning mists, and of silver-and-pearl eddies on the surface of the Bay, and of the delicate contour of Capri against the horizon; one could see tiny burros, harnessed in twos to little carts, running down below over the quay, sticky with mire, and detachments of diminutive soldiers, marching off to somewhere or other to lively and exhilarating music. Next came the procession to the waiting automobile and the slow progress through populous, narrow, and damp corridors of streets, between tall, many-windowed houses; the inspection of lifelessly-clean museums, evenly and [Pg 290]pleasantly, yet bleakly, lit, seemingly illuminated by snow; or of cool churches, smelling of wax, which everywhere and always contain the same things: a majestic portal, screened by a heavy curtain of leather, and inside,—silence, empty vastness, unobtrusive little flames of a seven-branched candle-stick glowing redly in the distant depths, on an altar bedecked with laces; a solitary old woman among the dark wooden pews; slippery tombstones underfoot; and somebody’s Descent from the Cross,—inevitably a celebrated one. At one o’clock there was luncheon upon the mountain of San Martino, where, toward noon, gathered not a few people of the very first quality, and where the daughter of the gentleman from San Francisco had once almost fainted away for joy, because she thought she saw the prince sitting in the hall, although she already knew through the newspapers that he had left for a temporary stay at Rome. At five came tea at the hotel, in the showy salon, so cosy with its rugs and flaming fireplaces; and after that it was already time to get ready for dinner,—and once more came the mighty, compelling reverberation of the gong through all the stories; once more the processions in Indian file of ladies in décoletté, rustling in their silks upon the staircases and reflected in all the mirrors; once more the palatial dining room, widely and hospitably opened, and the red jackets of the musicians upon their platform, and the black cluster of waiters about the maitre d’hôtel, who, with a skill out of the ordinary, was ladling some sort of a thick, roseate soup into plates.... The dinners, as everywhere else, were the crowning glory of each day; the guests dressed for them as for a rout, and these dinners were so abundant in edibles, and wines, and mineral [Pg 291]waters, and sweets, and fruits, that toward eleven o’clock at night the chambermaids were distributing through all the corridors rubber bags with hot water to warm sundry stomachs. However, the December of that year proved to be not altogether a successful one for Naples; the porters grew confused when one talked with them of the weather, and merely shrugged their shoulders guiltily, muttering that they could not recall such another year,—although it was not the first year that they had been forced to mutter this, and to urge in extenuation that “something terrible is happening everywhere”; there were unheard of storms and torrents of rain on the Riviera; there was snow in Athens; Etna was also all snowed over and was aglow of nights; tourists were fleeing from Palermo in all directions, escaping from the cold. The morning sun deceived the Neapolitans every day that winter: toward noon the sky became gray and a fine rain began falling, but growing heavier and colder all the time; at such times the palms near the entrance of the hotel glistened as though they were of tin, the town seemed especially dirty and cramped, the museums exceedingly alike; the cigar stumps of the corpulent cabmen, whose rubber-coats flapped in the wind like wings, seemed to have an insufferable stench, while the energetic snapping of their whips over their scrawny-necked nags was patently false; the footgear of the signori sweeping the rails of the tramways seemed horrible; the women, splashing through the mud, their black-haired heads bared to the rain, appeared hideously short-legged; as for the dampness, and the stench of putrid fish from the sea foaming at the quay,—they were a matter of course. The gentleman and the [Pg 292]lady from San Francisco began quarreling in the morning; their daughter either walked about pale, with a headache, or, coming to life again, went into raptures over everything, and was, at such times both charming and beautiful: beautiful were those tender and complex emotions which had been awakened within her by meeting that homely man through whose veins flowed uncommon blood; for, after all is said and done, perhaps it is of no real importance just what it is, precisely, that awakens a maiden’s soul,—whether it be money, or fame, or illustrious ancestry.... Everybody affirmed that things were entirely different in Sorrento, in Capri,—there it was both warmer and sunnier, and the lemons were in blossom, and the customs were more honest, and the wine was more natural. And so the family from San Francisco determined to set out with all its trunks to Capri, and, after seeing it all, after treading the stones where the palace of Tiberius had once stood, after visiting the faery-like caverns of the Azure Grotto, and hearing the bag-pipers of Abruzzi, who for a whole month preceding Christmas wander over the island and sing the praises of the Virgin Mary, they meant to settle in Sorrento. On the day of departure,—a most memorable one for the family from San Francisco!—there was no sun from the early morning. A heavy fog hid Vesuvius to the very base; this gray fog spread low over the leaden heaving of the sea that was lost to the eye at a distance of a half a mile. Capri was entirely invisible,—as though there had never been such a thing in the world. And the little steamer that set out for it was so tossed from side to side that the family from San Francisco was laid prostrate [Pg 293]upon the divans in the sorry general cabin of this tub, their feet wrapped up in plaids, and their eyes closed from nausea. Mrs. suffered,—so she thought,—more than anybody; she was overcome by sea-sickness several times; it seemed to her that she was dying, whereas the stewardess, who always ran up to her with a small basin,—she had been, for many years, day in and day out, rolling on these waves, in freezing weather and in torrid, and yet was still tireless and kind to everybody,—merely laughed. Miss was dreadfully pale and held a slice of lemon between her teeth; now she could not have been cheered even by the hope of a chance encounter with the prince at Sorrento, where he intended to be about Christmas. Mr., who was lying on his back, in roomy overcoat and large cap, never unlocked his jaws all the way over; his face had grown darker and his moustache whiter, and his head ached dreadfully: during the last days, thanks to the bad weather, he had been drinking too heavily of evenings, and had too much admired the “living pictures” in dives of recherché libertinage. But the rain kept on lashing against the jarring windows, the water from them running down on the divans; the wind, howling, bent the masts, and at times, aided by the onslaught of a wave, careened the little steamer entirely to one side, and then something in the hold would roll with a rumble. During the stops, at Castellamare, at Sorrento, things were a trifle more bearable, but even then the rocking was fearful,—the shore, with all its cliffs, gardens, pigin[15], its pink and white hotels and hazy mountains clad in curly greenery, swayed up and down as if on a swing; boats bumped up against the sides of the ship; [Pg 294]sailors and steerage passengers were yelling vehemently; somewhere, as though it had been crushed, a baby was wailing and smothering; a raw wind was blowing in at the door; and, from a swaying boat with a flag of the Hotel Royal, a lisping gamin was screaming, luring travellers: “Kgoya-al! Hôtel Kgoya-al!...” And the gentleman from San Francisco, feeling that he was an old man,—which was but proper,—was already thinking with sadness and melancholy of all these Royals, Splendids, Excelsiors, and of these greedy, insignificant mannikins, reeking of garlic, that are called Italians. Once, having opened his eyes and raised himself from the divan, he saw, underneath the craggy steep of the shore, a cluster of stone hovels, mouldy through and through, stuck one on top of another near the very edge of the water, near boats, near all sorts of rags, tins, and brown nets,—hovels so miserable, that, at the recollection that this was that very Italy he had come hither to enjoy, he felt despair.... Finally, at twilight, the dark mass of the island began to draw near, seemingly bored through and through by little red lights near its base; the wind became softer, warmer, more fragrant; over the abating waves, as opalescent as black oil, golden pythons flowed from the lanterns on the wharf.... Then came the sudden rumble of the anchor, and it fell with a splash into the water; the ferocious yells of the boatmen, vying with one another, floated in from all quarters,—and at once the heart grew lighter, the lights in the general cabin shone more brightly, a desire arose to eat, to drink, to smoke, to be stirring.... Ten minutes later the family from San Francisco had descended into a large boat; within fifteen minutes it had set foot upon the stones of the wharf, and [Pg 295]had then got into a bright little railway car and to its buzzing started the ascent of the slope, amid the stakes of the vineyards, half-crumbled stone enclosures, and wet, gnarled orange trees, some of them under coverings of straw,—trees with thick, glossy foliage, and aglimmer with the orange fruits; all these objects were sliding downward, past the open windows of the little car, toward the base of the mountain.... Sweetly smells the earth of Italy after rain, and her every island has its own, its especial aroma! [15] Pino-groves. Trans. The island of Capri was damp and dark on this evening. But now it came into life for an instant; lights sprang up here and there, as always on the steamer’s arrival. At the top of the mountain, where stood the station of the funicular, there was another throng of those whose duty lay in receiving fittingly the gentleman from San Francisco. There were other arrivals also, but they merited no attention,—several Russians, who had taken up their abode in Capri,—absent-minded because of their bookish meditations, unkempt, bearded, spectacled, the collars of their old drap overcoats turned up; and a group of long-legged, long-necked, round-headed German youths in Tyrolean costumes, with canvas knapsacks slung over their shoulders,—these latter stood in need of nobody’s services, feeling themselves at home everywhere, and were not at all generous in their expenditures. The gentleman from San Francisco, on the other hand, who was calmly keeping aloof from both the one group and the other, was immediately noticed. He and his ladies were bustlingly assisted to get out, some men running ahead of him to show him the way: he was surrounded anew by urchins, and by those robust Caprian wives who carry on their [Pg 296]heads the portmanteaux and trunks of respectable travellers. The wooden pattens of these women clattered over a piazetta, that seemed to belong to some opera, an electric globe swaying above it in the damp wind; the rabble of urchins burst into sharp, bird-like whistles,—and, as though on a stage, the gentleman from San Francisco proceeded in their midst toward some mediæval arch, underneath houses that had become welded into one mass, beyond which a little echoing street,—with the tuft of a palm above flat roofs on its left, and with blue stars in the black sky overhead,—led slopingly to the grand entrance of the hotel, glittering ahead.... And again it seemed that it was in honour of the guests from San Francisco that this damp little town of stone on a craggy little island of the Mediterranean Sea had come to life, that it was they who had made so happy and affable the proprietor of the hotel, that it was they only who had been waited for by the Chinese gong, that now began wailing the summons to dinner through all the stories of the hotel, the instant they had set foot in the vestibule. The proprietor, a young man of haughty elegance, who had met them with a polite and exquisite bow, for a minute dumbfounded the gentleman from San Francisco: having glanced at him, the gentleman from San Francisco suddenly recalled that just the night before, among the rest of the confusion of images that had beset him in his sleep, he had seen precisely this gentleman,—just like him, down to the least detail: in the same sort of frock with rounded skirts, and with the same pomaded and painstakingly combed head. Startled, he was almost taken aback; but since, from long, long before, there was not even a mustard seed of any sort of so-called mystical [Pg 297]emotions left in his soul, his astonishment was dimmed the same instant, passing through a corridor of the hotel, he spoke jestingly to his wife and daughter of this strange coincidence of dream and reality. And only his daughter glanced at him with alarm at that moment: her heart suddenly contracted from sadness, from a feeling of their loneliness upon this foreign, dark island,—a feeling so strong that she almost burst into tears. But still she said nothing of her feelings to her father,—as always. An exalted personage—Rais XVII,—who had been visiting Capri, had just taken his departure, and the guests from San Francisco were given the same apartments that he had occupied. To them was assigned the handsomest and most expert chambermaid, a Belgian, whose waist was slenderly and firmly corseted, and who wore a little starched cap that looked like a pronged crown; also, the stateliest and most dignified of flunkies, a fiery-eyed Sicilian, swarthy as coal; and the nimblest of bell-boys, the short and stout Luigi,—a fellow who was very fond of a joke, and who had changed many places in his time. And a minute later there was a slight tap at the door of the room of the gentleman from San Francisco,—the French maitre d’hôtel had come to find out if the newly arrived guests would dine, and, in the event of an answer in the affirmative,—of which, however, there was no doubt,—to inform them that the carte de jour consisted of crawfish, roast beef, asparagus, pheasants, and so forth. The floor was still rocking under the gentleman from San Francisco,—so badly had the atrocious little Italian steamer tossed him about,—but, without hurrying, with his own hands, although somewhat clumsily from being unaccustomed to such things, he shut a window that had banged upon the [Pg 298]entrance of the maitre d’hôtel and had let in the odours of the distant kitchen and of the wet flowers in the garden, and with a leisurely precision replied that they would dine, that their table must be placed at a distance from the door, at the farthest end of the dining room, that they would drink local wine and champagne,—moderately dry and only slightly chilled. The maitre d’hôtel concurred in every word of his, in intonations most varied, having, however, but one significance,—that there was never a doubt, nor could there possibly be any, about the correctness of the wishes of the gentleman from San Francisco, and that everything would be carried out punctiliously. In conclusion he inclined his head, and asked deferentially: “Will that be all, sir?” And, having received a long-drawn-out “Yes”[*] in answer, he added that the tarantella would be danced in the vestibule to-day,—the dancers would be Carmella and Giuseppe, known to all Italy, and to “the entire world of tourists.” “I have seen her on post cards,” said the gentleman from San Francisco in a voice devoid of all expression. “About this Giuseppe, now,—is he her husband?” “Her cousin, sir,” answered the maitre d’hôtel. And, after a little wait, after considering something, the gentleman from San Francisco dismissed him with a nod. And then he began his preparations anew, as though for a wedding ceremony: he turned on all the electric lights, filling all the mirrors with reflections of light and glitter, of furniture and opened trunks; he began shaving and [Pg 299]washing, ringing the bell every minute, while other impatient rings from his wife’s and daughter’s rooms floated through the entire corridor and interrupted his. And Luigi, in his red apron, was rushing headlong to answer the bell, with an ease peculiar to many stout men, the while he made grimaces of horror that made the chambermaids, running by with glazed porcelain pails in their hands, laugh till they cried. Having knocked on the door with his knuckles, he asked with an assumed timidity, with a respectfulness that verged on idiocy: “Ha sonato, signore? (Did you ring, sir?)” And from the other side of the door came an unhurried, grating voice, insultingly polite: “Yes, come in....”[*] What were the thoughts, what were the emotions of the gentleman from San Francisco on this evening, that was of such portent to him? He felt nothing exceptional,—for the trouble in this world is just that everything is apparently all too simple! And even if he had sensed within his soul that something was impending, he would, never the less, have thought that this thing would not occur for some time to come,—in any case, not immediately. Besides that, like everyone who has gone through the rocking of a ship, he wanted very much to eat, was anticipating with enjoyment the first spoonful of soup, the first mouthful of wine, and performed the usual routine of dressing even with a certain degree of exhilaration that left no time for reflections. Having shaved and washed himself, having inserted several artificial teeth properly, he, standing before a mirror, wetted the remnants of his thick, pearly-gray [Pg 300]hair and plastered it down around his swarthy-yellow skull, with brushes set in silver; drew a suit of cream-coloured silk underwear over his strong old body, beginning to be full at the waist from excesses in food, and put on silk socks and dancing slippers on his shrivelled, splayed feet; sitting down, he put in order his black trousers, drawn high by black silk braces, as well as his snowy-white shirt, with the bosom bulging out; put the links through the glossy cuffs, and began the torturous pursuit of the collar-button underneath the stiffly starched collar. The floor was still swaying beneath him, the tips of his fingers pained him greatly, the collar-button at times nipped hard the flabby skin in the hollow under his Adam’s-apple, but he was persistent and finally, his eyes glittering from the exertion, his face all livid from the collar that was choking his throat,—a collar far too tight,—he did contrive to accomplish his task, and sat down in exhaustion in front of the pier glass, reflected in it from head to foot, a reflection that was repeated in all the other mirrors. “Oh, this is dreadful!” he muttered, letting his strong bald head drop, and without trying to understand, without reflecting, just what, precisely, was dreadful; then, with an accustomed and attentive glance, he inspected his stubby fingers, with gouty hardenings at the joints, and his convex nails of an almond colour, repeating, with conviction; “This is dreadful....” But at this point the second gong, sonorously, as in some heathen temple, reverberated through the entire house. And, getting up quickly from his seat, the gentleman from San Francisco drew his collar still tighter with the necktie and his stomach by means of the low-cut vest, put on his [Pg 301]tuxedo, drew out his cuffs, scrutinized himself once more in the mirror.... This Carmella, swarthy, with eyes which she knew well how to use most effectively, resembling a mulatto woman, clad in a dress of many colours, with the colour of orange predominant, must dance exceptionally, he reflected. And, stepping briskly out of his room and walking over the carpet to the next one,—his wife’s—he asked, loudly, if they would be ready soon? “In five minutes, Dad!” a girl’s voice, ringing and by now gay, responded from the other side of the door. “Very well,” said the gentleman from San Francisco. And, leisurely, he walked down red-carpeted corridors and staircases, descending in search of the reading room. The servants he met stood aside and hugged the wall to let him pass, but he kept on his way as though he had never even noticed them. An old woman who was late for dinner, already stooping, with milky hair but décolettée in a light-gray gown of silk, was hurrying with all her might, but drolly, in a hen-like manner, and he easily out-stripped her. Near the glass doors of the dining room, where all the guests had already assembled, and were beginning their dinner, he stopped before a little table piled with boxes of cigars and Egyptian cigarettes, took a large Manila cigar, and tossed three lire upon the little table; upon the closed veranda he glanced, in passing, through the open window: out of the darkness he felt a breath of the balmy air upon him, thought he saw the tip of an ancient palm, that had flung wide across the stars its fronds, which seemed gigantic, heard the distant, even noise of the sea floating in to him.... In the reading room,—snug, quiet, and illuminated only above the tables, [Pg 302]some gray-haired German was standing, rustling the newspapers,—unkempt, resembling Ibsen, in round silver spectacles and with the astonished eyes of a madman. Having scrutinized him coldly, the gentleman from San Francisco sat down in a deep leather chair in a corner near a green-shaded lamp, put on his pince nez, twitching his head because his collar was choking him, and hid himself completely behind the newspaper sheet. He rapidly ran through the headlines of certain items, read a few lines about the never-ceasing Balkan war, with an accustomed gesture turned the newspaper over,—when suddenly the lines flared up before him with a glassy glare, his neck became taut, his eyes bulged out, the pince nez flew off his nose.... He lunged forward, tried to swallow some air,—and gasped wildly; his lower jaw sank, lighting up his entire mouth with the reflection of the gold fillings; his head dropped back on his shoulder and began to sway; the bosom of his shirt bulged out like a basket,—and his whole body, squirming, his heels catching the carpet, slid downward to the floor, desperately struggling with someone. Had the German not been in the reading room, the personnel of the hotel would have managed, quickly and adroitly, to hush up this dreadful occurrence; instantly, through back passages, seizing him by the head and feet, they would have rushed off the gentleman from San Francisco as far away as possible,—and never a soul among the guests would have found out what he had been up to. But the German had dashed out of the reading room with a scream,—he had aroused the entire house, the entire dining room. And many jumped up from their meal, overturning their chairs; many, paling, ran toward [Pg 303]the reading room. “What—what has happened?” was heard in all languages,—and no one gave a sensible answer, no one comprehended anything, since even up to now men are amazed most of all by death, and will not, under any circumstances, believe in it. The proprietor dashed from one guest to another, trying to detain those who were running away and to pacify them with hasty assurances that this was just a trifling occurrence, a slight fainting spell of a certain gentleman from San Francisco.... But no one listened to him; many had seen the waiters and bell-boys tearing off the necktie, the vest, and the rumpled tuxedo off this gentleman, and even, for some reason or other, the dancing slippers off his splayed feet, clad in black silk. But he was still struggling. He was still obdurately wrestling with death; he absolutely refused to yield to her, who had so unexpectedly and churlishly fallen upon him. His head was swaying, he rattled hoarsely, like one with his throat cut; his eyes had rolled up, like a drunkard’s.... When he was hurriedly carried in and laid upon a bed in room number forty-three,—the smallest, the poorest, the dampest and the coldest, situated at the end of the bottom corridor,—his daughter ran in, with her hair down, in a little dressing gown that had flown open, her bosom, raised up by the corset, uncovered; then his wife, big and ponderous, already dressed for dinner,—her mouth rounded in terror.... But by now he had ceased even to bob his head. A quarter of an hour later everything in the hotel had assumed some semblance of order. But the evening was irreparably spoiled. Some guests, returning to the dining room, finished their dinner, but in silence, with aggrieved [Pg 304]countenances, while the proprietor would approach now one group, now another, shrugging his shoulders in polite yet impotent irritation, feeling himself guilty without guilt, assuring everybody that he understood very well “how unpleasant all this was,” and pledging his word that he would take “all measures within his power” to remove this unpleasantness. It was necessary to call off the tarantella, all unnecessary electric lights were switched off, the majority of the guests withdrew into the bar, and it became so quiet that one heard distinctly the ticking of the clock in the vestibule, whose sole occupant was a parrot, dully muttering something, fussing in his cage before going to sleep, contriving to doze off at last with one claw ludicrously stretched up to the upper perch.... The gentleman from San Francisco was lying upon a cheap iron bed, under coarse woolen blankets, upon which the dull light of a single bulb beat down from the ceiling. An ice-bag hung down to his moist and cold forehead. The livid face, already dead, was gradually growing cold; the hoarse rattling, expelled from the open mouth, illuminated by the reflection of gold, was growing fainter. This was no longer the gentleman from San Francisco rattling,—he no longer existed,—but some other. His wife, his daughter, the doctor and the servants were standing, gazing at him dully. Suddenly, that which they awaited and feared was consummated,—the rattling ceased abruptly. And slowly, slowly, before the eyes of all, a pallor flowed over the face of the man who had died, and his features seemed to grow finer, to become irradiated, with a beauty which had been rightfully his in the long ago.... The proprietor entered. “Già è morto,” said the doctor [Pg 305]to him in a whisper. The proprietor, his face dispassionate, shrugged his shoulders. The wife, down whose cheeks the tears were quietly coursing, walked up to him and timidly said that the deceased ought now to be carried to his own room. “Oh, no, madam,” hastily, correctly, but now without any amiability and not in English, but in French, retorted the proprietor, who was not at all interested now in such trifling sums as the arrivals from San Francisco might leave in his coffers. “That is absolutely impossible, madam,” said he, and added in explanation that he valued the apartments occupied by them very much; that, were he to carry out her wishes, everybody in Capri would know it and the tourists would shun those apartments. The young lady, who had been gazing at him strangely, sat down on a chair, and, stuffing her mouth with a handkerchief, burst into sobs. The wife dried her tears immediately, her face flaring up. She adopted a louder tone, making demands in her own language, and still incredulous of the fact that all respect for them had been completely lost. The proprietor, with a polite dignity, cut her short: if madam was not pleased with the customs of the hotel, he would not venture to detain her; and he firmly announced that the body must be gotten away this very day, at dawn, that the police had already been notified, and one of the police officers would be here very soon and would carry out all the necessary formalities. Was it possible to secure even a common coffin in Capri, madam asks? Regrettably, no,—it was beyond possibility, and no one would be able to make one in time. It would be necessary to have recourse to something else.... For instance,—English soda water came in large and long [Pg 306]boxes.... It was possible to knock the partitions out of such a box.... At night the whole hotel slept. The window in room number forty-three was opened,—it gave out upon a corner of the garden where, near a high stone wall with broken glass upon its crest, a phthisic banana tree was growing; the electric light was switched off; the key was turned in the door, and everybody went away. The dead man remained in the darkness,—the blue stars looked down upon him from the sky, a cricket with a pensive insouciance began his song in the wall.... In the dimly lit corridor two chambermaids were seated on a window sill, at some darning. Luigi, in slippers, entered with a pile of clothing in his arms. “Pronto? (All ready?)” he asked solicitously, in a ringing whisper, indicating with his eyes the fearsome door at the end of the corridor. And, he waved his hand airily in that direction.... “Partenza!” he called out in a whisper, as though he were speeding a train, the usual phrase used in Italian depots at the departure of trains,—and the chambermaids, choking with silent laughter, let their heads sink on each other’s shoulder. Thereupon, hopping softly, he ran up to the very door, gave it the merest tap, and, inclining his head to one side, in a low voice, asked with the utmost deference: “Ha sonato signore?” And, squeezing his throat, thrusting out his lower jaw, in a grating voice, slowly and sadly, he answered his own question, as though from the other side of the door: “Yes, come in....”[*] And at dawn, when it had become light beyond the [Pg 307]window of room number forty-three, and a humid wind had begun to rustle the tattered leaves of the banana tree; when the blue sky of morning had lifted and spread out over the Island of Capri, and the pure and clear-cut summit of Monte Solaro had grown aureate against the sun that was rising beyond the distant blue mountains of Italy; when the stone masons, who were repairing the tourists’ paths on the island, had set out to work,—a long box that had formerly been used for soda water was brought to room number forty-three. Soon it became very heavy, and was pressing hard against the knees of the junior porter, who bore it off briskly on a one horse cab over the white paved highway that was sinuously winding to and fro over the slopes of Capri, among the stone walls and the vineyards, ever downwards, to the very sea. The cabby, a puny little man with reddened eyes, in an old, wretched jacket with short sleeves and in trodden-down shoes, was undergoing the after effects of drink,—he had diced the whole night through in a trattoria, and kept on lashing his sturdy little horse, tricked out in the Sicilian fashion, with all sorts of little bells livelily jingling upon the bridle with its tufts of coloured wool, and upon the brass points of its high pad; with a yard-long feather stuck in its cropped forelock,—a feather that shook as the horse ran. The cabby kept silent; he was oppressed by his shiftlessness, his vices,—by the fact that he had, that night, lost to the last mite all those coppers with which his pockets had been filled. But the morning was fresh; in air such as this, with the sea all around, under the morning sky, the after effects of drink quickly evaporate, and a man is soon restored to a carefree [Pg 308]mood, and the cabby was furthermore consoled by that unexpected sum, the opportunity to earn which had been granted him by some gentleman from San Francisco, whose lifeless head was bobbing from side to side in the box at his back.... The little steamer,—a beetle lying far down below, against the tender and vivid deep-blue with which the Bay of Naples is so densely and highly flooded,—was already blowing its final whistles, that reverberated loudly all over the island, whose every bend, every ridge, every stone, was as distinctly visible from every point as if there were absolutely no such thing as atmosphere. Near the wharf the junior porter was joined by the senior, who was speeding with the daughter and wife of the gentleman from San Francisco in his automobile,—they were pale, with eyes hollow from tears and a sleepless night. And ten minutes later the little steamer was again chugging through the water, again running toward Sorrento, toward Castellamare, carrying away from Capri, for all time, the family from San Francisco.... And again peace and quiet resumed their reign upon the island. Upon this island, two thousand years ago, had lived a man who had become completely enmeshed in his cruel and foul deeds, who had for some reason seized the power over millions of people in his hands, and who, having himself lost his head at the senselessness of this power and from the fear of death by assassination, lurking in ambush behind every corner, had committed cruelties beyond all measure,—and humankind has remembered him for all time; and those who, in their collusion, just as incomprehensively and, in substance, just as cruelly as he, reign [Pg 309]at present in power over this world, gather from all over the earth to gaze upon the ruins of that stone villa where he had dwelt on one of the steepest ascents of the island. On this splendid morning all those who had come to Capri for just this purpose were still sleeping in the hotels, although, toward their entrances, were already being led little mouse-gray burros with red saddles, upon which, after awaking and sating themselves with food, Americans and Germans, men and women, young and old, would again clamber up ponderously this day, and after whom would again run the old Caprian beggar women, with sticks in their gnarled hands,—would run over stony paths, and always up-hill, up to the very summit of Mount Tiberio. Set at rest by the fact that the dead old man from San Francisco, who had likewise been planning to go with them but instead of that had only frightened them with a memento mori, had already been shipped off to Naples, the travellers slept on heavily, and the quiet of the island was still undisturbed, the shops in the city were still shut. The market place on the piazetta alone was carrying on traffic,—in fish and greens; and the people there were all simple folk, among whom, without anything to do, as always, was standing Lorenzo the boatman, famous all over Italy,—a tall old man, a care-free rake and a handsome fellow, who had served more than once as a model to many artists; he had brought, and had already sold for a song, two lobsters that he had caught that night and which were already rustling in the apron of the cook of that very hotel where the family from San Francisco had passed the night, and now he could afford to stand in calm idleness even until the evening, looking about [Pg 310]him with a kingly bearing (a little trick of his), consciously picturesque with his tatters, clay pipe, and a red woolen beretta drooping over one ear. And, along the precipices of Monte Solaro, upon the ancient Phœnician road, hewn out of the crags, down its stone steps, two mountaineers of Abruzzi were descending from Anacapri. One had bag-pipes under his leathern mantle,—a large bag made from the skin of a she-goat, with two pipes; the other had something in the nature of wooden Pan’s-reeds. They went on,—and all the land, joyous, splendid, sun-flooded, spread out below them: the stony humps of the island, which was lying almost in its entirety at their feet; and that faery-like deep-blue in which it was aswim; and the radiant morning vapours over the sea, toward the east, under the blinding sun, that was now beating down hotly, rising ever higher and higher; and, still in their morning vagueness, the mistily azure massive outlines of Italy, of her mountains near and far, whose beauty human speech is impotent to express.... Half way down the pipers slackened their pace: over the path, within a grotto in the craggy side of Monte Solaro, all illumed by the sun, all bathed in its warmth and glow, in snowy-white raiment of gypsum, and in a royal crown, golden-rusty from inclement weathers, stood the Mother of God, meek and gracious, her orbs lifted up to heaven, to the eternal and happy abodes of Her thrice-blessed Son. The pipers bared their heads, put their reeds to their lips,—and there poured forth their naïve and humbly-jubilant praises to the sun, to the morning, to Her, the Immaculate Intercessor for all those who suffer in this evil and beautiful world, and to Him Who had been born of Her womb in a cavern at Bethlehem, [Pg 311]in a poor shepherd’s shelter in the distant land of Judæa.... Meanwhile, the body of the dead old man from San Francisco was returning to its home, to a grave on the shores of the New World. Having gone through many humiliations, through much human neglect, having wandered for a week from one port warehouse to another, it had finally gotten once more on board that same famous ship upon which but so recently, with so much deference, he had been borne to the Old World. But now he was already being concealed from the quick,—he was lowered in his tarred coffin deep into the black hold. And once more the ship was sailing on and on upon its long sea voyage. In the night time it sailed past the Island of Capri, and, to one watching them from the island, there was something sad about the ship’s lights, slowly disappearing over the dark sea. But, upon the ship itself, in its brilliant salons resplendent with lustres and marbles, there was a crowded ball that night, as usual. There was a ball on the second night also, and on the third,—again in the midst of a raging snow storm, whirling over an ocean booming like a funeral mass, and heaving in mountains trapped out in mourning by the silver spindrift. The innumerable fiery eyes of the ship that was retreating into the night and the snow gale were barely visible for the snow to the Devil watching from the crags of Gibraltar, from the stony gateway of two worlds. The Devil was as enormous as a cliff, but the ship was still more enormous than he; many-tiered, many-funnelled, created by the pride of the New Man with an ancient heart. The snow gale smote upon its rigging and wide-throated funnels, hoary from the snow, but the [Pg 312]ship was steadfast, firm, majestic—and awesome. Upon its topmost deck were reared, in their solitude among the snowy whirlwinds, those snug, dimly-lit chambers where, plunged in a light and uneasy slumber, was its ponderous guide who resembled a heathen idol, reigning over the entire ship. He heard the pained howlings and the ferocious squealings of the storm-stifled siren, but soothed himself by the proximity of that which, in the final summing up, was incomprehensible even to himself, that which was on the other side of his wall: that large cabin, which had the appearance of being armoured, and was being constantly filled by the mysterious rumbling, quivering, and crisp sputtering of blue flames, flaring up and exploding around the pale-faced operator with a metal half-hoop upon his head. In the very depths, in the under-water womb of the Atlantida, were the thirty-thousand-pound masses of boilers and of all sorts of other machinery—dully glittering with steel, hissing out stream and exuding oil and boiling water,—of that kitchen, made red hot from infernal furnaces underneath, wherein was brewing the motion of the ship. Forces, fearful in their concentration, were bubbling, were being transmitted to its very keel, into an endlessly long catacomb, into a tunnel, illuminated by electricity, wherein slowly, with an inexorability that was crushing to the human soul, was revolving within its oily couch the gigantean shaft, exactly like a living monster that had stretched itself out in this tunnel. Meanwhile, amidship the Atlantida, its warm and luxurious cabins, its dining halls and ball rooms, poured forth radiance and joyousness, were humming with the voices of a well-dressed gathering, were sweetly odorous with fresh flowers, and the strains of the stringed orchestra [Pg 313]were their song. And again excruciatingly writhed and at intervals came together among this throng, among this glitter of lights, silks, diamonds and bared feminine shoulders, the supple pair of hired lovers: the sinfully-modest, very pretty young woman, with eye-lashes cast down, with a chaste coiffure, and the well-built young man, with black hair that seemed to be pasted on, with his face pale from powder, shod in the most elegant of patent-leather foot-gear, clad in a tight-fitting dress coat with long tails,—an Adonis who resembled a huge leech. And none knew that, already for a long time, this pair had grown wearied of languishing dissemblingly in their blissful torment to the sounds of the shamelessly-sad music,—nor that far, far below, at the bottom of the black hold, stood a tarred coffin, in close proximity to the sombre and sultry depths of the ship that was toilsomely overpowering the darkness, the ocean, the snow storm....
ponedjeljak, 16. ožujka 2026.
Soma, in Brave New World, is implicitly condemned as an opiate, a mind-luller, an instrument of repression. Huxley’s negative outlook toward the drug is not, though, an expression of work-oriented Puritan morality so much as a classic liberal-humanitarian distrust of technology: the Huxley of 1932 plainly believed that mankind coddled by drugs was something less than what mankind could be. The young Huxley felt contempt for those who needed mechanical aids or who depended on anything other than the force of their own intellects. Many years later, however, a very different Huxley experienced the psychedelic marvels of mescaline and LSD, which kindled in him strong esthetic delight and something akin to spiritual ecstasy. When he next attempted the fictional construction of a utopian commonwealth, in Island (1962), his outlook on mind-altering drugs was far more sympathetic. In this ideal state of the future one uses not the soporific soma but the ecstasy-invoking moksha, a mind-expanding hallucinogen. Concerning moksha one character says, “Having had the misfortune to be brought up in Europe, Murugan calls it dope and feels about it all the disapproval that, by conditioned reflex, the dirty word evokes. We, on the contrary, give the stuff good names—the moksha-medicine, the reality-revealer, the truth-and-beauty pill. And we know, by direct experience, that the good names are deserved.”[2] Huxley is really talking about LSD, and his tone is that of the acid-evangelist. [2] Huxley, Aldous. Island. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1962. p. 157. Drug as contemptible anodyne, drug as gateway to higher reality—those are the poles bounding the handling of drugs in science [7]fiction. The older science fiction was preponderantly negative, as, for example, James Gunn’s The Joy Makers, published in 1961 but written half a decade earlier, in which a repressive government sustains itself through mandatory use of euphorics. The same theme can be found in Hartley’s Facial Justice (1960), and in other works. Even when not used as an instrument of totalitarianism, drugs are often seen as dangerous self-indulgence, as in Wellman’s Dream-Dust from Mars (1938), Smith’s Hellflower (1953), or Pohl’s What to Do Until the Analyst Comes (1956). The prototypes for the imaginary drugs described in these stories are alcohol and heroin—drugs which blur the mind and lower the consciousness. Much recent science fiction, however, taking cognizance of such newly popular drugs as LSD, marijuana, and mescaline, show society transformed, enhanced, and raised up by drug use. Silverberg’s A Time of Changes (1971) portrays a dour, self-hating culture into which comes a drug that stimulates direct telepathic contact between human minds and brings into being a subculture of love and openness. This creates a great convulsion in the society, but the implication is that the change the drug brings is beneficial. Similarly, in Panshin’s How Can We Sink When We Can Fly? (1971), a drug called tempus that induces travel in time is part of the educational process of a future society. In The Peacock King by McCombs and White (1965) LSD is used as a training device to prepare astronauts for the rigors of interstellar travel, and in H. H. Hollis’ Stoned Counsel (1972) hallucinogenic drugs have become routine aspects of courtroom work. Another view of a society transformed but not necessarily injured by mass drug use is Wyman Guin’s Beyond Bedlam, dating from 1951, in which schizophrenia is desired and encouraged and is induced by drugs. In Silverberg’s Downward to the Earth (1971) hallucinogens play a part in ecstatic religion on another world. A variant of the mind-expanding drug is the intelligence-enhancing drug, long a common theme in science fiction. Some recent exponents of the theme are Brunner’s The Stone That Never Came Down (1973), Dickson’s The R-Master (1973), and Disch’s Camp Concentration (1968). Not all depiction of drugs in recent science fiction is sympathetic, of course. Aldiss’ Barefoot in the Head (1970) shows all of Europe thrown into confusion by the “acid-head war,” in which an Arab power doses the whole continent with psychedelic weapons. (Aldiss does indicate at least peripherally that the new tripped-out culture emerging in war-wrecked Europe is not entirely inferior to its predecessor.) Chester Anderson’s lighthearted The Butterfly Kid (1967) depicts hallucinogenic drugs as weapons employed by aliens, [8] whether mind-expanding, mind-contracting, or mind-controlling. In the horrendously overpopulated future of Harry Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room! (1966), LSD and marijuana are the best available escapes from the daily nightmare that is life; in a similarly crowded world imagined by Doris Pitkin Buck in Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming (1964) the drug of choice is nothing we have today, but rather one that gives the user the vicarious experience of existence as a dinosaur! However different the details, though, the stories say the same thing: that fortitude is not enough, that chemical assistance will be needed. The stories in the sample chosen for this project illustrate the whole range of drug themes in science fiction, from the plausible to the fantastic, from the horrifying to the ecstasy-inducing. In a world where man and his technological marvels must coexist along an uneasy interface, science fiction indicates some of the possible impact areas in the decades and centuries ahead.
- Pratt, Fletcher and Lester, Irvin
- Title:
- The Roger Bacon formula
- Journal:
- Amazing Stories, Vol. 3, No. 10, 940–948
- Publisher:
- Experimenter Publishing Company, New York
- Date:
- January 1929
- Format:
- Short story
- Descriptor:
- Drugs as mind-expanders
- Annotation:
- Medievalist rediscovers lost manuscript in which Roger Bacon provides the formula for mandragordeum, a drug that induces “transportation of the mind.” Taking it, the experimenter finds himself freed from his body and journeying to Venus; a vivid vision of life on the second planet ends only when the drug wears off. Fearing addiction, he never tries the drug again, though he admits a temptation to more tripping.
- Author:
- Harris, Clare Winger
- Title:
- The diabolical drug
- Journal:
- Amazing Stories, Vol. 4, No. 2, 156–161
- Publisher:
- Experimenter Publishing Company, New York
- Date:
- May 1929
- Format:
- Short story
- Descriptor:
- Drugs as mind-controllers
- Annotation:
- Scientist develops a chemical which, by retarding the voltage of the brain’s electrical activity, halts the aging process. An experiment on a human is performed, the subject being the scientist’s beloved, who is six years older than he is; he intends to hold her at the same age until he has caught up. She sinks into a kind of stasis. Unable to perfect an antidote, he injects himself also, and the two of them enter a strange suspended animation in which extreme psychological effects of the metabolic slowdown manifest themselves.
[13]
- Author:
- Huxley, Aldous
- Title:
- Brave New World
- Publisher:
- Chatto & Windus, London, England
- Pages:
- 214 pp.
- Date:
- 1932
- Format:
- Novel
- Descriptor:
- Drugs as panaceas
- Annotation:
- In mechanized, standardized utopian world of the future, where human beings are synthetically produced in incubators and conditioned for optimum social stability, a drug called soma serves as the utopiate of the masses, distracting and tranquilizing those who might otherwise become restless in their too-comfortable lives.
- Author:
- Keller, David H.
- Title:
- The literary corkscrew
- Journal:
- Wonder Stories, Vol. 5, No. 8, 867–873
- Publisher:
- Continental Publications, New York
- Date:
- March 1934
- Format:
- Short story
- Descriptor:
- Drugs as intelligence enhancers
- Annotation:
- Satiric story. A professional writer discovers he can write only when in physical pain, and requires his wife to drive a corkscrew into his back to get him started. But the pain of the corkscrew is impossible to sustain for long, and they seek medical help. The doctor they consult discovers that it isn’t the pain itself but rather certain hormones secreted as a response to the pain that encourages literary production, and synthesizes a drug that makes writing easier. Doctor takes his own drug and writes a best-seller.
[14]
- Author:
- Fearn, John Russell
- Title:
- He never slept
- Journal:
- Astounding Stories, Vol. 13, No. 4, 56–67
- Publisher:
- Street & Smith, New York
- Date:
- June 1934
- Format:
- Short story
- Descriptor:
- Drugs as intelligence-enhancers
- Annotation:
- Scientist concocts a protein-based drug that frees the subject from all need to sleep. Narrator takes the drug and enters into a condition of enhanced perceptivity in which he is capable of penetrating the visionary recesses of his own mind and visiting the dream-creating processes. The experience eventually exhausts him, but unable to give up use of the drug, he looks forward to death as the only release from its effects.
- Author:
- Herbert, Benson
- Title:
- The control drug
- Journal:
- Wonder Stories, Vol. 6, No. 6, 669–675
- Publisher:
- Continental Publications, New York
- Date:
- November 1934
- Format:
- Short story
- Descriptor:
- Drugs as euphorics
- Annotation:
- Scientist invents a xenon-derived drug that seems to offer a “paradise” effect—brief glimpses of the Divine, freedom from the material body, etc. But further research shows its dread long-term effects: “The stuff doesn’t exalt you or energize you.... What it does is to release the emotions from a lifetime of civilized control and suppression. It takes the bonds off secret desires. Its subtle physiological action leaves you with no control whatever.” Naturally he destroys the drug and takes his own life.
“With fairest flowers, Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele—” When I removed into the country, it was to occupy an old-fashioned farm-house, which had no piazza—a deficiency the more regretted, because not only did I like piazzas, as somehow combining the coziness of in-doors with the freedom of out-doors, and it is so pleasant to inspect your thermometer there, but the country round about was such a picture, that in berry time no boy climbs hill or crosses vale without coming upon easels planted in every nook, and sun-burnt painters painting there. A very paradise of painters. The circle of the stars cut by the circle of the mountains. At least, so looks it from the house; though, once upon the mountains, no circle of them can you see. Had the site been chosen five rods off, this charmed ring would not have been. The house is old. Seventy years since, from the heart of the Hearth Stone Hills, they quarried the Kaaba, or Holy Stone, to which, each Thanksgiving, the social pilgrims used to come. So long ago, that, in digging for the foundation, the workmen used both spade and axe, fighting the Troglodytes of those subterranean parts—sturdy roots of a sturdy wood, encamped upon what is now a long land-slide of sleeping meadow, sloping away off from my poppy-bed. Of that knit wood, but one survivor stands—an elm, lonely through steadfastness. Whoever built the house, he builded better than he knew; or else Orion in the zenith flashed down his Damocles’ sword to him some starry night, and said, “Build there.” For how, otherwise, could it have entered the builder’s mind, that, upon the clearing being made, such a purple prospect would be his?—nothing less than Greylock, with all his hills about him, like Charlemagne among his peers. Now, for a house, so situated in such a country, to have no piazza for the convenience of those who might desire to feast upon the view, and take their time and ease about it, seemed as much of an omission as if a picture-gallery should have no bench; for what but picture-galleries are the marble halls of these same limestone hills?—galleries hung, month after month anew, with pictures ever fading into pictures ever fresh. And beauty is like piety—you cannot run and read it; tranquillity and constancy, with, now-a-days, an easy chair, are needed. For though, of old, when reverence was in vogue, and indolence was not, the devotees of Nature, doubtless, used to stand and adore—just as, in the cathedrals of those ages, the worshipers of a higher Power did—yet, in these times of failing faith and feeble knees, we have the piazza and the pew. During the first year of my residence, the more leisurely to witness the coronation of Charlemagne (weather permitting, they crown him every sunrise and sunset), I chose me, on the hill-side bank near by, a royal lounge of turf—a green velvet lounge, with long, moss-padded back; while at the head, strangely enough, there grew (but, I suppose, for heraldry) three tufts of blue violets in a field-argent of wild strawberries; and a trellis, with honeysuckle, I set for canopy. Very majestical lounge, indeed. So much so, that here, as with the reclining majesty of Denmark in his orchard, a sly ear-ache invaded me. But, if damps abound at times in Westminster Abbey, because it is so old, why not within this monastery of mountains, which is older? A piazza must be had. The house was wide—my fortune narrow; so that, to build a panoramic piazza, one round and round, it could not be—although, indeed, considering the matter by rule and square, the carpenters, in the kindest way, were anxious to gratify my furthest wishes, at I’ve forgotten how much a foot. Upon but one of the four sides would prudence grant me what I wanted. Now, which side? To the east, that long camp of the Hearth Stone Hills, fading far away towards Quito; and every fall, a small white flake of something peering suddenly, of a coolish morning, from the topmost cliff—the season’s new-dropped lamb, its earliest fleece; and then the Christmas dawn, draping those dim highlands with red-barred plaids and tartans—goodly sight from your piazza, that. Goodly sight; but, to the north is Charlemagne—can’t have the Hearth Stone Hills with Charlemagne. Well, the south side. Apple-trees are there. Pleasant, of a balmy morning, in the month of May, to sit and see that orchard, white-budded, as for a bridal; and, in October, one green arsenal yard; such piles of ruddy shot. Very fine, I grant; but, to the north is Charlemagne. The west side, look. An upland pasture, alleying away into a maple wood at top. Sweet, in opening spring, to trace upon the hill-side, otherwise gray and bare—to trace, I say, the oldest paths by their streaks of earliest green. Sweet, indeed, I can’t deny; but, to the north is Charlemagne. So Charlemagne, he carried it. It was not long after 1848; and, somehow, about that time, all round the world, these kings, they had the casting vote, and voted for themselves. No sooner was ground broken, than all the neighborhood, neighbor Dives, in particular, broke, too—into a laugh. Piazza to the north! Winter piazza! Wants, of winter midnights, to watch the Aurora Borealis, I suppose; hope he’s laid in good store of Polar muffs and mittens. That was in the lion month of March. Not forgotten are the blue noses of the carpenters, and how they scouted at the greenness of the cit, who would build his sole piazza to the north. But March don’t last forever; patience, and August comes. And then, in the cool elysium of my northern bower, I, Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, cast down the hill a pitying glance on poor old Dives, tormented in the purgatory of his piazza to the south. But, even in December, this northern piazza does not repel—nipping cold and gusty though it be, and the north wind, like any miller, bolting by the snow, in finest flour—for then, once more, with frosted beard, I pace the sleety deck, weathering Cape Horn. In summer, too, Canute-like, sitting here, one is often reminded of the sea. For not only do long ground-swells roll the slanting grain, and little wavelets of the grass ripple over upon the low piazza, as their beach, and the blown down of dandelions is wafted like the spray, and the purple of the mountains is just the purple of the billows, and a still August noon broods upon the deep meadows, as a calm upon the Line; but the vastness and the lonesomeness are so oceanic, and the silence and the sameness, too, that the first peep of a strange house, rising beyond the trees, is for all the world like spying, on the Barbary coast, an unknown sail. And this recalls my inland voyage to fairy-land. A true voyage; but, take it all in all, interesting as if invented. From the piazza, some uncertain object I had caught, mysteriously snugged away, to all appearance, in a sort of purpled breast-pocket, high up in a hopper-like hollow, or sunken angle, among the northwestern mountains—yet, whether, really, it was on a mountain-side, or a mountain-top, could not be determined; because, though, viewed from favorable points, a blue summit, peering up away behind the rest, will, as it were, talk to you over their heads, and plainly tell you, that, though he (the blue summit) seems among them, he is not of them (God forbid!), and, indeed, would have you know that he considers himself—as, to say truth, he has good right—by several cubits their superior, nevertheless, certain ranges, here and there double-filed, as in platoons, so shoulder and follow up upon one another, with their irregular shapes and heights, that, from the piazza, a nigher and lower mountain will, in most states of the atmosphere, effacingly shade itself away into a higher and further one; that an object, bleak on the former’s crest, will, for all that, appear nested in the latter’s flank. These mountains, somehow, they play at hide-and-seek, and all before one’s eyes. But, be that as it may, the spot in question was, at all events, so situated as to be only visible, and then but vaguely, under certain witching conditions of light and shadow. Indeed, for a year or more, I knew not there was such a spot, and might, perhaps, have never known, had it not been for a wizard afternoon in autumn—late in autumn—a mad poet’s afternoon; when the turned maple woods in the broad basin below me, having lost their first vermilion tint, dully smoked, like smouldering towns, when flames expire upon their prey; and rumor had it, that this smokiness in the general air was not all Indian summer—which was not used to be so sick a thing, however mild—but, in great part, was blown from far-off forests, for weeks on fire, in Vermont; so that no wonder the sky was ominous as Hecate’s cauldron—and two sportsmen, crossing a red stubble buck-wheat field, seemed guilty Macbeth and foreboding Banquo; and the hermit-sun, hutted in an Adullum cave, well towards the south, according to his season, did little else but, by indirect reflection of narrow rays shot down a Simplon pass among the clouds, just steadily paint one small, round, strawberry mole upon the wan cheek of northwestern hills. Signal as a candle. One spot of radiance, where all else was shade. Fairies there, thought I; some haunted ring where fairies dance. Time passed; and the following May, after a gentle shower upon the mountains—a little shower islanded in misty seas of sunshine; such a distant shower—and sometimes two, and three, and four of them, all visible together in different parts—as I love to watch from the piazza, instead of thunder storms, as I used to, which wrap old Greylock, like a Sinai, till one thinks swart Moses must be climbing among scathed hemlocks there; after, I say, that, gentle shower, I saw a rainbow, resting its further end just where, in autumn, I had marked the mole. Fairies there, thought I; remembering that rainbows bring out the blooms, and that, if one can but get to the rainbow’s end, his fortune is made in a bag of gold. Yon rainbow’s end, would I were there, thought I. And none the less I wished it, for now first noticing what seemed some sort of glen, or grotto, in the mountain side; at least, whatever it was, viewed through the rainbow’s medium, it glowed like the Potosi mine. But a work-a-day neighbor said, no doubt it was but some old barn—an abandoned one, its broadside beaten in, the acclivity its background. But I, though I had never been there, I knew better. A few days after, a cheery sunrise kindled a golden sparkle in the same spot as before. The sparkle was of that vividness, it seemed as if it could only come from glass. The building, then—if building, after all, it was—could, at least, not be a barn, much less an abandoned one; stale hay ten years musting in it. No; if aught built by mortal, it must be a cottage; perhaps long vacant and dismantled, but this very spring magically fitted up and glazed. Again, one noon, in the same direction, I marked, over dimmed tops of terraced foliage, a broader gleam, as of a silver buckler, held sunwards over some croucher’s head; which gleam, experience in like cases taught, must come from a roof newly shingled. This, to me, made pretty sure the recent occupancy of that far cot in fairy land. Day after day, now, full of interest in my discovery, what time I could spare from reading the Midsummer’s Night Dream, and all about Titania, wishfully I gazed off towards the hills; but in vain. Either troops of shadows, an imperial guard, with slow pace and solemn, defiled along the steeps; or, routed by pursuing light, fled broadcast from east to west—old wars of Lucifer and Michael; or the mountains, though unvexed by these mirrored sham fights in the sky, had an atmosphere otherwise unfavorable for fairy views. I was sorry; the more so, because I had to keep my chamber for some time after—which chamber did not face those hills. At length, when pretty well again, and sitting out, in the September morning, upon the piazza, and thinking to myself, when, just after a little flock of sheep, the farmer’s banded children passed, a-nutting, and said, “How sweet a day”—it was, after all, but what their fathers call a weather-breeder—and, indeed, was become so sensitive through my illness, as that I could not bear to look upon a Chinese creeper of my adoption, and which, to my delight, climbing a post of the piazza, had burst out in starry bloom, but now, if you removed the leaves a little, showed millions of strange, cankerous worms, which, feeding upon those blossoms, so shared their blessed hue, as to make it unblessed evermore—worms, whose germs had doubtless lurked in the very bulb which, so hopefully, I had planted: in this ingrate peevishness of my weary convalescence, was I sitting there; when, suddenly looking off, I saw the golden mountain-window, dazzling like a deep-sea dolphin. Fairies there, thought I, once more; the queen of fairies at her fairy-window; at any rate, some glad mountain-girl; it will do me good, it will cure this weariness, to look on her. No more; I’ll launch my yawl—ho, cheerly, heart! and push away for fairy-land—for rainbow’s end, in fairy-land. How to get to fairy-land, by what road, I did not know; nor could any one inform me; not even one Edmund Spenser, who had been there—so he wrote me—further than that to reach fairy-land, it must be voyaged to, and with faith. I took the fairy-mountain’s bearings, and the first fine day, when strength permitted, got into my yawl—high-pommeled, leather one—cast off the fast, and away I sailed, free voyager as an autumn leaf. Early dawn; and, sallying westward, I sowed the morning before me. Some miles brought me nigh the hills; but out of present sight of them. I was not lost; for road-side golden-rods, as guide-posts, pointed, I doubted not, the way to the golden window. Following them, I came to a lone and languid region, where the grass-grown ways were traveled but by drowsy cattle, that, less waked than stirred by day, seemed to walk in sleep. Browse, they did not—the enchanted never eat. At least, so says Don Quixote, that sagest sage that ever lived. On I went, and gained at last the fairy mountain’s base, but saw yet no fairy ring. A pasture rose before me. Letting down five mouldering bars—so moistly green, they seemed fished up from some sunken wreck—a wigged old Aries, long-visaged, and with crumpled horn, came snuffing up; and then, retreating, decorously led on along a milky-way of white-weed, past dim-clustering Pleiades and Hyades, of small forget-me-nots; and would have led me further still his astral path, but for golden flights of yellow-birds—pilots, surely, to the golden window, to one side flying before me, from bush to bush, towards deep woods—which woods themselves were luring—and, somehow, lured, too, by their fence, banning a dark road, which, however dark, led up. I pushed through; when Aries, renouncing me now for some lost soul, wheeled, and went his wiser way. Forbidding and forbidden ground—to him. A winter wood road, matted all along with winter-green. By the side of pebbly waters—waters the cheerier for their solitude; beneath swaying fir-boughs, petted by no season, but still green in all, on I journeyed—my horse and I; on, by an old saw-mill, bound down and hushed with vines, that his grating voice no more was heard; on, by a deep flume clove through snowy marble, vernal-tinted, where freshet eddies had, on each side, spun out empty chapels in the living rock; on, where Jacks-in-the-pulpit, like their Baptist namesake, preached but to the wilderness; on, where a huge, cross-grain block, fern-bedded, showed where, in forgotten times, man after man had tried to split it, but lost his wedges for his pains—which wedges yet rusted in their holes; on, where, ages past, in step-like ledges of a cascade, skull-hollow pots had been churned out by ceaseless whirling of a flintstone—ever wearing, but itself unworn; on, by wild rapids pouring into a secret pool, but soothed by circling there awhile, issued forth serenely; on, to less broken ground, and by a little ring, where, truly, fairies must have danced, or else some wheel-tire been heated—for all was bare; still on, and up, and out into a hanging orchard, where maidenly looked down upon me a crescent moon, from morning. My horse hitched low his head. Red apples rolled before him; Eve’s apples; seek-no-furthers. He tasted one, I another; it tasted of the ground. Fairy land not yet, thought I, flinging my bridle to a humped old tree, that crooked out an arm to catch it. For the way now lay where path was none, and none might go but by himself, and only go by daring. Through blackberry brakes that tried to pluck me back, though I but strained towards fruitless growths of mountain-laurel; up slippery steeps to barren heights, where stood none to welcome. Fairy land not yet, thought I, though the morning is here before me. Foot-sore enough and weary, I gained not then my journey’s end, but came ere long to a craggy pass, dipping towards growing regions still beyond. A zigzag road, half overgrown with blueberry bushes, here turned among the cliffs. A rent was in their ragged sides; through it a little track branched off, which, upwards threading that short defile, came breezily out above, to where the mountain-top, part sheltered northward, by a taller brother, sloped gently off a space, ere darkly plunging; and here, among fantastic rocks, reposing in a herd, the foot-track wound, half beaten, up to a little, low-storied, grayish cottage, capped, nun-like, with a peaked roof. On one slope, the roof was deeply weather-stained, and, nigh the turfy eaves-trough, all velvet-napped; no doubt the snail-monks founded mossy priories there. The other slope was newly shingled. On the north side, doorless and windowless, the clap-boards, innocent of paint, were yet green as the north side of lichened pines or copperless hulls of Japanese junks, becalmed. The whole base, like those of the neighboring rocks, was rimmed about with shaded streaks of richest sod; for, with hearth-stones in fairy land, the natural rock, though housed, preserves to the last, just as in open fields, its fertilizing charm; only, by necessity, working now at a remove, to the sward without. So, at least, says Oberon, grave authority in fairy lore. Though setting Oberon aside, certain it is, that, even in the common world, the soil, close up to farm-houses, as close up to pasture rocks, is, even though untended, ever richer than it is a few rods off—such gentle, nurturing heat is radiated there. But with this cottage, the shaded streaks were richest in its front and about its entrance, where the ground-sill, and especially the doorsill had, through long eld, quietly settled down. No fence was seen, no inclosure. Near by—ferns, ferns, ferns; further—woods, woods, woods; beyond—mountains, mountains, mountains; then—sky, sky, sky. Turned out in aerial commons, pasture for the mountain moon. Nature, and but nature, house and, all; even a low cross-pile of silver birch, piled openly, to season; up among whose silvery sticks, as through the fencing of some sequestered grave, sprang vagrant raspberry bushes—willful assertors of their right of way. The foot-track, so dainty narrow, just like a sheep-track, led through long ferns that lodged. Fairy land at last, thought I; Una and her lamb dwell here. Truly, a small abode—mere palanquin, set down on the summit, in a pass between two worlds, participant of neither. A sultry hour, and I wore a light hat, of yellow sinnet, with white duck trowsers—both relics of my tropic sea-going. Clogged in the muffling ferns, I softly stumbled, staining the knees a sea-green. Pausing at the threshold, or rather where threshold once had been, I saw, through the open door-way, a lonely girl, sewing at a lonely window. A pale-cheeked girl, and fly-specked window, with wasps about the mended upper panes. I spoke. She shyly started, like some Tahiti girl, secreted for a sacrifice, first catching sight, through palms, of Captain Cook. Recovering, she bade me enter; with her apron brushed off a stool; then silently resumed her own. With thanks I took the stool; but now, for a space, I, too, was mute. This, then, is the fairy-mountain house, and here, the fairy queen sitting at her fairy window. I went up to it. Downwards, directed by the tunneled pass, as through a leveled telescope, I caught sight of a far-off, soft, azure world. I hardly knew it, though I came from it. “You must find this view very pleasant,” said I, at last. “Oh, sir,” tears starting in her eyes, “the first time I looked out of this window, I said ‘never, never shall I weary of this.’” “And what wearies you of it now?” “I don’t know,” while a tear fell; “but it is not the view, it is Marianna.” Some months back, her brother, only seventeen, had come hither, a long way from the other side, to cut wood and burn coal, and she, elder sister, had accompanied, him. Long had they been orphans, and now, sole inhabitants of the sole house upon the mountain. No guest came, no traveler passed. The zigzag, perilous road was only used at seasons by the coal wagons. The brother was absent the entire day, sometimes the entire night. When at evening, fagged out, he did come home, he soon left his bench, poor fellow, for his bed; just as one, at last, wearily quits that, too, for still deeper rest. The bench, the bed, the grave. Silent I stood by the fairy window, while these things were being told. “Do you know,” said she at last, as stealing from her story, “do you know who lives yonder?—I have never been down into that country—away off there, I mean; that house, that marble one,” pointing far across the lower landscape; “have you not caught it? there, on the long hill-side: the field before, the woods behind; the white shines out against their blue; don’t you mark it? the only house in sight.” I looked; and after a time, to my surprise, recognized, more by its position than its aspect, or Marianna’s description, my own abode, glimmering much like this mountain one from the piazza. The mirage haze made it appear less a farm-house than King Charming’s palace. “I have often wondered who lives there; but it must be some happy one; again this morning was I thinking so.” “Some happy one,” returned I, starting; “and why do you think that? You judge some rich one lives there?” “Rich or not, I never thought; but it looks so happy, I can’t tell how; and it is so far away. Sometimes I think I do but dream it is there. You should see it in a sunset.” “No doubt the sunset gilds it finely; but not more than the sunrise does this house, perhaps.” “This house? The sun is a good sun, but it never gilds this house. Why should it? This old house is rotting. That makes it so mossy. In the morning, the sun comes in at this old window, to be sure—boarded up, when first we came; a window I can’t keep clean, do what I may—and half burns, and nearly blinds me at my sewing, besides setting the flies and wasps astir—such flies and wasps as only lone mountain houses know. See, here is the curtain—this apron—I try to shut it out with then. It fades it, you see. Sun gild this house? not that ever Marianna saw.” “Because when this roof is gilded most, then you stay here within.” “The hottest, weariest hour of day, you mean? Sir, the sun gilds not this roof. It leaked so, brother newly shingled all one side. Did you not see it? The north side, where the sun strikes most on what the rain has wetted. The sun is a good sun; but this roof, in first scorches, and then rots. An old house. They went West, and are long dead, they say, who built it. A mountain house. In winter no fox could den in it. That chimney-place has been blocked up with snow, just like a hollow stump.” “Yours are strange fancies, Marianna.” “They but reflect the things.” “Then I should have said, ‘These are strange things,’ rather than, ‘Yours are strange fancies.’” “As you will;” and took up her sewing. Something in those quiet words, or in that quiet act, it made me mute again; while, noting, through the fairy window, a broad shadow stealing on, as cast by some gigantic condor, floating at brooding poise on outstretched wings, I marked how, by its deeper and inclusive dusk, it wiped away into itself all lesser shades of rock or fern. “You watch the cloud,” said Marianna. “No, a shadow; a cloud’s, no doubt—though that I cannot see. How did you know it? Your eyes are on your work.” “It dusked my work. There, now the cloud is gone, Tray comes back.” “How?” “The dog, the shaggy dog. At noon, he steals off, of himself, to change his shape—returns, and lies down awhile, nigh the door. Don’t you see him? His head is turned round at you; though, when you came, he looked before him.” “Your eyes rest but on your work; what do you speak of?” “By the window, crossing.” “You mean this shaggy shadow—the nigh one? And, yes, now that I mark it, it is not unlike a large, black Newfoundland dog. The invading shadow gone, the invaded one returns. But I do not see what casts it.” “For that, you must go without.” “One of those grassy rocks, no doubt.” “You see his head, his face?” “The shadow’s? You speak as if you saw it, and all the time your eyes are on your work.” “Tray looks at you,” still without glancing up; “this is his hour; I see him.” “Have you then, so long sat at this mountain-window, where but clouds and, vapors pass, that, to you, shadows are as things, though you speak of them as of phantoms; that, by familiar knowledge, working like a second sight, you can, without looking for them, tell just where they are, though, as having mice-like feet, they creep about, and come and go; that, to you, these lifeless shadows are as living friends, who, though out of sight, are not out of mind, even in their faces—is it so?” “That way I never thought of it. But the friendliest one, that used to soothe my weariness so much, coolly quivering on the ferns, it was taken from me, never to return, as Tray did just now. The shadow of a birch. The tree was struck by lightning, and brother cut it up. You saw the cross-pile out-doors—the buried root lies under it; but not the shadow. That is flown, and never will come back, nor ever anywhere stir again.” Another cloud here stole along, once more blotting out the dog, and blackening all the mountain; while the stillness was so still, deafness might have forgot itself, or else believed that noiseless shadow spoke. “Birds, Marianna, singing-birds, I hear none; I hear nothing. Boys and bob-o-links, do they never come a-berrying up here?” “Birds, I seldom hear; boys, never. The berries mostly ripe and fall—few, but me, the wiser.” “But yellow-birds showed me the way—part way, at least.” “And then flew back. I guess they play about the mountain-side, but don’t make the top their home. And no doubt you think that, living so lonesome here, knowing nothing, hearing nothing—little, at least, but sound of thunder and the fall of trees—never reading, seldom speaking, yet ever wakeful, this is what gives me my strange thoughts—for so you call them—this weariness and wakefulness together Brother, who stands and works in open air, would I could rest like him; but mine is mostly but dull woman’s work—sitting, sitting, restless sitting.” “But, do you not go walk at times? These woods are wide.” “And lonesome; lonesome, because so wide. Sometimes, ’tis true, of afternoons, I go a little way; but soon come back again. Better feel lone by hearth, than rock. The shadows hereabouts I know—those in the woods are strangers.” “But the night?” “Just like the day. Thinking, thinking—a wheel I cannot stop; pure want of sleep it is that turns it.” “I have heard that, for this wakeful weariness, to say one’s prayers, and then lay one’s head upon a fresh hop pillow—” “Look!” Through the fairy window, she pointed down the steep to a small garden patch near by—mere pot of rifled loam, half rounded in by sheltering rocks—where, side by side, some feet apart, nipped and puny, two hop-vines climbed two poles, and, gaining their tip-ends, would have then joined over in an upward clasp, but the baffled shoots, groping awhile in empty air, trailed back whence they sprung. “You have tried the pillow, then?” “Yes.” “And prayer?” “Prayer and pillow.” “Is there no other cure, or charm?” “Oh, if I could but once get to yonder house, and but look upon whoever the happy being is that lives there! A foolish thought: why do I think it? Is it that I live so lonesome, and know nothing?” “I, too, know nothing; and, therefore, cannot answer; but, for your sake, Marianna, well could wish that I were that happy one of the happy house you dream you see; for then you would behold him now, and, as you say, this weariness might leave you.” —Enough. Launching my yawl no more for fairy-land, I stick to the piazza. It is my box-royal; and this amphitheatre, my theatre of San Carlo. Yes, the scenery is magical—the illusion so complete. And Madam Meadow Lark, my prima donna, plays her grand engagement here; and, drinking in her sunrise note, which, Memnon-like, seems struck from the golden window, how far from me the weary face behind it. But, every night, when the curtain falls, truth comes in with darkness. No light shows from the mountain. To and fro I walk the piazza deck, haunted by Marianna’s face, and many as real a story.
nedjelja, 15. ožujka 2026.
I am a rather elderly man. The nature of my avocations, for the last thirty years, has brought me into more than ordinary contact with what would seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, of whom, as yet, nothing, that I know of, has ever been written—I mean, the law-copyists, or scriveners. I have known very many of them, professionally and privately, and, if I pleased, could relate divers histories, at which good-natured gentlemen might smile, and sentimental souls might weep. But I waive the biographies of all other scriveners, for a few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener, the strangest I ever saw, or heard of. While, of other law-copyists, I might write the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done. I believe that no materials exist, for a full and satisfactory biography of this man. It is an irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby was one of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from the original sources, and, in his case, those are very small. What my own astonished eyes saw of Bartleby, that is all I know of him, except, indeed, one vague report, which will appear in the sequel. Ere introducing the scrivener, as he first appeared to me, it is fit I make some mention of myself, my employés, my business, my chambers, and general surroundings; because some such description is indispensable to an adequate understanding of the chief character about to be presented. Imprimis: I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best. Hence, though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and nervous, even to turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have I ever suffered to invade my peace. I am one of those unambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but, in the cool tranquillity of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men’s bonds, and mortgages, and title-deeds. All who know me, consider me an eminently safe man. The late John Jacob Astor, a personage little given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my first grand point to be prudence; my next, method. I do not speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not unemployed in my profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I admit, I love to repeat; for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and rings like unto bullion. I will freely add, that I was not insensible to the late John Jacob Astor’s good opinion. Some time prior to the period at which this little history begins, my avocations had been largely increased. The good old office, now extinct in the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery, had been conferred upon me. It was not a very arduous office, but very pleasantly remunerative. I seldom lose my temper; much more seldom indulge in dangerous indignation at wrongs and outrages; but, I must be permitted to be rash here, and declare, that I consider the sudden and violent abrogation of the office of Master in Chancery, by the new Constitution, as a —— premature act; inasmuch as I had counted upon a life-lease of the profits, whereas I only received those of a few short years. But this is by the way. My chambers were up stairs, at No. —— Wall street. At one end, they looked upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious skylight shaft, penetrating the building from top to bottom. This view might have been considered rather tame than otherwise, deficient in what landscape painters call “life.” But, if so, the view from the other end of my chambers offered, at least, a contrast, if nothing more. In that direction, my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade; which wall required no spy-glass to bring out its lurking beauties, but, for the benefit of all near-sighted spectators, was pushed up to within ten feet of my window panes. Owing to the great height of the surrounding buildings, and my chambers being on the second floor, the interval between this wall and mine not a little resembled a huge square cistern. At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons as copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy. First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut. These may seem names, the like of which are not usually found in the Directory. In truth, they were nicknames, mutually conferred upon each other by my three clerks, and were deemed expressive of their respective persons or characters. Turkey was a short, pursy Englishman, of about my own age—that is, somewhere not far from sixty. In the morning, one might say, his face was of a fine florid hue, but after twelve o’clock, meridian—his dinner hour—it blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals; and continued blazing—but, as it were, with a gradual wane—till six o’clock, P.M., or thereabouts; after which, I saw no more of the proprietor of the face, which, gaining its meridian with the sun, seemed to set with it, to rise, culminate, and decline the following day, with the like regularity and undiminished glory. There are many singular coincidences I have known in the course of my life, not the least among which was the fact, that, exactly when Turkey displayed his fullest beams from his red and radiant countenance, just then, too, at that critical moment, began the daily period when I considered his business capacities as seriously disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours. Not that he was absolutely idle, or averse to business, then; far from it. The difficulty was, he was apt to be altogether too energetic. There was a strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of activity about him. He would be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand. All his blots upon my documents were dropped there after twelve o’clock, meridian. Indeed, not only would he be reckless, and sadly given to making blots in the afternoon, but, some days, he went further, and was rather noisy. At such times, too, his face flamed with augmented blazonry, as if cannel coal had been heaped on anthracite. He made an unpleasant racket with his chair; spilled his sand-box; in mending his pens, impatiently split them all to pieces, and threw them on the floor in a sudden passion; stood up, and leaned over his table, boxing his papers about in a most indecorous manner, very sad to behold in an elderly man like him. Nevertheless, as he was in many ways a most valuable person to me, and all the time before twelve o’clock, meridian, was the quickest, steadiest creature, too, accomplishing a great deal of work in a style not easily to be matched—for these reasons, I was willing to overlook his eccentricities, though, indeed, occasionally, I remonstrated with him. I did this very gently, however, because, though the civilest, nay, the blandest and most reverential of men in the morning, yet, in the afternoon, he was disposed, upon provocation, to be slightly rash with his tongue—in fact, insolent. Now, valuing his morning services as I did, and resolved not to lose them—yet, at the same time, made uncomfortable by his inflamed ways after twelve o’clock—and being a man of peace, unwilling by my admonitions to call forth unseemly retorts from him, I took upon me, one Saturday noon (he was always worse on Saturdays) to hint to him, very kindly, that, perhaps, now that he was growing old, it might be well to abridge his labors; in short, he need not come to my chambers after twelve o’clock, but, dinner over, had best go home to his lodgings, and rest himself till tea-time. But no; he insisted upon his afternoon devotions. His countenance became intolerably fervid, as he oratorically assured me—gesticulating with a long ruler at the other end of the room—that if his services in the morning were useful, how indispensable, then, in the afternoon? “With submission, sir,” said Turkey, on this occasion, “I consider myself your right-hand man. In the morning I but marshal and deploy my columns; but in the afternoon I put myself at their head, and gallantly charge the foe, thus”—and he made a violent thrust with the ruler. “But the blots, Turkey,” intimated I. “True; but, with submission, sir, behold these hairs! I am getting old. Surely, sir, a blot or two of a warm afternoon is not to be severely urged against gray hairs. Old age—even if it blot the page—is honorable. With submission, sir, we both are getting old.” This appeal to my fellow-feeling was hardly to be resisted. At all events, I saw that go he would not. So, I made up my mind to let him stay, resolving, nevertheless, to see to it that, during the afternoon, he had to do with my less important papers. Nippers, the second on my list, was a whiskered, sallow, and, upon the whole, rather piratical-looking young man, of about five and twenty. I always deemed him the victim of two evil powers—ambition and indigestion. The ambition was evinced by a certain impatience of the duties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of strictly professional affairs, such as the original drawing up of legal documents. The indigestion seemed betokened in an occasional nervous testiness and grinning irritability, causing the teeth to audibly grind together over mistakes committed in copying; unnecessary maledictions, hissed, rather than spoken, in the heat of business; and especially by a continual discontent with the height of the table where he worked. Though of a very ingenious mechanical turn, Nippers could never get this table to suit him. He put chips under it, blocks of various sorts, bits of pasteboard, and at last went so far as to attempt an exquisite adjustment, by final pieces of folded blotting-paper. But no invention would answer. If, for the sake of easing his back, he brought the table lid at a sharp angle well up towards his chin, and wrote, there like a man using the steep roof of a Dutch house for his desk, then he declared that it stopped the circulation in his arms. If now he lowered the table to his waistbands, and stooped over it in writing, then there was a sore aching in his back. In short, the truth of the matter was, Nippers knew not what he wanted. Or, if he wanted anything, it was to be rid of a scrivener’s table altogether. Among the manifestations of his diseased ambition was a fondness he had for receiving visits from certain ambiguous-looking fellows in seedy coats, whom he called his clients. Indeed, I was aware that not only was he, at times, considerable of a ward-politician, but he occasionally did a little business at the Justices’ courts, and was not unknown on the steps of the Tombs. I have good reason to believe, however, that one individual who called upon him at my chambers, and who, with a grand air, he insisted was his client, was no other than a dun, and the alleged title-deed, a bill. But, with all his failings, and the annoyances he caused me, Nippers, like his compatriot Turkey, was a very useful man to me; wrote a neat, swift hand; and, when he chose, was not deficient in a gentlemanly sort of deportment. Added to this, he always dressed in a gentlemanly sort of way; and so, incidentally, reflected credit upon my chambers. Whereas, with respect to Turkey, I had much ado to keep him from being a reproach to me. His clothes were apt to look oily, and smell of eating-houses. He wore his pantaloons very loose and baggy in summer. His coats were execrable; his hat not to be handled. But while the hat was a thing of indifference to me, inasmuch as his natural civility and deference, as a dependent Englishman, always led him to doff it the moment he entered the room, yet his coat was another matter. Concerning his coats, I reasoned with him; but with no effect. The truth was, I suppose, that a man with so small an income could not afford to sport such a lustrous face and a lustrous coat at one and the same time. As Nippers once observed, Turkey’s money went chiefly for red ink. One winter day, I presented Turkey with a highly respectable-looking coat of my own—a padded gray coat, of a most comfortable warmth, and which buttoned straight up from the knee to the neck. I thought Turkey would appreciate the favor, and abate his rashness and obstreperousness of afternoons. But no; I verily believe that buttoning himself up in so downy and blanket-like a coat had a pernicious effect upon him—upon the same principle that too much oats are bad for horses. In fact, precisely as a rash, restive horse is said to feel his oats, so Turkey felt his coat. It made him insolent. He was a man whom prosperity harmed. Though, concerning the self-indulgent habits of Turkey, I had my own private surmises, yet, touching Nippers, I was well persuaded that, whatever might be his faults in other respects, he was, at least, a temperate young man. But, indeed, nature herself seemed to have been his vintner, and, at his birth, charged him so thoroughly with an irritable, brandy-like disposition, that all subsequent potations were needless. When I consider how, amid the stillness of my chambers, Nippers would sometimes impatiently rise from his seat, and stooping over his table, spread his arms wide apart, seize the whole desk, and move it, and jerk it, with a grim, grinding motion on the floor, as if the table were a perverse voluntary agent, intent on thwarting and vexing him, I plainly perceive that, for Nippers, brandy-and-water were altogether superfluous. It was fortunate for me that, owing to its peculiar cause—indigestion—the irritability and consequent nervousness of Nippers were mainly observable in the morning, while in the afternoon he was comparatively mild. So that, Turkey’s paroxysms only coming on about twelve o’clock, I never had to do with their eccentricities at one time. Their fits relieved each other, like guards. When Nippers’s was on, Turkey’s was off; and vice versa. This was a good natural arrangement, under the circumstances. Ginger Nut, the third on my list, was a lad, some twelve years old. His, father was a carman, ambitious of seeing his son on the bench instead of a cart, before he died. So he sent him to my office, as student at law, errand-boy, cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar a week. He had a little desk to himself, but he did not use it much. Upon inspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of various sorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth, the whole noble science of the law was contained in a nut-shell. Not the least among the employments of Ginger Nut, as well as one which he discharged with the most alacrity, was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for Turkey and Nippers. Copying law-papers being proverbially a dry, husky sort of business, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths very often with Spitzenbergs, to be had at the numerous stalls nigh the Custom House and Post Office. Also, they sent Ginger Nut very frequently for that peculiar cake—small, flat, round, and very spicy—after which he had been named by them. Of a cold morning, when business was but dull, Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes, as if they were mere wafers—indeed, they sell them at the rate of six or eight for a penny—the scrape of his pen blending with the crunching of the crisp particles in his mouth. Of all the fiery afternoon blunders and flurried rashnesses of Turkey, was his once moistening a ginger-cake between his lips, and clapping it on to a mortgage, for a seal. I came within an ace of dismissing him then. But he mollified me by making an oriental bow, and saying— “With submission, sir, it was generous of me to find you in stationery on my own account.” Now my original business—that of a conveyancer and title hunter, and drawer-up of recondite documents of all sorts—was considerably increased by receiving the master’s office. There was now great work for scriveners. Not only must I push the clerks already with me, but I must have additional help. In answer to my advertisement, a motionless young man one morning stood upon my office threshold, the door being open, for it was summer. I can see that figure now—pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby. After a few words touching his qualifications, I engaged him, glad to have among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an aspect, which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper of Turkey, and the fiery one of Nippers. I should have stated before that ground glass folding-doors divided my premises into two parts, one of which was occupied by my scriveners, the other by myself. According to my humor, I threw open these doors, or closed them. I resolved to assign Bartleby a corner by the folding-doors, but on my side of them, so as to have this quiet man within easy call, in case any trifling thing was to be done. I placed his desk close up to a small side-window in that part of the room, a window which originally had afforded a lateral view of certain grimy backyards and bricks, but which, owing to subsequent erections, commanded at present no view at all, though it gave some light. Within three feet of the panes was a wall, and the light came down from far above, between two lofty buildings, as from a very small opening in a dome. Still further to a satisfactory arrangement, I procured a high green folding screen, which might entirely isolate Bartleby from my sight, though not remove him from my voice. And thus, in a manner, privacy and society were conjoined. At first, Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if long famishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my documents. There was no pause for digestion. He ran a day and night line, copying by sun-light and by candle-light. I should have been quite delighted with his application, had he been cheerfully industrious. But he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically. It is, of course, an indispensable part of a scrivener’s business to verify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. Where there are two or more scriveners in an office, they assist each other in this examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that, to some sanguine temperaments, it would be altogether intolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet, Byron, would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law document of, say five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand. Now and then, in the haste of business, it had been my habit to assist in comparing some brief document myself, calling Turkey or Nippers for this purpose. One object I had, in placing Bartleby so handy to me behind the screen, was, to avail myself of his services on such trivial occasions. It was on the third day, I think, of his being with me, and before any necessity had arisen for having his own writing examined, that, being much hurried to complete a small affair I had in hand, I abruptly called to Bartleby. In my haste and natural expectancy of instant compliance, I sat with my head bent over the original on my desk, and my right hand sideways, and somewhat nervously extended with the copy, so that, immediately upon emerging from his retreat, Bartleby might snatch it and proceed to business without the least delay. In this very attitude did I sit when I called to him, rapidly stating what it was I wanted him to do—namely, to examine a small paper with me. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when, without moving from his privacy, Bartleby, in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, “I would prefer not to.” I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me, or Bartleby had entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my request in the clearest tone I could assume; but in quite as clear a one came the previous reply, “I would prefer not to.” “Prefer not to,” echoed I, rising in high excitement, and crossing the room with a stride. “What do you mean? Are you moon-struck? I want you to help me compare this sheet here—take it,” and I thrust it towards him. “I would prefer not to,” said he. I looked at him steadfastly. His face was leanly composed; his gray eye dimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other words, had there been any thing ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises. But as it was, I should have as soon thought of turning my pale plaster-of-paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I stood gazing at him awhile, as he went on with his own writing, and then reseated myself at my desk. This is very strange, thought I. What had one best do? But my business hurried me. I concluded to forget the matter for the present, reserving it for my future leisure. So calling Nippers from the other room, the paper was speedily examined. A few days after this, Bartleby concluded four lengthy documents, being quadruplicates of a week’s testimony taken before me in my High Court of Chancery. It became necessary to examine them. It was an important suit, and great accuracy was imperative. Having all things arranged, I called Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut, from the next room, meaning to place the four copies in the hands of my four clerks, while I should read from the original. Accordingly, Turkey, Nippers, and Ginger Nut had taken their seats in a row, each with his document in his hand, when I called to Bartleby to join this interesting group. “Bartleby! quick, I am waiting.” I heard a slow scrape of his chair legs on the uncarpeted floor, and soon he appeared standing at the entrance of his hermitage. “What is wanted?” said he, mildly. “The copies, the copies,” said I, hurriedly. “We are going to examine them. There”—and I held towards him the fourth quadruplicate. “I would prefer not to,” he said, and gently disappeared behind the screen. For a few moments I was turned into a pillar of salt, standing at the head of my seated column of clerks. Recovering myself, I advanced towards the screen, and demanded the reason for such extraordinary conduct. “Why do you refuse?” “I would prefer not to.” With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence. But there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but, in a wonderful manner, touched and disconcerted me. I began to reason with him. “These are your own copies we are about to examine. It is labor saving to you, because one examination will answer for your four papers. It is common usage. Every copyist is bound to help examine his copy. Is it not so? Will you not speak? Answer!” “I prefer not to,” he replied in a flutelike tone. It seemed to me that, while I had been addressing him, he carefully revolved every statement that I made; fully comprehended the meaning; could not gainsay the irresistible conclusion; but, at the same time, some paramount consideration prevailed with him to reply as he did. “You are decided, then, not to comply with my request—a request made according to common usage and common sense?” He briefly gave me to understand, that on that point my judgment was sound. Yes: his decision was irreversible. It is not seldom the case that, when a man is browbeaten in some unprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he begins to stagger in his own plainest faith. He begins, as it were, vaguely to surmise that, wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on the other side. Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, he turns to them for some reinforcement for his own faltering mind. “Turkey,” said I, “what do you think of this? Am I not right?” “With submission, sir,” said Turkey, in his blandest tone, “I think that you are.” “Nippers,” said I, “what do you think of it?” “I think I should kick him out of the office.” (The reader, of nice perceptions, will here perceive that, it being morning, Turkey’s answer is couched in polite and tranquil terms, but Nippers replies in ill-tempered ones. Or, to repeat a previous sentence, Nippers’s ugly mood was on duty, and Turkey’s off.) “Ginger Nut,” said I, willing to enlist the smallest suffrage in my behalf, “what do you think of it?” “I think, sir, he’s a little luny,” replied Ginger Nut, with a grin. “You hear what they say,” said I, turning towards the screen, “come forth and do your duty.” But he vouchsafed no reply. I pondered a moment in sore perplexity. But once more business hurried me. I determined again to postpone the consideration of this dilemma to my future leisure. With a little trouble we made out to examine the papers without Bartleby, though at every page or two Turkey deferentially dropped his opinion, that this proceeding was quite out of the common; while Nippers, twitching in his chair with a dyspeptic nervousness, ground out, between his set teeth, occasional hissing maledictions against the stubborn oaf behind the screen. And for his (Nippers’s) part, this was the first and the last time he would do another man’s business without pay. Meanwhile Bartleby sat in his hermitage, oblivious to everything but his own peculiar business there. Some days passed, the scrivener being employed upon another lengthy work. His late remarkable conduct led me to regard his ways narrowly. I observed that he never went to dinner; indeed, that he never went anywhere. As yet I had never, of my personal knowledge, known him to be outside of my office. He was a perpetual sentry in the corner. At about eleven o’clock though, in the morning, I noticed that Ginger Nut would advance toward the opening in Bartleby’s screen, as if silently beckoned thither by a gesture invisible to me where I sat. The boy would then leave the office, jingling a few pence, and reappear with a handful of ginger-nuts, which he delivered in the hermitage, receiving two of the cakes for his trouble. He lives, then, on ginger-nuts, thought I; never eats a dinner, properly speaking; he must be a vegetarian, then; but no; he never eats even vegetables, he eats nothing but ginger-nuts. My mind then ran on in reveries concerning the probable effects upon the human constitution of living entirely on ginger-nuts. Ginger-nuts are so called, because they contain ginger as one of their peculiar constituents, and the final flavoring one. Now, what was ginger? A hot, spicy thing. Was Bartleby hot and spicy? Not at all. Ginger, then, had no effect upon Bartleby. Probably, he preferred it should have none. Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. If the individual so resisted be of a not inhumane temper, and the resisting one perfectly harmless in his passivity, then, in the better moods of the former, he will endeavor charitably to construe to his imagination what proves impossible to be solved by his judgment. Even so, for the most part, I regarded Bartleby and his ways. Poor fellow! thought I, he means no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his aspect sufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He is useful to me. I can get along with him. If I turn him away, the chances are he will fall in with some less-indulgent employer, and then he will be rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve. Yes. Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange willfulness, will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience. But this mood was not invariable, with me. The passiveness of Bartleby sometimes irritated me. I felt strangely goaded on to encounter him in new opposition—to elicit some angry spark from him answerable to my own. But, indeed, I might as well have essayed to strike fire with my knuckles against a bit of Windsor soap. But one afternoon the evil impulse in me mastered me, and the following little scene ensued: “Bartleby,” said I, “when those papers are all copied, I will compare them with you.” “I would prefer not to.” “How? Surely you do not mean to persist in that mulish vagary?” No answer. I threw open the folding-doors near by, and, turning upon Turkey and Nippers, exclaimed: “Bartleby a second time says, he won’t examine his papers. What do you think of it, Turkey?” It was afternoon, be it remembered. Turkey sat glowing like a brass boiler; his bald head steaming; his hands reeling among his blotted papers. “Think of it?” roared Turkey; “I think I’ll just step behind his screen, and black his eyes for him!” So saying, Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey’s combativeness after dinner. “Sit down, Turkey,” said I, “and hear what Nippers has to say. What do you think of it, Nippers? Would I not be justified in immediately dismissing Bartleby?” “Excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quite unusual, and, indeed, unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it may only be a passing whim.” “Ah,” exclaimed I, “you have strangely changed your mind, then—you speak very gently of him now.” “All beer,” cried Turkey; “gentleness is effects of beer—Nippers and I dined together to-day. You see how gentle I am, sir. Shall I go and black his eyes?” “You refer to Bartleby, I suppose. No, not to-day, Turkey,” I replied; “pray, put up your fists.” I closed the doors, and again advanced towards Bartleby. I felt additional incentives tempting me to my fate. I burned to be rebelled against again. I remembered that Bartleby never left the office. “Bartleby,” said I, “Ginger Nut is away; just step around to the Post Office, won’t you? (it was but a three minutes’ walk), and see if there is anything for me.” “I would prefer not to.” “You will not?” “I prefer not.” I staggered to my desk, and sat there in a deep study. My blind inveteracy returned. Was there any other thing in which I could procure myself to be ignominiously repulsed by this lean, penniless wight?—my hired clerk? What added thing is there, perfectly reasonable, that he will be sure to refuse to do? “Bartleby!” No answer. “Bartleby,” in a louder tone. No answer. “Bartleby,” I roared. Like a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at the third summons, he appeared at the entrance of his hermitage. “Go to the next room, and tell Nippers to come to me.” “I prefer not to,” he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly disappeared. “Very good, Bartleby,” said I, in a quiet sort of serenely-severe self-possessed tone, intimating the unalterable purpose of some terrible retribution very close at hand. At the moment I half intended something of the kind. But upon the whole, as it was drawing towards my dinner-hour, I thought it best to put on my hat and walk home for the day, suffering much from perplexity and distress of mind. Shall I acknowledge it? The conclusion of this whole business was, that it soon became a fixed fact of my chambers, that a pale young scrivener, by the name of Bartleby, had a desk there; that he copied for me at the usual rate of four cents a folio (one hundred words); but he was permanently exempt from examining the work done by him, that duty being transferred to Turkey and Nippers, out of compliment, doubtless, to their superior acuteness; moreover, said Bartleby was never, on any account, to be dispatched on the most trivial errand of any sort; and that even if entreated to take upon him such a matter, it was generally understood that he would “prefer not to”—in other words, that he would refuse point-blank. As days passed on, I became considerably reconciled to Bartleby. His steadiness, his freedom from all dissipation, his incessant industry (except when he chose to throw himself into a standing revery behind his screen), his great stillness, his unalterableness of demeanor under all circumstances, made him a valuable acquisition. One prime thing was this—he was always there—first in the morning, continually through the day, and the last at night. I had a singular confidence in his honesty. I felt my most precious papers perfectly safe in his hands. Sometimes, to be sure, I could not, for the very soul of me, avoid falling into sudden spasmodic passions with him. For it was exceeding difficult to bear in mind all the time those strange peculiarities, privileges, and unheard of exemptions, forming the tacit stipulations on Bartleby’s part under which he remained in my office. Now and then, in the eagerness of dispatching pressing business, I would inadvertently summon Bartleby, in a short, rapid tone, to put his finger, say, on the incipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was about compressing some papers. Of course, from behind the screen the usual answer, “I prefer not to,” was sure to come; and then, how could a human creature, with the common infirmities of our nature, refrain from bitterly exclaiming upon such perverseness—such unreasonableness. However, every added repulse of this sort which I received only tended to lessen the probability of my repeating the inadvertence. Here it must be said, that according to the custom of most legal gentlemen occupying chambers in densely-populated law buildings, there were several keys to my door. One was kept by a woman residing in the attic, which person weekly scrubbed and daily swept and dusted my apartments. Another was kept by Turkey for convenience sake. The third I sometimes carried in my own pocket. The fourth I knew not who had. Now, one Sunday morning I happened to go to Trinity Church, to hear a celebrated preacher, and finding myself rather early on the ground I thought I would walk round to my chambers for a while. Luckily I had my key with me; but upon applying it to the lock, I found it resisted by something inserted from the inside. Quite surprised, I called out; when to my consternation a key was turned from within; and thrusting his lean visage at me, and holding the door ajar, the apparition of Bartleby appeared, in his shirt sleeves, and otherwise in a strangely tattered deshabille, saying quietly that he was sorry, but he was deeply engaged just then, and—preferred not admitting me at present. In a brief word or two, he moreover added, that perhaps I had better walk round the block two or three times, and by that time he would probably have concluded his affairs. Now, the utterly unsurmised appearance of Bartleby, tenanting my law-chambers of a Sunday morning, with his cadaverously gentlemanly nonchalance, yet withal firm and self-possessed, had such a strange effect upon me, that incontinently I slunk away from my own door, and did as desired. But not without sundry twinges of impotent rebellion against the mild effrontery of this unaccountable scrivener. Indeed, it was his wonderful mildness chiefly, which not only disarmed me, but unmanned me as it were. For I consider that one, for the time, is a sort of unmanned when he tranquilly permits his hired clerk to dictate to him, and order him away from his own premises. Furthermore, I was full of uneasiness as to what Bartleby could possibly be doing in my office in his shirt sleeves, and in an otherwise dismantled condition of a Sunday morning. Was anything amiss going on? Nay, that was out of the question. It was not to be thought of for a moment that Bartleby was an immoral person. But what could he be doing there?—copying? Nay again, whatever might be his eccentricities, Bartleby was an eminently decorous person. He would be the last man to sit down to his desk in any state approaching to nudity. Besides, it was Sunday; and there was something about Bartleby that forbade the supposition that he would by any secular occupation violate the proprieties of the day. Nevertheless, my mind was not pacified; and full of a restless curiosity, at last I returned to the door. Without hindrance I inserted my key, opened it, and entered. Bartleby was not to be seen. I looked round anxiously, peeped behind his screen; but it was very plain that he was gone. Upon more closely examining the place, I surmised that for an indefinite period Bartleby must have ate, dressed, and slept in my office, and that, too without plate, mirror, or bed. The cushioned seat of a ricketty old sofa in one corner bore the faint impress of a lean, reclining form. Rolled away under his desk, I found a blanket; under the empty grate, a blacking box and brush; on a chair, a tin basin, with soap and a ragged towel; in a newspaper a few crumbs of ginger-nuts and a morsel of cheese. Yes, thought I, it is evident enough that Bartleby has been making his home here, keeping bachelor’s hall all by himself. Immediately then the thought came sweeping across me, what miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed! His poverty is great; but his solitude, how horrible! Think of it. Of a Sunday, Wall-street is deserted as Petra; and every night of every day it is an emptiness. This building, too, which of week-days hums with industry and life, at nightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all through Sunday is forlorn. And here Bartleby makes his home; sole spectator, of a solitude which he has seen all populous—a sort of innocent and transformed Marius brooding among the ruins of Carthage! For the first time in my life a feeling of overpowering stinging melancholy seized me. Before, I had never experienced aught but a not unpleasing sadness. The bond of a common humanity now drew me irresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy! For both I and Bartleby were sons of Adam. I remembered the bright silks and sparkling faces I had seen that day, in gala trim, swan-like sailing down the Mississippi of Broadway; and I contrasted them with the pallid copyist, and thought to myself, Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay; but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none. These sad fancyings—chimeras, doubtless, of a sick and silly brain—led on to other and more special thoughts, concerning the eccentricities of Bartleby. Presentiments of strange discoveries hovered round me. The scriveners pale form appeared to me laid out, among uncaring strangers, in its shivering winding sheet. Suddenly I was attracted by Bartleby’s closed desk, the key in open sight left in the lock. I mean no mischief, seek the gratification of no heartless curiosity, thought I; besides, the desk is mine, and its contents, too, so I will make bold to look within. Everything was methodically arranged, the papers smoothly placed. The pigeon holes were deep, and removing the files of documents, I groped into their recesses. Presently I felt something there, and dragged it out. It was an old bandanna handkerchief, heavy and knotted. I opened it, and saw it was a savings’ bank. I now recalled all the quiet mysteries which I had noted in the man. I remembered that he never spoke but to answer; that, though at intervals he had considerable time to himself, yet I had never seen him reading—no, not even a newspaper; that for long periods he would stand looking out, at his pale window behind the screen, upon the dead brick wall; I was quite sure he never visited any refectory or eating house; while his pale face clearly indicated that he never drank beer like Turkey, or tea and coffee even, like other men; that he never went anywhere in particular that I could learn; never went out for a walk, unless, indeed, that was the case at present; that he had declined telling who he was, or whence he came, or whether he had any relatives in the world; that though so thin and pale, he never complained of ill health. And more than all, I remembered a certain unconscious air of pallid—how shall I call it?—of pallid haughtiness, say, or rather an austere reserve about him, which had positively awed me into my tame compliance with his eccentricities, when I had feared to ask him to do the slightest incidental thing for me, even though I might know, from his long-continued motionlessness, that behind his screen he must be standing in one of those dead-wall reveries of his. Revolving all these things, and coupling them with the recently discovered fact, that he made my office his constant abiding place and home, and not forgetful of his morbid moodiness; revolving all these things, a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into repulsion. So true it is, and so terrible, too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul be rid of it. What I saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach. I did not accomplish the purpose of going to Trinity Church that morning. Somehow, the things I had seen disqualified me for the time from church-going. I walked homeward, thinking what I would do with Bartleby. Finally, I resolved upon this—I would put certain calm questions to him the next morning, touching his history, etc., and if he declined to answer them openly and unreservedly (and I supposed he would prefer not), then to give him a twenty dollar bill over and above whatever I might owe him, and tell him his services were no longer required; but that if in any other way I could assist him, I would be happy to do so, especially if he desired to return to his native place, wherever that might be, I would willingly help to defray the expenses. Moreover, if, after reaching home, he found himself at any time in want of aid, a letter from him would be sure of a reply. The next morning came. “Bartleby,” said I, gently calling to him behind his screen. No reply. “Bartleby,” said I, in a still gentler tone, “come here; I am not going to ask you to do anything you would prefer not to do—I simply wish to speak to you.” Upon this he noiselessly slid into view. “Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were born?” “I would prefer not to.” “Will you tell me anything about yourself?” “I would prefer not to.” “But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me? I feel friendly towards you.” He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon my bust of Cicero, which, as I then sat, was directly behind me, some six inches above my head. “What is your answer, Bartleby,” said I, after waiting a considerable time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, only there was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white attenuated mouth. “At present I prefer to give no answer,” he said, and retired into his hermitage. It was rather weak in me I confess, but his manner, on this occasion, nettled me. Not only did there seem to lurk in it a certain calm disdain, but his perverseness seemed ungrateful, considering the undeniable good usage and indulgence he had received from me. Again I sat ruminating what I should do. Mortified as I was at his behavior, and resolved as I had been to dismiss him when I entered my office, nevertheless I strangely felt something superstitious knocking at my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing me for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter word against this forlornest of mankind. At last, familiarly drawing my chair behind his screen, I sat down and said: “Bartleby, never mind, then, about revealing your history; but let me entreat you, as a friend, to comply as far as may be with the usages of this office. Say now, you will help to examine papers to-morrow or next day: in short, say now, that in a day or two you will begin to be a little reasonable:—say so, Bartleby.” “At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable,” was his mildly cadaverous reply. Just then the folding-doors opened, and Nippers approached. He seemed suffering from an unusually bad night’s rest, induced by severer indigestion than common. He overheard those final words of Bartleby. “Prefer not, eh?” gritted Nippers—“I’d prefer him, if I were you, sir,” addressing me—“I’d prefer him; I’d give him preferences, the stubborn mule! What is it, sir, pray, that he prefers not to do now?” Bartleby moved not a limb. “Mr. Nippers,” said I, “I’d prefer that you would withdraw for the present.” Somehow, of late, I had got into the way of involuntarily using this word “prefer” upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions. And I trembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already and seriously affected me in a mental way. And what further and deeper aberration might it not yet produce? This apprehension had not been without efficacy in determining me to summary measures. As Nippers, looking very sour and sulky, was departing, Turkey blandly and deferentially approached. “With submission, sir,” said he, “yesterday I was thinking about Bartleby here, and I think that if he would but prefer to take a quart of good ale every day, it would do much towards mending him, and enabling him to assist in examining his papers.” “So you have got the word, too,” said I, slightly excited. “With submission, what word, sir,” asked Turkey, respectfully crowding himself into the contracted space behind the screen, and by so doing, making me jostle the scrivener. “What word, sir?” “I would prefer to be left alone here,” said Bartleby, as if offended at being mobbed in his privacy. “That’s the word, Turkey,” said I—“that’s it.” “Oh, prefer? oh yes—queer word. I never use it myself. But, sir, as I was saying, if he would but prefer—” “Turkey,” interrupted I, “you will please withdraw.” “Oh certainly, sir, if you prefer that I should.” As he opened the folding-door to retire, Nippers at his desk caught a glimpse of me, and asked whether I would prefer to have a certain paper copied on blue paper or white. He did not in the least roguishly accent the word prefer. It was plain that it involuntarily rolled from his tongue. I thought to myself, surely I must get rid of a demented man, who already has in some degree turned the tongues, if not the heads of myself and clerks. But I thought it prudent not to break the dismission at once. The next day I noticed that Bartleby did nothing but stand at his window in his dead-wall revery. Upon asking him why he did not write, he said that he had decided upon doing no more writing. “Why, how now? what next?” exclaimed I, “do no more writing?” “No more.” “And what is the reason?” “Do you not see the reason for yourself,” he indifferently replied. I looked steadfastly at him, and perceived that his eyes looked dull and glazed. Instantly it occurred to me, that his unexampled diligence in copying by his dim window for the first few weeks of his stay with me might have temporarily impared his vision. I was touched. I said something in condolence with him. I hinted that of course he did wisely in abstaining from writing for a while; and urged him to embrace that opportunity of taking wholesome exercise in the open air. This, however, he did not do. A few days after this, my other clerks being absent, and being in a great hurry to dispatch certain letters by the mail, I thought that, having nothing else earthly to do, Bartleby would surely be less inflexible than usual, and carry these letters to the post-office. But he blankly declined. So, much to my inconvenience, I went myself. Still added days went by. Whether Bartleby’s eyes improved or not, I could not say. To all appearance, I thought they did. But when I asked him if they did, he vouchsafed no answer. At all events, he would do no copying. At last, in reply to my urgings, he informed me that he had permanently given up copying. “What!” exclaimed I; “suppose your eyes should get entirely well—better than ever before—would you not copy then?” “I have given up copying,” he answered, and slid aside. He remained as ever, a fixture in my chamber. Nay—if that were possible—he became still more of a fixture than before. What was to be done? He would do nothing in the office; why should he stay there? In plain fact, he had now become a millstone to me, not only useless as a necklace, but afflictive to bear. Yet I was sorry for him. I speak less than truth when I say that, on his own account, he occasioned me uneasiness. If he would but have named a single relative or friend, I would instantly have written, and urged their taking the poor fellow away to some convenient retreat. But he seemed alone, absolutely alone in the universe. A bit of wreck in the mid Atlantic. At length, necessities connected with my business tyrannized over all other considerations. Decently as I could, I told Bartleby that in six days time he must unconditionally leave the office. I warned him to take measures, in the interval, for procuring some other abode. I offered to assist him in this endeavor, if he himself would but take the first step towards a removal. “And when you finally quit me, Bartleby,” added I, “I shall see that you go not away entirely unprovided. Six days from this hour, remember.” At the expiration of that period, I peeped behind the screen, and lo! Bartleby was there. I buttoned up my coat, balanced myself; advanced slowly towards him, touched his shoulder, and said, “The time has come; you must quit this place; I am sorry for you; here is money; but you must go.” “I would prefer not,” he replied, with his back still towards me. “You must.” He remained silent. Now I had an unbounded confidence in this man’s common honesty. He had frequently restored to me sixpences and shillings carelessly dropped upon the floor, for I am apt to be very reckless in such shirt-button affairs. The proceeding, then, which followed will not be deemed extraordinary. “Bartleby,” said I, “I owe you twelve dollars on account; here are thirty-two; the odd twenty are yours—Will you take it?” and I handed the bills towards him. But he made no motion. “I will leave them here, then,” putting them under a weight on the table. Then taking my hat and cane and going to the door, I tranquilly turned and added—“After you have removed your things from these offices, Bartleby, you will of course lock the door—since every one is now gone for the day but you—and if you please, slip your key underneath the mat, so that I may have it in the morning. I shall not see you again; so good-by to you. If, hereafter, in your new place of abode, I can be of any service to you, do not fail to advise me by letter. Good-by, Bartleby, and fare you well.” But he answered not a word; like the last column of some ruined temple, he remained standing mute and solitary in the middle of the otherwise deserted room. As I walked home in a pensive mood, my vanity got the better of my pity. I could not but highly plume myself on my masterly management in getting rid of Bartleby. Masterly I call it, and such it must appear to any dispassionate thinker. The beauty of my procedure seemed to consist in its perfect quietness. There was no vulgar bullying, no bravado of any sort, no choleric hectoring, and striding to and fro across the apartment, jerking out vehement commands for Bartleby to bundle himself off with his beggarly traps. Nothing of the kind. Without loudly bidding Bartleby depart—as an inferior genius might have done—I assumed the ground that depart he must; and upon that assumption built all I had to say. The more I thought over my procedure, the more I was charmed with it. Nevertheless, next morning, upon awakening, I had my doubts—I had somehow slept off the fumes of vanity. One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning. My procedure seemed as sagacious as ever—but only in theory. How it would prove in practice—there was the rub. It was truly a beautiful thought to have assumed Bartleby’s departure; but, after all, that assumption was simply my own, and none of Bartleby’s. The great point was, not whether I had assumed that he would quit me, but whether he would prefer so to do. He was more a man of preferences than assumptions. After breakfast, I walked down town, arguing the probabilities pro and con. One moment I thought it would prove a miserable failure, and Bartleby would be found all alive at my office as usual; the next moment it seemed certain that I should find his chair empty. And so I kept veering about. At the corner of Broadway and Canal street, I saw quite an excited group of people standing in earnest conversation. “I’ll take odds he doesn’t,” said a voice as I passed. “Doesn’t go?—done!” said I, “put up your money.” I was instinctively putting my hand in my pocket to produce my own, when I remembered that this was an election day. The words I had overheard bore no reference to Bartleby, but to the success or non-success of some candidate for the mayoralty. In my intent frame of mind, I had, as it were, imagined that all Broadway shared in my excitement, and were debating the same question with me. I passed on, very thankful that the uproar of the street screened my momentary absent-mindedness. As I had intended, I was earlier than usual at my office door. I stood listening for a moment. All was still. He must be gone. I tried the knob. The door was locked. Yes, my procedure had worked to a charm; he indeed must be vanished. Yet a certain melancholy mixed with this: I was almost sorry for my brilliant success. I was fumbling under the door mat for the key, which Bartleby was to have left there for me, when accidentally my knee knocked against a panel, producing a summoning sound, and in response a voice came to me from within—“Not yet; I am occupied.” It was Bartleby. I was thunderstruck. For an instant I stood like the man who, pipe in mouth, was killed one cloudless afternoon long ago in Virginia, by summer lightning; at his own warm open window he was killed, and remained leaning out there upon the dreamy afternoon till some one touched him, when he fell. “Not gone!” I murmured at last. But again obeying that wondrous ascendancy which the inscrutable scrivener had over me, and from which ascendancy, for all my chafing, I could not completely escape, I slowly went down stairs and out into the street, and while walking round the block, considered what I should next do in this unheard-of perplexity. Turn the man out by an actual thrusting I could not; to drive him away by calling him hard names would not do; calling in the police was an unpleasant idea; and yet, permit him to enjoy his cadaverous triumph over me—this, too, I could not think of. What was to be done? or, if nothing could be done, was there anything further that I could assume in the matter? Yes, as before I had prospectively assumed that Bartleby would depart, so now I might retrospectively assume that departed he was. In the legitimate carrying out of this assumption, I might enter my office in a great hurry, and pretending not to see Bartleby at all, walk straight against him as if he were air. Such a proceeding would in a singular degree have the appearance of a home-thrust. It was hardly possible that Bartleby could withstand such an application of the doctrine of assumptions. But upon second thoughts the success of the plan seemed rather dubious. I resolved to argue the matter over with him again. “Bartleby,” said I, entering the office, with a quietly severe expression, “I am seriously displeased. I am pained, Bartleby. I had thought better of you. I had imagined you of such a gentlemanly organization, that in any delicate dilemma a slight hint would suffice—in short, an assumption. But it appears I am deceived. Why,” I added, unaffectedly starting, “you have not even touched that money yet,” pointing to it, just where I had left it the evening previous. He answered nothing. “Will you, or will you not, quit me?” I now demanded in a sudden passion, advancing close to him. “I would prefer not to quit you,” he replied gently emphasizing the not. “What earthly right have you to stay here? Do you pay any rent? Do you pay my taxes? Or is this property yours?” He answered nothing. “Are you ready to go on and write now? Are your eyes recovered? Could you copy a small paper for me this morning? or help examine a few lines? or step round to the post-office? In a word, will you do anything at all, to give a coloring to your refusal to depart the premises?” He silently retired into his hermitage. I was now in such a state of nervous resentment that I thought it but prudent to check myself at present from further demonstrations. Bartleby and I were alone. I remembered the tragedy of the unfortunate Adams and the still more unfortunate Colt in the solitary office of the latter; and how poor Colt, being dreadfully incensed by Adams, and imprudently permitting himself to get wildly excited, was at unawares hurried into his fatal act—an act which certainly no man could possibly deplore more than the actor himself. Often it had occurred to me in my ponderings upon the subject, that had that altercation taken place in the public street, or at a private residence, it would not have terminated as it did. It was the circumstance of being alone in a solitary office, up stairs, of a building entirely unhallowed by humanizing domestic associations—an uncarpeted office, doubtless, of a dusty, haggard sort of appearance—this it must have been, which greatly helped to enhance the irritable desperation of the hapless Colt. But when this old Adam of resentment rose in me and tempted me concerning Bartleby, I grappled him and threw him. How? Why, simply by recalling the divine injunction: “A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another.” Yes, this it was that saved me. Aside from higher considerations, charity often operates as a vastly wise and prudent principle—a great safeguard to its possessor. Men have committed murder for jealousy’s sake, and anger’s sake, and hatred’s sake, and selfishness’ sake, and spiritual pride’s sake; but no man, that ever I heard of, ever committed a diabolical murder for sweet charity’s sake. Mere self-interest, then, if no better motive can be enlisted, should, especially with high-tempered men, prompt all beings to charity and philanthropy. At any rate, upon the occasion in question, I strove to drown my exasperated feelings towards the scrivener by benevolently construing his conduct.—Poor fellow, poor fellow! thought I, he don’t mean anything; and besides, he has seen hard times, and ought to be indulged. I endeavored, also, immediately to occupy myself, and at the same time to comfort my despondency. I tried to fancy, that in the course of the morning, at such time as might prove agreeable to him, Bartleby, of his own free accord, would emerge from his hermitage and take up some decided line of march in the direction of the door. But no. Half-past twelve o’clock came; Turkey began to glow in the face, overturn his inkstand, and become generally obstreperous; Nippers abated down into quietude and courtesy; Ginger Nut munched his noon apple; and Bartleby remained standing at his window in one of his profoundest dead-wall reveries. Will it be credited? Ought I to acknowledge it? That afternoon I left the office without saying one further word to him. Some days now passed, during which, at leisure intervals I looked a little into “Edwards on the Will,” and “Priestley on Necessity.” Under the circumstances, those books induced a salutary feeling. Gradually I slid into the persuasion that these troubles of mine, touching the scrivener, had been all predestinated from eternity, and Bartleby was billeted upon me for some mysterious purpose of an allwise Providence, which it was not for a mere mortal like me to fathom. Yes, Bartleby, stay there behind your screen, thought I; I shall persecute you no more; you are harmless and noiseless as any of these old chairs; in short, I never feel so private as when I know you are here. At last I see it, I feel it; I penetrate to the predestinated purpose of my life. I am content. Others may have loftier parts to enact; but my mission in this world, Bartleby, is to furnish you with office-room for such period as you may see fit to remain. I believe that this wise and blessed frame of mind would have continued with me, had it not been for the unsolicited and uncharitable remarks obtruded upon me by my professional friends who visited the rooms. But thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous. Though to be sure, when I reflected upon it, it was not strange that people entering my office should be struck by the peculiar aspect of the unaccountable Bartleby, and so be tempted to throw out some sinister observations concerning him. Sometimes an attorney, having business with me, and calling at my office, and finding no one but the scrivener there, would undertake to obtain some sort of precise information from him touching my whereabouts; but without heeding his idle talk, Bartleby would remain standing immovable in the middle of the room. So after contemplating him in that position for a time, the attorney would depart, no wiser than he came. Also, when a reference was going on, and the room full of lawyers and witnesses, and business driving fast, some deeply-occupied legal gentleman present, seeing Bartleby wholly unemployed, would request him to run round to his (the legal gentleman’s) office and fetch some papers for him. Thereupon, Bartleby would tranquilly decline, and yet remain idle as before. Then the lawyer would give a great stare, and turn to me. And what could I say? At last I was made aware that all through the circle of my professional acquaintance, a whisper of wonder was running round, having reference to the strange creature I kept at my office. This worried me very much. And as the idea came upon me of his possibly turning out a long-lived man, and keep occupying my chambers, and denying my authority; and perplexing my visitors; and scandalizing my professional reputation; and casting a general gloom over the premises; keeping soul and body together to the last upon his savings (for doubtless he spent but half a dime a day), and in the end perhaps outlive me, and claim possession of my office by right of his perpetual occupancy: as all these dark anticipations crowded upon me more and more, and my friends continually intruded their relentless remarks upon the apparition in my room; a great change was wrought in me. I resolved to gather all my faculties together, and forever rid me of this intolerable incubus. Ere revolving any complicated project, however, adapted to this end, I first simply suggested to Bartleby the propriety of his permanent departure. In a calm and serious tone, I commanded the idea to his careful and mature consideration. But, having taken three days to meditate upon it, he apprised me, that his original determination remained the same; in short, that he still preferred to abide with me. What shall I do? I now said to myself, buttoning up my coat to the last button. What shall I do? what ought I to do? what does conscience say I should do with this man, or, rather, ghost. Rid myself of him, I must; go, he shall. But how? You will not thrust him, the poor, pale, passive mortal—you will not thrust such a helpless creature out of your door? you will not dishonor yourself by such cruelty? No, I will not, I cannot do that. Rather would I let him live and die here, and then mason up his remains in the wall. What, then, will you do? For all your coaxing, he will not budge. Bribes he leaves under your own paper-weight on your table; in short, it is quite plain that he prefers to cling to you. Then something severe, something unusual must be done. What! surely you will not have him collared by a constable, and commit his innocent pallor to the common jail? And upon what ground could you procure such a thing to be done?—a vagrant, is he? What! he a vagrant, a wanderer, who refuses to budge? It is because he will not be a vagrant, then, that you seek to count him as a vagrant. That is too absurd. No visible means of support: there I have him. Wrong again: for indubitably he does support himself, and that is the only unanswerable proof that any man can show of his possessing the means so to do. No more, then. Since he will not quit me, I must quit him. I will change my offices; I will move elsewhere, and give him fair notice, that if I find him on my new premises I will then proceed against him as a common trespasser. Acting accordingly, next day I thus addressed him: “I find these chambers too far from the City Hall; the air is unwholesome. In a word, I propose to remove my offices next week, and shall no longer require your services. I tell you this now, in order that you may seek another place.” He made no reply, and nothing more was said. On the appointed day I engaged carts and men, proceeded to my chambers, and, having but little furniture, everything was removed in a few hours. Throughout, the scrivener remained standing behind the screen, which I directed to be removed the last thing. It was withdrawn; and, being folded up like a huge folio, left him the motionless occupant of a naked room. I stood in the entry watching him a moment, while something from within me upbraided me. I re-entered, with my hand in my pocket—and—and my heart in my mouth. “Good-by, Bartleby; I am going—good-by, and God some way bless you; and take that,” slipping something in his hand. But it dropped upon the floor, and then—strange to say—I tore myself from him whom I had so longed to be rid of. Established in my new quarters, for a day or two I kept the door locked, and started at every footfall in the passages. When I returned to my rooms, after any little absence, I would pause at the threshold for an instant, and attentively listen, ere applying my key. But these fears were needless. Bartleby never came nigh me. I thought all was going well, when a perturbed-looking stranger visited me, inquiring whether I was the person who had recently occupied rooms at No. —— Wall street. Full of forebodings, I replied that I was. “Then, sir,” said the stranger, who proved a lawyer, “you are responsible for the man you left there. He refuses to do any copying; he refuses to do anything; he says he prefers not to; and he refuses to quit the premises.” “I am very sorry, sir,” said I, with assumed tranquillity, but an inward tremor, “but, really, the man you allude to is nothing to me—he is no relation or apprentice of mine, that you should hold me responsible for him.” “In mercy’s name, who is he?” “I certainly cannot inform you. I know nothing about him. Formerly I employed him as a copyist; but he has done nothing for me now for some time past.” “I shall settle him, then—good morning, sir.” Several days passed, and I heard nothing more; and, though I often felt a charitable prompting to call at the place and see poor Bartleby, yet a certain squeamishness, of I know not what, withheld me. All is over with him, by this time, thought I, at last, when, through another week, no further intelligence reached me. But, coming to my room the day after, I found several persons waiting at my door in a high state of nervous excitement. “That’s the man—here he comes,” cried the foremost one, whom I recognized as the lawyer who had previously called upon me alone. “You must take him away, sir, at once,” cried a portly person among them, advancing upon me, and whom I knew to be the landlord of No. —— Wall street. “These gentlemen, my tenants, cannot stand it any longer; Mr. B——,” pointing to the lawyer, “has turned him out of his room, and he now persists in haunting the building generally, sitting upon the banisters of the stairs by day, and sleeping in the entry by night. Everybody is concerned; clients are leaving the offices; some fears are entertained of a mob; something you must do, and that without delay.” Aghast at this torrent, I fell back before it, and would fain have locked myself in my new quarters. In vain I persisted that Bartleby was nothing to me—no more than to any one else. In vain—I was the last person known to have anything to do with him, and they held me to the terrible account. Fearful, then, of being exposed in the papers (as one person present obscurely threatened), I considered the matter, and, at length, said, that if the lawyer would give me a confidential interview with the scrivener, in his (the lawyer’s) own room, I would, that afternoon, strive my best to rid them of the nuisance they complained of. Going up stairs to my old haunt, there was Bartleby silently sitting upon the banister at the landing. “What are you doing here, Bartleby?” said I. “Sitting upon the banister,” he mildly replied. I motioned him into the lawyer’s room, who then left us. “Bartleby” said I, “are you aware that you are the cause of great tribulation to me, by persisting in occupying the entry after being dismissed from the office?” No answer. “Now one of two things must take place. Either you must do something, or something must be done to you. Now what sort of business would you like to engage in? Would you like to re-engage in copying for some one?” “No; I would prefer not to make any change.” “Would you like a clerkship in a dry-goods store?” “There is too much confinement about that. No, I would not like a clerkship; but I am not particular.” “Too much confinement,” I cried, “why you keep yourself confined all the time!” “I would prefer not to take a clerkship,” he rejoined, as if to settle that little item at once. “How would a bar-tender’s business suit you? There is no trying of the eye-sight in that.” “I would not like it at all; though, as I said before, I am not particular.” His unwonted wordiness inspirited me. I returned to the charge. “Well, then, would you like to travel through the country collecting bills for the merchants? That would improve your health.” “No, I would prefer to be doing something else.” “How, then, would going as a companion to Europe, to entertain some young gentleman with your conversation—how would that suit you?” “Not at all. It does not strike me that there is anything definite about that. I like to be stationary. But I am not particular.” “Stationary you shall be, then,” I cried, now losing all patience, and, for the first time in all my exasperating connection with him, fairly flying into a passion. “If you do not go away from these premises before night, I shall feel bound—indeed, I am bound—to—to—to quit the premises myself!” I rather absurdly concluded, knowing not with what possible threat to try to frighten his immobility into compliance. Despairing of all further efforts, I was precipitately leaving him, when a final thought occurred to me—one which had not been wholly unindulged before. “Bartleby,” said I, in the kindest tone I could assume under such exciting circumstances, “will you go home with me now—not to my office, but my dwelling—and remain there till we can conclude upon some convenient arrangement for you at our leisure? Come, let us start now, right away.” “No: at present I would prefer not to make any change at all.” I answered nothing; but, effectually dodging every one by the suddenness and rapidity of my flight, rushed from the building, ran up Wall street towards Broadway, and, jumping into the first omnibus, was soon removed from pursuit. As soon as tranquillity returned, I distinctly perceived that I had now done all that I possibly could, both in respect to the demands of the landlord and his tenants, and with regard to my own desire and sense of duty, to benefit Bartleby, and shield him from rude persecution, I now strove to be entirely care-free and quiescent; and my conscience justified me in the attempt; though, indeed, it was not so successful as I could have wished. So fearful was I of being again hunted out by the incensed landlord and his exasperated tenants, that, surrendering my business to Nippers, for a few days, I drove about the upper part of the town and through the suburbs, in my rockaway; crossed over to Jersey City and Hoboken, and paid fugitive visits to Manhattanville and Astoria. In fact, I almost lived in my rockaway for the time. When again I entered my office, lo, a note from the landlord lay upon the desk. I opened it with trembling hands. It informed me that the writer had sent to the police, and had Bartleby removed to the Tombs as a vagrant. Moreover, since I knew more about him than any one else, he wished me to appear at that place, and make a suitable statement of the facts. These tidings had a conflicting effect upon me. At first I was indignant; but, at last, almost approved. The landlord’s energetic, summary disposition, had led him to adopt a procedure which I do not think I would have decided upon myself; and yet, as a last resort, under such peculiar circumstances, it seemed the only plan. As I afterwards learned, the poor scrivener, when told that he must be conducted to the Tombs, offered not the slightest obstacle, but, in his pale, unmoving way, silently acquiesced. Some of the compassionate and curious bystanders joined the party; and headed by one of the constables arm in arm with Bartleby, the silent procession filed its way through all the noise, and heat, and joy of the roaring thoroughfares at noon. The same day I received the note, I went to the Tombs, or, to speak more properly, the Halls of Justice. Seeking the right officer, I stated the purpose of my call, and was informed that the individual I described was, indeed, within. I then assured the functionary that Bartleby was a perfectly honest man, and greatly to be compassionated, however unaccountably eccentric. I narrated all I knew and closed by suggesting the idea of letting him remain in as indulgent confinement as possible, till something less harsh might be done—though, indeed, I hardly knew what. At all events, if nothing else could be decided upon, the alms-house must receive him. I then begged to have an interview. Being under no disgraceful charge, and quite serene and harmless in all his ways, they had permitted him freely to wander about the prison, and, especially, in the inclosed grass-platted yards thereof. And so I found him there, standing all alone in the quietest of the yards, his face towards a high wall, while all around, from the narrow slits of the jail windows, I thought I saw peering out upon him the eyes of murderers and thieves. “Bartleby!” “I know you,” he said, without looking round—“and I want nothing to say to you.” “It was not I that brought you here, Bartleby,” said I, keenly pained at his implied suspicion. “And to you, this should not be so vile a place. Nothing reproachful attaches to you by being here. And see, it is not so sad a place as one might think. Look, there is the sky, and here is the grass.” “I know where I am,” he replied, but would say nothing more, and so I left him. As I entered the corridor again, a broad meat-like man, in an apron, accosted me, and, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, said—“Is that your friend?” “Yes.” “Does he want to starve? If he does, let him live on the prison fare, that’s all.” “Who are you?” asked I, not knowing what to make of such an unofficially speaking person in such a place. “I am the grub-man. Such gentlemen as have friends here, hire me to provide them with something good to eat.” “Is this so?” said I, turning to the turnkey. He said it was. “Well, then,” said I, slipping some silver into the grub-man’s hands (for so they called him), “I want you to give particular attention to my friend there; let him have the best dinner you can get. And you must be as polite to him as possible.” “Introduce me, will you?” said the grub-man, looking at me with an expression which seem to say he was all impatience for an opportunity to give a specimen of his breeding. Thinking it would prove of benefit to the scrivener, I acquiesced; and, asking the grub-man his name, went up with him to Bartleby. “Bartleby, this is a friend; you will find him very useful to you.” “Your sarvant, sir, your sarvant,” said the grub-man, making a low salutation behind his apron. “Hope you find it pleasant here, sir; nice grounds—cool apartments—hope you’ll stay with us some time—try to make it agreeable. What will you have for dinner to-day?” “I prefer not to dine to-day,” said Bartleby, turning away. “It would disagree with me; I am unused to dinners.” So saying, he slowly moved to the other side of the inclosure, and took up a position fronting the dead-wall. “How’s this?” said the grub-man, addressing me with a stare of astonishment. “He’s odd, ain’t he?” “I think he is a little deranged,” said I, sadly. “Deranged? deranged is it? Well, now, upon my word, I thought that friend of yourn was a gentleman forger; they are always pale, and genteel-like, them forgers. I can’t help pity ’em—can’t help it, sir. Did you know Monroe Edwards?” he added, touchingly, and paused. Then, laying his hand piteously on my shoulder, sighed, “he died of consumption at Sing-Sing. So you weren’t acquainted with Monroe?” “No, I was never socially acquainted with any forgers. But I cannot stop longer. Look to my friend yonder. You will not lose by it. I will see you again.” Some few days after this, I again obtained admission to the Tombs, and went through the corridors in quest of Bartleby; but without finding him. “I saw him coming from his cell not long ago,” said a turnkey, “may be he’s gone to loiter in the yards.” So I went in that direction. “Are you looking for the silent man?” said another turnkey, passing me. “Yonder he lies—sleeping in the yard there. ’Tis not twenty minutes since I saw him lie down.” The yard was entirely quiet. It was not accessible to the common prisoners. The surrounding walls, of amazing thickness, kept off all sounds behind them. The Egyptian character of the masonry weighed upon me with its gloom. But a soft imprisoned turf grew under foot. The heart of the eternal pyramids, it seemed, wherein, by some strange magic, through the clefts, grass-seed, dropped by birds, had sprung. Strangely huddled at the base of the wall, his knees drawn up, and lying on his side, his head touching the cold stones, I saw the wasted Bartleby. But nothing stirred. I paused; then went close up to him; stooped over, and saw that his dim eyes were open; otherwise he seemed profoundly sleeping. Something prompted me to touch him. I felt his hand, when a tingling shiver ran up my arm and down my spine to my feet. The round face of the grub-man peered upon me now. “His dinner is ready. Won’t he dine to-day, either? Or does he live without dining?” “Lives without dining,” said I, and closed the eyes. “Eh!—He’s asleep, ain’t he?” “With kings and counselors,” murmured I. There would seem little need for proceeding further in this history. Imagination will readily supply the meagre recital of poor Bartleby’s interment. But, ere parting with the reader, let me say, that if this little narrative has sufficiently interested him, to awaken curiosity as to who Bartleby was, and what manner of life he led prior to the present narrator’s making his acquaintance, I can only reply, that in such curiosity I fully share, but am wholly unable to gratify it. Yet here I hardly know whether I should divulge one little item of rumor, which came to my ear a few months after the scrivener’s decease. Upon what basis it rested, I could never ascertain; and hence, how true it is I cannot now tell. But, inasmuch as this vague report has not been without a certain suggestive interest to me, however sad, it may prove the same with some others; and so I will briefly mention it. The report was this: that Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in the administration. When I think over this rumor, hardly can I express the emotions which seize me. Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for the flames? For by the cart-load they are annually burned. Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring—the finger it was meant for, perhaps, moulders in the grave; a bank-note sent in swiftest charity—he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands of life, these letters speed to death. Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!
“That sea beast Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim the ocean stream.” —Paradise Lost. —“There Leviathan, Hugest of living creatures, in the deep Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims, And seems a moving land; and at his gills Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea.”
According to the “Shoki,” it was in the second month of the thirty-fifth year of the Emperor Suiko in Michinoku that a badger first assumed the shape of a man. True, according to one copyist’s version, the badger was mistaken for a man instead of taking a man’s shape, but since it is written in both copies afterwards that it sang, it seems that, whether it took a man’s shape or was mistaken for a man, it is a fact that it sang songs like an ordinary man. Earlier than this, it was written in the “Suininki” under date of the eighty-seventh year, that after the dog of a man named Mikaso in the province of Tamba had eaten a badger, there was found in its belly the curved Yasakani jewel. The story of this curved jewel was later made use of by Bakin in “Hakkenden” where he introduced Yao Bikuni Myōchin. But the badger of the time of the Emperor Suinin only had a brilliant gem in its belly and could not change itself at will into other shapes, as could the badgers of later days. Then after all, it was probably in the second month of the thirty-fifth year of Suiko that the badger first assumed the form of man. Of course the badger had lived in the fields and mountains of Japan ever since the eastern expedition of the Emperor Jimmu. And it began to bewitch people for the first time in the year 1288 of the Japanese calendar. At this, you may at first be surprised. But it probably [Pg 92]began in some such way as the following: In those days a Michinoku girl who carried water up from the sea was in love with a salt maker of the same village. But she lived alone with her mother. And since they tried to meet nightly without her mother knowing it, there was no slight worry. Every night the man crossed over a hill by the sea and came near the girl’s house. And she, her mind on the time appointed, would slip stealthily out. But out of regard for her mother’s feelings, she was likely to be late. Sometimes she would finally come as the moon was beginning to decline. Sometimes she had not yet come even when it was time for the first cock to lift his voice far and near. It was one night after things had gone on thus for some time. The man, squatting under a high rock like a folding screen, sang a song to beguile his loneliness as he waited. He gathered up his impatience in his salty throat and sang with all his might against the surging waves. The mother, hearing the song, asked her daughter lying beside her what it was. The girl shammed sleep at first, but after she had been asked a second and third time, she could not but answer. “It doesn’t seem to be a man’s voice, does it?” she said deceitfully, frightened out of her wits. Then the mother came back with the question what could sing save a man. And through sheer quickness of wit, the girl replied that it might be a badger. Through the ages, time and again, has love taught such wit to women. [Pg 93] When morning came, the mother spoke of having heard the song to an old woman of the neighborhood who wove straw mats. And the old woman was one of those who had heard the song. She expressed her doubt that a badger could sing but handed the story on to a man who gathered reeds. When, after passing from mouth to mouth, the story came to the ears of a mendicant priest who had come to the village, he explained with reason how a badger could sing a song. In Buddhist teaching there is a thing called metempsychosis. So the soul of the badger might originally have been the soul of a man. In which case, what the man could do, the badger could do. Such a thing as singing a song on a moonlight night was not greatly to be wondered at. After that in this village any number of people came to say that they had heard the song of the badger. And then at last appeared even a man who said he had seen the badger. He said that one night, while on his way home along the beach from gathering seagulls’ eggs, he had seen distinctly by the light of some remaining patches of snow a badger hulking along singing a song at the foot of a seaside hill. Already even its form had been seen. It was natural that after that practically everybody in the village, young and old, male and female, should have heard the song. Sometimes it came from the hills. Sometimes it came from the sea. And sometimes, besides, it came from over the roofs of the rush-thatched huts scattered about between the hills and the sea. And that was not all. At [Pg 94]last one night the girl who drew sea-water was herself suddenly startled by the song. She, of course, thought it was the man singing. She listened to her mother’s breathing and thought that she was fast asleep. Then she stole from her bed, and opening the door the least bit, peeped out. But outside there was only a dim moon and the sound of the waves, and no man’s form anywhere. Involuntarily, in the chilly spring-night wind, she pressed her hand to her cheek and stood transfixed. There in the sand before the door were dimly visible the scattered footprints of a badger. This story was immediately carried across hundreds of miles of mountain and river to the district of the capital. Then the badgers of Yamashiro changed their shapes. The badgers of Omi changed theirs. Finally the related racoon dog began to assume human form, and in Tokugawa days, a fellow called Sado-no-Danzaburō, who was neither a racoon dog nor a badger, began to bewitch even the people of Echizen Province across the sea. He did not begin to bewitch them, but it came to be thought that he did, you may say. But how much difference is there after all between being bewitched and believing that one is bewitched? This is true not only in the case of badgers. Is it not a fact that all things that exist for us are in the end but things in the existence of which we believe? It is written in “The Celtic Twilight,” by Yeats, that some children on Lake Gill believed without a doubt that a little Protestant girl in blue and white garments was the [Pg 95]Holy Mother Mary herself. When we think of them as both living in the human mind just the same, there is no difference between Mary on the lake and the badger in the wilds. Should we not believe in that which lives within us just as our forefathers believed that the badger bewitched men? And should we not live as bidden by that in which we believe? Herein lies reason why we should not despise the badger.
subota, 14. ožujka 2026.
SLAVE PLANET by LAURENCE JANIFER - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/51855/pg51855-images.html
A Science Fiction Novel
It was the night of the third day of the eleventh month of the nineteenth year of Meiji (1886). Akiko, the seventeen-year-old daughter of the distinguished family of ——, accompanied by her bald-headed father, climbed the stairs of the Rokumeikan, where the ball that night was to be held. Great chrysanthemum blossoms, which seemed almost to be artificial, formed threefold hedges up the sides of the broad, brightly gas-lighted stairs. The petals of the chrysanthemums, those at the back pink, those in the middle deep yellow, and those in front pure white, were all tousled like flag tassels. And near where the banks of chrysanthemums came to an end, already floated out incessantly from the ball-room at the top of the stairs lively orchestra music like an irrepressible sigh of happiness. Akiko had early been taught to speak French and dance. But to-night she was going to attend a formal ball for the first time in her life. Wherefore in the carriage, when her father spoke to her from time to time, she returned only absent-minded answers. Thus deeply had an unsettled feeling that may well be defined as a glad uneasiness taken root in her breast. Till the carriage finally came to a stop in front of the Rokumeikan, time and again she lifted impatient eyes and gazed out of the [Pg 100]window at the scanty lights of the Tōkyō streets drifting by outside. But immediately she entered the Rokumeikan, she experienced that which made her forget her uneasiness. When half way up the stairs, she and her father overtook some Chinese officials ascending just ahead of them. And as the officials separated in their fatness to let them go ahead, they cast surprised glances at Akiko. In good truth, with her simple rose-colored ball gown, a light blue ribbon around her well-formed neck and a single rose exhaling perfume from her dark hair, Akiko that night was fully possessed of the beauty of the girls of enlightened Japan, a beauty that might well startle the eyes of these Chinese officials with their long pigtails hanging down their backs. And just as she noticed this, a young Japanese in swallow-tails came hurrying down the steps and, as he passed them, turned his head in a slight reflex action and likewise gave a glance of surprise after Akiko as she went on. Then for some reason, as if suddenly having an idea, he put his hand up to his white necktie and went on hurriedly down through the chrysanthemums toward the entrance. When they got to the top of the stairs, at the door of the ball-room on the second floor they found a count with gray whiskers, who was the host of the evening, with his chest covered with decorations, and the countess, older than himself, dressed to the last degree of perfection in a Louis XV gown, extending a dignified welcome to the guests of the evening. Akiko did not fail to see the momentary look of naïve admiration that appeared and [Pg 101]faded away somewhere in the crafty old face even of this count when he saw her. Her good-natured father, with a happy smile, introduced her briefly to the count and countess. She experienced a succession of the feelings of shame and pride. But meanwhile she had just time to notice that there was a touch of vulgarity in the haughty features of the countess. In the ball-room, too, chrysanthemums blossomed in beautiful profusion everywhere. And everywhere the lace and flowers and ivory fans of the ladies waiting for their partners moved like soundless waves in the refreshing sweetness of perfume. Akiko soon separated from her father and joined one of the groups of gorgeous women. They were all girls of about the same age dressed in similar light blue and rose-colored ball gowns. When they turned to welcome her, they chirped softly like birds and spoke with admiration of her beauty that night. But no sooner had she joined the group than a French naval officer she had never seen before walked quietly up to her. And with his two arms hanging down to his knees, he politely made her a Japanese bow. Akiko was faintly conscious of the blood mounting to her cheeks. But the meaning of that bow was clear without any asking. So she looked round at the girl standing beside her in a light blue gown to get her to hold her fan. As she turned, to her surprise, the French naval officer, with a smile flitting across his cheek, said distinctly to her in Japanese with a strange accent, “Won’t you dance with me?” In a moment Akiko was dancing the Blue Danube [Pg 102]Waltz with the French naval officer. He had tanned cheeks, clear-cut features and a heavy mustache. She was too short to reach up and put her long-gloved hand on the left shoulder of his uniform. But the experienced officer handled her deftly and danced her lightly through the crowd. And at times he even whispered amiable flatteries into her ear in French. Repaying his gentle words with a bashful smile, she looked from time to time about the ball-room in which they danced. She could see between the sea of people flashes of curtains of purple silk crape with the Imperial crest dyed into them, and the gay silver or sober gold of the chrysanthemums in the vases under Chinese flags on which blue claw-spread dragons writhed. And the sea of people, stirred up by the wind of gay melody from the German orchestra that came bubbling over it like champagne, never stopped for a moment its dizzy commotion. When she and one of her friends, also dancing, saw each other, they nodded happily as they went busily by. But at that moment, another dancer, whirling like a big moth, appeared between them from nowhere in particular. But meanwhile, she realized that the naval officer was watching her every movement. This simply showed how much interest this foreigner, unaccustomed to Japan, took in her vivacious dancing. Did this beautiful young lady, too, live like a doll in a house of paper and bamboo? And with slender metal chopsticks did she pick up grains of rice out of a teacup as big as the palm of your hand with a blue flower painted on it and eat them? Such doubts, together with an affectionate smile, seemed ever [Pg 103]and anon to come and go in his eyes. If this was amusing to Akiko, it was at the same time gratifying. So every time his surprised gaze fell to her feet, her slender little rose-colored dancing pumps went sliding the more lightly over the slippery floor. But finally the officer seemed to notice that this kitten-like young lady showed signs of fatigue, and peering into her face with kindly eyes, he asked, “Shall we go on dancing?” “Non, merci,” said Akiko in excitement, this time clearly. Then the French naval officer, continuing the steps of the waltz, wove his way through the waves of lace and flowers moving back and forth and right and left, and guided her leisurely up to the chrysanthemums in vases by the wall. And after the last revolution, he seated her neatly in a chair there and, having once thrown out his chest in his military uniform, again respectfully made her a deep Japanese bow. Then after dancing a polka and a mazurka, Akiko took the arm of this French naval officer and went down the stairs between the walls of white and yellow and pink chrysanthemums to a large hall. Here in the midst of swallow-tails and white shoulders moving to and fro unceasingly, many tables loaded with silver and glass utensils were piled high with meat and truffles, or pinnacled with towers of sandwiches and ice-cream, or built up into pyramids of pomegranates and figs. Especially beautiful was a gilt lattice with skilfully made artificial grape vines twining their green leaves [Pg 104]through it on the wall at one side of the room above the piled-up chrysanthemums. And among the leaves, bunches of grapes like wasps’ nests hung in purple abundance. In front of this gilt lattice, Akiko found her bald-headed father, with another gentleman of the same age, smoking a cigar. When he saw her, he nodded slightly with evident satisfaction, and without taking further notice of her, turned to his companion and went on smoking. The French naval officer went to one of the tables with Akiko, and they began to eat ice-cream. As they ate, she noticed that ever and anon his eyes were drawn to her hands or her hair or her neck with the light blue ribbon round it. This did not, of course, make her unhappy. But at one moment a womanly doubt could not but flash forth in her. Then, as two young women who looked like Germans went by with red camellias on their black velvet breasts, in order to hint at this doubt, she exclaimed, “Really how beautiful western women are!” When the naval officer heard this, contrary to her expectation, he shook his head seriously. “Japanese women are beautiful, too. Especially you—” “I’m no such thing.” “No, I’m not flattering. You could appear at a Parisian ball just as you are. If you did, everybody would be surprised. For you’re like the princess in Watteau’s picture.” Akiko did not know who Watteau was. So the beautiful vision of the past called up for the naval officer [Pg 105]by his words—the vision of a fountain in a dusky grove and a fading rose—could only disappear without a trace and be lost. But this girl of unusual sensibility, as she plied her ice-cream spoon, did not forget to stick to just one more thing she wanted to speak of. “I should like to go to a Parisian ball and see what they’re like.” “No, a Parisian ball is exactly the same as this.” As he said this, the naval officer looked round at the sea of people and the chrysanthemums surrounding the table where they stood; then suddenly, as a cynical smile seemed to move like a little wave in the depths of his eyes, he put down his ice-cream spoon and added as if half to himself, “Not only Paris. Balls are just the same everywhere.” An hour later, Akiko and the French naval officer stood arm in arm on a balcony off the ball-room under the starlight with many other Japanese and foreigners. Out beyond the balcony railing the pines that covered the extensive garden stood hushed with their branches interwoven, and here and there among their twigs shone the lights of little red paper lanterns. In the bottom of the chilly air the fragrance of the moss and fallen leaves rising from the garden below seemed to set adrift faintly the breath of lonely autumn. And in the ball-room behind them, that same sea of lace and flowers went on ceaselessly moving under the curtains of purple silk crape with the sixteen petaled chrysanthemums dyed into them. And still up over the sea of [Pg 106]people, the whirlwind of high-pitched orchestra music mercilessly goaded them on. Of course from the balcony, too, lively talk and laughter stirred the night air ceaselessly. More, when beautiful fireworks shot up into the sky over the pines, a sound almost like a shout came from the throats of the people on the balcony. Standing in their midst, Akiko had been exchanging light chit-chat with some young lady friends of hers near them. But she finally bethought herself, and turning to the French naval officer, found him with his arm still supporting hers, gazing silently into the starry sky up over the garden. It seemed to her somehow that he was experiencing a touch of homesickness. So looking furtively up into his face, she said half teasingly, “You’re thinking of your own country, aren’t you?” Then the naval officer, with a smile in his eyes as always, looked round at her quietly. And instead of saying “Non,” he shook his head like a child. “But you seem to be musing on something.” “Guess what.” Just then among the people on the veranda arose again for a time a noise like a wind. As if by agreement, Akiko and the naval officer stopped talking and looked up into the night sky that pressed down heavily on the pines of the garden. There a red and blue firework, throwing its spider legs out against the darkness, was just on the verge of dying away. To Akiko, for some reason or other, that firework was so beautiful that it almost made her sad. [Pg 107]“I was thinking of the fireworks. The fireworks, like our lives,” said the French naval officer, looking gently down into Akiko’s face and speaking as if teaching her. II It was autumn in the seventh year of Taisho (1918). The Akiko of that time, on her way back to her villa at Kamakura, met by chance on the train a young novelist with whom she was slightly acquainted. The young man put a bunch of chrysanthemums which he was taking to a friend in Kamakura up into the rack. Then Akiko, who was now the elderly Madame H——, told him that there was a story of which she was always reminded whenever she saw chrysanthemums and recounted to him in detail her reminiscences of the ball at the Rokumeikan. He could not but feel a deep interest when he heard such reminiscences from the mouth of the woman herself. When the story was over, he casually asked, “Madame, do you not know the name of that French naval officer?” Then old Madame H—— gave him an unexpected answer. “Of course I do. His name was Julian Viaud.” “Then it was Loti, wasn’t it? It was Pierre Loti, who wrote ‘Madame Chrysantheme’, wasn’t it?” The young man felt an agreeable excitement. But old Madame H—— simply looked into his face wonderingly and murmured over and over, “No, his name wasn’t Loti. It was Julian Viaud.”
petak, 13. ožujka 2026.
MODUS VIVENDI By WALTER BUPP - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/30311/pg30311-images.html
It's undoubtedly difficult to live with someone who is Different. He must, because he is Different, live by other ways. But what makes it so difficult is that, for some reason he thinks you are Different!
The night howled and shrieked with air-borne traffic. A hot-rodding kid gunned his fans up the street a way and ripped what silence might have remained to the night into shreds as he streaked past me
Oh, what the hell," I said, still sore at the world, and a little worried about what I was trying to do. "Let's 'copter!" He grinned and swung the arm over to the "fly" position with its four-times-higher rate. His turbine screamed to a keener pitch with wide throttle, and he climbed full-bore into the down-town slow lane.
"I reckon we ain't through with you yet, Yankee," he grinned. He hurt me with his hands, big as country hams. My stiffened fingers jabbed his T-shirt where it covered his solar plexus, and he dropped back, gasping.
There was nobody at Ike-no-O who did not know about the nose of Zenchi Naigu. It was five or six inches long and hung down from above his upper lip to below his chin. As for its shape, it was equally thick at base and tip. A long and slender sausage, so to speak, dangled from the middle of his face. The Naigu, who was over fifty, had always grieved in secret at this nose of his from the far-off days when he was an acolyte to the present, when he had reached the position of an attendant at the palace chapel. Of course outwardly he even now wore an expression that proclaimed his lack of any particular concern about it. This was not merely because he thought it wrong for a priest who ought to devote his whole heart to the adoration of the anticipated Western Paradise to trouble himself about his nose. Rather it was because he hated to have people know that he was fretting to himself about it. In ordinary daily conversations, he feared above all else the appearance of the word “nose.” There were two reasons why the Naigu found his nose too much for him. One was that in a practical way the length of it was inconvenient. In the first place, when he ate, he could not do it by himself. If he did, the tip of his nose got into the boiled rice in his metal bowl. So when taking his meals, he had one of his disciples sit across the dining-tray from him and hold his nose up [Pg 18]with a piece of wood an inch wide and two feet long while he ate. But for him to dine in this way was by no means an easy thing for either the Naigu, whose nose was held up, or the disciple who held it. In those days a story got abroad even in Kyōto of how a Chūdōji, who once took the place of this disciple, let his hand shake when he sneezed and dropped the nose into a dish of gruel. But for the Naigu, this was not at all the main reason he grieved over his nose. The truth is, he was troubled over his self-respect, which was injured by his nose. The people in the town of Ike-no-O said it was fortunate for Zenchi Naigu, with such a nose, that he was not a layman. For with him carrying that nose, they thought there would have been no woman willing to become his wife. And some of them even gave it as their opinion that he had probably taken to the priesthood on account of that nose. But the Naigu himself did not feel that his troubles over his nose were the least bit lessened through his being a priest. His self-respect was too delicately strung to be influenced one way or the other by such an ultimate fact as matrimony. So he tried both constructively and destructively to correct the injury done to his self-respect. The first thing he took thought for was some means by which to make his long nose look shorter than it really was. When nobody was about, he took a mirror, and reflecting his face in it at all sorts of angles, earnestly exercised his ingenuity. Sometimes he could not be satisfied with only changing the position of his face, so first resting his head in his hands, then putting his finger [Pg 19]to the tip of his chin, he would peer persistently into the glass. But not once up to this time had his nose looked short enough to satisfy even himself. Sometimes he even thought that the more he worried about it, the longer it seemed. At such times the Naigu always put the mirror back into the box, sighed as if it were something new, and returned reluctantly to his reading stand to go on reading the Kannon Sutra. And again the Naigu was always paying attention to other people’s noses. The Ike-no-O temple often held preaching services. At the temple there were lines of closely built monks’ cells, and in the bath-room, the resident priests boiled up water daily. Accordingly the priests and laymen frequenting the place were many. The Naigu examined their faces patiently. For he wanted to put himself at ease by finding out at least one nose like his own. So he noticed neither their wide-sleeved hunting coats of deep blue nor their white summer garments. Naturally the orange-colored caps and the sober brown robes of the priests, in that he was accustomed to them, did not exist for him at all. He did not see the people; he only saw their noses. But though there were hooked noses, he failed to find a single one like his own. With the repetition of his failure, his heart became more and more unhappy. His unconsciously taking hold of the end of his dangling nose while in conversation with others, and blushing out of all keeping with his years, was simply the consequence of his being moved by this unhappiness. Finally he even thought of obtaining some solace at least by finding some man with a nose like his own in the [Pg 20]Buddhist scriptures or other books. But it was not written in any scripture that either Mokuren or Sharihotsu had a long nose. Of course Lung Shu and Ma Ming were both Boddhisatvas with ordinary noses. When he heard, apropos of Chinese story, that the ears of Lin Hsuan-ti of the Chu-Han were long, he thought how relieved he would have felt if it had been that worthy’s nose instead of his ears. It is needless to say that while the Naigu thus troubled himself negatively, he, at the same time, tried positive ways to make his nose grow short. He did just about everything he could in this direction, too. Once he tried drinking a decoction of snake-gourd and once applying rat urine to his nose. But in spite of all his efforts, it still dangled its five or six inches down over his lips as before. But one year in the autumn, one of his disciples, while in Kyōto on the Naigu’s business, was told by a doctor of his acquaintance of a way to shorten noses. This doctor was a man who had come originally from China and was at that time a priest at Chōrakuji. The Naigu as usual pretended not to care about his nose and deliberately refrained from proposing an immediate trial of the method. But on the other hand, he dropped cheerful remarks about being sorry to give his disciple so much trouble every time he took his meals. In his heart, of course, he was waiting for his disciple to talk him over and get him to try it. And naturally the disciple could not be unaware of the Naigu’s scheme. But the feelings that made him adopt such a scheme must have [Pg 21]moved the disciple’s sympathy more strongly than did his own antipathy to it. The disciple, as the Naigu had expected, began eagerly to urge him to try the method. And the Naigu himself, also in accordance with his expectation, finally followed this earnest counsel. The method was the very simple one of just boiling his nose in hot water and letting someone trample on it. Water was boiled daily in the temple bath-room. So the disciple poured water so hot that he could not stand his finger in it directly into a bucket and brought it from the bath-room. But there was a fear of the steam scalding the Naigu’s face if he dipped his nose directly into the bucket. So they decided to make a hole in a tray and, putting it on the bucket for a cover, to insert his nose through the hole into the hot water. If he soaked only his nose in the water, it did not feel hot at all. After a while, the disciple said, “It must be boiled now, I think.” The Naigu smiled a forced smile. This was because he thought that if any one heard only that, he would never imagine that it was a remark about a nose. After being steamed in the boiling water, it itched as if it had been bitten by fleas. When the Naigu had drawn his nose out of the hole in the tray, the disciple began with all his might to trample it, still steaming, with both his feet. The Naigu, lying on his side and stretching out his nose on the floor boards, watched the disciple’s feet moving up and down before his eyes. From time to time the disciple looked down with a pitying face on the Naigu’s bald head and said, [Pg 22] “Doesn’t it hurt? The doctor said to trample it torturingly. But doesn’t it hurt?” The Naigu tried to shake his head to show that it was not hurting him. But since his nose was being trampled on, he could not move his head as he wished. So, rolling up his eyes and fastening them on the cracks in the disciple’s chapped feet, he answered in an angry-sounding voice, “No, it doesn’t!” As his nose was being trampled on where it itched, he really found it more comfortable than painful. After a while, something that looked like grains of millet began to come out on his nose. It looked, so to speak, like a bird plucked and roasted whole. The disciple, seeing this, stopped moving his feet and observed as if to himself, “He told me to pull these out with hair-tweezers.” The Naigu, puffing out his cheeks with dissatisfaction, without a word, left his nose to the disciple to deal with as he wished. Of course it was not because he was unaware of his disciple’s kindness. But though he was aware of that, he was displeased at having his nose treated just as if it were a commodity. Reluctantly, with the expression of a patient being operated on by a doctor in whom he has no faith, he watched the disciple with hair-tweezers pulling the fat out of the pores of his nose. The fat came out in the shape of bird quills half an inch long. Finally when the nose had once been gone over, the disciple looked relieved and said, [Pg 23] “If you boil it once more, it’ll be all right, I think.” The Naigu, still knitting his brows and looking dissatisfied, did as the disciple told him. Well, when he took his boiled nose out the second time, indeed it was short as it had never been before. Now it was not greatly different from the ordinary hooked nose. The Naigu, stroking his shortened nose, peered shame-facedly and nervously into the mirror the disciple gave him. His nose, that nose which had hung down below his chin, had shrunk up almost unbelievably and now simply clung on spiritless above his upper lip. The red blotches on it here and there were probably bruises left by the trampling. Now surely nobody would laugh at him. The Naigu’s face in the mirror looked at the face outside and blinked its eyes contentedly. But during all that day, he was uneasy for fear his nose might become long again. So while he read the sutras and while he ate his meals, whenever opportunity offered, he put up his hand and stealthily felt the tip of his nose. But it simply kept its place decently above his lips, and there was no sign of its getting any longer. Then after a night’s sleep, when he awoke early the next morning, he felt his nose the very first thing. It was still as short as ever. Whereupon, for the first time in many years, the Naigu experienced the same sense of relief he had enjoyed when he had finished heaping up merit for himself by copying out the Hoke Sutra. But within the next two or three days, the Naigu discovered a surprising fact. It was that a samurai who [Pg 24]was at the temple at Ike-no-O on business at that time looked more amused than ever and, unable to talk as he wished, did nothing but stare at the Naigu’s nose. Moreover, the Chūdōji who had once dropped his nose in the gruel kept his eyes on the ground at first, and stifled a laugh when he met the Naigu outside the hall, but finally burst out laughing as if he could restrain himself no longer. It happened not only once or twice that the under priests who were being given orders listened respectfully while face to face with him, but fell to tittering whenever he so much as looked around behind him. At first the Naigu interpreted this as being due to the change in his features. But by this interpretation it seemed by no means possible to arrive at a full explanation. Of course the reason for the Chūdōji’s and under priests’ laughing must have lain in that. But all the same, there was in the way they laughed something that had not been there in the days when his nose was long. If his unfamiliar short nose looked more ridiculous than his familiar long nose, so much for that. But there seemed to be something more to it. “They didn’t laugh so constantly before,” the Naigu would murmur sometimes, interrupting the sutra he had started to recite and cocking his bald head on one side. On such occasions, the amiable Naigu was sure to look absent-mindedly at a picture of Fugen hanging beside him and, thinking of the time a few days back when his nose was still long, fall into low spirits, thinking, “like unto a man utterly ruined pondering the time of his [Pg 25]glory.” Unfortunately he was lacking in the perspicacity to solve this problem. In the human heart there are two feelings mutually contradictory. Of course there is no one who does not sympathize at the misfortune of another. But if that other somehow manages to escape from that misfortune, then he who has sympathized somehow feels unsatisfied. To exaggerate a little, he is even disposed to cast the sufferer back into the same misfortune once more. And before he is aware of it, he unconsciously comes to harbor a certain hostility against him. What somehow displeased the Naigu, though he did not know the reason, was nothing other than the egoism he indefinably perceived in the attitude of those onlookers, both priests and laymen, at Ike-no-O. So the Naigu’s humor became worse every day. He scolded everybody ill-naturedly at the slightest provocation. Even the disciple who had operated on his nose finally came to say behind his back that he would be punished for his avarice and cruelty. It was that mischievous Chūdōji who enraged the Naigu most. One day, hearing a dog yelping noisily, he went out casually and found the Chūdōji brandishing a stick about two feet long and chasing a thin shaggy dog with long hair. And he was not simply chasing the dog around. He was running after it crying tauntingly, “Watch out for your nose there! Watch out for your nose there!” The Naigu snatched the stick from his hand and gave him a hard thwack in the face with it. The stick was the one with which his own nose had formerly been held up. [Pg 26] The Naigu came to feel angry regret that he had thoughtlessly shortened his nose. Then one night the wind seemed to have suddenly begun blowing after sunset and the ringing of the wind-bells on the pagoda came to his pillow annoyingly. Moreover, as the cold increased perceptibly, the old Naigu could not get to sleep, try as he might. Then as he lay blinking in bed, he suddenly became aware of an unaccustomed itching in his nose. When he felt it with his hand, it was swollen as if a little dropsical. There even seemed to be fever in that part only. “Since I shortened it against nature, it may have got diseased,” he murmured, pressing his nose with his hand as reverently as he was accustomed to offer incense and flowers to the Buddhas. The next morning when the Naigu awoke early as usual, the leaves of the maidenhair trees and horse chestnuts in the temple grounds had fallen over night, and the garden was as bright as if carpeted with gold. It may have been because of the frost which lay on the roof of the pagoda that the nine metal rings in its spire sparkled dazzlingly in the still faint light of the morning sun. Zenchi Naigu stood on the veranda with the shutters up and drew a deep breath. It was at just about this moment that a certain sensation which he had all but forgotten came back to him again. He put his hand to his nose excitedly. What it touched was not the short nose of the night before. It was his long old nose dangling some five or six inches [Pg 27]from above his upper lip to below his chin. He found that it had grown again in one night as long as it was before. And at the same time he realized that a light-hearted feeling similar to that which he had felt when his nose became short had come back to him from somewhere. “Now nobody will laugh at me surely,” murmured the Naigu in the depths of his heart, the while he dangled his long nose in the wind of the early autumn morning.
četvrtak, 12. ožujka 2026.
THE PERFECTIONISTS By ARNOLD CASTLE - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/24977/pg24977-images.html
Is there something wrong with you? Do you fail to fit in with your group? Nervous, anxious, ill-at-ease? Happy about it? Lucky you!
Not for any obvious reason, but because of subtle little factors that make a woman a woman. Mary Ann had no pulse. Mary Ann did not perspire. Mary Ann did not fatigue gradually but all at once. Mary Ann breathed regularly under all circumstances. Mary Ann talked and talked and talked. But then, Mary Ann was not a human being.
“It’s a singler story, Sir,” said Inspector Wield, of the Detective Police, who, in company with Sergeants Dornton and Mith, paid us another twilight visit, one July evening; “and I’ve been thinking you might like to know it. “It’s concerning the murder of the young woman, Eliza Grimwood, some years ago, over in the Waterloo Road. She was commonly called The Countess, because of her handsome appearance and her proud way of carrying of herself; and when I saw the poor Countess (I had known her well to speak to), lying dead, with her throat cut, on the floor of her bedroom, you’ll believe me that a variety of reflections calculated to make a man rather low in his spirits, came into my head. “That’s neither here nor there. I went to the house the morning after the murder, and examined the body, and made a general observation of the bedroom where it was. Turning down the pillow of the bed with my hand, I found, underneath it, a pair of gloves. A pair of gentleman’s dress gloves, very dirty; and inside the lining, the letters TR, and a cross. “Well, Sir, I took them gloves away, and I showed ’em to the magistrate, over at Union Hall, before whom the case was. He says, ‘Wield,’ he says, ‘there’s no doubt this is a discovery that may lead to something very important; and what you have got to do, Wield, is, to find out the owner of these gloves.’ “I was of the same opinion, of course, and I went at it immediately. I looked at the gloves pretty narrowly, and it was my opinion that they had been cleaned. There was a smell of sulphur and rosin about ’em, you know, which cleaned gloves usually have, more or less. I took ’em over to a friend of mine at Kennington, who was in that line, and I put it to him. ‘What do you say now? Have these gloves been cleaned?’ ‘These gloves have been cleaned,’ says he. ‘Have you any idea who cleaned them?’ says I. ‘Not at all,’ says he; ‘I’ve a very distinct idea who didn’t clean ’em, and that’s myself. But I’ll tell you what, Wield, there ain’t above eight or nine reg’lar glove cleaners in London,’—there were not, at that time, it seems—‘and I think I can give you their addresses, and you may find out, by that means, who did clean ’em.’ Accordingly, he gave me the directions, and I went here, and I went there, and I looked up this man, and I looked up that man; but, though they all agreed that the gloves had been cleaned, I couldn’t find the man, woman, or child, that had cleaned that aforesaid pair of gloves. “What with this person not being at home, and that person being expected home in the afternoon, and so forth, the inquiry took me three days. On the evening of the third day, coming over Waterloo Bridge from the Surrey side of the river, quite beat, and very much vexed and disappointed, I thought I’d have a shilling’s worth of entertainment at the Lyceum Theatre to freshen myself up. So I went into the Pit, at half-price, and I sat myself down next to a very quiet, modest sort of young man. Seeing I was a stranger (which I thought it just as well to appear to be) he told me the names of the actors on the stage, and we got into conversation. When the play was over, we came out together, and I said, ‘We’ve been very companionable and agreeable, and perhaps you wouldn’t object to a drain?’ ‘Well, you’re very good,’ says he; ‘I shouldn’t object to a drain.’ Accordingly, we went to a public house, near the Theatre, sat ourselves down in a quiet room upstairs on the first floor, and called for a pint of half-and-half, a piece, and a pipe. “Well, Sir, we put our pipes aboard, and we drank our half-and-half, and sat a talking, very sociably, when the young man says, ‘You must excuse me stopping very long,’ he says, ‘because I’m forced to go home in good time. I must be at work all night.’ ‘At work all night?’ says I. ‘You ain’t a Baker?’ ‘No,’ he says, laughing, ‘I ain’t a baker.’ ‘I thought not,’ says I, ‘you haven’t the looks of a baker.’ ‘No,’ says he, ‘I’m a glove-cleaner.’ “I never was more astonished in my life, than when I heard them words come out of his lips. ‘You’re a glove-cleaner, are you?’ says I. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I am.’ ‘Then, perhaps,’ says I, taking the gloves out of my pocket, ‘you can tell me who cleaned this pair of gloves? It’s a rum story,’ I says. ‘I was dining over at Lambeth, the other day, at a free-and-easy—quite promiscuous—with 578a public company—when some gentleman, he left these gloves behind him! Another gentleman and me, you see, we laid a wager of a sovereign, that I wouldn’t find out who they belonged to. I’ve spent as much as seven shillings already, in trying to discover; but, if you could help me, I’d stand another seven and welcome. You see there’s TR and a cross, inside.’ ‘I see,’ he says. ‘Bless you, I know these gloves very well! I’ve seen dozens of pairs belonging to the same party.’ ‘No?’ says I. ‘Yes,’ says he. ‘Then you know who cleaned ’em?’ says I. ‘Rather so,’ says he. ‘My father cleaned ’em.’ “‘Where does your father live?’ says I. ‘Just round the corner,’ says the young man, ‘near Exeter Street, here. He’ll tell you who they belong to, directly.’ ‘Would you come round with me now?’ says I. ‘Certainly,’ says he, ‘but you needn’t tell my father that you found me at the play, you know, because he mightn’t like it.’ ‘All right!’ We went round to the place, and there we found an old man in a white apron, with two or three daughters, all rubbing and cleaning away at lots of gloves, in a front parlour. ‘Oh, Father!’ says the young man, ‘here’s a person been and made a bet about the ownership of a pair of gloves, and I’ve told him you can settle it.’ ‘Good evening, Sir,’ says I to the old gentleman. ‘Here’s the gloves your son speaks of. Letters TR, you see, and a cross.’ ‘Oh yes,’ he says, ‘I know these gloves very well; I’ve cleaned dozens of pairs of ’em. They belong to Mr. Trinkle, the great upholsterer in Cheapside.’ ‘Did you get ’em from Mr. Trinkle, direct,’ says I, ‘if you’ll excuse my asking the question?’ ‘No,’ says he; ‘Mr. Trinkle always sends ’em to Mr. Phibbs’s, the haberdasher’s, opposite his shop, and the haberdasher sends ’em to me.’ ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t object to a drain?’ says I. ‘Not in the least!’ says he. So I took the old gentleman out, and had a little more talk with him and his son, over a glass, and we parted excellent friends. “This was late on a Saturday night. First thing on the Monday morning, I went to the haberdasher’s shop, opposite Mr. Trinkle’s, the great upholsterer’s in Cheapside. ‘Mr. Phibbs in the way?’ ‘My name is Phibbs.’ ‘Oh! I believe you sent this pair of gloves to be cleaned?’ Yes, I did, for young Mr. Trinkle over the way. There he is, in the shop!’ ‘Oh! that’s him in the shop, is it? Him in the green coat?’ ‘The same individual.’ ‘Well, Mr. Phibbs, this is an unpleasant affair; but the fact is, I am Inspector Wield of the Detective Police, and I found these gloves under the pillow of the young woman that was murdered the other day, over in the Waterloo Road?’ ‘Good Heaven!’ says he. ‘He’s a most respectable young man, and if his father was to hear of it, it would be the ruin of him!’ ‘I’m very sorry for it,’ says I, ‘but I must take him into custody.’ ‘Good Heaven!’ says Mr. Phibbs, again; ‘can nothing be done?’ ‘Nothing,’ says I. ‘Will you allow me to call him over here,’ says he, ‘that his father may not see it done?’ ‘I don’t object to that,’ says I; ‘but unfortunately, Mr. Phibbs, I can’t allow of any communication between you. If any was attempted, I should have to interfere directly. Perhaps you’ll beckon him over here?’ Mr. Phibbs went to the door and beckoned, and the young fellow came across the street directly; a smart, brisk young fellow. “‘Good morning, Sir,’ says I. ‘Good morning, Sir,’ says he. ‘Would you allow me to inquire, Sir,’ says I, ‘if you ever had any acquaintance with a party of the name of Grimwood?’ ‘Grimwood! Grimwood!’ says he, ‘No!’ ‘You know the Waterloo Road?’ ‘Oh! of course I know the Waterloo Road!’ ‘Happen to have heard of a young woman being murdered there?’ ‘Yes, I read it in the paper, and very sorry I was to read it.’ ‘Here’s a pair of gloves belonging to you, that I found under her pillow the morning afterwards!’ “He was in a dreadful state, Sir; a dreadful state! ‘Mr. Wield,’ he says, ‘upon my solemn oath I never was there. I never so much as saw her, to my knowledge, in my life!’ ‘I am very sorry,’ says I. ‘To tell you the truth; I don’t think you are the murderer, but I must take you to Union Hall in a cab. However, I think it’s a case of that sort, that, at present, at all events, the magistrate will hear it in private.’” A private examination took place, and then it came out that this young man was acquainted with a cousin of the unfortunate Eliza Grimwoods, and that, calling to see this cousin a day or two before the murder, he left these gloves upon the table. Who should come in, shortly afterwards, but Eliza Grimwood! ‘Whose gloves are these?’ she says, taking ’em up. ‘Those are Mr. Trinkle’s gloves,’ says her cousin. ‘Oh!’ says she, ‘they are very dirty and of no use to him, I am sure. I shall take ’em away for my girl to clean the stoves with.’ And she put ’em in her pocket. The girl had used ’em to clean the stoves, and, I have no doubt, had left ’em lying on the bedroom mantel-piece, or on the drawers, or somewhere; and her mistress, looking round to see that the room was tidy, had caught ’em up and put ’em under the pillow where I found ’em. “That’s the story, Sir.”
srijeda, 11. ožujka 2026.
MARS CONFIDENTIAL! Jack Lait & Lee Mortimer - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/31282/pg31282-images.html
We make no attempt to be comprehensive. We have no hope or aim to make Mars a better place in which to live; in fact, we don't give a damn what kind of a place it is to live in.
Never having had the great advantages of a New Deal, the Martians are still backward and use gold as a means of exchange. With no Harvard bigdomes to tell them gold is a thing of the past, the yellow metal circulates there as freely and easily as we once kicked pennies around before they became extinct here.
The Mafistas quickly set the Martians right about the futility of gold. They eagerly turned it over to the Earthmen in exchange for green certificates with pretty pictures engraved thereon.
Prof. Hasegawa Kinzō, of the Law College of the Imperial University, was sitting in a cane chair on his veranda reading Strindberg’s “Dramaturgy.” His special study was colonial policy. Wherefore the fact that he was reading “Dramaturgy” may cause the reader some surprise. But he, a professor noted not only as a scholar but as an educator, even if the books were not necessary for his special investigations, always, so far as his leisure permitted, looked through any books that were connected in any sense with the thought or feelings of present-day students. In truth, not long before, he had read Oscar Wilde’s “De Profundis” and “Intentions” only because the students of a certain college of which, along with his other work, he acted as president, were fond of them. Since he was such a man, we need not marvel that the book he was now reading was a treatise on the modern drama and players of Europe. For among the students under him there were not only those who wrote criticisms on Ibsen, Strindberg and Maeterlinck, but even some enthusiasts who intended to follow in the footsteps of such modern dramatists and make play writing their life work. Every time he finished one of the excellent chapters, he put the yellow cloth-covered book on his lap and glanced carelessly at the Gifu paper lantern hanging on [Pg 32]the veranda. Strange to say, no sooner would he do this than his thoughts would part company with Strindberg. And in place of Strindberg, he would begin to think of his wife, with whom he had gone to buy the Gifu lantern. He had married in America while studying there. So his wife was of course an American. But she loved Japan and the Japanese not a whit less than he did. Especially was she fond of Japan’s exquisite objects of industrial art. Wherefore, that the Gifu lantern hung on the veranda should be looked upon rather as an expression of one phase of her taste for things Japanese than of his own predilections. Whenever he put down his book, he thought of his wife and the Gifu lantern, and of the Japanese civilization represented by that lantern. In his belief, Japanese civilization had made rather remarkable progress during the last fifty years in material things. But spiritually it was practically impossible to find any progress worth mentioning. Nay, rather, in a sense, it was degenerating. Then what (and this was the urgent task of the day’s thinkers) was to be done to develop a way of saving it from this decline? He concluded that there was nothing for it but to rely upon Japan’s peculiar Bushidō. Bushidō should by no means be regarded as the narrow-minded morality of an insular nation. Rather there was even that in it which should be identified with the Christian spirit in the nations of Europe and America. If through this Bushidō a trend could be shown in the modern current of thought in Japan, it would not only be a contribution to the spiritual civilization of Japan alone, but it [Pg 33]would be, in addition, advantageous in making easy a mutual understanding between the Japanese people and the peoples of Europe and America. Or international peace would be promoted by it. For some time he had been thinking, in this sense, of becoming a bridge between East and West. For such a professor it was by no means unpleasant that the thoughts of his wife, the Gifu lantern and the Japanese civilization represented by it should arise in his consciousness with a certain harmony. But, as he enjoyed such satisfaction again and again, he gradually realized, even as he read, that his thoughts were getting far away from Strindberg. Then he shook his head, a little provoked, and began to pore diligently over the fine type again, and just where he had begun to read, the following passage occurred: “When an actor discovers a suitable expression for a most common sentiment and gains some popularity for himself by means of this expression, because, on the one hand, it is easy and, on the other, because he has succeeded with it, he is apt, without regard for its suitability or unsuitability, to incline toward this means. And this is a mannerism.” The professor had always been indifferent to art, especially to drama. Even Japanese plays he had seen only a few times in his life. Once the name of “Baiko” appeared in a story by a certain student. Even this professor, who prided himself on his encyclopaedic knowledge, did not know what this name meant. So when he had an opportunity, he called the student to him and asked him. [Pg 34] “I say, what’s ‘Baiko’?” “Baiko? Baiko is an actor at present attached to the Imperial Theatre at Maru-no-uchi and now taking the part of Misao in ‘Taikoki Judanme’.” Thus politely replied this student dressed in a hakama of Kokura duck. Hence the professor had no opinions of his own at all on the various rules of stage presentation on which Strindberg pithily commented. Only, he was able to take some interest in it in so far as it reminded him of certain things he had seen in western theatres while studying abroad. There was, so to speak, not much difference between him and a middle school English teacher who reads Bernard Shaw’s dramas to hunt for idioms. But interest is interest anyhow. The still unlighted Gifu lantern hung from the ceiling of the veranda. And Prof. Hasegawa sat in the cane chair reading Strindberg’s “Dramaturgy.” If I write only this, I believe the reader can easily imagine what a long early-summer afternoon it was. But by this I do not mean at all that the professor was overcome with ennui. If anybody should try to interpret it thus, he would be deliberately trying to give it a cynical and perverse interpretation. Actually he was forced to leave off in the midst of his reading even Strindberg. For the maid suddenly interrupted his innocent amusement by announcing a caller. Be the day as long as it might, it seemed that the world would never stop working him to death. The professor put down his book and glanced at the small calling card the maid had just brought him. On [Pg 35]the ivory paper was printed small the name, Nishiyama Atsuko. He felt sure that she was no one he had ever met. But all the same, as he left his chair, the widely acquainted professor, just to make sure, ran over the name-list he kept in his head. But still no face that seemed as if it might be hers came into his memory. Therefore, putting the card into the book for a marker, he laid the book down on the chair and, ill at ease, adjusted the front of his unlined kimono of coarse silk, giving the while, another little glance at the Gifu lantern in front of his nose. It is probably always true in such cases that the host who keeps the visitor waiting is more impatient than the visitor who is kept waiting. Of course I need not go out of my way to explain that, since the professor had always been an austere man, this would be true in this case even if his visitor had not been such an unknown woman as had come this day. Finally, calculating the time, the professor opened the door of his reception room. At practically the same moment that he entered the room and let go the knob, a lady who appeared to be about forty arose from a chair in which she was sitting. She went beyond his ability to make her out, being dressed in an elegant unlined garment of steel grey satin, with, where her haori of black silk finely striped in the fabric hung a little open at the front, a chrysoprase sash-fastener embossed in a chaste diamond-shaped design. Even the professor, who usually took no notice of such trifles, at once saw that her hair was done up in the coiffure of a married woman. With the round face and amber skin peculiar to Japanese, she seemed to [Pg 36]be a so-called “wise mother.” “I’m Hasegawa,” the professor said, bowing amiably. For he thought that if he spoke thus, she would probably say something, if they had ever met before. “I’m Nishiyama Kenichirō’s mother,” said the lady in a clear voice, politely returning his bow. At the name, “Nishiyama Kenichirō,” the professor remembered. Nishiyama was one of those students who wrote critical articles on Ibsen and Strindberg, whose special study, he seemed to remember, was German Law, and who, even after he entered the university, had often come to the professor’s house with problems of thought to discuss. In the spring, he had fallen ill of peritonitis and entered the university hospital, and the professor had taken advantage of some opportunities and inquired after him once or twice. It was not mere accident that the professor thought he had seen the lady’s face somewhere. That cheerful youth with heavy eyebrows and this woman were as surprisingly alike as the two melons in the Japanese popular saying. “Ah, Nishiyama Kun’s,—is that so?” The professor, nodding to himself, pointed to a chair on the opposite side of a small table. “Please—take that chair.” The lady, after first apologizing for her abrupt visit, again bowed politely and sat down in the chair indicated. As she did so, she took something white, which seemed to be a handkerchief, out of her sleeve. When he saw this, the professor quickly offered her a Korean fan that lay on the table and sat down in the chair opposite. [Pg 37] “This is a fine house,” said the lady, looking round the room a little unnaturally. “Oh, no, it’s only big, and I don’t take any care of it at all.” The professor, who was accustomed to such greetings, having the maid put the chilled tea she had just brought before his guest, immediately turned the subject of conversation toward her. “How is Nishiyama Kun? Is there any change in his condition?” “Yes.” The lady paused for a moment modestly, putting her hands, one on the other, on her knees, and then spoke quietly. Her tone continued to be calm and smooth. “In truth it was about my son that I came to-day; finally nothing could be done for him. While he was alive, you were very kind to him and—” The professor, who had taken it for reserve in her that the lady did not touch her tea, was at this moment just going to put his cup to his lips. For he thought it would be better to set an example by sipping his own tea than to urge her repeatedly and importunately to take hers. But before the cup had reached his soft mustache, her words suddenly smote his ears. Should he drink or should he not? This question, entirely independent of the youth’s death, plagued him for a moment. But he could not go on holding the cup where it was forever. So he resolutely swallowed half his tea and, knitting his brows the least bit, said in a choked voice, “That’s too bad.” “He often spoke of you while he was in the hospital, [Pg 38]so though I felt that you must be busy, thinking that, by way of letting you know, I’d express my thanks,—” “Oh, not at all.” The professor put the cup down and, taking up a green waxed fan, said in a daze, “So finally nothing could be done for him, you say. He was just at the promising age, but,—not having visited the hospital for some time, I never imagined anything but that probably he was just about well. Then when was it—his death?” “The first seventh-day was just yesterday.” “And at the hospital—?” “Yes.” “Indeed, this is a surprise to me.” “Anyway, as we did everything that could be done, there’s nothing to do but be resigned, but nevertheless, when I think how we raised him, I can’t keep myself from fits of complaining.” While conversing thus, the professor became aware of a surprising fact. It was the fact that in neither her attitude nor her demeanor did she seem in the least to be talking about her own son’s death. She had no tears in her eyes. Her voice was natural. Besides, a smile played about the corners of her mouth. So if anybody had simply seen her outward appearance without hearing her words, he surely could have thought nothing but that she was talking of ordinary everyday affairs. To the professor, this was surprising. Once long before when he was studying in Berlin, it happened that Wilhelm I, the father of the present Kaiser, [Pg 39]died. He heard of it at a café he usually frequented, and of course experienced no more than an ordinary impression. Then with a cheerful face and his stick under his arm, he returned to the boarding house as usual, but as soon as he opened the door, the two children who lived there suddenly threw themselves on his neck and burst out crying together. One was a girl of twelve in a brown jacket and the other a boy of nine in dark blue knickers. As the professor, who was fond of children, did not understand, he consoled them, patting their shining hair and eagerly asking them over and over what was the matter. But they simply would not stop crying. Then swallowing their tears, they sobbed, “Our grandpa Emperor is dead.” The professor thought it strange that the death of the emperor of a country should bring so much sorrow even to the children. It was not only of the question of the relation existing between the imperial house and the people that he was made to think. The impulsive expression of their emotions by occidentals, which had impressed him ever since he came to the West, now surprised, as if it were something new, this professor, a Japanese and a believer in Bushidō. He had never forgotten the feeling, seemingly compounded of suspicion and sympathy, that he experienced at that time. Conversely, he now felt precisely the same degree of surprise at this lady’s not weeping. But a second discovery followed on the heels of the first. It was just as their conversation, after having gone from reminiscences of the dead youth into details of his daily life, was about to turn back again to [Pg 40]more reminiscences. The Korean fan chanced to slip from the professor’s hand and fell of a sudden on the marquetry floor. The conversation, of course, was not so urgent as not to permit of a momentary interruption. So, bending forward from his chair and looking down, he stretched out his hand toward the floor. The fan was lying beneath the little table just beside the lady’s white tabi concealed in her slippers. Then he chanced to notice the lady’s knees. On them, rested her hands holding the handkerchief. Of course this alone was no discovery. But at the same instant he realized that her hands were trembling fearfully. And he noticed that, probably due to her endeavor to suppress the agitation of her emotions, her hands, as they trembled, grasped the handkerchief on her knees so hard that they all but tore it in two. Finally he perceived that the embroidered edge of the wrinkled silk handkerchief moved between her delicate fingers as if stirred by a light breeze. The lady smiled with her face, indeed, but the truth was that she had been weeping with her whole body from the first. When the professor had picked up the fan and raised his face, there was an expression on it which had not been there before. It was a very complicated expression, as if a reverent feeling at having seen what he should not have seen and a certain satisfaction arising from the consciousness of that feeling had been exaggerated by more or less theatricality. “Ah, even I who have no children can understand your grief perfectly,” said the professor in a low voice full [Pg 41]of feeling, tilting his head back a little as if dazzled by something. “Thank you. But, whatever we say, it’s beyond help now, so—” The lady lowered her head the least little bit. A bright smile beamed from her unclouded face as before. It was two hours later. The professor had taken a bath, finished his supper, eaten some cherries for dessert and settled down comfortably in the cane chair on the veranda. The twilight of the long summer evening lingered on and, in the large veranda, with its glass windows wide open, there was yet no sign of darkness falling. The professor, with his left knee crossed over his right and his head resting on the back of the chair, was gazing at the tassels of the Gifu lantern in the dim light. Though he had that same book of Strindberg’s in his hand, he appeared not yet to have read another page of it. That was natural. His head was still full of the brave behavior of Nishiyama Atsuko. During supper, he had told his wife the whole story. And he had praised it as an illustration of the Bushidō of the women of Japan. On hearing it, this lover of Japan and the Japanese could not but sympathize. He had been pleased to find an eager listener in her. His wife, the lady and the Gifu lantern—these three now floated in his consciousness with a certain ethical background. I do not know how long he was absorbed in such [Pg 42]agreeable reflections. But while still in their grasp, he suddenly remembered that he had been asked to send a contribution to a certain magazine. Under the caption, “Letters to the Youth of Today,” that magazine was getting together the opinions on general morality of distinguished men all over the country. Using that day’s incident as material, he would write and send his impressions at once, he thought, and scratched his head a little. The hand with which the professor scratched his head was the one in which he held the book. Becoming aware of the book, which he had up till now neglected, he opened it where he had inserted the card a while before at the page he had already begun to read. Just then the maid came and lighted the Gifu lantern above his head, so it was not very difficult for him to read the fine type. He cast his eyes casually on the page without any great desire to read. Strindberg said, “In my youth, people told about Madame Heiberg’s handkerchief, a story which had probably come out of Paris. It was about her double performance of tearing her handkerchief in two with her hands while a smile played over her face. Now we call this claptrap.” The professor put the book down on his knees. As he put it down open, the card with the name Nishiyama Atsuko on it still lay between its pages. But what was in his mind was no longer the lady. Nor was it either his wife or Japanese civilization. It was a nondescript something that threatened to break the calm harmony of these. The stage trick that Strindberg had scorned was not, of course, the same thing as a question of practical morality. [Pg 43]But in the hint he had got from what he had just read, there was something threatening to disturb the care-free feeling he had had since taking his bath. Bushidō and its mannerisms— The professor shook his head unhappily two or three times and then, with upturned eyes, began again to gaze intently at the bright light of the Gifu lantern covered with pictures of autumn flowers.
utorak, 10. ožujka 2026.
So sitting, served by man and maid, She felt her heart grow prouder." —Tennyson: The Goose. Although everybody calls her "Flutter-Duck" now, there was a time when the inventor had exclusive rights in the nickname, and used it only in the privacy of his own apartment. That time did not last long, for the inventor was Flutter-Duck's husband, and his apartment was a public work-room among other things. He gave her the name in Yiddish—Flatterkatchki—a descriptive music in syllables, full of the flutter and quack of the farm-yard. It expressed his dissatisfaction with her airy, flighty propensities, her love of gaiety and gadding. She was a butterfly, irresponsible, off to balls and parties almost once a month, and he, a self-conscious ant, resented her. From the point of view of piety she was also sadly to seek, rejecting wigs in favour of the fringe. In the weak moments of early love her husband had acquiesced in the profanity, but later all the gain to her soft prettiness did not compensate for the twinges of his conscience. Flutter-Duck's husband was a furrier—a master-furrier, for did he not run a workshop? This workshop was also his living-room, and this living-room was also his bedroom. It was a large front room on the first floor, over a chandler's shop in an old-fashioned house in Montague Street, Whitechapel. Its shape was peculiar—an oblong stretching streetwards, interrupted in one of the longer walls by a square projection that might have been accounted a room in itself (by the landlord), and was, indeed, used as a kitchen. That the fireplace had been built in this corner was thus an advantage. Entering through the door on the grand staircase, you found yourself nearest the window with the bulk of the room on your left, and the square recess at the other end of your wall, so that you could not see it at first. At the window, which, of course, gave on Montague Street, was the bare wooden table at which the "hands"—man, woman, and boy—sat and stitched. The finished work—a confusion of fur caps, boas, tippets, and trimmings—hung over the dirty wainscot between the door and the recess. The middle of the room was quite bare, to give the workers freedom of movement, but the wall facing you was a background for luxurious furniture. First—nearest the window—came a sofa, on which even in the first years of marriage Flutter-Duck's husband sometimes lay prone, too unwell to do more than superintend the operations, for he was of a consumptive habit. Over the sofa hung a large gilt-framed mirror, the gilt protected by muslin drapings, in the corners of which flyblown paper flowers grew. Next to the sofa was a high chest of drawers crowned with dusty decanters, and after an interval filled up with the Sabbath clothes hanging on pegs and covered by a white sheet; the bed used up the rest of the space, its head and one side touching the walls, and its foot stretching towards the kitchen fire. On the wall above this fire hung another mirror,—small and narrow, and full of wavering, watery reflections,—also framed in muslin, though this time the muslin served to conceal dirt, not to protect gilt. The kitchen-dresser, decorated with pink needle-work paper, was at right angles to the fireplace, and it faced the kitchen table, at which Flutter-Duck cleaned fish, peeled potatoes, and made meat kosher by salting and soaking it, as Rabbinic law demanded. By the foot of the bed, in the narrow wall opposite the window, was a door leading to a tiny inner room. For years this door remained locked; another family lived on the other side, and the furrier had neither the means nor the need for an extra bedroom. It was a room made for escapades and romances, connected with the back-yard by a steep ladder, up and down which the family might be seen going, and from which you could tumble into a broken-headed water-butt, or, by a dexterous back-fall, arrive in a dustbin. Jacob's ladder the neighbours called it, though the family name was Isaacs. And over everything was the trail of the fur. The air was full of a fine fluff—a million little hairs floated about the room covering everything, insinuating themselves everywhere, getting down the backs of the workers and tickling them, getting into their lungs and making them cough, getting into their food and drink and sickening them till they learnt callousness. They awoke with "furred" tongues, and they went to bed with them. The irritating filaments gathered on their clothes, on their faces, on the crockery, on the sofa, on the mirrors (big and little), on the bed, on the decanters, on the sheet that hid the Sabbath clothes—an impalpable down overlaying everything, penetrating even to the drinking-water in the board-covered zinc bucket, and covering "Rebbitzin," the household cat, with foreign fur. And in this room, drawing such breath of life, they sat—man, woman, boy—bending over boas bewitching young ladies would skate in; stitch, stitch, from eight till two and from three to eight, with occasional overtime that ran on now and again far into the next day; till their eyelids would not keep open any longer, and they couched on the floor on a heap of finished work; stitch, stitch, winter and summer, all day long, swallowing hirsute bread and butter at nine in the morning, and pausing at tea-time for five o'clock fur. And when twilight fell the gas was lit in the crowded room, thickening still further the clogged atmosphere, charged with human breaths and street odours, and wafts from the kitchen corner and the leathery smell of the dyed skins; and at times the yellow fog would steal in to contribute its clammy vapours. And often of a winter's morning the fog arrived early, and the gas that had lighted the first hours of work would burn on all day in the thick air, flaring on the Oriental figures with that strange glamour of gas-light in fog, and throwing heavy shadows on the bare boards; glazing with satin sheen the pendent snakes of fur, illuming the bowed heads of the workers and the master's sickly face under the tasselled smoking-cap, and touching up the faded fineries of Flutter-Duck, as she flitted about, chattering and cooking. Into such an atmosphere Flutter-Duck one day introduced a daughter, the "hands" getting an afternoon off, in honour not of the occasion but of decency. After that the crying of an infant became a feature of existence in the furrier's workshop; gradually it got rarer, as little Rachel grew up and reconciled herself to life. But the fountain of tears never quite ran dry. Rachel was a passionate child, and did not enjoy the best of parents. Every morning Flutter-Duck, who felt very grateful to Heaven for this crowning boon,—at one time bitterly dubious,—made the child say her prayers. Flutter-Duck said them word by word, and Rachel repeated them. They were in Hebrew, and neither Flutter-Duck nor Rachel had the least idea what they meant. For years these prayers preluded stormy scenes. "Médiâni!" Flutter-Duck would begin. "Médiâni!" little Rachel would lisp in her piping voice. It was two words, but Flutter-Duck imagined it was one. She gave the syllables in recitative, the âni just two notes higher than the médi, and she accented them quite wrongly. When Rachel first grew articulate, Flutter-Duck was so overjoyed to hear the little girl echoing her, that she would often turn to her husband with an exclamation of "Thou hearest, Lewis, love?" And he, impatiently: "Nee, nee, I hear." Flutter-Duck, thus recalled from the pleasures of maternity to its duties, would recommence the prayer. "Médiâni!" Which little Rachel would silently ignore. "Médiâni!" Flutter-Duck's tone would now be imperative and ill-tempered. Then little Rachel would turn to her father querulously. "She thayth it again, Médiâni, father!" And Flutter-Duck, outraged by this childish insolence, would exclaim, "Thou hearest, Lewis, love?" and incontinently fall to clouting the child. And the father, annoyed by the shrill ululation consequent upon the clouting: "Nee, nee, I hear too much." Rachel's refusal to be coerced into giving devotional over-measure was not merely due to her sense of equity. Her appetite counted for more. Prayers were the avenue to breakfast, and to pamper her featherheaded mother in repetitions was to put back the meal. Flutter-Duck was quite capable of breaking down, even in the middle, if her attention was distracted for a moment, and of trying back from the very beginning. She would, for example, get as far as "Hear—my daughter—the instruction—of thy mother," giving out the words one by one in the sacred language which was to her abracadabra. And little Rachel, equally in the dark, would repeat obediently, "Hear—my daughter—the instruction of—thy mother." Then the kettle would boil, or Flutter-Duck would overhear a remark made by one of the "hands," and interject: "Yes, I'd give him!" or, "A fat lot she knows about it," or some phrase of that sort; after which she would grope for the lost thread of prayer, and end by ejaculating desperately:— "Médiâni!" And the child sternly setting her face against this flippancy, there would be slapping and screaming, and if the father protested, Flutter-Duck would toss her head, and rejoin in her most dignified English: "If I bin a mother, I bin a mother!" To the logical adult it will be obvious that the little girl's obstinacy put the breakfast still further back; but then, obstinate little girls are not logical, and when Rachel had been beaten she would eat no breakfast at all. She sat sullenly in the corner, her pretty face swollen by weeping, and her great black eyes suffused with tears. Only her father could coax her then. He would go so far as to allow her to nurse "Rebbitzin," without reminding her that the creature's touch would make her forget all she knew, and convert her into a "cat's-head." And certainly Rachel always forgot not to touch the cat. Possibly the basis of her father's psychological superstition was the fact that the cat is an unclean animal, not to be handled, for he would not touch puss himself, though her pious title of "Rebbitzin," or Rabbi's wife, was the invention of this master of nicknames. But for such flashes no one would have suspected the stern little man of humour. But he had it—dry. He called the cat "Rebbitzin" ever since the day she refused to drink milk after meat. Perhaps she was gorged with the meat. But he insisted that the cat had caught religion through living in a Jewish family, and he developed a theory that she would not eat meat till it was kosher, so that in its earlier stages it might be exposed without risk of feline larceny. Cats are soothing to infants, but they ceased to satisfy Rachel when she grew up. Her education, while it gratified Her Majesty's Inspectors, was not calculated to eradicate the domestic rebel in her. At school she learnt of the existence of two Hebrew words, called Moudeh anî, but it was not till some time after that it flashed upon her that they were closely related to Médiâni, and the discovery did not improve her opinion of her mother. She was a bonny child, who promised to be a beautiful girl, and her teachers petted her. They dressed well, these teachers, and Rachel ceased to consider Flutter-Duck's Sabbath shawl the standard of taste and splendour. Ere she was in her teens she grumbled at her home surroundings, and even fell foul of the all-pervading fur, thereby quarrelling with her bread and butter in more senses than one. She would open the window—strangely fastidious—to eat her bread and butter off the broad ledge outside the room, but often the fur only came flying the faster to the spot, as if in search of air; and in the winter her pretentious queasiness set everybody remonstrating and shivering in the sudden draught. Her objection to fur did not, however, embrace the preparation of it, for after school hours the little girl sat patiently stitching till late at night, by way of apprenticeship to her future, buoyed up by her earnings, and adding strip to strip, with the hair going all the same way, till she had made a great black snake. Of course she did not get anything near three-halfpence for twelve yards, like the real "hands," but whatever she earnt went towards her Festival frocks, which she would have got in any case. Not knowing this, she was happy to deserve the pretty dresses she loved, and was least impatient of her mother's chatter when Flutter-Duck dinned into her ears how pretty she looked in them. Alas! it is to be feared Lewis was right, that Flutter-Duck was a rattle-brain indeed. And the years which brought Flutter-Duck prosperity, which emancipated her from personal participation in the sewing, and gave Rachel the little bedroom to herself, did not bring wisdom. When Flutter-Duck's felicity culminated in a maid-servant (if only one who slept out), she was like a child with a monkey-on-a-stick. She gave the servant orders merely to see her arms and legs moving. She also lay late in bed to enjoy the spectacle of the factotum making the nine o'clock coffee it had been for so many years her own duty to prepare for the "hands." How sweetly the waft of chicory came to her nostrils! At first her husband remonstrated. "It is not beautiful," he said. "You ought to get up before the 'hands' come." Flutter-Duck flushed resentfully. "If I bin a missis, I bin a missis," she said with dignity. It became one of her formulæ. When the servant developed insolence, as under Flutter-Duck's fostering familiarity she did, Flutter-Duck would resume her dignity with a jerk. "If I bin a missis," she would say, tossing her flighty head haughtily, "I bin a missis." CHAPTER II. A MIGRATORY BIRD. "There strode a stranger to the door, And it was windy weather." —Tennyson: The Goose. One day, when Rachel was nineteen, there came to the workshop a handsome young man. He had been brought by a placard in the window of the chandler's shop, and was found to answer perfectly to its wants. He took his place at the work-table, and soon came to the front as a wage-earner, wielding a dexterous needle that rarely snapped, even in white fur. His name was Emanuel Lefkovitch, and his seat was next to Rachel's. For Rachel had long since entered into her career, and the beauty of her early-blossoming womanhood was bent day after day over strips of rabbit-skin, which she made into sealskin jackets. For compensation to her youth Rachel walked out on the Sabbath elegantly attired in the latest fashion. She ordered her own frocks now, having a banking account of her own, in a tin box that was hidden away in her little bedroom. Her father honourably paid her a wage as large as she would have got elsewhere—otherwise she would have gone there. Her Sabbath walks extended as far as Hyde Park, and she loved to watch the fine ladies cantering in the Row, or lolling in luxurious carriages. Sometimes she even peeped into fashionable restaurants. She became the admiring disciple of a girl who worked at a Jewish furrier's in Regent Street, and whose occidental habitat gave her a halo of aristocracy. Even on Friday nights Rachel would disappear from the sacred domesticity of the Sabbath hearth, and Flutter-Duck suspected that she went to the Cambridge Music Hall in Spitalfields. This led to dramatic scenes, for Rachel's frowardness had not decreased with age. If she had only gone out with some accredited young man, Flutter-Duck could have borne the scandal in view of the joyous prospect of becoming a grandmother. But no! Rachel tolerated no matrimonial advances, not even from the most seductive of Shadchanim, though her voluptuous figure and rosy lips marked her out for the marriage-broker's eye. Her father had grown sterner with the growth of his malady, and though at the bottom of his heart he loved and was proud of his beautiful Rachel, the words that rose to his lips were often as harsh and bitter as Flutter-Duck's own, so that the girl would withdraw sullenly into herself and hold no converse with her parents for days. Nevertheless, there were plenty of halcyon intervals, especially in the busy season, when the extra shillings made the whole work-room brisk and happy, and the furriers gossiped of this and that, and told stories more droll than decorous. And then, too, every day was a delightfully inevitable sweep towards the Sabbath, and every Sabbath was a spoke in the great revolving wheel that brought round to them picturesque Festivals, or solemn Fasts, scarcely less enjoyable. And so there was an undercurrent of poetry below the sordid prose of daily life, and rifts in the grey fog, through which they caught glimpses of the azure vastness overarching the world. And the advent of Emanuel Lefkovitch distinctly lightened the atmosphere. His handsome face, his gay spirits, were like an influx of ozone. Rachel was perceptibly the brighter for his presence. She was gentler to everybody, even to her parents, and chatted vivaciously, and walked with an airier step! The sickly master-furrier's face lit up with pleasure as from his sofa he watched Emanuel's assiduous attentions to his girl in the way of picking up scissors and threading needles, and he frowned when Flutter-Duck hovered about the young man, chattering and monopolising his conversation. But one fine morning, some months after Emanuel's arrival, a change came over the spirit of the scene. There was a knock at the door, and an ugly, shabby woman, in a green tartan shawl, entered. She scrutinised the room sharply, then uttered a joyful cry of "Emanuel, my love!" and threw herself upon the handsome young man with an affectionate embrace. Emanuel, flushed and paralysed, was a ludicrous figure, and the workers tittered, not unfamiliar with marital contretemps. "Let me be," he said sullenly at last, as he untwined her dogged arms. "I tell you I won't have anything to do with you. It's no use." "Oh no, Emanuel, love, don't say that; not after all these months?" "Go away!" cried Emanuel hoarsely. "Be not so obstinate," she persisted, in wheedling accents, stroking his flaming cheeks. "Kiss little Joshua and little Miriam." Here the spectators became aware of two woebegone infants dragging at her skirts. "Go away!" repeated Emanuel passionately, and pushed her from him with violence. The ugly, shabby woman burst into hysterical tears. "My own husband, dear people," she sobbed, addressing the room. "My own husband—married to me in Poland five years ago. See, I have the Cesubah!" She half drew the marriage parchment from her bosom. "And he won't live with me! Every time he runs away from me. Last time I saw him was in Liverpool, on the eve of Tabernacles. And before that I had to go and find him in Newcastle, and he promised me never to go away again—yes, you did, you know you did, Emanuel, love. And here have I been looking weeks for you at all the furriers and tailors, without bread and salt for the children, and the Board of Guardians won't believe me, and blame me for coming to London. Oh, Emanuel, love, God shall forgive you." Her dress was dishevelled, her wig awry; big tears streamed down her cheeks. "How can I live with an old witch like that?" asked Emanuel, in brutal self-defence. "There are worse than me in the world," rejoined the woman meekly. "Nee, nee," roughly interposed the master-furrier, who had risen from his sofa in the excitement of the scene. "It is not beautiful not to live with one's wife." He paused to cough. "You must not put her to shame." "It's she who puts me to shame." Emanuel turned to Rachel, who had let her work slip to the floor, and whose face had grown white and stern, and continued deprecatingly, "I never wanted her. They caught me by a trick." "Don't talk to me," snapped Rachel, turning her back on him. The woman looked at her suspiciously—the girl's beauty seemed to burst upon her for the first time. "He is my husband," she repeated, and made as if she would draw out the Cesubah again. "Nee, nee, enough!" said the master-furrier curtly. "You are wasting our time. Your husband shall live with you, or he shall not work with me." "You have deceived us, you rogue!" put in Flutter-Duck shrilly. "Did I ever say I was a single man?" retorted Emanuel, shrugging his shoulders. "There! He confesses it!" cried his wife in glee. "Come, Emanuel, love," and she threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him passionately. "Do not be obstinate." "I can't come now," he said, with sulky facetiousness. "Where are you living?" She told him, and he said he would come when work was over. "On your faith?" she asked, with another uneasy glance at Rachel. "On my faith," he answered. She moved towards the door, with her draggle-tail of infants. As she was vanishing, he called shame-facedly to the departing children,— "Well, Joshua! Well, Miriam! Is this the way one treats a father? A nice way your mother has brought you up!" They came back to him dubiously, with unwashed, pathetic faces, and he kissed them. Rachel bent down to pick up her rabbit-skin. Work was resumed in dead silence.
One day the Buddha was sauntering alone on the brink of the lotus pond of Paradise. The lotus flowers in bloom in the pond were all as white as pearls, and the golden pistils and stamens in their centers ceaselessly filled all the air with ineffable fragrance. It was morning in Paradise. Presently the Buddha stood still on the brink of the pond, and through an opening among the leaves which covered the face of the water, suddenly beheld the scene below. As the floor of Hell lay directly beneath the lotus pond of Paradise, the Sanzu-no-Kawa and Hari-no-Yama were distinctly visible through the crystal water, as through a sterioptiscope. Then his eye fell on a man named Kandata, who was squirming with the other sinners in the bottom of Hell. This Kandata was a great robber who had done many evil things, murdering and setting fire to houses, but he had to his credit one good action. Once while on his way through a deep forest, he had noticed a little spider creeping along beside the road. So quickly lifting his foot, he was about to trample it to death, when he suddenly thought, “No, no, as small [Pg 70]as this thing is, it, too, has a soul: it would be rather a shame to recklessly kill it,” and spared the spider’s life. As he looked down into Hell, the Buddha remembered how this Kandata had spared the spider’s life. And in return for that good deed, he thought, if possible, he would like to deliver him out of Hell. Fortunately when he looked around, he saw a spider of Paradise spinning a beautiful silvery thread on the halcyon-colored lotus leaves. The Buddha quietly took up the spider’s thread in his hand. And he let it straight down to the bottom of Hell far below through the opening among the pearly white lotus flowers. II Here Kandata was rising and sinking with the other sinners in the Pond of Blood on the floor of Hell. It was pitch black everywhere, and when sometimes a glimpse was caught of something rising from that darkness, it turned out to be the gleam of the needle of the dread Hari-no-Yama, so it was inexpressibly forbidding. Moreover the stillness of the grave reigned everywhere, and the only thing that could at times be heard was the faint sighing of the sinners. This was because such sinners as had come down to this spot had already been tired out by the other manifold tortures of Hell and had lost even the strength to cry aloud. So, great robber though he was, Kandata, also suffocated with the blood, could do nothing but struggle [Pg 71]in the pond like a dying frog. But his time came. One day when Kandata lifted his head by chance and looked up at the sky above the Pond of Blood, he saw a silver spider’s thread slipping down toward him from the high, high heavens, glittering slightly in the silent darkness just as if it feared the eyes of man. When he saw this, his hands clapped themselves for joy. If, clinging to this thread, he climbed as far as it went, he could surely escape from Hell. Nay, if all went well, he might even enter Paradise. Then he would never be driven on to Hari-no-Yama nor sunk in the Pond of Blood. As soon as these thoughts came into his mind, he grasped the thread tightly in his two hands and began to climb up and up with all his might. Because he was a great robber, he had long been thoroughly familiar with such things. But Hell is nobody-knows-how-many myriads of miles removed from Paradise and, strive as he might, he could not easily get out. After climbing for a while, he was finally exhausted and could not ascend an inch higher. So since he could do nothing else, he stopped to rest and, hanging to the thread, looked far, far down below him. Now since he had climbed with all his might, the Pond of Blood where he had just been was already, much to his surprise, hidden deep down in the darkness. And the dread Hari-no-Yama glittered dimly under him. If he went up at this rate, he might get out of Hell more easily than he had thought. [Pg 72] With his hand twisted into the spider’s thread, Kandata laughed and cried out in a voice such as he had not uttered during all the years since coming here, “Success! Success!” But suddenly he noticed that below on the thread countless sinners were climbing eagerly after him, up and up, just like a procession of ants. When he saw this, Kandata simply blinked his eyes for a moment, with his big mouth hanging foolishly open in surprise and terror. How could that slender spider’s thread, which seemed as if it must break even with him alone, ever support the weight of all those people? If it should break in midair, even he himself, after all his effort in reaching this spot, would have to fall headlong back into Hell. It would be terrible if such a thing happened. But meanwhile hundreds and thousands of sinners were squirming out of the dark Pond of Blood and climbing with all their might in a line up the slender glittering thread. If he did not do something quickly, the thread was sure to break in two and fall. So Kandata cried out in a loud voice, “Here, you sinners! This spider’s thread is mine. Who on earth gave you permission to come up it? Get down! Get down!” Just at that moment, the spider’s thread, which had shown no sign of breaking up to that time, suddenly broke with a snap at the point where Kandata was hanging. So he was helpless. Without time to utter a cry, he [Pg 73]shot down and fell headlong into the darkness, spinning swiftly round and round like a top. Afterwards, only the spider’s thread of Paradise, glittering and slender, hung short in the moonless and starless sky. III Standing on the brink of the Lotus Pond of Paradise, the Buddha watched closely all that happened, and when Kandata sank like a stone to the bottom of the Pond of Blood, he began to saunter again with a sad expression on his face. Doubtless Kandata’s cold heart that would have saved only himself from Hell and his having received proper punishment and fallen back into Hell, had appeared to the Buddha’s eyes most pitiful. But the lotuses in the lotus pond of Paradise cared nothing at all about such things. The pearly white flowers were swaying about the Buddha’s feet. As they swayed, from the golden pistils in their centers, their ineffable fragrance ceaselessly filled all the air. It was near noon in Paradise.
ponedjeljak, 9. ožujka 2026.
At the beginning of the next summer the Peloponnesians again entered Attica, and resumed their work of devastation, destroying the young crops, and wrecking whatever had been spared in the previous year. Before they had been many days in Attica, a new and far more terrible visitation came upon the Athenians, threatening them with total extinction as a people. We have seen how the whole upper city, with the space between the Long Walls, and the harbour-town of Peiraeus, was packed with a vast multitude of human beings, penned together, like sheep in a fold. Into these huddled masses now crept a subtle and unseen foe, striking down his victims by hundreds and by thousands. That foe was the Plague, which beginning in Southern Africa, and descending thence to Egypt, reached the southern shores of the Mediterranean, and passed on to Peiraeus, having been carried thither by seamen who trafficked between northern Africa and Greece. From Peiraeus it spread upwards with rapid strides, and before long the whole space within the walls presented the appearance of a vast lazar-house. From the description of the symptoms we may conclude that this epidemic was similar to that dreadful scourge of mankind which has been almost conquered by modern science, the small-pox. The patient who had taken the infection was first attacked in the head, with inflammation of the eyes, and violent headache. By degrees the poison worked its way into the whole system, affecting every organ in the body, and appearing on the surface in the shape of small ulcers and boils. One of the most distressing features of the disease was a raging thirst, which could not be appeased by the most copious draughts of water; and the internal heat, which produced this effect, caused also a frightful irritability of the skin, so that the sufferer could not bear the touch of the lightest and most airy fabrics, but lay naked on his bed, in all the deformity of his dire affliction. Of those who recovered, many bore the marks of the sickness to their graves, by the loss of a hand, a foot, or an eye; while others were affected in their minds, remaining in blank oblivion, without power to recognise themselves or their friends. The healing art had made great progress in Greece in the course of the last generation; and in this, as in all else, the Greeks remained the sole teachers of Europe for ages after. But against such a malady as this, the most skilful physicians could do nothing, and those who attempted to exercise their skill caught the plague themselves, and for the most part perished. Still less, as we may well suppose, was the benefit derived from amulets, incantations, inquiries of oracles, or supplications at temples; and at last, finding no help in god or man, the Athenians gave up the struggle, and resigned themselves to despair. It is recorded as a curious fact, showing the strange and outlandish character of the pestilence, that the birds and animals which feed on human flesh generally shunned the bodies of those who died of the plague, though they might have eaten their fill, for hundreds were left unburied. The very vultures fled from the infected city, and hardly one was seen as long as the pestilence continued. The fearful rapidity with which the infection spread caused a panic throughout the city, and even the boldest were not proof against the general terror. If any man felt himself sickening of the plague, he at once gave up all hope, and made no effort to fight against the disease. Few were found brave enough to undertake the duty of nursing the sick, and those who did generally paid for their devotion with their lives. In most cases the patient was left to languish alone, and perished by neglect, while his nearest and dearest avoided his presence, and had grown so callous that they had not a sigh or a tear left for the death of husband, or child, or friend. The few who recovered, now free from risk of mortal infection, did what they could to help their suffering fellow-citizens. The mischief was aggravated by the overcrowded state of the city, especially among those who had come in from the country, and were living in stifling huts through the intense heat of a southern summer. Here the harvest of death fell thickest, and the corpses lay heaped together, while dying wretches crawled about the public streets, and encumbered the fountain-sides, to which they had dragged themselves in their longing for drink. All sense of public decency, all regard for laws, human or divine, was lost. The temples in which they had made their dwellings were choked with dead, and the sacred duty of burial, to which the conscience of antiquity attached so high an importance, was performed in wild haste and disorder. Sometimes those who were carrying out a corpse found a vacant pile prepared by the relatives of another victim, flung their dead upon it, set fire to the pile, and departed; and sometimes, when a body was already burning, others who were seeking to dispose of a corpse forced their way to the fire, and threw their burden upon it. In the general relaxation of public morality all the dark passions of human nature, which at ordinary times lurk in secret places, came forth to the light of day, and raged without restraint. Some, who had grown rich in a day by the death of wealthy relatives, resolved to enjoy their possessions, and indulge every appetite, before they were overtaken by the same fate. Others, who had hitherto led good lives, seeing the base and the noble swept away indifferently by the same ruthless power, began to doubt the justice of heaven itself, and rushed into debauch, convinced that conscience and honour were but empty names. For human laws they cared still less, for in the universal panic there was none to enforce them, and before the voice of public authority could be heard again, both judge and transgressor, as they believed, would be involved in a common doom. All shame and fear were accordingly thrown aside, and those whom the plague had not yet touched seemed possessed by one sole desire—to drown thought and care in an orgy of fierce excess, and then to die. II The second invasion of the Peloponnesians was prolonged for forty days, and the whole Attic territory was laid waste. Pericles again refused to venture a pitched battle against them, knowing well that the Athenian army was no match for them in the open field. But a powerful fleet was sent to cruise round Peloponnesus, which inflicted much damage on the coast districts. It was a welcome relief to the Athenians selected for this service to escape for a time from the plague-stricken city; but unhappily they carried the infection with them, and the crews were decimated by the same disease. Nor did the evil stop here: for the same armament being afterwards despatched to Potidaea, to reinforce the blockading army and fleet, caused a virulent outbreak of the plague among the forces stationed there, which up till then had been healthy. After some fruitless operations against the town this second armament was withdrawn, and returned to Athens with the loss of more than a thousand men. After all these disasters the reaction against Pericles, which had begun with the first invasion of Attica, reached a climax, and on all sides he was loudly decried by the Athenians, as the author of all their miseries. Envoys were sent with overtures of peace to Sparta, and when these returned with no favourable answer, the storm of popular fury grew more violent than ever. Pericles, who knew the temper of his people, and had foreseen that some such outbreak would occur, remained calm and unmoved. But wishing to allay the general excitement, and bring back the citizens to a more reasonable view of their prospects, he summoned an assembly, and addressed the multitude in terms of grave and dignified rebuke. He reminded them that they themselves had voted for war, and remonstrated against the unfairness of making him responsible for their own decision. If war could have been avoided without imperilling the very existence of their city, then that decision was wrong; but if, as was the fact, peace could only have been preserved by ruinous concessions, then his advice had been good, and they had been right in following it. The welfare of the individual citizen depended on the welfare of the community to which he belonged; as long as that was secured, private losses could always be made good, but public disaster meant private ruin. On this principle they had acted two years before, when they determined to reject the demands of Sparta. Why, then, were they now indulging in weak regrets, and turning against him whom they had appointed as their chosen guide and adviser? Was there anything in his character, any fact in his whole life, which justified them in suspecting him of unworthy motives? Was he the man to lead them astray, in order to save some selfish end—he, the great Pericles, whose loyalty, eloquence, clear-sightedness, and incorruptibility, had been proved in a public career of more than thirty years? If any other course had been open to them, he would have been to blame in counselling war; but the alternative was between that and degradation. The immediate pressure of private calamity was blinding them to the magnitude of the interests at stake—Athens, with all her fond traditions, and all the lustre of her name. That they were sure of victory he had already declared to them on many infallible grounds. But seeing them so sunk in despair, he would speak in a tone of loud assurance, and boldly assert a fact which they seemed to have overlooked. They were lords of the sea, absolute masters, that was to say, of half the world! Let them keep a firm grasp on this empire, and they would soon recover those pretty ornaments of empire—their gardens and their vineyards—which they held so dear: but, that once relinquished, they would lose all. Surely this knowledge should inspire them with a lofty contempt of their foes, a contempt grounded, not on ignorance or shallow enthusiasm, but on rational calculation. They could not now descend from the eminence on which they stood. Athens, who had blazed so long in unrivalled splendour before the eyes of the world, dared not suffer her lustre to be abated: for her, obscurity meant extinction. Let them keep this in mind, and not listen to counsels of seeming prudence and moderation, which were suicidal in a ruling state. All their calamities, except the plague, were the foreseen results of their own decision. Now was the time to display their known courage and patience. Let them think of the glory of Athens, and her imperial fame. This memorable speech, the last recorded utterance of Pericles, had the desired effect. It was resolved to continue the war, and no further embassies were sent to Sparta. But resentment still smouldered in the hearts of the Athenians against their great statesman. How fearful was the contrast between the high hopes with which they had embarked in this struggle, and the scenes of horror and desolation which lay around them! From the walls they could see their trampled fields, their ravaged plantations, and the blackened ruins of their homes. Within, the pestilence still raged undiminished, and the city was filled with sounds and sights of woe. Under the pressure of these calamities the ascendency of Pericles went through a brief period of eclipse, and he was condemned to pay a fine. Soon, however, he recovered all his influence, and remained at the head of affairs until his death, which occurred in the autumn of the following year. Pericles is the representative figure in the golden age of Athenian greatness, the most perfect example of that equable and harmonious development in every faculty of body and mind which was the aim of Greek civic life at its best. As an orator, he was probably never equalled, and the effect of his eloquence has found immortal expression in the lines of his contemporary Eupolis. Persuasion, we are told, sat enthroned on his lips; like a strong athlete, he overtook and outran all other orators; his words struck home like the lightning, while he held his audience enchained, as by a powerful spell; and among all the masters of eloquence, he was the only one who left his sting behind him. As a statesman, it was his object to admit every freeborn Athenian to a share of public duties and privileges; and for this purpose he introduced the system of payment, which enabled the poorer citizens to perform their part in the service of the state. His military talents, though never employed for conquest or aggression, were of no mean order; and on two occasions of supreme peril to Athens, the revolt of Euboea, and the revolt of Samos, it was his energy and promptitude which saved his city from ruin. But it is as the head of the great intellectual movement which culminated in this epoch, as the friend of poets, philosophers, and artists, that Pericles has won his most enduring fame. By his liberal and enlightened policy the surplus of the Athenian revenues was devoted to the creation of those wonders of architecture and sculpture, whose fragments still serve as unapproachable models to the mind of modern Europe. And under his rule Athens became the school of Greece, the great centre for every form of intellectual activity, a position which she maintained until the later period of the Roman Empire. If, however, we would understand the character of Pericles, and the spirit of the age which he represents, we must never forget that this aspect of Athenian greatness, to us by far the most important, was not the aspect which awoke the highest enthusiasm in him and his contemporaries. Those things which have made the name of Athens immortal, her art and her literature, were matters of but secondary importance to the Athenian of that age. He worshipped his city as a beloved mistress, and, like a lover, he delighted to adorn her with outward dignity and splendour. But to lavish all his thought and care on these external embellishments would have been, in his estimation, a senseless waste of his highest faculties, as if a lover should make the robes and jewels of his mistress the objects of his highest adoration. To make Athens the mightiest state in Greece, to build up the fabric of her material greatness—these were the objects for which he was ready to devote the best energies of heart and brain, and if need were, to lay down his life. He might be skilled in every elegant accomplishment, an acute reasoner, an orator, a musician, a poet; and to some extent he was all of these. But before all else he was in the highest sense a practical man, finding in strenuous action his chief glory and pride. And such a man was the last to melt into ecstasies over the high notes of a singer, or dream away his life in the fairyland of poetry. We have dwelt at some length on the work and character of Pericles, as his death marks a turning point in Athenian history. From that day onward the policy of Athens takes a downward direction, denoting a corresponding decline in Athenian character and aspiration. Pericles had been able, by his commanding talents and proved integrity, to exercise a salutary check on the restless energies and soaring ambition of his countrymen. He had been a true father and ruler of his people, in evil times and in good, curbing them in the insolence of prosperity, comforting and exalting them in the dark hour of disaster. But the government now passed into the hands of weaker men, who, since they were incapable of leading the people, were compelled to follow it, and to maintain their position by pandering to the worst vices of the Athenian character. Rash where they should have been cautious, yielding where they should have been resolute, they squandered the immense resources of Athens, and led her on, step by step, to humiliation and defeat. The course of our narrative will show how easily the Athenians might have emerged triumphant from the struggle with their enemies, if they had followed the line of conduct marked out by Pericles. They might, indeed, have avoided the occasion of offence which led immediately to the war, and thus have escaped the necessity of fighting altogether; and this, as we have seen, was the one fatal mistake made by Pericles. But, once launched in the conflict, they were sure of an easy victory, if they had only shown a very moderate degree of prudence and self-restraint. And we need not blame the great statesmen too harshly for not foreseeing the wild excesses of folly and extravagance which we shall have to record in the following pages.
STORIES FROM THUCYDIDES
RETOLD BY H. L. HAVELL B. A.
One evening in December, I was walking with a critic friend of mine under the bare willows along the so-called Koshiben Kaidō (Lunch-on-Hip Highway) toward Kanda Bridge. To right and left of us staggered through the light still lingering in the gloaming men who seemed to be those petty officials to whom Shimazaki Tōson long ago said in patriotic indignation, “Walk with your heads held higher.” Perhaps it was because we ourselves, try as we might, could not quickly shake off a similar melancholy feeling that, walking so near together that the shoulders of our overcoats touched and quickening our steps a thought, we said hardly a word till we were passing the Ote Machi car stop. Then my friend the critic glanced at a group of chilly-looking people waiting for a car by a red post there and, suddenly giving a shiver, mumbled as if to himself, “They remind me of Mōri Sensei.” “Who’s Mōri Sensei?” “He was a teacher of mine in middle school. Haven’t I ever told you about him?” In place of a negative answer, I silently pulled down the brim of my hat. What here follows is the story of Mōri Sensei then told me by that friend. [Pg 126] It was about ten years ago, when I was yet in the third year class of a certain prefectural middle school. During the winter vacation, Adachi Sensei, a young teacher who taught our class English, died of acute pneumonia brought on by influenza. It all happened so suddenly that there was no time to choose a suitable successor to take his place, so it must have been as a last expedient. At any rate, for the time being, our middle school gave the work Adachi Sensei had been doing to an old man called Mōri Sensei, who was at that time teaching English in a certain private middle school. It was on the afternoon of the day he took up his work that I saw him for the first time. We students of the third year class were overcome with curiosity at the prospect of meeting the new teacher and, from the time his steps resounded in the hall, awaited the beginning of the lesson in unwonted silence. But when they stopped outside the cold and sunless class-room and the door finally opened,—ah, even in these surroundings, the scene at that moment stands clearly before my eyes. Mōri Sensei, who opened the door and entered, first of all reminded me by his shortness of the spider men often seen in side-shows at festivals. But what took the gloom out of the feeling he inspired was his smooth and shining bald head, which might almost be called beautiful, and on the back of which there barely clung some slight wisps of grizzled hair, but which for the most part looked just like such ostrich eggs as are pictured in text books on natural history. And finally, that which gave him a mien distinct from that of ordinary men was his strange morning coat, [Pg 127]which was literally so green and rusty as almost to make one doubt that it had ever been black. And I have even a surprising recollection of an extremely gay purple necktie showily tied just like a moth with outspread wings in his slightly soiled turn-down collar. Wherefore it was of course not surprising that, the minute he entered, sounds of suppressed laughter suddenly arose here and there all over the room. However, with a reader and the roll book clasped in his arms and with an air of perfect composure, as if not having the least regard for us students, he stepped up on to the low platform, returned our bow and, with an amiable smile on his very good-natured, sallow round face, began in a shrill voice, “Gentlemen.” We had never once during the past three years been addressed as gentlemen by the teachers of that school. So Mōri Sensei’s “Gentlemen” naturally made us all involuntarily open eyes of wonder. And at the same time, expecting that, now that he had already begun with “Gentlemen,” there would instantly follow a great speech on teaching methods or something, we waited with bated breath. However, Mōri Sensei, having said “Gentlemen,” looked round the room and spoke not another word for some time. In spite of the calm smile on his flaccid face, the corners of his mouth twitched nervously. At the same time an uneasy light continually came and went in his eyes, which were clear and somehow like the eyes of a domestic animal. Although he did not express it in [Pg 128]words, it seemed that he had something that he wished to beg of us, but unfortunately could not himself tell clearly what it was. “Gentlemen,” he finally repeated in the same tone. And then this time, afterwards, as if he would catch the echo of the voice in which he said it, he added greatly flustered, “I am hereafter to teach you the ‘Choice Reader’.” Feeling our curiosity grow more and more intense, we became absolutely still and fastened our eyes on his face. But as he said this, he looked round the room again with that pleading expression in his eyes, and without another word, sat down suddenly in the chair, as if a spring had given way in him. And he began to look at the roll, which he opened beside the “Choice Reader,” already lying open. I probably need not tell you how this abrupt way of ending his greetings disappointed us, or rather how it went further and impressed us with a sense of its ridiculousness. But fortunately, before we had begun to laugh, he lifted those eyes like a domestic animal’s from the roll and called the name of one of us, adding to it the title, “San.” Of course this was the signal to stand up and translate from the reader. So the student stood up and translated a paragraph of “Robinson Crusoe” or something, in the smart tone peculiar to Tōkyō Middle School boys. And as he read, Mōri Sensei, putting his hand now and then to his purple necktie, went along carefully correcting his every wrong translation, of course, and even his slightest mispronunciation. There was something [Pg 129]strangely affected in his pronunciation, but it was for the most part accurate and distinct, and he seemed in his own heart to have special confidence in himself in this direction. But after the student had taken his seat and Mōri Sensei began his own translation of the passage, laughter arose again here and there among us. For this teacher, who was such a master in pronunciation, when he came to translate, knew so few Japanese words as hardly to seem like a Japanese. Or it may have been that, even if he did know them, he was not able to find them on the spur of the moment. For instance, to translate only one line, he said, “So at last Robinson Crusoe decided to keep it. As for why he decided to keep it, it was one of these queer animals—there are many of them at the zoo—what do you call them? Er—they’re clever at tricks—you all must know what I mean, don’t you? You know, they have red faces—what? Monkeys? Yes, yes, it was one of those monkeys. He decided to keep one of those monkeys.” Of course, since he had that much trouble with the word “monkey,” when it came to any word that was a little difficult, he could not strike upon a suitable translation till he had gone all around it many times. Besides, he was at such times greatly flustered, and putting his hand to his throat so frequently that it seemed he must tear off his purple necktie, he lifted his anxious face and looked at us with panic-stricken eyes. And then, pressing his bald head in his two hands, he would put his face down on the desk and come to an abashed stop. At such times [Pg 130]his naturally small body shrank up timidly exactly like a deflated rubber balloon, and even his legs, hanging down from the chair, seemed to float danglingly in space. And again, we students found that funny and tittered. Then while he was repeating his translation two or three times, the laughing voices gradually became audacious and, at last, even from the front row, welled up openly. As for how much this laughter of ours hurt the good Mōri Sensei,—the truth is that of late years even I have many times involuntarily wished to cover my ears at the recollection of that pitiless sound. Yet Mōri Sensei went bravely on with his translation till the bugle announced recess. And when he had finished the last paragraph, he again assumed his original air of composure and, returning our bow, went out of the room with a show of calmness, as if he had forgotten entirely the dismal struggle he had had up to that minute. Scarcely had he gone out when there arose in our midst a great burst of laughter like a tempest and the noise of deliberately opening and shutting the lids of desks, and then one student jumped up on the platform and quickly mimicked his gestures and voice,—ah, must I remember even the fact that I, decorated with the monitor’s mark and surrounded by five or six students, proudly pointed out his mistakes in translation. And what of those mistakes? To tell the truth, I was showing off, even then not knowing in the least whether they were really mistakes or not. [Pg 131] It was a noon hour three or four days later. Gathered in the sand pit by the turning bars, five or six of us students were chatting glibly about such things as the coming terminal examinations, as we exposed the backs of our serge uniforms to the warm winter sun. Then Tamba Sensei, who weighed a hundred and fifty pounds and had up to that moment been hanging to the horizontal bar with a student, dropped down into the sand with a loud, “One, two!” and appearing among us in his vest and athletic cap, said, “How’s the new teacher, Mōri Sensei?” Tamba Sensei also taught us English, but being a famous lover of athletics, and, at the same time, being credited with ability in the reciting of Chinese poems, he seemed to be very popular even with those stalwarts, the jujitsu and single-sticking champions, who hated English itself. So when he said this, one of those stalwarts, fingering a mitt, replied with a shyness unnatural to him, “Er—he’s not too—what shall I say? Everybody says he’s not too good.” Then Tamba Sensei, dusting the sand off his trousers with his handkerchief, smiled proudly and said, “Is he worse than you are?” “Of course he’s better than I am.” “Then you have nothing to complain of, have you?” The stalwart, scratching his head with his mitted hand, withdrew weakly. But the English genius of our class, adjusting his strong myopic spectacles, protested in a pert tone, unbecoming his years, “But Sensei, as most of us mean to take the entrance [Pg 132]examinations to higher schools, we want to be taught by the very best teachers.” But Tamba Sensei, laughing spiritedly as always, said, “Nonsense! it’s all the same whoever teaches you only for a term or so.” “Then is Mōri Sensei to teach us only one term?” This question seemed to touch Tamba Sensei a little near home. But this worldly-wise teacher, purposely giving no reply, took off his athletic cap, and energetically knocking the dust out of his closely cropped hair, suddenly looked all around at us and, cleverly changing the subject, said, “Of course, Mōri Sensei’s a very old man, so he’s a little different from us. This morning when I got on a car he was seated in the very middle of it, and when we got near the place to change, he called out, ‘Conductor, conductor!’ It was so funny I nearly died laughing. Anyhow, he’s certainly different.” But when it came to things of that sort about Mōri Sensei, there were more than enough that had astonished us without our waiting to be told about them by Tamba Sensei. “And they say Mōri Sensei, when it rains, comes to school in his foreign clothes with wooden clogs on his feet!” “Isn’t that his lunch that always hangs from his belt wrapped in a white cloth wrapper?” “Somebody said that when he saw him hanging to a strap in a car, his woolen gloves were full of holes.” [Pg 133] Gathering about Tamba Sensei, we chattered such nonsense noisily from every side. Then, perhaps drawn in by these remarks, when our voices became louder, Tamba Sensei finally spoke up gaily, and twirling his athletic cap on his finger, said thoughtlessly, “Better yet, that hat’s an antique.” Just at that moment, Mōri Sensei, thinking I know not what, made his appearance composedly with his small body, that antique derby hat on his head and his hand gravely fingering that same old purple necktie, at the door of the two-storied school building facing the turning bar but ten paces away. In front of the door six or seven boys, probably of the first year class, were playing pickaback or something, and when they saw him, they all scrambled to be first and saluted him politely. Mōri Sensei, standing in the sunshine on the stone steps before the door, seemed to be lifting his derby and returning their bows with a smile. When we saw this, naturally feeling a sort of shame, we all suspended our merry laughter and were silent for a moment. But with Tamba Sensei, this was probably because of a combination of shame and confusion that was more than enough to shut his mouth. Slightly sticking out the tongue that was just saying, “That hat’s an antique,” and suddenly putting his cap on his head, he swung himself round quickly and, with a loud “One!” threw his fat body in its vest at the horizontal bar. And then when he had stretched his legs up into space for a “lobster snap” and shouted “Two!”, he cut neatly through the blue winter sky and was up on the bar without effort. It was natural that his funny covering of [Pg 134]his shame should make us all titter. We students around him, who had restrained ourselves for a moment, looking up at Tamba Sensei on the bar, clapped our hands and yelled exactly as if we were rooting at a baseball game. Of course I myself joined in the applause with the rest. While I was applauding, however, I began, half instinctively, to hate Tamba Sensei up on the bar. But this does not mean that I sympathized with Mōri Sensei. For the applause we gave Tamba Sensei then had, at the same time, the indirect object of showing our bad will toward Mōri Sensei. Analyzing it to-day, my feeling at that moment is susceptible of explanation as scorn for Tamba Sensei morally, combined with scorn for Mōri Sensei intellectually. Or I may think of my scorn as having had added to it an impertinence from its having been given proper indorsement by Tamba Sensei’s words, “That hat’s an antique.” So while applauding him, I looked triumphantly across my elevated shoulders at the entrance of the school-house. There stood our Mōri Sensei yet motionless on the stone steps like a winter fly or something that covets the sunshine, watching with absorption the innocent play of the first year students. That derby hat and that purple necktie,—why now can I never forget that scene which I then, rather as an object of derision, took in at a glance? The feeling of scorn aroused in us by Mōri Sensei’s costume and attainments on the day he took up his work grew stronger and stronger throughout all the class after [Pg 135]Tamba Sensei’s slip. Then came a certain morning less than a week later. Snow had been falling since the night before, and the roof of the drill-shed stretching out below the windows was covered so deep that no shade of the tiles showed through, but in the class-room a coal fire blazed red in the stove, and even the snow that fell on the window panes melted away before it had time to throw in its pale blue reflected light. Sitting in a chair in front of the stove, Mōri Sensei was squeezing out his shrill voice as usual, earnestly teaching us the “Psalm of Life” from the “Choice Reader,” but of course not a single student was seriously listening. Worse yet, a certain jujitsu champion seated beside me had all along been reading a story of adventure by Oshikawa Shunro in the “Chivalrous World” spread out under his reader. This went on for probably twenty or thirty minutes. Then Mōri Sensei, suddenly getting up from his chair, began to discuss the question of life in connection with the Longfellow poem he was reading. I do not remember the gist of his talk at all, but I think that, rather than an argument, it was something impressionistic built around his own life. For I faintly remember that he said something like this as he babbled on in an agitated tone, lifting and lowering his arms constantly just like a plucked bird: “You don’t understand life yet. Do you? Even if you want to, you can’t. That itself doubtless makes you happy. When you get like me, you know life perfectly. You know it, but it’s mostly hardships. Understand? It’s mostly hardships. I myself have two children. Well, I must send them to school. When I [Pg 136]send them,—er—when I send them—tuition? Yes, that’s it. Tuition is necessary. Isn’t it? So it’s mostly hardships all right.” But of course we could not be expected to understand the feelings of this teacher who, whether he intended to or not, actually appealed against the troubles of life even to us unsophisticated middle school students. Rather, we who saw only the ridiculous side of the fact that he was making the appeal as he went on speaking, all began to snicker. Only our laughter did not turn into its usual guffaw, which was perhaps due to the fact that his shabby clothes and his expression as he ran shrilly on aroused in us a certain amount of sympathy, as if they were the hardships of life themselves. But though our laughter did not grow louder, after a moment the jujitsu champion sitting beside me suddenly put aside his “Chivalrous World” and stood up with the fierceness of a tiger. And as I wondered what he was going to do, he said, “Sensei, we attend this class to be taught English. So if you don’t teach it to us, there’s no need of our staying in this class-room. If you go on talking like that, I shall go at once to the gymnasium.” With that, he made as sour a face as he could and took his seat again most fiercely. I have never seen a man look so strange as Mōri Sensei did then. With his mouth still half open as if he had been struck by lightning, he simply stood like a poker by the stove for a minute or two gazing into that impetuous student’s face. But finally that imploring expression rushed into his animalish eyes and set them alight, and he suddenly put his hand to that [Pg 137]purple necktie of his and lowering his bald head two or three times, said, “Yes, I’m at fault. I’ve done wrong, so I apologize sincerely. To be sure, you’re all here to study English. I did wrong not to teach you English. Since I’ve done wrong, I apologize sincerely. You understand, don’t you? I apologize sincerely.” And he repeated the same sort of thing over and over again, smiling such a smile that he seemed almost to be weeping. Through the door of the stove, the fire cast a red light aslant across his figure, making the worn places on his coat at the shoulders and waist stand out more clearly. At the same time, his bald head, every time he ducked it, shone with a fine coppery gloss and looked even more like an ostrich egg. But this pitiful scene then seemed to me but the exposing of this teacher’s essential inferiority. Now he was trying to escape the danger of losing his job even by humoring his students. So he was a teacher because he had to be to make a living and not because he had any interest in education itself. While hazily making such criticism, I now felt contempt not only for his clothes and scholarship, but for his character as well, and I rested my chin in my hands on my “Choice Reader” and hurled at him one impertinent laugh after another, as he stood in front of the blazing stove being burned at the stake, as it were, both in spirit and in the flesh. Of course I was not the only one. The jujitsu champion who had cornered him, when he turned red and apologized, cast a momentary glance my way and, smiling a cunning smile, promptly [Pg 138]began again to “study” that adventure story of Oshikawa Shunro’s under his reader. And until the bugle sounded for recess, our Mōri Sensei, more confused than ever, went on trying desperately to translate poor Longfellow. Deep down in my ears still rings his shrill, almost choking, voice, as with the perspiration beading his sallow round face and his eyes constantly pleading for something unknown, he read, “Life is real, life is earnest.” But the cry of millions of miserable human beings hidden in that shrill voice was too deep to stimulate our ear drums in those days. So there were many besides myself who even yawned brazenly aloud as we grew more and more weary during that hour. But Mōri Sensei, holding his small body erect in front of the stove, and utterly oblivious of the flying snow coating the window panes, went on brandishing his reader incessantly and shouting desperately as if a spring in his head had suddenly unwound. “Life is real, life is earnest! Life is real, life is earnest!” Consequently, when the school term for which he had been employed was over and we could see Mōri Sensei no more, we were glad and never felt the least regret. No, I might better say that we were so indifferent to his going that we did not even feel glad. I, especially, was so entirely lacking in graciousness that, as I grew to manhood during seven or eight years, passing through the middle school, the high school and the university, I practically forgot the very existence of such a teacher. [Pg 139] Then in the autumn of the year of my graduation from the university,—I say the autumn, but it was the night of one of those rainy days toward the beginning of December when dense mist often comes down in the evening, and when the willows and plane trees along the avenues had long since shed their yellow leaves. After diligently searching at the second-hand book stores in Kanda for some German books, which had become most scarce since the beginning of the European war, and finally buying one or two, suddenly as I was passing the Nakanishiya, keeping out the all but motionless chill night air of late autumn with my turned-up overcoat collar, I somehow felt a longing for noisy human voices and warm drinks and stepped casually into a café there. But when I once got in, I found that the room, though small, was bare-looking, and there was not a single customer. On the marble-topped tables sitting in rows, only the gilding on the sugar bowls reflected the electric light coldly. With a lonely feeling, as if I had been deceived by some one, I went over to a table in front of a built-in mirror on the wall and sat down. Then I ordered a cup of coffee from the waiter who came to me and, taking out a cigar abruptly, finally, after striking many matches, got it lighted. And soon there stood on the table before me a steaming cup of coffee, but still my spirits, having once fallen, seemed, like the low-hanging mist outside, not easily to be dissipated. The books I had just bought at the second-hand book stores were books on philosophy printed in fine type, and here it would have been painful for me to read a single page even of such [Pg 140]distinguished discourses. Wherefore, because I could do nothing else, I rested my head on the back of my chair and, sipping Brazilian coffee and puffing my Havana by turns, allowed my purposeless gaze to stray at random into the mirror just in front of my nose. In it were reflected distinctly and coldly just like a part of a stage setting, first of all the side of a staircase leading up to the second floor, then the opposite wall, a door painted white and the advertisement of a concert hung up on the wall. Yes, and besides, the marble-topped tables. And there was a big potted pine, and an electric lamp hanging from the ceiling. A big gas heating stove of porcelain was also visible. And I could see in front of the stove in a circle three or four waiters talking together earnestly. And then,—it was just as, inspecting the objects in the mirror one by one, I came to these waiters in front of the stove. I was startled by the sight of a guest who, surrounded by the waiters, was seated at a table. The reason he had not attracted my attention up to that time was probably that, with the waiters all around him, I had unconsciously taken him for a cook of the café or something. But what startled me then was not only the fact that I had found a guest where I had thought there was none. It was that although only the profile of the man in the mirror was visible, from the shape of that bald head like an ostrich egg, the look of that green and rusty morning coat and the shade of that everlasting purple necktie, I knew at a glance that he was Mōri Sensei. As soon as I recognized him, the seven or eight years that had passed since we parted came suddenly into my [Pg 141]mind. A class monitor in a middle school studying the “Choice Reader” and myself there then calmly blowing the smoke of a cigar through my nose,—for me, those years could by no means be thought short. But could it be true that the current of time, which sweeps away all things, had not been able to do anything to this Mōri Sensei, who had already risen above time? He who was now sharing a table with these waiters in a night café was unmistakably the teacher who had in days long past taught reading in that class-room into which the westering sun never shone. Nor had his bald head changed. And his purple necktie was the same. And then that shrill voice,—even now, was he not lifting that shrill voice up and busily explaining something to the waiters? Smiling unconsciously and forgetting all unawares the melancholy I had not been able to escape, I listened attentively. “Look, this adjective here modifies that noun. You see, Napoleon is the name of a person, so it’s called a noun. You see, don’t you? Then if you look at that noun, directly after it,—do you know what this is directly after it? Eh? You, what do you think?” “It’s a relative—a relative noun,” ventured one of the waiters stammering. “What, a relative noun? There’s no such thing as a relative noun. It’s a relative—er—a relative pronoun? Yes, that’s it, a relative pronoun, you see. It’s a pronoun, so look, it stands for the noun ‘Napoleon!’ Doesn’t it? The word ‘pronoun’ means ‘for a name’, doesn’t it?” From the talk, it seemed that Mōri Sensei was teaching English to the café waiters. Then I edged my [Pg 142]chair over and looked into the mirror at a different angle. As I expected, a book that looked like a reader lay open on the table. Mōri Sensei, busily pointing with his finger to the page, seemed never to get tired of explaining. And in this, too, he was the same as of old. Only the waiters now standing around him, different from the students of that time, were listening attentively to his excited explanations, all with their eyes shining and their shoulders crowded together. While I looked for a few minutes at the scene in the mirror, a warm feeling for Mōri Sensei floated gradually to the surface of my consciousness. Should I go to him and compare notes with him after our long separation? But he probably would not remember me, whom he had seen only in a class-room during one short term. Even if he did remember me,—I suddenly recalled that malicious laughter which we had showered upon him in those days and thought it would be showing more respect for him not to introduce myself after all. So having finished my coffee, I threw away the stub of my cigar and got up stealthily, when, though I had tried to move quietly, I seemed after all to have attracted his attention. At the moment I left my chair, all at once he turned that sallow round face, that slightly soiled turn-down collar and that purple necktie my way. At that instant his animalish eyes met mine in the mirror. But as I had expected, there was no sign in them that he had met an old acquaintance. The only thing glittering in them was that same old sorrowful glance that seemed always to be pleading for something. [Pg 143] With my eyes cast down, I took the bill the waiter brought and went silently to the desk by the door to pay it. There the head waiter, with whom I was slightly acquainted, was sitting languidly with his hair sprucely parted. “There’s a man over there teaching English. Is he employed to teach in this café?”, I asked as I paid my bill, and he, gazing out into the street and looking bored, replied, “No, he’s not employed. He only comes every night and teaches like that. They say he’s an old has-been English teacher whom nobody will employ anywhere, so he probably comes here to kill time. He orders a cup of coffee and sits in on us all evening, so we’re not over-pleased.” When I heard this, Mōri Sensei’s sorrowful glance always pleading for something unknown came suddenly before my eyes. Ah, Mōri Sensei! At that moment I felt that I had been able for the first time dimly to understand him, to understand his sturdy character. If there is such a thing as a born educator, he was surely one. It was as impossible for him to stop teaching English as to stop breathing. If he were forced to stop, his splendid vitality would droop instantly just like a plant deprived of water. So, urged on by his interest in teaching English, he deliberately came alone to this café every evening to sip a cup of coffee. Of course his was no such leisure as to deserve being taken for time-killing by the head waiter. More, our mistaking him long before and deriding him for working only for a living, now was proven a shameful [Pg 144]blunder. How he must have been tormented by the vulgar construction put upon his actions by the world, which credited him only with killing time or making a living! Of course, even in such torment, always assuming an attitude of serenity and caparisoned in that purple necktie and derby hat, he went on translating unflinchingly, braver than Don Quixote. But still in his eyes was there not sometimes that sorrowful gleam entreating the sympathy of the students he was teaching,—nay, the sympathy of all the world he was facing? Thinking such thoughts momentarily and deeply moved till I did not know whether I should laugh or cry, I buried my face in my overcoat collar and hurried out of the café. And still Mōri Sensei, taking advantage of the absence of customers, raised his shrill voice and went on teaching English to the eager waiters under the cold and over-bright electric lights. “As it’s a word that stands for a name, it’s called a pronoun. Isn’t it? A pronoun. You see that, don’t you?”
nedjelja, 8. ožujka 2026.
The birth of Themistocles was somewhat too obscure to do him honor. His father, Neocles, was not of the distinguished people of Athens, but of the township of Phrearrhi, and of the tribe Leontis; and by his mother’s side, as it is reported, he was base-born. I am not of the noble Grecian race, I’m poor Abrotonon, and born in Thrace; Let the Greek women scorn me, if they please, I was the mother of Themistocles. Yet Phanias writes that the mother of Themistocles was not of Thrace, but of Caria, and that her name was not Abrotonon, but Euterpe; and Neanthes adds farther that she was of Halicarnassus in Caria. And, as illegitimate children, including those that were of the half-blood or had but one parent an Athenian, had to attend at the Cynosarges (a wrestling-place outside the gates, dedicated to Hercules, who was also of half-blood amongst the gods, having had a mortal woman for his mother), Themistocles persuaded several of the young men of high birth to accompany him to anoint and exercise themselves together at Cynosarges; an ingenious device for destroying the distinction between the noble and the base-born, and between those of the whole and those of the half blood of Athens. However, it is certain that he was related to the house of the Lycomedae; for Simonides records, that he rebuilt the chapel of Phlya, belonging to that family, and beautified it with pictures and other ornaments, after it had been burnt by the Persians. It is confessed by all that from his youth he was of a vehement and impetuous nature, of a quick apprehension, and a strong and aspiring bent for action and great affairs. The holidays and intervals in his studies he did not spend in play or idleness, as other children, but would be always inventing or arranging some oration or declamation to himself, the subject of which was generally the excusing or accusing his companions, so that his master would often say to him, “You, my boy, will be nothing small, but great one way or other, for good or else for bad.” He received reluctantly and carelessly instructions given him to improve his manners and behavior, or to teach him any pleasing or graceful accomplishment, but whatever was said to improve him in sagacity, or in management of affairs, he would give attention to, beyond one of his years, from confidence in his natural capacities for such things. And thus afterwards, when in company where people engaged themselves in what are commonly thought the liberal and elegant amusements, he was obliged to defend himself against the observations of those who considered themselves highly accomplished, by the somewhat arrogant retort, that he certainly could not make use of any stringed instrument, could only, were a small and obscure city put into his hands, make it great and glorious. Notwithstanding this, Stesimbrotus says that Themistocles was a hearer of Anaxagoras, and that he studied natural philosophy under Melissus, contrary to chronology; for Melissus commanded the Samians in their siege by Pericles, who was much Themistocles’s junior; and with Pericles, also, Anaxagoras was intimate. They, therefore, might rather be credited, who report, that Themistocles was an admirer of Mnesiphilus the Phrearrhian, who was neither rhetorician nor natural philosopher, but a professor of that which was then called wisdom, consisting in a sort of political shrewdness and practical sagacity, which had begun and continued, almost like a sect of philosophy, from Solon; but those who came afterwards, and mixed it with pleadings and legal artifices, and transformed the practical part of it into a mere art of speaking and an exercise of words, were generally called sophists. Themistocles resorted to Mnesiphilus when he had already embarked in politics. In the first essays of his youth he was not regular nor happily balanced; he allowed himself to follow mere natural character, which, without the control of reason and instruction, is apt to hurry, upon either side, into sudden and violent courses, and very often to break away and determine upon the worst; as he afterwards owned himself, saying, that the wildest colts make the best horses, if they only get properly trained and broken in. But those who upon this fasten stories of their own invention, as of his being disowned by his father, and that his mother died for grief of her son’s ill fame, certainly calumniate him; and there are others who relate, on the contrary, how that to deter him from public business, and to let him see how the vulgar behave themselves towards their leaders when they have at last no farther use of them, his father showed him the old galleys as they lay forsaken and cast about upon the sea-shore. Yet it is evident that his mind was early imbued with the keenest interest in public affairs, and the most passionate ambition for distinction. Eager from the first to obtain the highest place, he unhesitatingly accepted the hatred of the most powerful and influential leaders in the city, but more especially of Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, who always opposed him. And yet all this great enmity between them arose, it appears, from a very boyish occasion, both being attached to the beautiful Stesilaus of Ceos, as Ariston the philosopher tells us; ever after which, they took opposite sides, and were rivals in politics. Not but that the incompatibility of their lives and manners may seem to have increased the difference, for Aristides was of a mild nature, and of a nobler sort of character, and, in public matters, acting always with a view, not to glory or popularity, but to the best interests of the state consistently with safety and honesty, he was often forced to oppose Themistocles, and interfere against the increase of his influence, seeing him stirring up the people to all kinds of enterprises, and introducing various innovations. For it is said that Themistocles was so transported with the thoughts of glory, and so inflamed with the passion for great actions, that, though he was still young when the battle of Marathon was fought against the Persians, upon the skillful conduct of the general, Miltiades, being everywhere talked about, he was observed to be thoughtful, and reserved, alone by him self; he passed the nights without sleep, and avoided all his usual places of recreation, and to those who wondered at the change, and inquired the reason of it, he gave the answer, that “the trophy of Miltiades would not let him sleep.” And when others were of opinion that the battle of Marathon would be an end to the war, Themistocles thought that it was but the beginning of far greater conflicts, and for these, to the benefit of all Greece, he kept himself in continual readiness, and his city also in proper training, foreseeing from far before what would happen. And, first of all, the Athenians being accustomed to divide amongst themselves the revenue proceeding from the silver mines at Laurium, he was the only man that dared propose to the people that this distribution should cease, and that with the money ships should be built to make war against the Aeginetans, who were the most flourishing people in all Greece, and by the number of their ships held the sovereignty of the sea; and Themistocles thus was more easily able to persuade them, avoiding all mention of danger from Darius or the Persians, who were at a great distance, and their coming very uncertain, and at that time not much to be feared; but, by a seasonable employment of the emulation and anger felt by the Athenians against the Aeginetans, he induced them to preparation. So that with this money a hundred ships were built, with which they afterwards fought against Xerxes. And, henceforward, little by little, turning and drawing the city down towards the sea, in the belief, that, whereas by land they were not a fit match for their next neighbors, with their ships they might be able to repel the Persians and command Greece, thus, as Plato says, from steady soldiers he turned them into mariners and seamen tossed about the sea, and gave occasion for the reproach against him, that he took away from the Athenians the spear and the shield, and bound them to the bench and the oar. These measures he carried in the assembly, against the opposition, as Stesimbrotus relates, of Miltiades; and whether or no he hereby injured the purity and true balance of government, may be a question for philosophers, but that the deliverance of Greece came at that time from the sea, and that these galleys restored Athens again after it was destroyed, were others wanting, Xerxes himself would be sufficient evidence, who, though his land-forces were still entire, after his defeat at sea, fled away, and thought himself no longer able to encounter the Greeks; and, as it seems to me, left Mardonius behind him, not out of any hopes he could have to bring them into subjection, but to hinder them from pursuing him. Themistocles is said to have been eager in the acquisition of riches, according to some, that he might be the more liberal; for loving to sacrifice often, and to be splendid in his entertainment of strangers, he required a plentiful revenue; yet he is accused by others of having been parsimonious and sordid to that degree that he would sell provisions which were sent to him as a present. He desired Diphilides, who was a breeder of horses, to give him a colt, and when he refused it, threatened that in a short time he would turn his house into a wooden horse, intimating that he would stir up dispute and litigation between him and some of his relations. He went beyond all men in the passion for distinction. When he was still young and unknown in the world, he entreated Epicles of Hermione, who had a good hand at the lute and was much sought after by the Athenians, to come and practice at home with him, being ambitious of having people inquire after his house and frequent his company. When he came to the Olympic games, and was so splendid in his equipage and entertainments, in his rich tents and furniture, that he strove to outdo Cimon, he displeased the Greeks, who thought that such magnificence might be allowed in one who was a young man and of a great family but was a great piece of insolence in one as yet undistinguished, and without title or means for making any such display. In a dramatic contest, the play he paid for won the prize, which was then a matter that excited much emulation; he put up a tablet in record of it, with the inscription, “Themistocles of Phrearrhi was at the charge of it; Phrynichus made it; Adimantus was archon.” He was well liked by the common people, would salute every particular citizen by his own name, and always show himself a just judge in questions of business between private men; he said to Simonides, the poet of Ceos, who desired something of him, when he was commander of the army, that was not reasonable, “Simonides, you would be no good poet if you wrote false measure, nor should I be a good magistrate if for favor I made false law.” And at another time, laughing at Simonides, he said, that he was a man of little judgment to speak against the Corinthians, who were inhabitants of a great city, and to have his own picture drawn so often, having so ill-looking a face. Gradually growing to be great, and winning the favor of the people, he at last gained the day with his faction over that of Aristides, and procured his banishment by ostracism. When the king of Persia was now advancing against Greece, and the Athenians were in consultation who should be general, and many withdrew themselves of their own accord, being terrified with the greatness of the danger, there was one Epicydes, a popular speaker, son to Euphemides, a man of an eloquent tongue, but of a faint heart, and a slave to riches, who was desirous of the command, and was looked upon to be in a fair way to carry it by the number of votes; but Themistocles, fearing that, if the command should fall into such hands, all would be lost, bought off Epicydes and his pretensions, it is said, for a sum of money. When the king of Persia sent messengers into Greece, with an interpreter, to demand earth and water, as an acknowledgment of subjection, Themistocles, by the consent of the people, seized upon the interpreter, and put him to death, for presuming to publish the barbarian orders and decrees in the Greek language; this is one of the actions he is commended for, as also for what he did to Arthmius of Zelea, who brought gold from the king of Persia to corrupt the Greeks, and was, by an order from Themistocles, degraded and disfranchised, he and his children and his posterity; but that which most of all redounded to his credit was, that he put an end to all the civil wars of Greece, composed their differences, and persuaded them to lay aside all enmity during the war with the Persians; and in this great work, Chileus the Arcadian was, it is said, of great assistance to him. Having taken upon himself the command of the Athenian forces, he immediately endeavored to persuade the citizens to leave the city, and to embark upon their galleys, and meet with the Persians at a great distance from Greece; but many being against this, he led a large force, together with the Lacedaemonians, into Tempe, that in this pass they might maintain the safety of Thessaly, which had not as yet declared for the king; but when they returned without performing anything; and it was known that not only the Thessalians, but all as far as Boeotia, was going over to Xerxes, then the Athenians more willingly hearkened to the advice of Themistocles to fight by sea, and sent him with a fleet to guard the straits of Artemisium. When the contingents met here, the Greeks would have the Lacedaemonians to command, and Eurybiades to be their admiral; but the Athenians, who surpassed all the rest together in number of vessels, would not submit to come after any other, till Themistocles, perceiving the danger of this contest, yielded his own command to Eurybiades, and got the Athenians to submit, extenuating the loss by persuading them, that if in this war they behaved themselves like men, he would answer for it after that, that the Greeks, of their own will, would submit to their command. And by this moderation of his, it is evident that he was the chief means of the deliverance of Greece, and gained the Athenians the glory of alike surpassing their enemies in valor, and their confederates in wisdom. As soon as the Persian armada arrived at Aphetae, Eurybiades was astonished to see such a vast number of vessels before him, and, being informed that two hundred more were sailing round behind the island of Sciathus, he immediately determined to retire farther into Greece, and to sail back into some part of Peloponnesus, where their land army and their fleet might join, for he looked upon the Persian forces to be altogether unassailable by sea. But the Euboeans, fearing that the Greeks would forsake them, and leave them to the mercy of the enemy, sent Pelagon to confer privately with Themistocles, taking with him a good sum of money, which, as Herodotus reports, he accepted and gave to Eurybiades. In this affair none of his own countrymen opposed him so much as Architeles, captain of the sacred galley, who, having no money to supply his seamen, was eager to go home; but Themistocles so incensed the Athenians against him, that they set upon him and left him not so much as his supper, at which Architeles was much surprised, and took it very ill; but Themistocles immediately sent him in a chest a service of provisions, and at the bottom of it a talent of silver, desiring him to sup tonight, and tomorrow provide for his seamen; if not, he would report it amongst the Athenians that he had received money from the enemy. So Phanias the Lesbian tells the story. Though the fights between the Greeks and Persians in the straits of Euboea were not so important as to make any final decision of the war, yet the experience which the Greeks obtained in them was of great advantage, for thus, by actual trial and in real danger, they found out that neither number of ships, nor riches and ornaments, nor boasting shouts, nor barbarous songs of victory, were any way terrible to men that knew how to fight, and were resolved to come hand to hand with their enemies; these things they were to despise, and to come up close and grapple with their foes. This, Pindar appears to have seen, and says justly enough of the fight at Artemisium, that There the sons of Athens set The stone that freedom stands on yet. For the first step towards victory undoubtedly is to gain courage. Artemisium is in Euboea, beyond the city of Histiaea, a sea-beach open to the north; most nearly opposite to it stands Olizon, in the country which formerly was under Philoctetes; there is a small temple there, dedicated to Diana, surnamed of the Dawn, and trees about it, around which again stand pillars of white marble; and if you rub them with your hand, they send forth both the smell and color of saffron. On one of the pillars these verses are engraved,— With numerous tribes from Asia’s regions brought The sons of Athens on these waters, fought; Erecting, after they had quelled the Mede, To Artemis this record of the deed. There is a place still to be seen upon this shore, where, in the middle of a great heap of sand, they take out from the bottom a dark powder like ashes, or something that has passed the fire; and here, it is supposed, the shipwrecks and bodies of the dead were burnt. But when news came from Thermopylae to Artemisium, informing them that king Leonidas was slain, and that Xerxes had made himself master of all the passages by land, they returned back to the interior of Greece, the Athenians having the command of the rear, the place of honor and danger, and much elated by what had been done. As Themistocles sailed along the coast, he took notice of the harbors and fit places for the enemies’ ships to come to land at, and engraved large letters in such stones as he found there by chance, as also in others which he set up on purpose near to the landing-places, or where they were to water; in which inscriptions he called upon the Ionians to forsake the Medes, if it were possible, and come over to the Greeks, who were their proper founders and fathers, and were now hazarding all for their liberties; but, if this could not be done, at any rate to impede and disturb the Persians in all engagements. He hoped that these writings would prevail with the Ionians to revolt, or raise some trouble by making their fidelity doubtful to the Persians. Now, though Xerxes had already passed through Doris and invaded the country of Phocis, and was burning and destroying the cities of the Phocians, yet the Greeks sent them no relief; and, though the Athenians earnestly desired them to meet the Persians in Boeotia, before they could come into Attica, as they themselves had come forward by sea at Artemisium, they gave no ear to their request, being wholly intent upon Peloponnesus, and resolved to gather all their forces together within the Isthmus, and to build a wall from sea to sea in that narrow neck of land; so that the Athenians were enraged to see themselves betrayed, and at the same time afflicted and dejected at their own destitution. For to fight alone against such a numerous army was to no purpose, and the only expedient now left them was to leave their city and cling to their ships; which the people were very unwilling to submit to, imagining that it would signify little now to gain a victory, and not understanding how there could be deliverance any longer after they had once forsaken the temples of their gods and exposed the tombs and monuments of their ancestors to the fury of their enemies. Themistocles, being at a loss, and not able to draw the people over to his opinion by any human reason, set his machines to work, as in a theater, and employed prodigies and oracles. The serpent of Minerva, kept in the inner part of her temple, disappeared; the priests gave it out to the people that the offerings which were set for it were found untouched, and declared, by the suggestion of Themistocles, that the goddess had left the city, and taken her flight before them towards the sea. And he often urged them with the oracle which bade them trust to walls of wood, showing them that walls of wood could signify nothing else but ships; and that the island of Salamis was termed in it, not miserable or unhappy, but had the epithet of divine, for that it should one day be associated with a great good fortune of the Greeks. At length his opinion prevailed, and he obtained a decree that the city should be committed to the protection of Minerva, “queen of Athens;” that they who were of age to bear arms should embark, and that each should see to sending away his children, women, and slaves where he could. This decree being confirmed, most of the Athenians removed their parents, wives, and children to Troezen, where they were received with eager good-will by the Troezenians, who passed a vote that they should be maintained at the public charge, by a daily payment of two obols to every one, and leave be given to the children to gather fruit where they pleased, and schoolmasters paid to instruct them. This vote was proposed by Nicagoras. There was no public treasure at that time in Athens; but the council of Areopagus, as Aristotle says, distributed to every one that served, eight drachmas, which was a great help to the manning of the fleet; but Clidemus ascribes this also to the art of Themistocles. When the Athenians were on their way down to the haven of Piraeus, the shield with the head of Medusa was missing; and he, under the pretext of searching for it, ransacked all places, and found among their goods considerable sums of money concealed, which he applied to the public use; and with this the soldiers and seamen were well provided for their voyage. When the whole city of Athens were going on board, it afforded a spectacle worthy of pity alike and admiration, to see them thus send away their fathers and children before them, and, unmoved with their cries and tears, pass over into the island. But that which stirred compassion most of all was, that many old men, by reason of their great age, were left behind; and even the tame domestic animals could not be seen without some pity, running about the town and howling, as desirous to be carried along with their masters that had kept them; among which it is reported that Xanthippus, the father of Pericles, had a dog that would not endure to stay behind, but leaped into the sea, and swam along by the galley’s side till he came to the island of Salamis, where he fainted away and died, and that spot in the island, which is still called the Dog’s Grave, is said to be his. Among the great actions of Themistocles at this crisis, the recall of Aristides was not the least, for, before the war, he had been ostracized by the party which Themistocles headed, and was in banishment; but now, perceiving that the people regretted his absence, and were fearful that he might go over to the Persians to revenge himself, and thereby ruin the affairs of Greece, Themistocles proposed a decree that those who were banished for a time might return again, to give assistance by word and deed to the cause of Greece with the rest of their fellow-citizens. Eurybiades, by reason of the greatness of Sparta, was admiral of the Greek fleet, but yet was faint-hearted in time of danger, and willing to weigh anchor and set sail for the isthmus of Corinth, near which the land army lay encamped; which Themistocles resisted; and this was the occasion of the well-known words, when Eurybiades, to check his impatience, told him that at the Olympic games they that start up before the rest are lashed; “And they,” replied Themistocles, “that are left behind are not crowned.” Again, Eurybiades lifting up his staff as if he were going to strike, Themistocles said, “Strike if you will, but hear;” Eurybiades, wondering much at his moderation, desired him to speak, and Themistocles now brought him to a better understanding. And when one who stood by him told him that it did not become those who had neither city nor house to lose, to persuade others to relinquish their habitations and forsake their countries, Themistocles gave this reply: “We have indeed left our houses and our walls, base fellow, not thinking it fit to become slaves for the sake of things that have no life nor soul; and yet our city is the greatest of all Greece, consisting of two hundred galleys, which are here to defend you, if you please; but if you run away and betray us, as you did once before, the Greeks shall soon hear news of the Athenians possessing as fair a country, and as large and free a city, as that they have lost.” These expressions of Themistocles made Eurybiades suspect that if he retreated the Athenians would fall off from him. When one of Eretria began to oppose him, he said, “Have you anything to say of war, that are like an ink-fish? you have a sword, but no heart.” Some say that while Themistocles was thus speaking things upon the deck, an owl was seen flying to the right hand of the fleet, which came and sat upon the top of the mast; and this happy omen so far disposed the Greeks to follow his advice, that they presently prepared to fight. Yet, when the enemy’s fleet was arrived at the haven of Phalerum, upon the coast of Attica, and with the number of their ships concealed all the shore, and when they saw the king himself in person come down with his land army to the seaside, with all his forces united, then the good counsel of Themistocles was soon forgotten, and the Peloponnesians cast their eyes again towards the isthmus, and took it very ill if any one spoke against their returning home; and, resolving to depart that night, the pilots had order what course to steer. The Teuthis, loligo, or cuttlefish, is said to have a bone or cartilage shaped like a sword, and was conceived to have no heart. Themistocles, in great distress that the Greeks should retire, and lose the advantage of the narrow seas and strait passage, and slip home every one to his own city, considered with himself, and contrived that stratagem that was carried out by Sicinnus. This Sicinnus was a Persian captive, but a great lover of Themistocles, and the attendant of his children. Upon this occasion, he sent him privately to Xerxes, commanding him to tell the king, that Themistocles, the admiral of the Athenians, having espoused his interest, wished to be the first to inform him that the Greeks were ready to make their escape, and that he counseled him to hinder their flight, to set upon them while they were in this confusion and at a distance from their land army, and hereby destroy all their forces by sea. Xerxes was very joyful at this message, and received it as from one who wished him all that was good, and immediately issued instructions to the commanders of his ships, that they should instantly Yet out with two hundred galleys to encompass all the islands, and enclose all the straits and passages, that none of the Greeks might escape, and that they should afterwards follow with the rest of their fleet at leisure. This being done, Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, was the first man that perceived it, and went to the tent of Themistocles, not out of any friendship, for he had been formerly banished by his means, as has been related, but to inform him how they were encompassed by their enemies. Themistocles, knowing the generosity of Aristides, and much struck by his visit at that time, imparted to him all that he had transacted by Sicinnus, and entreated him, that, as he would be more readily believed among the Greeks, he would make use of his credit to help to induce them to stay and fight their enemies in the narrow seas. Aristides applauded Themistocles, and went to the other commanders and captains of the galleys, and encouraged them to engage; yet they did not perfectly assent to him, till a galley of Tenos, which deserted from the Persians, of which Panaetius was commander, came in, while they were still doubting, and confirmed the news that all the straits and passages were beset; and then their rage and fury, as well as their necessity; provoked them all to fight. As soon as it was day, Xerxes placed himself high up, to view his fleet, and how it was set in order. Phanodemus says, he sat upon a promontory above the temple of Hercules, where the coast of Attica is separated from the island by a narrow channel; but Acestodorus writes, that it was in the confines of Megara, upon those hills which are called the Horns, where he sat in a chair of gold, with many secretaries about him to write down all that was done in the fight. When Themistocles was about to sacrifice, close to the admiral’s galley, there were three prisoners brought to him, fine looking men, and richly dressed in ornamented clothing and gold, said to be the children of Artayctes and Sandauce, sister to Xerxes. As soon as the prophet Euphrantides saw them, and observed that at the same time the fire blazed out from the offerings with a more than ordinary flame, and that a man sneezed on the right, which was an intimation of a fortunate event, he took Themistocles by the hand, and bade him consecrate the three young men for sacrifice, and offer them up with prayers for victory to Bacchus the Devourer: so should the Greeks not only save themselves, but also obtain victory. Themistocles was much disturbed at this strange and terrible prophecy, but the common people, who, in any difficult crisis and great exigency, ever look for relief rather to strange and extravagant than to reasonable means, calling upon Bacchus with one voice, led the captives to the altar, and compelled the execution of the sacrifice as the prophet had commanded. This is reported by Phanias the Lesbian, a philosopher well read in history. The number of the enemy’s ships the poet Aeschylus gives in his tragedy called the Persians, as on his certain knowledge, in the following words— Xerxes, I know, did into battle lead One thousand ships; of more than usual speed Seven and two hundred. So is it agreed. The Athenians had a hundred and eighty; in every ship eighteen men fought upon the deck, four of whom were archers and the rest men-at- arms. As Themistocles had fixed upon the most advantageous place, so, with no less sagacity, he chose the best time of fighting; for he would not run the prows of his galleys against the Persians, nor begin the fight till the time of day was come, when there regularly blows in a fresh breeze from the open sea, and brings in with it a strong swell into the channel; which was no inconvenience to the Greek ships, which were low- built, and little above the water, but did much hurt to the Persians, which had high sterns and lofty decks, and were heavy and cumbrous in their movements, as it presented them broadside to the quick charges of the Greeks, who kept their eyes upon the motions of Themistocles, as their best example, and more particularly because, opposed to his ship, Ariamenes, admiral to Xerxes, a brave man, and by far the best and worthiest of the king’s brothers, was seen throwing darts and shooting arrows from his huge galley, as from the walls of a castle. Aminias the Decelean and Sosicles the Pedian, who sailed in the same vessel, upon the ships meeting stem to stem, and transfixing each the other with their brazen prows, so that they were fastened together, when Ariamenes attempted to board theirs, ran at him with their pikes, and thrust him into the sea; his body, as it floated amongst other shipwrecks, was known to Artemisia, and carried to Xerxes. It is reported, that, in the middle of the fight, a great flame rose into the air above the city of Eleusis, and that sounds and voices were heard through all the Thriasian plain, as far as the sea, sounding like a number of men accompanying and escorting the mystic Iacchus, and that a mist seemed to form and rise from the place from whence the sounds came, and, passing forward, fell upon the galleys. Others believed that they saw apparitions, in the shape of armed men, reaching out their hands from the island of Aegina before the Grecian galleys; and supposed they were the Aeacidae, whom they had invoked to their aid before the battle. The first man that took a ship was Lycomedes the Athenian, captain of a galley, who cut down its ensign, and dedicated it to Apollo the Laurel-crowned. And as the Persians fought in a narrow arm of the sea, and could bring but part of their fleet to fight, and fell foul of one another, the Greeks thus equaled them in strength, and fought with them till the evening, forced them back, and obtained, as says Simonides, that noble and famous victory, than which neither amongst the Greeks nor barbarians was ever known more glorious exploit on the seas; by the joint valor, indeed, and zeal of all who fought, but by the wisdom and sagacity of Themistocles. After this sea-fight, Xerxes, enraged at his ill-fortune, attempted, by casting great heaps of earth and stones into the sea, to stop up the channel and to make a dam, upon which he might lead his land-forces over into the island of Salamis. Themistocles, being desirous to try the opinion of Aristides, told him that he proposed to set sail for the Hellespont, to break the bridge of ships, so as to shut up, he said, Asia a prisoner within Europe; but Aristides, disliking the design, said, “We have hitherto fought with an enemy who has regarded little else but his pleasure and luxury; but if we shut him up within Greece, and drive him to necessity, he that is master of such great forces will no longer sit quietly with an umbrella of gold over his head, looking upon the fight for his pleasure; but in such a strait will attempt all things; he will be resolute, and appear himself in person upon all occasions, he will soon correct his errors, and supply what he has formerly omitted through remissness, and will be better advised in all things. Therefore, it is noways our interest, Themistocles,” he said, “to take away the bridge that is already made, but rather to build another, if it were possible, that he might make his retreat with the more expedition.” To which Themistocles answered, “If this be requisite, we must immediately use all diligence, art, and industry, to rid ourselves of him as soon as may be;” and to this purpose he found out among the captives one of the king Of Persia’s eunuchs, named Arnaces, whom he sent to the king, to inform him that the Greeks, being now victorious by sea, had decreed to sail to the Hellespont, where the boats were fastened together, and destroy the bridge; but that Themistocles, being concerned for the king, revealed this to him, that he might hasten towards the Asiatic seas, and pass over into his own dominions; and in the mean time would cause delays, and hinder the confederates from pursuing him. Xerxes no sooner heard this, but, being very much terrified, he proceeded to retreat out of Greece with all speed. The prudence of Themistocles and Aristides in this was afterwards more fully understood at the battle of Plataea, where Mardonius, with a very small fraction of the forces of Xerxes, put the Greeks in danger of losing all. Herodotus writes, that, of all the cities of Greece, Aegina was held to have performed the best service in the war; while all single men yielded to Themistocles, though, out of envy, unwillingly; and when they returned to the entrance of Peloponnesus, where the several commanders delivered their suffrages at the altar, to determine who was most worthy, every one gave the first vote for himself and the second for Themistocles. The Lacedaemonians carried him with them to Sparta, where, giving the rewards of valor to Eurybiades, and of wisdom and conduct to Themistocles, they crowned him with olive, presented him with the best chariot in the city, and sent three hundred young men to accompany him to the confines of their country. And at the next Olympic games, when Themistocles entered the course, the spectators took no farther notice of those who were contesting the prizes, but spent the whole day in looking upon him, showing him to the strangers, admiring him, and applauding him by clapping their hands, and other expressions of joy, so that he himself, much gratified, confessed to his friends that he then reaped the fruit of all his labors for the Greeks. He was, indeed, by nature, a great lover of honor, as is evident from the anecdotes recorded of him. When chosen admiral by the Athenians, he would not quite conclude any single matter of business, either public or private, but deferred all till the day they were to set sail, that, by dispatching a great quantity of business all at once, and having to meet a great variety of people, he might make an appearance of greatness and power. Viewing the dead bodies cast up by the sea, he perceived bracelets and necklaces of gold about them, yet passed on, only showing them to a friend that followed him, saying, “Take you these things, for you are not Themistocles.” He said to Antiphates, a handsome young man, who had formerly avoided, but now in his glory courted him, “Time, young man, has taught us both a lesson.” He said that the Athenians did not honor him or admire him, but made, as it were, a sort of plane-tree of him; sheltered themselves under him in bad weather, and, as soon as it was fine, plucked his leaves and cut his branches. When the Seriphian told him that he had not obtained this honor by himself, but by the greatness of his city, he replied, “You speak truth; I should never have been famous if I had been of Seriphus; nor you, had you been of Athens.” When another of the generals, who thought he had performed considerable service for the Athenians, boastingly compared his actions with those of Themistocles, he told him that once upon a time the Day after the Festival found fault with the Festival: “On you there is nothing but hurry and trouble and preparation, but, when I come, everybody sits down quietly and enjoys himself;” which the Festival admitted was true, but “if I had not come first, you would not have come at all.” “Even so,” he said, “if Themistocles had not come before, where had you been now?” Laughing at his own son, who got his mother, and, by his mother’s means, his father also, to indulge him, he told him that he had the most power of any one in Greece: “For the Athenians command the rest of Greece, I command the Athenians, your mother commands me, and you command your mother.” Loving to be singular in all things, when he had land to sell, he ordered the crier to give notice that there were good neighbors near it. Of two who made love to his daughter, he preferred the man of worth to the one who was rich, saying he desired a man without riches, rather than riches without a man. Such was the character of his sayings. After these things, he began to rebuild and fortify the city of Athens, bribing, as Theopompus reports, the Lacedaemonian ephors not to be against it, but, as most relate it, overreaching and deceiving them. For, under pretest of an embassy, he went to Sparta, where, upon the Lacedaemonians charging him with rebuilding the walls, and Poliarchus coming on purpose from Aegina to denounce it, he denied the fact, bidding them to send people to Athens to see whether it were so or no; by which delay he got time for the building of the wall, and also placed these ambassadors in the hands of his countrymen as hostages for him; and so, when the Lacedaemonians knew the truth, they did him no hurt, but, suppressing all display of their anger for the present, sent him away. Next he proceeded to establish the harbor of Piraeus, observing the great natural advantages of the locality and desirous to unite the whole city with the sea, and to reverse, in a manner, the policy of ancient Athenian kings, who, endeavoring to withdraw their subjects from the sea, and to accustom them to live, not by sailing about, but by planting and tilling the earth, spread the story of the dispute between Minerva and Neptune for the sovereignty of Athens, in which Minerva, by producing to the judges an olive tree, was declared to have won; whereas Themistocles did not only knead up, as Aristophanes says, the port and the city into one, but made the city absolutely the dependent and the adjunct of the port, and the land of the sea, which increased the power and confidence of the people against the nobility; the authority coming into the hands of sailors and boatswains and pilots. Thus it was one of the orders of the thirty tyrants, that the hustings in the assembly, which had faced towards the sea, should be turned round towards the land; implying their opinion that the empire by sea had been the origin of the democracy, and that the farming population were not so much opposed to oligarchy. Themistocles, however, formed yet higher designs with a view to naval supremacy. For, after the departure of Xerxes, when the Grecian fleet was arrived at Pagasae, where they wintered, Themistocles, in a public oration to the people of Athens, told them that he had a design to perform something that would tend greatly to their interests and safety, but was of such a nature, that it could not be made generally public. The Athenians ordered him to impart it to Aristides only; and, if he approved of it, to put it in practice. And when Themistocles had discovered to him that his design was to burn the Grecian fleet in the haven of Pagasae, Aristides, coming out to the people, gave this report of the stratagem contrived by Themistocles, that no proposal could be more politic, or more dishonorable; on which the Athenians commanded Themistocles to think no farther of it. When the Lacedaemonians proposed, at the general council of the Amphictyonians, that the representatives of those cities which were not in the league, nor had fought against the Persians, should be excluded, Themistocles, fearing that the Thessalians, with those of Thebes, Argos, and others, being thrown out of the council, the Lacedaemonians would become wholly masters of the votes, and do what they pleased, supported the deputies of the cities, and prevailed with the members then sitting to alter their opinion in this point, showing them that there were but one and thirty cities which had partaken in the war, and that most of these, also, were very small; how intolerable would it be, if the rest of Greece should be excluded, and the general council should come to be ruled by two or three great cities. By this, chiefly, he incurred the displeasure of the Lacedaemonians, whose honors and favors were now shown to Cimon, with a view to making him the opponent of the state policy of Themistocles. He was also burdensome to the confederates, sailing about the islands and collecting money from them. Herodotus says, that, requiring money of those of the island of Andros, he told them that he had brought with him two goddesses, Persuasion and Force; and they answered him that they had also two great goddesses, which prohibited them from giving him any money, Poverty and Impossibility. Timocreon, the Rhodian poet, reprehends him somewhat bitterly for being wrought upon by money to let some who were banished return, while abandoning himself, who was his guest and friend. The verses are these:— Pausanias you may praise, and Xanthippus he be for, For Leutychidas, a third; Aristides, I proclaim, From the sacred Athens came, The one true man of all; for Themistocles Latona doth abhor The liar, traitor, cheat, who, to gain his filthy pay, Timocreon, his friend, neglected to restore To his native Rhodian shore; Three silver talents took, and departed (curses with him) on his way, Restoring people here, expelling there, and killing here, Filling evermore his purse: and at the Isthmus gave a treat, To be laughed at, of cold meat, Which they ate, and prayed the gods some one else might give the feast another year. But after the sentence and banishment of Themistocles, Timocreon reviles him yet more immoderately and wildly in a poem which begins thus:— Unto all the Greeks repair O Muse, and tell these verses there, As is fitting and is fair. The story is, that it was put to the question whether Timocreon should be banished for siding with the Persians, and Themistocles gave his vote against him. So when Themistocles was accused of intriguing with the Medes, Timocreon made these lines upon him:— So now Timocreon, indeed, is not the sole friend of the Mede, There are some knaves besides; nor is it only mine that fails, But other foxes have lost tails.— When the citizens of Athens began to listen willingly to those who traduced and reproached him, he was forced, with somewhat obnoxious frequency, to put them in mind of the great services he had performed, and ask those who were offended with him whether they were weary with receiving benefits often from the same person, so rendering himself more odious. And he yet more provoked the people by building a temple to Diana with the epithet of Aristobule, or Diana of Best Counsel; intimating thereby, that he had given the best counsel, not only to the Athenians, but to all Greece. He built this temple near his own house, in the district called Melite, where now the public officers carry out the bodies of such as are executed, and throw the halters and clothes of those that are strangled or otherwise put to death. There is to this day a small figure of Themistocles in the temple of Diana of Best Counsel, which represents him to be a person, not only of a noble mind, but also of a most heroic aspect. At length the Athenians banished him, making use of the ostracism to humble his eminence and authority, as they ordinarily did with all whom they thought too powerful, or, by their greatness, disproportionable to the equality thought requisite in a popular government. For the ostracism was instituted, not so much to punish the offender, as to mitigate and pacify the violence of the envious, who delighted to humble eminent men, and who, by fixing this disgrace upon them, might vent some part of their rancor. Themistocles being banished from Athens, while he stayed at Argos the detection of Pausanias happened, which gave such advantage to his enemies, that Leobotes of Agraule, son of Alcmaeon, indicted him of treason, the Spartans supporting him in the accusation. When Pausanias went about this treasonable design, he concealed it at first from Themistocles, though he were his intimate friend; but when he saw him expelled out of the commonwealth, and how impatiently he took his banishment, he ventured to communicate it to him, and desired his assistance, showing him the king of Persia’s letters, and exasperating him against the Greeks, as a villainous, ungrateful people. However, Themistocles immediately rejected the proposals of Pausanias, and wholly refused to be a party in the enterprise, though he never revealed his communications, nor disclosed the conspiracy to any man, either hoping that Pausanias would desist from his intentions, or expecting that so inconsiderate an attempt after such chimerical objects would be discovered by other means. After that Pausanias was put to death, letters and writings being found concerning this matter, which rendered Themistocles suspected, the Lacedaemonians were clamorous against him, and his enemies among the Athenians accused him; when, being absent from Athens, he made his defense by letters, especially against the points that had been previously alleged against him. In answer to the malicious detractions of his enemies, he merely wrote to the citizens, urging that he who was always ambitious to govern, and not of a character or a disposition to serve, would never sell himself and his country into slavery to a barbarous and hostile nation. Notwithstanding this, the people, being persuaded by his accusers, sent officers to take him and bring him away to be tried before a council of the Greeks, but, having timely notice of it, he passed over into the island of Corcyra, where the state was under obligations to him; for being chosen as arbitrator in a difference between them and the Corinthians, he decided the controversy by ordering the Corinthians to pay down twenty talents, and declaring the town and island of Leucas a joint colony from both cities. From thence he fled into Epirus, and, the Athenians and Lacedaemonians still pursuing him, he threw himself upon chances of safety that seemed all but desperate. For he fled for refuge to Admetus, king of the Molossians, who had formerly made some request to the Athenians, when Themistocles was in the height of his authority, and had been disdainfully used and insulted by him, and had let it appear plain enough, that could he lay hold of him, he would take his revenge. Yet in this misfortune, Themistocles, fearing the recent hatred of his neighbors and fellow-citizens more than the old displeasure of the king, put himself at his mercy, and became a humble suppliant to Admetus, after a peculiar manner, different from the custom of other countries. For taking the king’s son, who was then a child, in his arms, he laid himself down at his hearth, this being the most sacred and only manner of supplication, among the Molossians, which was not to be refused. And some say that his wife, Phthia, intimated to Themistocles this way of petitioning, and placed her young son with him before the hearth; others, that king Admetus, that he might be under a religious obligation not to deliver him up to his pursuers, prepared and enacted with him a sort of stage-play to this effect. At this time, Epicrates of Acharnae privately conveyed his wife and children out of Athens, and sent them hither, for which afterwards Cimon condemned him and put him to death, as Stesimbrotus reports, and yet somehow, either forgetting this himself, or making Themistocles to be little mindful of it, says presently that he sailed into Sicily, and desired in marriage the daughter of Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, promising to bring the Greeks under his power; and, on Hiero refusing him, departed thence into Asia; but this is not probable. For Theophrastus writes, in his work on Monarchy, that when Hiero sent race-horses to the Olympian games, and erected a pavilion sumptuously furnished, Themistocles made an oration to the Greeks, inciting them to pull down the tyrant’s tent, and not to suffer his horses to run. Thucydides says, that, passing over land to the Aegaean Sea, he took ship at Pydna in the bay of Therme, not being known to any one in the ship, till, being terrified to see the vessel driven by the winds near to Naxos, which was then besieged by the Athenians, he made himself known to the master and pilot, and, partly entreating them, partly threatening that if they went on shore he would accuse them, and make the Athenians to believe that they did not take him in out of ignorance, but that he had corrupted them with money from the beginning, he compelled them to bear off and stand out to sea, and sail forward towards the coast of Asia. A great part of his estate was privately conveyed away by his friends, and sent after him by sea into Asia; besides which there was discovered and confiscated to the value of fourscore talents, as Theophrastus writes, Theopompus says a hundred; though Themistocles was never worth three talents before he was concerned in public affairs. When he arrived at Cyme, and understood that all along the coast there were many laid wait for him, and particularly Ergoteles and Pythodorus (for the game was worth the hunting for such as were thankful to make money by any means, the king of Persia having offered by public proclamation two hundred talents to him that should take him), he fled to Aegae, a small city of the Aeolians, where no one knew him but only his host Nicogenes, who was the richest man in Aeolia, and well known to the great men of Inner Asia. While Themistocles lay hid for some days in his house, one night, after a sacrifice and supper ensuing, Olbius, the attendant upon Nicogenes’s children, fell into a sort of frenzy and fit of inspiration, and cried out in verse,— Night shall speak, and night instruct thee, By the voice of night conduct thee. After this, Themistocles, going to bed, dreamed that he saw a snake coil itself up upon his belly, and so creep to his neck; then, as soon as it touched his face, it turned into an eagle, which spread its wings over him, and took him up and flew away with him a great distance; then there appeared a herald’s golden wand, and upon this at last it set him down securely, after infinite terror and disturbance. His departure was effected by Nicogenes by the following artifice; the barbarous nations, and amongst them the Persians especially, are extremely jealous, severe, and suspicious about their women, not only their wives, but also their bought slaves and concubines, whom they keep so strictly that no one ever sees them abroad; they spend their lives shut up within doors, and, when they take a journey, are carried in close tents, curtained in on all sides, and set upon a wagon. Such a traveling carriage being prepared for Themistocles, they hid him in it, and carried him on his journeys and told those whom they met or spoke with upon the road that they were conveying a young Greek woman out of Ionia to a nobleman at court. Thucydides and Charon of Lampsacus say that Xerxes was dead, and that Themistocles had an interview with his son; but Ephorus, Dinon, Clitarchus, Heraclides, and many others, write that he came to Xerxes. The chronological tables better agree with the account of Thucydides, and yet neither can their statements be said to be quite set at rest. When Themistocles was come to the critical point, he applied himself first to Artabanus, commander of a thousand men, telling him that he was a Greek, and desired to speak with the king about important affairs concerning which the king was extremely solicitous. Artabanus answered him, “O stranger, the laws of men are different, and one thing is honorable to one man, and to others another; but it is honorable for all to honor and observe their own laws. It is the habit of the Greeks, we are told, to honor, above all things, liberty and equality; but amongst our many excellent laws, we account this the most excellent, to honor the king, and to worship him, as the image of the great preserver of the universe; if, then, you shall consent to our laws, and fall down before the king and worship him, you may both see him and speak to him; but if your mind be otherwise, you must make use of others to intercede for you, for it is not the national custom here for the king to give audience to anyone that doth not fall down before him.” Themistocles, hearing this, replied, “Artabanus, I that come hither to increase the power and glory of the king, will not only submit myself to his laws, since so it hath pleased the god who exalteth the Persian empire to this greatness, but will also cause many more to be worshippers and adorers of the king. Let not this, therefore, be an impediment why I should not communicate to the king what I have to impart.” Artabanus asking him, “Who must we tell him that you are? for your words signify you to be no ordinary person,” Themistocles answered, “No man, O Artabanus, must be informed of this before the king himself.” Thus Phanias relates; to which Eratosthenes, in his treatise on Riches, adds, that it was by the means of a woman of Eretria, who was kept by Artabanus, that he obtained this audience and interview with him. When he was introduced to the king, and had paid his reverence to him, he stood silent, till the king commanding the interpreter to ask him who he was, he replied, “O king, I am Themistocles the Athenian, driven into banishment by the Greeks. The evils that I have done to the Persians are numerous; but my benefits to them yet greater, in withholding the Greeks from pursuit, so soon as the deliverance of my own country allowed me to show kindness also to you. I come with a mind suited to my present calamities; prepared alike for favors and for anger; to welcome your gracious reconciliation, and to deprecate your wrath. Take my own countrymen for witnesses of the services I have done for Persia, and make use of this occasion to show the world your virtue, rather than to satisfy your indignation. If you save me, you will save your suppliant; if otherwise, will destroy an enemy of the Greeks.” He talked also of divine admonitions, such as the vision which he saw at Nicogenes’s house, and the direction given him by the oracle of Dodona, where Jupiter commanded him to go to him that had a name like his, by which he understood that he was sent from Jupiter to him, seeing that they both were great, and had the name of kings. The king heard him attentively, and, though he admired his temper and courage, gave him no answer at that time; but, when he was with his intimate friends, rejoiced in his great good fortune, and esteemed himself very happy in this, and prayed to his god Arimanius, that all his enemies might be ever of the same mind with the Greeks, to abuse and expel the bravest men amongst them. Then he sacrificed to the gods, and presently fell to drinking, and was so well pleased, that in the night, in the middle of his sleep, he cried out for joy three times, “I have Themistocles the Athenian.” In the morning, calling together the chief of his court, he had Themistocles brought before him, who expected no good of it, when he saw, for example, the guards fiercely set against him as soon as they learnt his name, and giving him ill language. As he came forward towards the king, who was seated, the rest keeping silence, passing by Roxanes, a commander of a thousand men, he heard him, with a slight groan, say, without stirring out of his place, “You subtle Greek serpent, the king’s good genius hath brought thee hither.” Yet, when he came into the presence, and again fell down, the king saluted him, and spoke to him kindly, telling him he was now indebted to him two hundred talents; for it was just and reasonable that he should receive the reward which was proposed to whosoever should bring Themistocles; and promising much more, and encouraging him, he commanded him to speak freely what he would concerning the affairs of Greece. Themistocles replied, that a man’s discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost; and, therefore, he desired time. The king being pleased with the comparison, and bidding him take what time he would, he desired a year; in which time, having, learnt the Persian language sufficiently, he spoke with the king by himself without the help of an interpreter, it being supposed that he discoursed only about the affairs of Greece; but there happening, at the same time, great alterations at court, and removals of the king’s favorites, he drew upon himself the envy of the great people, who imagined that he had taken the boldness to speak concerning them. For the favors shown to other strangers were nothing in comparison with the honors conferred on him; the king invited him to partake of his own pastimes and recreations both at home and abroad, carrying him with him a-hunting, and made him his intimate so far that he permitted him to see the queen-mother, and converse frequently with her. By the king’s command, he also was made acquainted with the Magian learning. When Demaratus the Lacedaemonian, being ordered by the king to ask whatsoever he pleased, and it should immediately be granted him, desired that he might make his public entrance, and be carried in state through the city of Sardis, with the tiara set in the royal manner upon his head, Mithropaustes, cousin to the king, touched him on the head, and told him that he had no brains for the royal tiara to cover, and if Jupiter should give him his lightning and thunder, he would not any the more be Jupiter for that; the king also repulsed him with anger resolving never to be reconciled to him, but to be inexorable to all supplications on his behalf. Yet Themistocles pacified him, and prevailed with him to forgive him. And it is reported, that the succeeding kings, in whose reigns there was a greater communication between the Greeks and Persians, when they invited any considerable Greek into their service, to encourage him, would write, and promise him that he should be as great with them as Themistocles had been. They relate, also, how Themistocles, when he was in great prosperity, and courted by many, seeing himself splendidly served at his table turned to his children and said, “Children, we had been undone if we had not been undone.” Most writers say that he had three cities given him, Magnesia, Myus, and Lampsacus, to maintain him in bread, meat, and wine. Neanthes of Cyzicus, and Phanias, add two more, the city of Palaescepsis, to provide him with clothes, and Percote, with bedding and furniture for his house. As he was going down towards the sea-coast to take measures against Greece, a Persian whose name was Epixyes, governor of the upper Phrygia, laid wait to kill him, having for that purpose provided a long time before a number of Pisidians, who were to set upon him when he should stop to rest at a city that is called Lion’s-head. But Themistocles, sleeping in the middle of the day, saw the Mother of the gods appear to him in a dream and say unto him, “Themistocles, keep back from the Lion’s-head, for fear you fall into the lion’s jaws; for this advice I expect that your daughter Mnesiptolema should be my servant.” Themistocles was much astonished, and, when he had made his vows to the goddess, left the broad road, and, making a circuit, went another way, changing his intended station to avoid that place, and at night took up his rest in the fields. But one of the sumpter-horses, which carried the furniture for his tent, having fallen that day into the river, his servants spread out the tapestry, which was wet, and hung it up to dry; in the mean time the Pisidians made towards them with their swords drawn, and, not discerning exactly by the moon what it was that was stretched out thought it to be the tent of Themistocles, and that they should find him resting himself within it; but when they came near, and lifted up the hangings, those who watched there fell upon them and took them. Themistocles, having escaped this great danger, in admiration of the goodness of the goddess that appeared to him, built, in memory of it, a temple in the city of Magnesia, which he dedicated to Dindymene, Mother of the gods, in which he consecrated and devoted his daughter Mnesiptolema to her service. When he came to Sardis, he visited the temples of the gods, and observing, at his leisure, their buildings, ornaments, and the number of their offerings, he saw in the temple of the Mother of the gods, the statue of a virgin in brass, two cubits high, called the water-bringer. Themistocles had caused this to be made and set up when he was surveyor of waters at Athens, out of the fines of those whom he detected in drawing off and diverting the public water by pipes for their private use; and whether he had some regret to see this image in captivity, or was desirous to let the Athenians see in what great credit and authority he was with the king, he entered into a treaty with the governor of Lydia to persuade him to send this statue back to Athens, which so enraged the Persian officer, that he told him he would write the king word of it. Themistocles, being affrighted hereat, got access to his wives and concubines, by presents of money to whom, he appeased the fury of the governor; and afterwards behaved with more reserve and circumspection, fearing the envy of the Persians, and did not, as Theopompus writes, continue to travel about Asia, but lived quietly in his own house in Magnesia, where for a long time he passed his days in great security, being courted by all, and enjoying rich presents, and honored equally with the greatest persons in the Persian empire; the king, at that time, not minding his concerns with Greece, being taken up with the affairs of Inner Asia. But when Egypt revolted, being assisted by the Athenians, and the Greek galleys roved about as far as Cyprus and Cilicia, and Cimon had made himself master of the seas, the king turned his thoughts thither, and, bending his mind chiefly to resist the Greeks, and to check the growth of their power against him, began to raise forces, and send out commanders, and to dispatch messengers to Themistocles at Magnesia, to put him in mind of his promise, and to summon him to act against the Greeks. Yet this did not increase his hatred nor exasperate him against the Athenians, neither was he any way elevated with the thoughts of the honor and powerful command he was to have in this war; but judging, perhaps, that the object would not be attained, the Greeks having at that time, beside other great commanders, Cimon, in particular, who was gaining wonderful military successes; but chiefly, being ashamed to sully the glory of his former great actions, and of his many victories and trophies, he determined to put a conclusion to his life, agreeable to its previous course. He sacrificed to the gods, and invited his friends; and, having entertained them and shaken hands with them, drank bull’s blood, as is the usual story; as others state, a poison producing instant death; and ended his days in the city of Magnesia, having lived sixty-five years, most of which he had spent in politics and in the wars, in government and command. The king, being informed of the cause and manner of his death, admired him more than ever, and continued to show kindness to his friends and relations. Themistocles left three sons by Archippe, daughter to Lysander of Alopece, — Archeptolis, Polyeuctus, and Cleophantus. Plato the philosopher mentions the last as a most excellent horseman, but otherwise insignificant person; of two sons yet older than these, Neocles and Diocles, Neocles died when he was young by the bite of a horse, and Diocles was adopted by his grandfather, Lysander. He had many daughters, of whom Mnesiptolema, whom he had by a second marriage, was wife to Archeptolis, her brother by another mother; Italia was married to Panthoides, of the island of Chios; Sybaris to Nicomedes the Athenian. After the death of Themistocles, his nephew, Phrasicles, went to Magnesia, and married, with her brothers’ consent, another daughter, Nicomache, and took charge of her sister Asia, the youngest of all the children. The Magnesians possess a splendid sepulchre of Themistocles, placed in the middle of their market-place. It is not worthwhile taking notice of what Andocides states in his Address to his Friends concerning his remains, how the Athenians robbed his tomb, and threw his ashes into the air; for he feigns this, to exasperate the oligarchical faction against the people; and there is no man living but knows that Phylarchus simply invents in his history, where he all but uses an actual stage machine, and brings in Neocles and Demopolis as the sons of Themistocles, to incite or move compassion, as if he were writing a tragedy. Diodorus the cosmographer says, in his work on Tombs, but by conjecture rather than of certain knowledge, that near to the haven of Piraeus, where the land runs out like an elbow from the promontory of Alcimus, when you have doubled the cape and passed inward where the sea is always calm, there is a large piece of masonry, and upon this the tomb of Themistocles, in the shape of an altar; and Plato the comedian confirms this, he believes, in these verses,— Thy tomb is fairly placed upon the strand, Where merchants still shall greet it with the land; Still in and out ’twill see them come and go, And watch the galleys as they race below. Various honors also and privileges were granted to the kindred of Themistocles at Magnesia, which were observed down to our times, and were enjoyed by another Themistocles of Athens, with whom I had an intimate acquaintance and friendship in the house of Ammonius the philosopher.
PLUTARCH’S LIVES
By A. H. Clough
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Maeda Narihiro, Lord of Kanazawa Castle in Ishikawa District of Kaga Province, every time he went up to the Honmaru in Yedo Castle to serve the Shōgun, was sure to take his favorite pipe along. Made by Sumiyoshiya Shichibei, a then famous pipe maker, it was an elegant piece of workmanship of pure gold with the plum-blossom-and-spear-point crest scattered over it. Under the system of the Tokugawa government, the Maedas, when on duty at the Shōgun’s castle, had taken precedence immediately after the three families of Owari, Kii and Mito ever since the time of the fifth lord of Kaga, Tsunanori. Of course, in riches too they were practically without a peer among the greater and lesser lords of the time. So it was only to have an ornament suitable to his station that Narihiro, the head of the family at that time, carried a pipe of pure gold. But Narihiro was exceedingly proud of carrying that pipe. I should explain, however, that his pride was due in no sense to a fondness for the thing itself. He was delighted because the power which enabled him to use such a pipe daily was superior to that of the other lords. In short we may say that he was proud of being able to carry about with him everywhere the million koku of rice of Kaga Province in the form of this pure gold pipe. So Narihiro was almost never without his pipe while [Pg 112]in attendance at the Shōgun’s castle. Of course when conversing with others and even when alone, he was sure to take it from the bosom of his kimono, and putting it in his mouth vaingloriously, puff calmly away at Nagasaki or some such fragrant tobacco. Of course this feeling of pride may not have been of such an arrogant nature as to make him deliberately show off the pipe and the million koku represented by it. But even though he did not show it off himself, it was clearly evident that the attention of the whole palace was concentrated on it. And the consciousness of that attention gave Narihiro a rather pleasant feeling. Indeed after he had been asked by other lords present just to show them the pipe, as it was such a splendid one, he felt that even the familiar smoke of the tobacco bit his tongue more agreeably. II Among those astonished at the pure gold pipe carried by Narihiro, those who liked to talk about it most were the shave-pate attendants called obōzu. Whenever they met, they put their noses together and chattered away at each other, as they loved to, on the subject of Kaga’s pipe. “It’s an article fit for a lord.” “And what’s more, such a thing has intrinsic value.” “If you pawned it, how much do you suppose it would bring?” “Who but you would ever pawn it?” In general, such was the tone of their conversations. [Pg 113] Then one day when five or six of them had their round heads together smoking and talking about the pipe as usual, Kōchiyama Sōshun, attendant of the Osukiya, came by chance where they were. (He was the man who came in later years to play the chief rôle among the “Six Poetical Geniuses of the Tempō Period.”) “H’m, that pipe again?” he grunted, looking askance at the group. “It’s a splendid thing both as to carving and the metal of which it’s made. To us who haven’t even silver pipes, it’s an eyesore—” The attendant Ryōtetsu, who was letting himself go for a little speech, suddenly noticed that Sōshun had drawn over his tobacco pouch and, having filled his own pipe from it, was calmly blowing smoke rings into the air. “Here, here, that’s not your pouch!” “That’s all right.” Without so much as looking at Ryōtetsu, Sōshun filled his pipe again. And when he had smoked it up, he threw back the pouch with a suppressed yawn and said, “Faw, that’s bad tobacco. A nice pipe-fancier, you!” Ryōtetsu put away his tobacco pouch hurriedly. “Nonsense! In a gold pipe, it’d taste pretty good, all right.” “H’m, that pipe again?” said Sōshun for the second time. “If you think so much of pure gold, why don’t you go and ask him to give you the pipe?” “Ask him to give me the pipe?” “Yes.” [Pg 114] Even Ryōtetsu seemed surprised at Sōshun’s audacity. “However avaricious I may be,—at least, if it were silver, it would be different. But it’s pure gold, that pipe.” “Of course it is. That’s just why you ought to ask for it. Who’d ever go and get anybody to give him a brass pipe?” “But I’d be a bit ashamed.” Ryōtetsu gave his closely shaven pate one tap and struck a posture of reverential awe. “If you don’t get it, I will. See? Don’t be envious afterwards.” So saying, Kōchiyama, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, shrugged his shoulders and laughed derisively. III While Narihiro was smoking as usual in a room in the palace, one of the golden doors with a picture of Seiōbo painted on it slid quietly open and an attendant clad in a darkish kimono of kihachijō silk and a crested black haori crawled reverentially into his presence. As he did not raise his face, it was not yet evident who he was. Narihiro, as he thought the man had come on some business, rapped his pipe and said generously, “What is it?” “Er,—Sōshun has a request to make.” So saying, Kōchiyama paused for a moment. Then, as he went on, he slowly raised his head and finally fixed his eyes on Narihiro’s face. He fixed them there like a snake charming its victim, overflowing the while with that peculiar amiability possessed only by men of his sort. [Pg 115] “It’s only this, that I should like very much to have you give me that pipe there in your hand.” Narihiro unconsciously dropped his eyes to the pipe in his hand. At practically the same moment, Kōchiyama went on as if following him up, “What do you say? Will you give it to me?” Sōshun’s words had in them something that was not simply a feeling of supplication but also that sense of overbearing peculiar to the attendant class in their relations with all daimyō. In the palace, where complicated ceremony was held in high esteem, every lord of the land had to follow the guidance of the attendants. On the one hand, Narihiro was at this disadvantage. And on the other hand, for the sake of his good name, he felt that he would not like to be called miserly. Besides, a pure gold pipe was by no means a difficult thing for him to obtain. When these two motives became one, his hand of itself placed the pipe before Kōchiyama. “Certainly I’ll give it to you. Take it along.” “Thank you.” Sōshun took the pipe and, raising it reverentially to his head, hastily withdrew again beyond the sliding door with Seiōbo on it. Then just as he turned to go away, somebody pulled at his sleeve from behind. He looked round, and there was Ryōtetsu with a grin on his pock-marked face pointing covetously at the pipe resting on Sōshun’s palm. “Here, have a look,” whispered Kōchiyama, holding the bowl of the pipe under Ryōtetsu’s nose. “You finally got it out of him, didn’t you?” [Pg 116] “Didn’t I tell you? It’s no use your being envious now.” “Next I’ll go and get him to give me one.” “H’m, do as you like.” Kōchiyama tried the weight of the pipe once and then, with a glance toward Narihiro beyond the sliding door, again shrugged his shoulders and laughed derisively. IV As for Narihiro, who had been wheedled out of his pipe, he was not so unhappy as you might suppose. This was evident from the fact that when he retired from the castle, the samurai attending him were surprised to find an expression on his face which seemed to indicate an unusually pleasant frame of mind. He felt a sort of satisfaction at having given the pipe to Sōshun. Perhaps this satisfaction was greater in degree than that he had felt when he had the pipe. But this was most natural. Because, as has already been explained, his pride in the pipe lay not in his fondness for the thing itself. Really he was proud of his million koku in the form of the pipe. Wherefore, just as his vanity was satisfied by the using of this pure gold pipe, would it not be the more fully satisfied by the giving of it willingly to another? Even if he was somewhat governed by outside circumstances when he gave it to Kōchiyama, his satisfaction was not the least bit lessened by that fact. So when Narihiro returned to his residence in Hongo, he pleasantly said to the retainers nearest him, “I gave the attendant Sōshun my pipe.” [Pg 117] V When Narihiro’s household heard this, everybody was surprised at his generosity. But just three men, Yamazaki Kanzaemon, chamberlain, Iwata Kuranosuke, keeper of the stores, and Ueki Kurouemon, treasurer, involuntarily knit their brows. Of course the cost of one pure gold pipe was nothing to the finances of the Kaga Clan. But if one had to be given to an attendant every time Narihiro went to the castle on festival days, and the first, the fifteenth, and the twenty-eighth of every month, it would entail an alarming expenditure. There was no denying that the taxes might have to be increased to pay for the pipes. That would be terrible, and the three loyal samurai were one in their anticipatory fear. Therefore they decided to hold a council at once and devise remedial measures. But of course there was only one possible remedial measure, and that was to change entirely the material of which the pipe was made and use some metal that the attendants would not covet. But Iwata and Ueki differed in their opinions as to what metal should be used. Iwata said it would be derogatory to the honor of their lord to use any metal cheaper than silver. Ueki thought that, if they wanted to put a stop to the avarice of the attendants, nothing could be better than the use of brass. To regard honor now was temporizing. Each stuck to his own opinion and argued for it hotly. Then the experienced Yamazaki said that there was [Pg 118]the greatest reason in both opinions and offered a compromise, suggesting that they might try silver first, and then, if the attendants were still covetous, it would not be too late to use brass afterwards. Of course neither could make objection to this. So the council at last decided to order Sumiyoshiya Shichibei to make a silver pipe. VI Thereafter Narihiro carried a silver pipe with him every time he went to the castle. It, too, was a most elaborate pipe with the plum-blossom-and-spear-point crest scattered over it. Of course he was not so proud of the new pipe as he had been of the old one. In the first place, he seldom took it in his hand even when he was conversing with others. Even when he did, he put it away again immediately. This was because the same Nagasaki tobacco did not taste so good to him as it had when he smoked it in his pure gold pipe. But the changing of the metal of which the pipe was made did not affect only Narihiro. As the three loyal retainers had expected, it had an effect on the attendants as well. However, in the end, this effect utterly betrayed their expectation. For when the attendants saw that the gold had been replaced with silver, even those of them who had up to this time stood back because of the pure gold raced to ask for a pipe. Moreover, Narihiro, who begrudged not even a pure gold pipe, naturally was not averse to giving away a silver pipe. Whenever he was asked for one, he promptly tossed it [Pg 119]away ungrudgingly. Finally even he himself could not say whether he gave away a pipe when he went to the castle or went to the castle to give away a pipe,—at least, he hardly could. At this, Yamazaki, Iwata and Ueki knit their brows and conferred again. Now at last there was nothing for it but to make brass pipes as Ueki had proposed. Then when they were just on the verge of sending an order to Sumiyoshiya Shichibei as usual, a personal attendant came to them with a message from Narihiro. “Our liege lord says that when he carries a silver pipe, he’s tormented by the attendants’ importunities. Henceforward you are to make his pipes of gold as heretofore.” The three were struck dumb and knew not what to do. VII Kōchiyama Sōshun sourly watched the other attendants vying with one another each to get a silver pipe from Narihiro. Especially when he saw Ryōtetsu overjoyed at getting one when Narihiro went to the castle on the first of the eighth month, he went so far as to abuse him roundly and call him a fool in his usual sharp and peevish voice. It was by no means that he was not covetous of a silver pipe, but he felt his dignity too much to run after one with the other attendants. Troubled by the conflict between his pride and his avarice, he kept his eye on Narihiro’s pipe constantly, pretending indifference, the while he was saying to himself, “Wait and see. I’ll soon put their noses out of joint.” [Pg 120] Then one day he noticed that Narihiro was calmly puffing away at a pure gold pipe again. But it seemed that not an attendant was going to ask for it. So he stopped Ryōtetsu, who was just then passing, and slyly pointing in Narihiro’s direction with his chin, whispered, “He’s got a pure gold one again, hasn’t he?” When Ryōtetsu heard this, he looked at Sōshun with an amazed expression on his face. “You’d better show some moderation in your greed. When, even with silver pipes, he’s importuned so much, why would he want to carry a pure gold pipe again?” “Then what is it?” “Brass, I should say.” Sōshun shrugged his shoulders. He looked all about him carefully and did not raise his voice in laughter. “All right, if it’s brass, let it be brass. I’m going to get it.” “Why do you think it’s gold again?” asked Ryōtetsu, his assurance seeming to weaken. “He knows your minds. Pretending that it’s brass, he’s brought a pure gold one. To begin with, a lord with a million koku of rice wouldn’t meekly carry a brass pipe.” Sōshun said this rapidly and went in alone to Narihiro, leaving the astonished Ryōtetsu outside that golden sliding door on which was the picture of Seiōbo. An hour later, Ryōtetsu met Kōchiyama in the matted corridor and asked, “What happened, Sōshun, in that matter?” “What do you mean, that matter?” [Pg 121] Ryōtetsu, sticking out his lower lip, stared into his face and said, “Don’t sham. The matter of the pipe, of course.” “Oh, the pipe? If it’s the pipe you mean, I’ll give it to you.” Kōchiyama took a shiny yellow pipe out of the bosom of his kimono and, throwing it into Ryōtetsu’s face before he had more than caught a glimpse of it, walked hastily away. Ryōtetsu, rubbing the place where the pipe had hit him, grumblingly picked it up from where it had fallen and, looking at it, found it to be an elegant piece of workmanship with the plum-blossom-and-spear-point crest scattered over it and made of—brass! With a gesture of detestation, he threw it down on the mats again and, lifting a foot inclosed in a one-toed shoe of white cloth, went with exaggeration through the motion of stamping on it. VIII After that the attendants’ begging of pipes from Narihiro came to an abrupt end. This was because Sōshun and Ryōtetsu proved to them that the pipe he carried was made of brass. Then Narihiro’s three faithful retainers, who had temporarily deceived him with a brass pipe made to look like gold, after conferring together again, commanded Sumiyoshiya Shichibei to make a pure gold pipe. It had the plum-blossom-and-spear-point crest scattered over it and did not differ in the least from the one Kōchiyama [Pg 122]had received in the beginning. In his heart looking forward to the importunities of the attendants, Narihiro went triumphantly to the castle with the pipe. But not a single attendant came to ask him for it. Even Kōchiyama, who had already begged two of them out of him, took but a single glance at this one and, with a slight bow, went away. The other daimyō present maintained silence and, of course, never asked to see it. This seemed strange to Narihiro. No, it was not just strange. In the end, it made him vaguely uneasy. So when he saw Kōchiyama coming again, he spoke first himself this time. “Sōshun, don’t you want me to give you a pipe?” “No, thank you, I’ve already had one.” Sōshun probably thought to make sport of Narihiro. There was a sharpness in the way these polite words were spoken. When Narihiro heard them, his face clouded with displeasure. The flavor of his Nagasaki tobacco was no longer sweet in his mouth. For suddenly he felt that the power of his million koku, of which he had been sensible up to this time, was vanishing away utterly like the smoke rising from the end of his pure gold pipe. According to men now grown old, in the Maeda family, after Narihiro, both Nariyasu and Noriyasu used only brass pipes, and this may well have been the result of a death-bed warning left to his descendants by Narihiro, whose pure gold pipe had taught him a lesson.
subota, 7. ožujka 2026.
It was the hottest it had been for years. On every hand the roof tiles of the stone-floored houses reflected the sunlight dully like lead, and it seemed that, if this kept up, the little swallows and eggs in the nests under them must be steamed to death. In addition, in every field, the hemp and millet plants all hung their heads limply in the radiation from the soil, and there was not one, though they were still green, that did not droop. And the sky above the fields, probably because of the hot weather, seemed dull, although the sun was shining bright, and cloud masses floated here and there like bits of rice cake puffed up in an earthen pan. This story of the wine worm begins with three men out deliberately on a blistering flailing floor under the burning sun. Strange to say, one of them not only was lying naked on his back on the ground, but, for some reason or other, had his hands and his feet bound up in a long cord. However, he seemed not to be greatly troubled about it. He was a short and sanguine man, fat as a pig, who somehow gave an impression of dullness. An unglazed jar of moderate size stood by his head, but it was impossible to say what was in it. The second was a man in a yellow robe with little rings of bronze in his ears, who at a glance was recognizable[Pg 78] as an eccentric Buddhist priest. From his exceptionally dark skin and his frizzled hair and beard, he seemed certainly to be from west of T’sung-ling. He had for some time been moving a whip of long white hairs with a red handle patiently back and forth to drive away the horse-flies and common house-flies that swarmed about the naked man, but now seeming naturally to have grown a little tired, he had come to the unglazed jar and was squatting solemnly beside it like a turkey cock. The remaining man was standing under the eaves of a thatched house in a corner of the flailing floor far from the other two. He had on the tip of his chin a mere excuse for a beard like a rat’s tail and was dressed in a long black gown reaching to the ground, tied with an untidily knotted brown sash. Since he now and then fanned himself importantly with a fan of white feathers, he was, of course, a Confucian scholar or something of the kind. All three held their tongues as if by agreement. Moreover they did not even move freely, and it seemed as if, deeply interested in something that was about to happen, they were all holding their breath. It seemed to be just noon. Not a dog’s bark was to be heard, doubtless because the dogs were all taking their midday naps. The hemp and millet plants around the flailing floor stood still and motionless, with their green leaves shining in the sunlight. In all the sky beyond them, a sultry mist floated stiflingly hot, and it seemed that even the cloud masses were gasping for breath in this drought. As far as eye could see, the only things that [Pg 79]seemed to be alive were these three men. And they kept silent like the clay figures in the shrines of Kwanti. Of course this is not a Japanese story. It is an account of what happened one summer’s day on the flailing floor of a man named Liu at Changshan in China. II The man who lay naked under the blazing sun was the owner of the flailing floor, Liu Tai-cheng, one of the prominent rich men of Changshan. His only pleasure was drinking, and all day long he and his cup were practically inseparable. And since “he drank up a jar of wine every time he helped himself,” he was no ordinary drinker. But as has already been intimated, he owned “three hundred acres of rich suburban fields, of which one half was planted to millet,” there was no fear whatever of his drinking playing havoc with his fortune. And the reason he was lying naked in the hot sun was this: That day as Liu leaned on a Dutch wife of bamboo in an airy room playing checkers with Master Sun, one of his fellow tipplers (the Confucian scholar with the white fan), a little girl servant had come to him and said, “A priest who says he’s from Pao Chang S’su or some such temple has just come and says he must see you. What shall I do?” “What? Pao Chang S’su?” said Liu, and he blinked his little eyes as if dazzled; then raising his hot-looking fat body, he said, “Well, then, show him in [Pg 80]here.” Then glancing at Master Sun, he added, “It’s probably that priest.” The priest of Pao Chang S’su was a mountain priest from Hsisu. He was famous in the neighborhood for his healing ability and the administering of aphrodisiacs. For instance, there were afloat many all but miraculous rumors of the sudden change for the better of this man’s amaurosis or of the immediate recovery of that man from sterility. Both Liu and Sun had heard these rumors. On what errand could this mountain priest have deliberately called at Liu’s? Of course Liu himself had not the least recollection of ever having sent for him. You should know that Liu was not at all such a man as to be pleased at the arrival of a caller. But if, when he had one guest, another came, he usually received him quite gladly. This was because he had a childish vanity that we may even say made him proud to have one visitor in the presence of another. Moreover, this mountain priest was highly spoken of everywhere at that time. He was by no means a visitor to be ashamed of. The motives that moved Liu to say he would see him lay for the greater part in such considerations. “I wonder what he wants.” “Well, he’s a beggar. He’ll probably ask for alms.” The visitor who was shown in by the little girl servant while the two were talking was a grotesque Buddhist priest, tall and with eyes like amethysts. He was in a yellow robe, and his frizzly hair hung down over his shoulders troublesomely. With his red-handled fly-whisk in his hand, he stood ungainly in the center of the [Pg 81]room. He neither made any sign of greeting nor opened his mouth. Liu waited for a little, but meanwhile somehow becoming uneasy, he asked, “Is there something you want with me?” Then the mountain priest said, “You’re the man, aren’t you? The one that’s fond of wine?” “Uh,” said Liu vaguely, the question being so sudden, and he looked at Master Sun as if asking help. That worthy was coolly placing men on the checker board all by himself. He showed no signs of taking any notice. “You’re suffering from a strange disease. Do you know that?” said the mountain priest emphatically. At the word “disease,” Liu looked dubious and, stroking his Dutch wife of bamboo, said, “Disease, did you say?” “Yes.” “No, not since my infancy—,” Liu began, when the bonze interrupted him. “You never get drunk when you drink, do you?” Staring at the priest’s face, Liu closed his mouth. In truth, however much he drank, this man had never been drunk. “That proves it’s a disease,” said the mountain priest, and then, smiling a little, he added, “There’s a wine worm in your belly. Unless you get rid of it, you’ll never get well. I’ve come to cure you.” “Can you?” asked Liu involuntarily in an uncertain voice. Then he was ashamed of it himself. “That’s just why I’ve come.” [Pg 82] Then Sun, who up till now had sat silently listening to the dialogue, put in a word. “Will you use some sort of medicine?” “No, there’s no need to use medicine,” answered the mountain priest curtly. Master Sun had always despised both Buddhism and Taoism almost beyond reason. So when he was with Taoist or Buddhist priests he seldom talked. The reason he now suddenly spoke was that his interest was aroused by the name, “wine worm,” for when he heard it, being fond of wine himself, he grew a little uneasy lest there might be such a worm in his own belly. But when he heard the mountain priest’s grudging answer, he felt as if he had been made a fool of and, frowning, began to place the men silently on the board again. And at the same time, he began to feel in his own mind that his host Liu was a fool ever to have seen such an arrogant priest. Of course Liu payed no attention. “Then will you use a needle?” “No, it’s easier than that.” “Then is it magic?” “No, it’s not magic either.” After this little colloquy, the mountain priest briefly explained the treatment. According to his explanation, the only thing necessary was to strip naked and remain motionless in the sunshine. This seemed to Liu very easy. If he could be cured that easily, nothing could be better than to have himself cured. Moreover, though unconsciously, he had a little curiosity to see how it would feel to be cured by this mountain priest. [Pg 83] So at last, making a little bow with his head, he said, “Then please just cure me once.” Thus Liu came to be lying naked in the broiling sun on the flailing floor. And as the mountain priest said that he must not move, he was all wound round with a cord. Then one of Liu’s servants was ordered to bring an unglazed jar with wine in it and put it near Liu’s head. Of course, since he happened to be present, it was decided that Master Sun, his good drinking companion, should remain in attendance at this curious cure. No one except the mountain priest knew what a wine worm was, or what would happen when it was no longer in the stomach, or what the jar by Liu’s head was for. Then you may think that Liu lying out in the burning heat naked without knowing what he was doing was a stupid fellow, but ordinary people receiving a school education are really doing very much the same sort of thing. III It was hot. Sweat came out on his forehead little by little, and no sooner would it form into beads than they would suddenly run warmly into his eyes. Unfortunately, being tied up with the cord, he of course could not wipe them away with his hands. Then he tried to change their course by moving his head, but the effort made him feel as if he was going to be violently dizzy, so he regretfully gave up this plan, too. Meanwhile the sweat, without the least ceremony, wet his eyelids, and going around his [Pg 84]nose and mouth, ran down under his chin. It was extremely disagreeable. Until then, he had kept his eyes open blinking at the scorching white sky and the field of hemp with its drooping leaves, but after the sweat began to run profusely, he was obliged to give up even that. Then Liu became aware for the first time that when sweat gets into the eyes, it smarts. So closing his eyes meekly with the expression of a sheep about to be slaughtered, he steadfastly let himself be burned by the sun, and now all over his face and body, every inch of skin on the side that was up began little by little to pain. Over the whole surface of his skin, a force was at work trying to move in every direction, but the skin itself had not an iota of elasticity. So to say that he was one big smart probably best describes his pain. The sweat was nothing compared to this pain. Liu regretted a little that he had submitted himself to the mountain priest’s treatment. But considered afterwards, this was still one of the less painful parts. While it was going on, he began to feel thirsty. He knew that Tsao Mêng-tê or somebody had once quenched his soldiers’ thirst by telling them that there was a plum orchard ahead of them. But no matter how hard he thought of the sweet sourness of plums, he felt just as thirsty as ever. He tried moving his chin and biting his tongue, but his mouth remained as feverish as ever. And it would certainly have been somewhat easier for him to bear had the unglazed jar not been sitting by his head. But from the mouth of the jar, the sweet fragrance of the wine assaulted his nose incessantly. [Pg 85]Moreover, perhaps because of his state of mind, he even felt the fragrance of the wine growing stronger and stronger every minute. Thinking that at least he would have a look at the jar, he raised his eyes. Rolling them up, he saw the mouth of the jar and the upper half of its generously bulging side. This was all he saw with his eyes, but at the same time there floated into his imagination the brimming golden wine in its shadowy interior. Unconsciously he licked his chapped lips once around with his parched tongue, but there was not the least indication of any saliva. Even the sweat, dried up by the sun, now ceased to flow. Then followed in succession two or three severe attacks of dizziness. His head had ached incessantly for some time. In his heart, he gradually came to hate the mountain priest. He wondered why he, in his position, had ever allowed himself to be taken in by such a man’s fair speeches and made to suffer such fool’s pain. Meanwhile his throat became drier and drier. His chest became strangely queasy. He could bear to lie still no longer. So at last he boldly determined to ask the priest to stop operations and, panting, opened his mouth. Then the thing happened. Liu began to feel an indescribable mass creeping up little by little from his breast into his throat. Sometimes it seemed to be wriggling like an earthworm and sometimes to be crawling step by step like a gecko. Anyhow some soft thing, in all its softness, was slowly making its way up along his gullet. At last, just as he felt that it had forced its way past his Adam’s apple, something like a loach suddenly slipped [Pg 86]out of the dark interior and sprang energetically into the outer world. At that instant from the jar was heard a sound like something dropping with a flop into the wine. Then the mountain priest suddenly got up from where he had been calmly squatting and began to untie the cord wound round Liu’s body. Now that the wine worm was out, they might feel easy. “Did it come out?” said Liu in a voice like a groan, and raising his dizzy head and in the greatness of his curiosity forgetting even his thirst, he crawled naked as he was to the jar. When Master Sun saw this, he hurried to the others protecting himself against the sun with his fan of white feathers. There, when the three peeped into the jar together, they saw something like a small salamander, flesh-colored like cinnabar, swimming about in the wine. It was some three inches long. It had both mouth and eyes. As it swam, it seemed to be drinking the wine. When Liu saw this, he suddenly felt sick. IV The effect of the mountain priest’s treatment was immediately evident. From that day, Liu Tai-cheng never drank another drop of wine. Now he hates even the smell of it. But, strange to say, his health has declined little by little ever since. This is the third year since he vomited the wine worm, and there is left no shadow of his former plump round form. His sallow greasy skin is stretched over his bony face and only a little grizzled hair remains above his temples, and it is [Pg 87]said that he takes to his bed innumerable times during the year. But it is not only Liu’s health that has declined ever since that time. His fortune also has declined rapidly, and his three hundred acres of rich suburban fields have almost all passed into other hands. He himself has been compelled to take the spade in his own unaccustomed hands and lead a miserable day-to-day existence. Why has Liu’s health declined ever since he vomited the wine worm? Why has his fortune declined? Such questions are likely to occur to any one who considers his ruin in the light of cause and effect. In truth these questions are considered and reconsidered by people in all sorts of occupations in Changshan and are given all sorts of answers by them. The three answers I now give here are only those I have chosen as the most representative among them. First. The wine worm was Liu’s blessing and not his affliction. Because he chanced to meet the idiotic mountain priest, he had deliberately lost this heaven-sent blessing. Second. The wine worm was Liu’s affliction and not his blessing. For it is quite beyond the understanding of any ordinary man that Liu should be able to drink a jar of wine at a time. If, therefore, he had not got rid of the wine worm, he would certainly have died before long. Consequently that he fell into poverty and illness one after the other should be called his good fortune. Third. The wine worm was neither Liu’s affliction nor his good fortune. He had always been a heavy [Pg 88]drinker. When wine was taken from his life, there was nothing left. So Liu was himself the wine worm, and the wine worm was Liu. Therefore, getting rid of the wine worm was quite the same as killing himself. In short, the day Liu stopped drinking wine, he was Liu without being Liu. If Liu himself was already dead, it was most natural that the health and fortune of the Liu of other days should have been lost. Which of these answers is most nearly right, I do not know. I have only set down such moral judgments at the end of this story in imitation of the didacticism of Chinese novelists.
petak, 6. ožujka 2026.
On the twenty-sixth day of the eleventh month of the first year of Genji (Dec. 25, 1864), the followers of the daimyō of Kaga, who had been engaged in the safeguarding of Kyōto, put to sea under the leadership of Chō Osumi-no-kami, from the mouth of the Ajikawa in Ōsaka, to take part in the impending chastisement of Chōshū. There were two sub-commanders, Tsukuda Kyudayu and Yamagishi Sanjurō, and white standards were set up in Tsukuda’s boats and red in Yamagishi’s. History records that it was a most brave scene as their Kompira vessels, each of 500 koku burden, left the estuary for the deep, all with their red and white banners flapping in the wind. But the men in the boats did not feel at all gallant. In the first place, every boat was loaded with thirty-four of the party and four sailors, a total of thirty-eight men. Wherefore, they were so closely packed together that free movement was impossible. Moreover, in the waist of each vessel stood so many loach tubs full of pickled radishes that there was almost no place left to step. Until they got used to it, the evil odor of the things filled every man who breathed it with a sudden nausea. Finally, as it was the end of the eleventh month of the old [Pg 60]calendar (December), the wind blowing on the sea was so cold that it seemed to fairly cut their flesh. Especially when the sun had set, what with the winds blowing down from Maya and the chill of the sea, the teeth of most even of these young samurai from the north chattered. Moreover, in the boats there was an abundance of lice. And they were not the simple sort of lice that hide themselves in the seams of garments. They swarmed upon the sails. They swarmed upon the masts. They swarmed upon the anchors. To exaggerate slightly, it was hard to tell whether the boats were for men or for lice. Of course in such a plethora, scores of the pests swarmed upon their clothes. And whenever they so much as touched the skin of a man, they were straightway elated and fell to till he tingled. Had there been but some five or ten of the vermin, they might somehow or other have been brought under control, but since, as already stated, there were so many that they looked like a sprinkling of white sesame, there was no possible hope of cleaning them out. Wherefore, in the Tsukuda party and the Yamagishi party alike, the bodies of all the samurai in the boats swelled red with bites all over on breast and abdomen and everywhere, just as if they had the measles. But impossible as it was to bring the lice under control, it was still more impossible to let them go on unmolested. So the people in the boats spent their leisure time hunting. All of them, from the chief retainers to the sandal bearers, stripped themselves and went about, each with a teacup, picking up the ubiquitous lice and [Pg 61]putting them into it. Were he to imagine thirty-odd samurai, each dressed in but a loin-cloth, with his teacup in his hand, searching with all his might here and there under the rigging and beneath the anchor in each Kompira boat with sails alight in the winter sunshine of the Inland Sea, any man in these days would at once think it a great joke, but it was no less true before the Restoration than it is now that in the face of necessity everything becomes serious. So these boats full of naked samurai, each one himself like a great louse, abode the cold and went about patiently day after day diligently crushing the lice on the decks. II But there was one odd fellow on the Tsukuda boat. He was an eccentric middle-aged man named Mori Gonnoshin, an officer of foot with an allowance of seventy bales of rice and rations for five men. Strangely this man alone did not catch lice. Therefore, of course, he was covered with them all over. While some mounted to the knot on his queued hair, others crossed over on the edge of the plate at the back of his divided skirt. Yet he paid no special attention to them. Then if you think that this man alone was not bitten by the lice, still you are mistaken. Just like the rest, he was covered with so many red blotches all over his body that he might well be described as spotted with coins. Moreover, from the way he scratched them, it did not look as if they were itchless. But no matter whether they itched or what they did, he affected utter indifference. [Pg 62] If it had all been affectation, it would not have been so strange, but when he saw the others diligently gathering lice, he called to them, “If you catch ’em, don’t kill ’em. Put ’em in teacups alive, an’ I’ll take ’em.” “When you get ’em, what’ll you do with ’em?” asked one of his fellows, with a look of surprise. “When I get ’em? Then I’ll go so far as to raise ’em,” Mori calmly replied. “Then we’ll take ’em alive and give ’em to you.” The officer, because he thought it a joke, worked half a day with two or three others and collected several cupfuls of living lice. He thought in his heart that if he handed them over thus and said, “Well, raise ’em,” even Mori, despite his contrariness, would be stumped. Then, before he had time to utter a word, Mori spoke up and said, “You’ve got ’em, haven’t you? Then I’ll take ’em.” His fellows were all taken aback. “Then put ’em in here,” said Mori calmly, opening the neck of his garment. “Don’t go makin’ yourself put up with it now and afterwards gettin’ into trouble for it,” said the others, but he would not listen. Then one at a time, they turned their teacups upside down, like ricemen measuring rice in half-gallon measures, and poured the lice down Mori’s neck, whereupon he, maintaining his composure and carefully picking up those that had spilled outside, said, as if to himself, “Thanks. With these I can sleep warm from this [Pg 63]night on.” “When you have lice, is it warm?” said the dumbfounded officers to nobody in particular, all looking into each other’s faces. Then Mori, adjusting with particularity the neck of his dress which had received the lice, gave one triumphant look around at each of their faces and proceeded to express himself to this effect: “Each and every one of you caught cold in this recent snap, but what of this Gonnoshin? He doesn’t sneeze. He doesn’t run at the nose. More, not once has he felt feverish or cold in the hands or feet. Whose good work do you s’pose this is? It’s all the good work of the lice.” According to Mori’s explanation, it seems that when there are lice on the body, they are bound to bite and make it itch. When they bite, one is sure to want to scratch. Then, when the whole body is bitten all over, one wants to scratch all over the whole body, too. But man is wonderfully made, so that while he scratches where he feels himself itch, the scratched places naturally get warm as with a fever. Then, when he is warm, he gets sleepy. When he is sleepy, he no longer feels the itch. In this way, if one but have many lice on one’s body, one falls asleep easily and catches no colds. Wherefore, we should by all means keep lice and by no means kill them out. “Sure enough, it’s like that, ain’t it?” said several of his fellows approvingly when they had heard Mori’s argument. [Pg 64] III After that there came to be a group in that boat that followed the example of Mori and kept lice. In the matter of going about in pursuit of lice whenever they had leisure, this group was not different from the rest of the party. The only difference was that all they caught, they put one by one faithfully into their bosoms and carefully kept. But it is seldom in any country in any age that the precursor’s teaching is accepted in its first form by all the people. In this boat, too, there were many Pharisees who set themselves up against Mori’s doctrines on lice. At the forefront of these stood a captain of foot called Inoue Tenzo. He, too, was an eccentric, and he always ate all the lice he caught. When he had finished his evening meal, he would place a teacup before him and sit slowly munching something that was evidently delicious, so somebody looked into the cup and saw that it was full of the lice he had caught and asked, “What do they taste like?” “Let’s see. Like oily parched rice, I guess,” said he. Those who use their mouths to crush lice are to be found everywhere, but this man was not of their number. As light refreshment pure and simple, he ate them every day. He was the first to oppose Mori. There was not another soul who took after Inoue and ate lice, but a considerable number joined him in his opposition. According to them, men’s bodies certainly could not be warmed by the presence of lice. Moreover, [Pg 65]in the Book of Filial Piety, it is written that we receive our bodies, hair and hide, from our fathers and mothers, and the very beginning of filial duty lies in not injuring them. Of one’s own choice to feed these bodies to such things as lice was egregiously unfilial. Whence lice should by all means be hunted out. They should not be raised. Under these circumstances, disputes arose from time to time between the Mori and Inoue groups. And so long as they simply ended in argument, there was no harm. But in the end things developed unexpectedly from such beginnings even unto the starting of an appeal to the sword. It came about in this way. One day Mori received from the others a lot of lice which he put into a teacup and set aside, intending to raise them carefully as usual, when Inoue, taking advantage of his incaution, ate them up before he noticed. When Mori came to look for them, there was not one left. Then this precursor flared into anger. “What’d you eat ’em for?” he demanded, edging up to Inoue with his arms akimbo and his eyes blazing. “Fact is, it’s idiotic to keep lice,” said Inoue indifferently, showing absolutely no desire to take him up. “It’s idiotic to eat ’em.” Mori flew into a fury and, pounding the plank deck shouted, “Look here! Is there anybody in this ship who isn’t indebted to lice? Takin’ these lice an’ eatin’ ’em is just like payin’ kindness with hate!” [Pg 66] “I haven’t the least recollection of ever receivin’ any favor from lice.” “Nay, even if you haven’t, to wantonly take the lives of livin’ things is unspeakable.” After two or three more remarks had been exchanged with increasing vehemence, Mori suddenly saw red and put his hand on the hilt of his maroon-sheathed sword. Of course Inoue did not back down. He quickly snatched up his long blade in its cinnabar scabbard and sprang to his feet. Had not the naked men who were going about catching lice excitedly forced the two apart, it would probably have meant the life of one or the other of them. According to the story of one who saw this flurry with his own eyes, the two men, held fast in the arms of the whole party, still foamed at the mouth and shouted, “Lice—Lice—” IV And while the samurai in the ships thus came almost to bloodshed over the lice, the 500-koku Kompira vessels, as if alone indifferent utterly to all this, ran on farther and farther west with their red and white banners flapping in the cold wind under the snowy sky on the long, long road leading to the chastisement of Chōshū.
četvrtak, 5. ožujka 2026.
AM I STILL THERE? by JAMES R. HALL - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/30763/pg30763-images.html
Which must in essence, of course, simply be the question "What do I mean by 'I'?"
It was evening. A solitary lackey sat under Rashōmon waiting for the rain to clear. Beneath the broad gate, there was not another soul. Only, on a big round pillar, from which the vermilion lacquer had peeled off here and there, sat one lone cricket. Since Rashōmon was in the great thoroughfare Sujaku Ōji, it would seem that there should also have been two or three tradeswomen in wide straw hats and men in citizen’s caps sheltering there from the rain. All the same, besides this single man, there was no one. This was because for the past two or three years in Kyōto one calamity after another—earthquakes, cyclones, fires and famines—had followed each other in rapid succession. Wherefore, throughout the capital the desolation was extraordinary. According to the old records, things had come to such a pass that Buddhist images and temple furniture were broken up and, with their red lacquer and gold and silver foil clinging to them, were heaped along the streets and sold for fire wood. With the whole town in such a state, of course no one took the least thought for the upkeep of Rashōmon. So turning its abandonment to their profit, foxes and badgers found habitation there. Thieves abode there. And finally it even became a custom with men to bring unclaimed bodies there and leave them in the gate. Whence, when day had closed his eye, the place was abhorred of all, [Pg 48]and no man would set foot in the neighborhood. Instead, swarms of ravens from nobody knows where congregated there. By day the innumerable rout described a circle and wheeled crying about the ornamental grampuses high on the roof. Especially when the sky above the gate was aflare with the sunset glow, did they stand out distinctly like a scattering of sesamum seeds. Of course, they were there to pick the flesh from the corpses up in the gate. However, on this day, perhaps because of the lateness of the hour, not a bird was to be seen. Only here and there on the crumbling stone steps, where grass grew long in the crevices, their droppings shone in white splashes. The lackey sat in a threadbare coat of dark blue on the topmost of the seven steps and, fingering a great carbuncle on his right cheek, looked vacantly at the falling rain. I have said that he was waiting for the rain to clear. But even if it did clear, he had nothing in particular he wished to do. Ordinarily, of course, he must have gone back to his master’s house. But four or five days before, he had been turned out. As I have already said, Kyōto was in unprecedented decay. And the dismissal of this man by a master whom he had served for years was one small ripple on this sea of troubles. Wherefore, rather than that he was waiting for the rain to clear, it would be more to the point to say that, driven to shelter by the storm, this lackey who had no place to go was at a loss what to do. Besides, the gloomy sky that day had no small effect on the sentimentalism of this man of the Heian period. The rain, which had been falling since a [Pg 49]little after the hour of the monkey, still showed no sign of letting up. So the servant sat following a rambling train of thought on the one vital and immediate question of how he could ever manage to live through the morrow—that is, how he could ever do the impossible—and listened listlessly to the long rain that kept pounding down in Sujaku Ōji. The rain, enveloping Rashōmon, mustered a rattling roar from afar. Darkness gradually lowered in the sky, and overhead the roof of the gate supported a heavy leaden cloud on a point of its obliquely projecting tiles. For the accomplishment of the impossible, there was no time left in which to choose a plan. If he took time, he could but choose between starvation under some wall and starvation by some road. And then he would simply be brought to the loft in this gate and thrown away like a dog. If he did not choose,—again and again the man’s thoughts went over the same winding way and arrived finally at this same place. But no matter how often this “if” came up, it remained still in the end but “if.” Even though he did not choose any plan, yet he had not the courage to make the positive admission naturally necessary to the settlement of the “if,” that there was nothing for it but to turn thief. He sneezed a great sneeze and then got up laboriously. Night-chilled Kyōto was cold enough to suggest the comfort of a fire. The pitiless wind swept with the deepening darkness between the pillars of the gate. And the cricket that had clung to the red lacquer of one of them had disappeared. [Pg 50] Drawing in his neck and lifting his shoulders high in the bright yellow shirt which he wore under his dark blue coat, the lackey looked all about the gate. If he could find a place, out of the wind and rain and free from the gaze of men, where he could pass one night in peaceful sleep, there anyway, he fain would rest until the dawn. Then fortunately his eyes fell upon a wide ladder, likewise red, mounting up into the tower of the gate. Above, though there might be men, they were but dead men after all. Then, taking heed lest the great plain-handled sword swinging at his side should slip in its scabbard, he planted a straw-sandaled foot on the bottom step of the ladder. A few minutes elapsed. In the middle of the wide ladder leading to the tower of Rashōmon the man crouched like a cat and, holding his breath, took in the state of affairs above. A ray of light shining from the tower faintly illumined his right cheek. It was the cheek on which the festering red carbuncle gleamed in his short beard. He had lightly calculated from the first that everybody up there was dead. But when he had climbed up two or three steps, it appeared that not only had some one above struck a light but that he was moving it to and fro. This was at once made evident by the dull yellow gleam that danced in reflection on the cobwebs hanging in the corners of the ceiling. Whoever had struck this light in Rashōmon on this rainy night was surely no ordinary being! At last, stealing up with muffled steps like a gecko, the lackey, crouching, scaled the ladder to the topmost [Pg 51]step. Then lying as flat as he could and craning his neck forward as far as it would go, he peered with dread into the loft. He peered, and the loft, as rumor had it, was full of corpses flung carelessly away, but, the circle illuminated by the light being smaller than had at first seemed apparent, he was not able to judge how many there might be. Only, he could make out vaguely that there were among them both clothed and unclothed cadavers. Of course, men and women appeared all to be jumbled up together. And like so many dolls of kneaded clay, these bodies sprawled on the floor with open mouths and out-thrown arms in such confusion as to make one doubt even that they had once been living beings. Moreover, while the wan light played on their shoulders, breasts and more elevated parts, the shadows of their depressions were intensified, and they lay in silence like eternal mutes that had never known speech. In the stench of decaying flesh, the lackey involuntarily covered his nose. But the next moment his hand had forgotten its work. Excess of feeling had almost completely deprived him of his olfactory sense. For the first time he had just caught sight of a living mortal squatting down among the dead. It was a monkey-like old hag in a dark brown kimono, short, skinny and white-headed. With a blazing splinter of pine in her right hand, she was peering fixedly into the face of one of the corpses. From its long hair, it seemed to be the body of a woman. For a space, the lackey, moved by six parts of horror [Pg 52]and four of curiosity, forgot even to breathe. To borrow the words of an old writer, he felt that “the hair on his head and body swelled.” Then sticking the pine splinter into a crack in the floor, the hag took the head at which she had been gazing and, just like an old monkey picking lice from its young, began to pull out the long hairs one by one. They seemed to yield to her pull. With every hair that came out, the dread seemed to depart appreciably from the heart of the lackey. And at the same time, intense hatred of the old hag was little by little engendered. No, “of the old hag” may not be just the right words. Rather his antipathy to all evil grew stronger every minute. If some one at that time had broached afresh the question which this man had been considering under the gate a little while before, whether he should starve or turn thief, in all likelihood he would have unhesitatingly chosen starvation. Thus fiercely, like the splint of pine the old hag had stuck in the floor, blazed up this man’s detestation of evil. The lackey, of course, did not know why the old hag was pulling out the hair of the dead. Consequently, he did not know, rationally, whether her conduct should be set down as good or evil. But to him the pulling of hair from the heads of the dead on that rainy night up in Rashōmon was, on the face of it, an unpardonable crime. Naturally he had already forgot that a little before he had had half a mind to turn thief himself. So, bracing his two feet firmly, he suddenly sprang from the ladder up into the room. Then, grasping the plain handle of his sword, he advanced with great strides [Pg 53]up to the hag. Naturally she was startled out of her wits. With a glance at the lackey, she sprang up as if shot from a catapult. “Wretch! Where are you going?” cursed the man, blocking her way, as she stumbled among the corpses in a panic-stricken effort to escape. All the same, she struggled to push him aside and get by. But peremptorily he forced her back. For a moment, the pair scuffled in silence among the corpses. But from the first there was no doubt of the victor. In the end, seizing one of her arms, the lackey twisted it and threw her violently down. It was nothing but skin and bone, just like the leg of a hen. “What are you up to? Look you, what are you up to? Out with it! If you don’t speak, you get this, see!” And casting her away, he suddenly unsheathed his sword and brandished the white flash of steel before her eyes. But the old hag held her tongue. Her hands trembling, her shoulders heaving as she gasped for breath, and her eyes so wide open that it seemed the balls must burst from their sockets, she persisted in her silence like a mute. At this, the lackey realized clearly for the first time that this old woman’s life and death depended entirely upon his will. And before he was aware, this realization had cooled the fires of detestation that up to this time had blazed so fiercely in his heart. What remained was simply that comfortable pride and satisfaction that follow upon a piece of work wholly carried to completion. Then, looking down upon her, he said in a slightly milder tone: [Pg 54] “I’m no official from the police commissioner’s office. I’m a wanderer who happened to pass under this gate a little while ago. So you won’t be tied with a rope and arrested. All I demand is that you tell me what you’re doing up in this gate at this hour.” At this, the old hag’s wide-staring eyes grew all the larger, and she fastened them intently on the face of the lackey. They were sharp red-lidded eyes like those of some bird of prey. Then she moved her lips, practically one with her nose among the wrinkles, as if she were chewing something. A sharply projecting Adam’s apple slid up and down in her skinny throat. And at the same time, a voice like the croak of a raven came pantingly from that throat and struck harshly upon his ears. “I’m pulling out hair, pulling out this woman’s hair, because I’m going to make wigs.” The servant was disappointed at the unexpected ordinariness of her answer. And at the same time, the hatred he had felt before, mingled with a cold disdain, crept back into his heart again. And its manifestations probably transmitted themselves to the hag. For still holding in one hand the long hair she had pulled from the corpse’s head, she mumbled her case in the croaking voice of a toad. To be sure, it might be wicked to pull hair from dead bodies, for all she knew. But these dead were mostly people who could well be treated in such a way. For instance, this woman from whose head she had just been pulling hair had cut snakes up into four-inch lengths and sold them for dried fish in the military camps. Had she [Pg 55]not fallen prey to the epidemic and died, she might have been selling them yet. What was more, the samurai had found her dried fish tasty and bought them all up to eat with their rice. The hag did not find the woman’s conduct blameworthy. Since she must otherwise have starved to death, she could not well have helped it. Therefore, what she herself now did could not be called bad either. Since this, too, must be done or she would starve, it could not well be helped, and she thought this woman, who well knew her dilemma, would surely forgive her for what she did. Thus, by the large, ran the old hag’s explanation. The lackey sheathed his sword and, with his left hand on the hilt, listened in cold blood to her recital. Of course, his right hand was busy fingering the festering carbuncle on his fiery cheek. But as he listened, a certain courage was born within him. It was the courage he had lacked under the gate a while before. And, moreover, it was a courage tending to move in just the opposite direction from the courage with which he had a little before mounted up into the gate and seized the old woman. It was not only that he was no longer at a loss whether to starve or turn thief. His emotions were now such that the idea of starving to death had been driven from his consciousness as well-nigh unthinkable. “Really? Is that true?” When the old woman had finished her tale, he questioned her in a sneering voice. Then advancing one step forward, he suddenly removed his right hand from his carbuncle and, seizing the hag by the collar, said, [Pg 56] “Then I guess you won’t blame me for turning highwayman, will you? I, too, must starve else.” Like a flash he stripped off her kimono. Then, as she tried to cling to his legs, he violently kicked her down upon the corpses. It was but five paces to the head of the ladder. With the dark brown kimono under his arm, he ran in a twinkling down the steep steps into the depths of the night. It was not long before the old woman, who had lain for a space like one dead, raised her naked body up from among the corpses. Murmuring and groaning, she crawled by the help of the light that still burned to the top of the ladder. And from there, with her short white hair hanging about her face, she peered down under the gate. Outside there was nothing but black and cavernous night. The lackey had already braved the rain and hurried away into the streets of Kyōto to rob.
srijeda, 4. ožujka 2026.
THE Plague of Athens, Which hapned in the SECOND YEAR OF THE Peloponnesian Warre. First described in Greek by Thucydides; In the very beginning of Summer, the Peloponnesians, and their Confederates, with two thirds of their forces, as before invaded Attica, under the conduct of Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamas, King of Lacedæmon, and after they had encamped themselves, wasted the Countrey about them. They had not been many days in Attica, when the Plague first began amongst the Athenians, said also to have seized formerly on divers other parts, as about Lemnos, and elsewhere; but so great a Plague, and Mortality of Men, was never remembred to have hapned in any place before. For at first, neither were the Physicians able to cure it, through ignorance of what it was, but died fastest themselves, as being the men that most approach’d the sick, nor any other art of man availed whatsoever. All supplications to the Gods, and enquiries of Oracles, and whatsoever other means they used of that kind, proved all unprofitable; insomuch as subdued with the greatness of the evil, they gave them all over. It began (by report) first, in that part of Æthiopia that lieth upon Ægypt, and thence fell down into Ægypt and Afrique, and into the greatest part of the Territories of the King. It invaded Athens on a sudden, and touched first upon[p2] those that dwelt in Pyræus, insomuch as they reported that the Peloponnesians had cast poyson into their Wells; for Springs there were not any in that place. But afterwards it came up into the high City, and then they died a great deal faster. Now let every man, Physician, or other, concerning the ground of this sickness, whence it sprung, and what causes he thinks able to produce so great an alteration, speak according to his own knowledge; for my own part, I will deliver but the manner of it, and lay open onely such things, as one may take his Mark by, to discover the same if it come again, having been both sick of it my self, and seen others sick of the same. This year, by confession of all men, was of all other, for other Diseases, most free and healthful. If any man were sick before, his disease turned to this; if not, yet suddenly, without any apparent cause preceding, and being in perfect health, they were taken first with an extream ache in their Heads, redness and inflamation of the Eyes; and then inwardly their Throats and Tongues grew presently bloody, and their breath noysome and unsavory. Upon this followed a sneezing and hoarsness, and not long after, the pain, together with a mighty cough, came down into the brest. And when once it was setled in the Stomach, it caused vomit, and with great torment came up all manner of bilious purgation that Physicians ever named. Most of them had also the Hickeyexe, which brought with it a strong Convulsion, and in some ceased quickly, but in others was long before it gave over. Their bodies outwardly to the touch, were neither very hot, nor pale, but reddish, livid, and beflowred with little pimples and whelks; but so burned inwardly,[p3] as not to endure any the lightest cloaths or linnen garment to be upon them, nor any thing but meer nakedness, but rather, most willingly to have cast themselves into the cold water. And many of them that were not looked to, possessed with insatiate thirst, ran unto the Wells; and to drink much, or little, was indifferent, being still from ease and power to sleep as far as ever. As long as the disease was at the height, their bodies wasted not, but resisted the torment beyond all expectation, insomuch as the most of them either died of their inward burning in 9 or 7 dayes, whilest they had yet strength, or if they escaped that, then the disease falling down into their bellies, and causing there great exulcerations and immoderate looseness, they died many of them afterwards through weakness: For the disease (which took first the head) began above, and came down, and passed through the whole body; and he that overcame the worst of it, was yet marked with the loss of his extreme parts; for breaking out both at their Privy-members, and at their Fingers and Toes, many with the loss of these escaped. There were also some that lost there Eys, & many that presently upon their recovery were taken with such an oblivion of all things whatsoever, as they neither knew themselves nor their acquaintance. For this was a kind of sickness which far surmounted all expression of words, and both exceeded Humane Nature, in the cruelty wherewith it handled each one, and appeared also otherwise to be none of those diseases that are bred amongst us, and that especially by this. For all, both Birds and Beasts; that use to feed on Humane flesh, though many men lay abroad unburied, either came not at them, or tasting[p4] perished. An Argument whereof as touching the Birds, is the manifest defect of such Fowl, which were not then seen, neither about the Carcasses, or any where else; but by the Dogs, because they are familiar with Men, this effect was seen much clearer. So that this disease (to pass over many strange particulars of the accidents that some had differently from others) was in general such as I have shewn; and for other usual sicknesses, at that time, no man was troubled with any. Now they died, some for want of attendance, and some again with all the care and Physick that could be used. Nor was there any, to say, certain Medicine, that applied must have helped them; for if it did good to one, it did harm to another; nor any difference of Body for strength or weakness that was able to resist it; but it carried all away what Physick soever was administred. But the greatest misery of all was, the dejection of Mind, in such as found themselves beginning to be sick, (for they grew presently desperate, and gave themselves over without making any resistance) as also their dying thus like Sheep, infected by mutual visitation: For if men forbore to visit them for fear, then they died forlorn, whereby many Families became empty, for want of such as should take care of them. If they forbore not, then they died themselves, and principally the honestest men. For out of shame, they would not spare themselves, but went in unto their friends, especially after it was come to this pass, that even their Domesticks, wearied with the lamentations of them that died, and overcome with the greatness of the calamity, were no longer moved therewith. But those that were recovered, had much compassion both on them that died, and[p5] on them that lay sick, as having both known the misery themselvs and now no more subject to the like danger: For this disease never took any man the second time so as to be mortal. And these men were both by others counted happy, and they also themselves, through excess of present joy, conceived a kind of light hope, never to die of any other sickness hereafter. Besides the present affliction, the reception of the Countrey people, and of their substance into the City, oppressed both them, and much more the people themselves that so came in. For having no Houses, but dwelling at that time of the year in stifling Booths, the Mortality was now without all form; and dying men lay tumbling one upon another in the Streets, and men half dead about every Conduit through desire of water. The Temples also where they dwelt in Tents, were all full of the dead that died within them; for oppressed with the violence of the Calamity, and not knowing what to do, Men grew careless, both of Holy and Prophane things alike. And the Laws which they formerly used touching Funerals, were all now broken; every one burying where he could find room. And many for want of things necessary, after so many Deaths before, were forced to become impudent in the Funerals of their Friends. For when one had made a Funeral Pile, another getting before him, would throw on his dead, and give it fire. And when one was in burning, another would come, and having cast thereon him whom he carried, go his way again. And the great licentiousness, which also in other kinds was used in the City, began at first from this disease. For that which a man before would dissemble, and not acknowledge to be done for voluptuousness, he[p6] durst now do freely, seeing before his Eyes such quick revolution, of the rich dying, and men worth nothing inheriting their Estates; insomuch as they justified a speedy fruition of their Goods, even for their pleasure, as Men that thought they held their Lives but by the day. As for pains, no man was forward in any action of Honour, to take any, because they thought it uncertain whether they should die or not, before they atchieved it. But what any man knew to be delightful, and to be profitable to pleasure, that was made both profitable and honourable. Neither the fear of the Gods, nor Laws of men, awed any man. Not the former, because they concluded it was alike to worship or not worship, from seeing that alike they all perished: nor the latter, because no man expected that lives would last, till he received punishment of his crimes by Judgement. But they thought there was now over their heads some far greater Judgement decreed against them; before which fell, they thought to enjoy some little part of their Lives.
Now attempted in English,
By Tho. Sprat.
LONDON,
Printed by E. C. for Henry Brome, at the Gun in
Ivy-lane, 1665.
The Plague of
ATHENS.
Unhappy Man! by Nature made to sway,
And yet is every Creatures prey,
Destroy’d by those that should his power obey.
Of the whole World we call Mankind the Lords,
Flattring our selves with mighty words;
Of all things we the Monarchs are,
And so we rule, and so we domineer;
All creatures else about us stand
Like some Prætorian Band,
To guard, to help, and to defend;
Yet they sometimes prove Enemies,
Sometimes against us rise;
Our very Guards rebel, and tyrannize.
Thousand Diseases sent by Fate,
(Unhappie Servants!) on us wait;
A thousand Treacheries within
Are laid weak Life to win;
Huge Troops of Maladies without,
(A grim, a meager, and a dreadful rout:)
Some formal Sieges make
And with sure slowness do our Bodies take;
Some with quick violence storm the Town,
And all in a moment down:
[2]
Some one peculiar sort assail,
Some by general attempt prevail.
Small Herbs, alas, can onely us relieve,
And small is the assistance they can give;
How can the fading Off spring of the Field
Sure health and succour yield?
What strong and certain remedie?
What firm and lasting life can ours be?
When that which makes us live, doth ev’ry Winter die?
II.
Nor is this all, we do not onely breed
Within our selves the fatal seed
Of change, and of decrease in ev’ry part,
Head, Bellie, Stomach, and the Root of Life the Heart,
Not onely have our Autumn, when we must
Of our own Nature turn to Dust,
When Leaves and Fruit must fall;
But are expos’d to mighty Tempests too,
Which do at once what that would slowlie do,
Which throw down Fruit and Tree of Life withal.
From ruine we in vain
Our bodies by repair maintain,
Bodies compos’d of stuff,
Mouldring and frail enough;
Yet from without as well we fear
A dangerous and destructful War,
From Heaven, from Earth, from Sea, from Air.
We like the Roman Empire should decay,
And our own force would melt away
By the intestine jar
Of Elephants, which on each other prey,
The Cæsars and the Pompeys which within we bear:
Yet are (like that) in danger too
Of forreign Armies, and external foe,
[3]
Sometimes the Gothish and the barbarous rage
Of Plague, or Pestilence, attends Mans age,
Which neither Force nor Arts asswage;
Which cannot be avoided, or withstood,
But drowns, and over-runs with unexpected Flood.
III.
On Æthiopia, and the Southern-sands,
The unfrequented Coasts, and parched Land,
Whither the Sun too kind a heat doth send,
(The Sun, which the worst Neighbour is, and the best Friend)
Hither a mortal influence came,
A fatal and unhappy flame,
Kindled by Heavens angry beam.
With dreadful frowns the Heavens scattered here
Cruel infectious heats into the Air,
Now all their stores of poyson sent,
Threatning at once a general doom,
Lavisht out all their hate, and meant
In future Ages to be innocent,
Not to disturb the World for many years to come.
Hold! Heavens hold! Why should your Sacred Fire,
Which doth to all things Life inspire,
By whose kinde beams you bring
Each year on every thing,
A new and glorious Spring,
Which doth th’ Original Seed
Of all things in the Womb of Earth that breed,
With vital heat and quick’ning seed,
Why should you now that heat imploy,
The Earth, the Air, the Fields, the Cities to annoy?
That which before reviv’d, why should it now destroy?
IV.
Those Africk Desarts strait were double Desarts grown,
The rav’nous Beasts were left alone,
[4]
The rav’nous beasts then first began
To pity their old enemy Man,
And blam’d the Plague for what they would themselves have done.
Nor stay’d the cruel evil there,
Nor could be long confin’d unto one Air,
Plagues presently forsake
The Wilderness which they themselves do make,
Away the deadly breaths their journey take.
Driven by a mighty wind,
They a new booty and fresh forrage find.
The loaded wind went swiftly on,
And as it past was heard to sigh and groan.
On Ægypt next it seiz’d,
Nor could but by a general ruine be appeas’d.
Ægypt in rage back on the South did look,
And wondred thence should come th’ unhappy stroke,
From whence before her fruitfulness she took.
Egypt did now curse and revile
Those very Lands from whence she has her Nile;
Egypt now fear’d another Hebrew God,
Another Angels Hand, a second Aarons Rod.
V.
Then on it goes, and through the Sacred Land
Its angry Forces did command,
But God did place an Angel there,
Its violence to withstand,
And turn into another road the putrid Air.
To Tyre it came, and there did all devour,
Though that by Seas might think it self secure:
Nor staid, as the
great Conquerors did,
Till it had fill’d and stopt the tyde,
Which did it from the shore divide,
But past the waters, and did all possess,
And quickly all was wilderness.
[5]
Thence it did Persia over-run,
And all that Sacrifice unto the Sun;
In every Limb a dreadful pain they felt,
Tortur’d with secret coals did melt;
The Persians call’d upon their Sun in vain,
Their God increas’d the pain.
They lookt up to their God no more,
But curse the beams they worshipped before,
And hate the very fire which once they did adore.
VI.
Glutted with ruine of the East,
She took her wings and down to Athens past:
Just Plague! which dost no parties take,
But Greece as well as Persia sack,
While in unnatural quarrels they
(Like Frogs and Mice) each other slay,
Thou in thy ravenous claws took’st both away.
Thither it came and did destroy the Town,
Whilest all its Ships and Souldiers lookt upon:
And now the Asian Plague did more
Than all the Asian Force could do before.
Without the Walls the Spartan Army sate,
The Spartan Army came too late;
For now there was no farther work for fate.
They saw the Citie open lay,
An easie and a bloodless prey,
They saw the rampires emptie stand,
The Fleet, the Walls, the Forts Unman’d.
No need of crueltie or slaughters now
The Plague had finisht what they came to do:
They might now unresisted enter there,
Did they not the very Air,
More than th’ Athenians fear.
The Air it self to them was wall, and bullwarks too.
VII.
Unhappy Athens! it is true, thou wert
The proudest work of Nature and of Art:
Learning and strength did thee compose,
As soul and body us:
But yet thou onely thence art made
A nobler prey for Fates t’ invade.
Those mighty numbers that within thee breath,
Do onely serve to make a fatter feast for Death.
Death in the most frequented places lives,
Most tribute from the croud receives;
And though it bears a sigh, and seems to own
A rustick life alone:
It loves no Wilderness,
No scattred Villages,
But mighty populous Palaces,
The throng, the tumult, and the town;
What strange, unheard-of Conqueror is this,
Which by the forces that resist it doth increase!
When other Conquerors are
Oblig’d to make a slower war,
Nay sometimes for themselves may fear,
And must proceed with watchful care,
When thicker troops of enemies appear;
This stronger still, and more successeful grows,
Down sooner all before it throws,
If greater multitudes of men do it oppose.
VIII.
The Tyrant first the haven did subdue,
Lately the Athenians (it knew)
Themselves by wooden walls did save,
And therefore first to them th’ infection gave,
Least they new succour thence receive.
[7]
Cruel Pyræus! now thou hast undone,
The honour thou before hadst wone:
Not all thy Merchandize,
Thy wealth, thy treasuries,
Which from all Coasts thy Fleet supplies,
Can to atone this crime suffice.
Next o’re the upper Town it spread,
With mad and undiscerned speed;
In every corner, every street,
Without a guide did sets its feet,
And too familiar every house did greet.
Unhappy Greece of Greece! great Theseus now
Did thee a mortal injury do,
When first in walls he did thee close,
When first he did thy Citizens reduce,
Houses and Government, and Lawes to use.
It had been better if thy people still
Dispersed in some field, or hill,
Though Salvage, and undisciplin’d did dwell,
Though barbarous, untame, and rude,
Than by their numbers thus to be subdu’d;
To be by their own swarms anoid,
And to be civilized onely to be destroid.
IX.
Minerva started when she heard the noise,
And dying mens confused voice.
From Heaven in haste she came to see
What was the mighty prodigie.
Upon the Castle pinacles she sate,
And dar’d not nearer fly,
Nor midst so many deaths to trust her very Deity.
With pitying look she saw at every gate
Death and destruction wait;
[8]
She wrung her hands, and call’d on Jove,
And all th’ immortal powers above;
But though a Goddess now did prey,
The Heavens refus’d, and turn’d their ear away.
She brought her Olive, and her Shield,
Neither of these Alas! assistance yield.
She lookt upon Medusaes face,
Was angry that she was
Her self of an Immortal Race,
Was angry that her Gorgons head
Could not strike her as well as others dead;
She sate, and wept awhile, and then away she fled.
X.
Now Death began her sword to whet,
Not all the Cyclops sweat,
Nor Vulcaus mighty Anvils could prepare
Weapons enough for her,
No weapon large enough but all the Air;
Men felt the heat
within him rage,
And hop’d the Air would it asswage,
Call’d for its help, but th’ Air did them deceive,
And aggravate the ills it should relieve.
The Air no more was Vital now,
But did a mortal poyson grow;
The Lungs which us’d to fann the heart,
Onely now serv’d to fire each part,
What should refresh, increas’d the smart,
And now their very breath,
The chiefest sign of life, turn’d the cause of death.
XI.
Upon the Head first the disease,
As a bold Conqueror doth seize,
[9]
Begins with Mans Metropolis,
Secur’d the Capitol, and then it knew
It could at pleasure weaker parts subdue.
Blood started through each eye;
The redness of that Skie,
Fore-told a tempest nigh.
The tongue did slow all ore
With clotted Filth and Gore;
As doth a Lions when some innocent prey
He hath devoured and brought away:
Hoarsness and sores the throat did fill,
And stopt the passages of speech and life;
No room was left for groans or grief;
Too cruel and imperious ill!
Which not content to kill,
With tyrannous and dreadful pain,
Dost take from men the very power to complain.
XII.
Then down it went into the breast,
There are all the seats and shops of life possest,
Such noisome smells from thence did come,
As if the stomach were a tomb;
No food would there abide,
Or if it did, turn’d to the enemies side,
The very meat new poysons to the Plague supply’d.
Next to the heart the fires came,
The heart did wonder what usurping flame,
What unknown furnace should
On its more natural heat intrude,
Strait call’d its spirits up, but found too well,
It was too late now to rebell.
The tainted blood its course began,
And carried death where ere it ran,
[10]
That which before was Natures noblest Art,
The circulation from the heart,
Was most destructful now,
And Nature speedier did undoe,
For that the sooner did impart
The poyson and the smart,
The infectious blood to every distant part.
XIII.
The belly felt at last its share,
And all the subtil labyrinths there
Of winding bowels did new Monsters bear.
Here seven dayes it rul’d and sway’d,
And oftner kill’d because it death so long delay’d.
But if through strength and heat of age,
The body overcame its rage,
The Plague departed, as the Devil doeth,
When driven by prayers away he goeth.
If Prayers and Heaven do him controul,
And if he cannot have the soul,
Himself out of
the roof or window throws,
And will not all his labour lose,
But takes away with him part of the house:
So here the vanquisht evil took from them
Who conquer’d it, some part, some limb;
Some lost the use of hands, or eyes,
Some armes, some legs, some thighs,
Some all their lives before forgot,
Their mindes were but one darker blot;
Those various pictures in the head,
And all the numerous shapes were fled;
And now the ransackt memory
Languish’d in naked poverty,
Had lost its mighty treasury;
They past the Lethe Lake, although they did not die.
XIV.
Whatever lesser Maladies men had,
They all gave place and vanished;
Those petty tyrants fled,
And at this mighty Conqueror shrunk their head.
Feavers, Agues, Palsies, Stone,
Gout, Cholick, and Consumption,
And all the milder Generation,
By which Man-kind is by degrees undone,
Quickly were rooted out and gone;
Men saw themselves freed from the pain,
Rejoyc’d, but all alas, in vain,
’Twas an unhappy remedie,
Which cur’d him that they might both worse and sooner die.
XV.
Physicians now could nought prevail,
They the first spoils to the proud Victor fall,
Nor would the Plague their knowledge trust,
But feared their skill, and therefore slew them first:
So Tyrants when they would confirm their yoke,
First make the chiefest men to feel the stroke,
The chiefest and the wisest heads, least they
Should soonest disobey,
Should first rebell, and others learn from them the way.
No aid of herbs, or juyces power,
None of Apollo’s art could cure,
But helpt the Plague the speedier to devour.
Physick it self was a disease,
Physick the fatal tortures did increase,
Prescriptions did the pains renew,
And Æsculapius to the sick did come,
As afterwards to Rome,
In form of Serpent, brought new poysons with him too.
XVI.
The streams did wonder, that so soon
As they were from their Native mountains gone,
They saw themselves drunk up, and fear
Another Xerxes Army near.
Some cast into the Pit the Urn,
And drink it dry at its return;
Again they drew, again they drank;
At first the coolness of the stream did thank,
But strait the more were scorch’d, the more did burn;
And drunk with water in their drinking sank:
That Urn which now to quench their thirst they use,
Shortly their Ashes shall inclose.
Others into the Chrystal brook,
With faint and wondring eyes did look,
Saw what a ghastly shape themselves had took,
Away they would have fled, but them their leggs forsook.
Some snach’d the waters up,
Their hands, their mouths the cup;
They drunk, and found they flam’d the more,
And onely added to the burning store.
So have I seen on Lime cold water thrown,
Strait all was to a Ferment grown,
And hidden seeds of fire together run:
The heap was calm, and temperate before,
Such as the Finger could indure;
But when the moistures it provoke,
Did rage, did swell, did smoke,
Did move, and flame, and burn, and strait to ashes broke.
XVII.
So strong the heat, so strong the torments were,
They like some mighty burden bear
The lightest covering of Air.
[13]
All Sexes and all Ages do invade
The bounds which Nature laid,
The Laws of modesty which Nature made.
The Virgins blush not, yet uncloath’d appear,
Undress’d do run about, yet never fear.
The pain and the disease did now
Unwillingly reduce men to
That nakedness once more,
Which perfect health and innocence caus’d before.
No sleep, no peace, no rest,
Their wandring and affrighted minds possest;
Upon their souls and eyes,
Hell and Eternal horrour lies,
Unusual shapes, and images,
Dark pictures, and resemblances
Of things to come, and of the World below,
O’re their distemper’d fancies goe:
Sometimes they curse, sometimes they pray unto
The Gods above, the Gods beneath;
Sometimes they cruelties, and fury breath,
Not sleep, but waking now was sister unto death.
XVIII.
Scattred in Fields the Bodies lay,
The earth call’d to the Fowls to take their Flesh away.
In vain she call’d, they come not nigh,
Nor would their food with their own ruine buy,
But at full meals, they hunger, pine, and die.
The Vulters afar off did see the feast,
Rejoyc’d, and call’d their friends to taste,
They rallied up their troops in haste,
Along came mighty droves,
Forsook their young ones, and their groves,
Each one his native mountain and his nest;
They come, but all their carcases abhor,
[14]
And now avoid the dead men more
Than weaker birds did living men before.
But if some bolder fowls the flesh essay,
They were destroy’d by their own prey.
The Dog no longer bark’t at coming guest,
Repents its being a domestick Beast,
Did to the woods and mountains haste:
The very Owls at Athens are
But seldome seen and rare,
The Owls depart in open day,
Rather than in infected Ivy more to stay.
XIX.
Mountains of bones and carcases,
The street, the Market-place possess,
Threatning to raise a new Acropolis.
Here lies a mother and her child,
The infant suck’d as yet, and smil’d,
But strait by its own food was kill’d.
There parents hugg’d their children last,
Here parting lovers last embrac’d,
But yet not parting neither,
They both expir’d and went away together.
Here pris’ners in the Dungeon die,
And gain a two-fold liberty,
They meet and thank their pains
Which them from double chains
Of body and of iron free.
Here others poyson’d by the scent
Which from corrupted bodies went,
Quickly return the death they did receive,
And death to others give;
Themselves now dead the air pollute the more,
For which they others curs’d before,
[15]
Their bodies kill all that come near,
And even after death they all are murderers here.
XX.
The friend doth hear his friends last cries,
Parteth his grief for him, and dies,
Lives not enough to close his eyes.
The father at his death
Speaks his son heir with an infectious breath;
In the same hour the son doth take
His fathers will, and his own make.
The servant needs not here be slain,
To serve his master in the other world again;
They languishing together lie,
Their souls away together flie;
The husband gasp’th and his wife lies by,
It must be her turn next to die,
The husband and the wife
Too truly now are one, and live one life.
That couple which the Gods did entertain,
Had made their prayer here in vain;
No fates in death could then divide,
They must without their priviledge together both have dy’d.
XXI.
There was no number now of death,
The sisters scarce stood still themselves to breath:
The sisters now quite wearied
In cutting single thred,
Began at once to part whole looms,
One stroak did give whole houses dooms;
Now dy’d the frosty hairs,
The Aged and decrepid years,
[16]
They fell, and onely beg’d of Fate,
Some few months more, but ’twas alas too late.
Then Death, as if asham’d of that,
A Conquest so degenerate,
Cut off the young and lusty too;
The young were reck’ning ore
What happy dayes, what joyes they had in store;
But Fate, e’re they had finish’d their account, them slew.
The wretched Usurer dyed,
And had no time to tell where he his treasures hid.
The Merchant did behold
His Ships return with Spice and Gold,
He saw’t, and turn’d aside his head,
Nor thank’d the Gods, but fell amidst his riches dead.
XXII.
The Meetings and Assemblies cease, no more
The people throng about the Orator.
No course of Justice did appear,
No noise of Lawyers fill’d the ear,
The Senate cast away
The Robe of Honour, and obey
Deaths more resistless sway,
Whilest that with Dictatorian power
Doth all the great and lesser Officers devour.
No Magistrates did walk about;
No Purple aw’d the rout,
The common people too
A Purple of their own did shew;
And all their Bodies o’re,
The ruling colours bore,
No Judge, no Legislators sit
Since this new Draco came,
And harsher Laws did frame,
[17]
Laws that like his in blood are writ.
The Benches and the Pleading-place they leave,
About the streets they run and rave:
The madness which Great Solon did of late
But counterfeit
For the advantage of the State,
Now his successors do too truly imitate.
XXIII.
Up starts the Souldier from his bed,
He though Deaths servant is not freed,
Death him cashier’d, ’cause now his help she did not need.
He that ne’re knew before to yield,
Or to give back, or lead the Field,
Would fain now from himself have fled.
He snatch’d his sword now rusted o’re,
Dreadful and sparkling now no more,
And thus in open streets did roar:
How have I death so ill deserv’d of thee,
That now thy self thou shouldst revenge on me?
Have I so many lives on thee bestow’d?
Have I the earth so often dy’d in blood?
Have I to flatter thee so many slain?
And must I now thy prey remain?
Let me at least, if I must dye,
Meet in the Field some gallant enemy.
Send Gods the Persian troops again;
No they’re a base and a degenerate train;
They by our Women may be slain.
Give me great Heavens some manful foes.
Let me my death amidst some valiant Grecians choose,
Let me survive to die at Syracuse,
Where my dear Countrey shall her Glory lose
For you Great Gods! into my dying mind infuse,
[18]
What miseries, what doom
Must on my Athens shortly come:
My thoughts inspir’d presage,
Slaughters and Battels to the coming Age;
Oh! might I die upon that glorious stage:
Oh that! but then he grasp’d his sword, & death concludes
his rage.
his rage.
XXIV.
Draw back, draw back thy sword, O Fate!
Lest thou repent when ’tis too late,
Lest by thy making now so great a waste,
By spending all Man-kind upon one feast,
Thou sterve thy self at last:
What men wilt thou reserve in store,
Whom in the time to come thou mayst devour,
When thou shalt have destroyed all before.
But if thou wilt not yet give o’re,
If yet thy greedie Stomach calls for more,
If more remain whom thou must kill,
And if thy jawes are craving still,
Carry thy fury to the Scythian coasts,
The Northern wildness, and eternal frosts!
Against those barbrous crouds thy arrows whet,
Where Arts and Laws are strangers yet;
Where thou may’st kill, and yet the loss will not be great,
There rage, there spread, and there infect the Air,
Murder whole towns and families there,
Thy worst against those Savage nations dare,
Those whom Man-kind can spare,
Those whom man-kind it self doth fear;
Amidst that dreadful night, and fatal cold,
There thou may’st walk unseen, and bold,
There let thy Flames their Empire hold.
Unto the farthest Seas, and Natures ends,
Where never Summer Sun its beams extends,
[19]
Carry thy plagues, thy pains, thy heats;
Thy raging fires, thy tortering sweats,
Where never ray, or heat did come,
They will rejoyce at such a doom,
They’l bless thy Pestilential fire,
Though by it they expire,
They’l thank the very Flames with which they do consume.
In the eighteenth year of Tembun, the Devil, assuming the form of a Brother in St. Francis Xavier’s company, came safely across the wide seas to Japan. He was able to change himself into this Brother because, while the genuine Brother was ashore at Amakawa or somewhere, the “black ship” which carried the party sailed away and left him behind without knowing it. Then the Devil, who had up to this time been hanging head down with his tail wrapped round a spar secretly watching what was going on in the ship, instantly took on the appearance of this man and began to wait on St. Francis constantly. Of course such a trick was nothing for him, since he was the expert who, when he called on Dr. Faust, could assume the shape of a splendid red-cloaked knight. But when he reached Japan, he found things quite different from what he had read of them in Marco Polo’s [Pg 5]Travels while still in the West. In the first place, in the Travels, the whole country seemed to be overflowing with gold, but look where he might, there was nothing of the kind to be seen. Then he might be able to tempt people a good deal by scratching crosses with his nail and turning them into gold. And it was said that the Japanese knew a way of raising the dead by the power of pearls or something, but this also seemed to be one of Marco Polo’s lies. If it was a lie and he should spit into all their wells and spread a plague among them, practically all men would forget the coming Paradise in their agony. Laudably following St. Francis about here and there sight-seeing, the Devil secretly thought such thoughts and smiled to himself with satisfaction. But there was one thing that troubled him. Even he did not know what to do about that one thing. Francis Xavier having just reached Japan and it being necessary for him to preach widely before he could make any converts to Christianity, there was not a single all-important believer for him to tempt. With all his being the Devil, this perplexed him not a little. In the first place, for the time being, he did not know how to while away his tedious leisure hours. So after considering many things, he thought he would kill some time gardening anyway, for he had been carrying various kinds of seeds in the hollow of his ear ever since his departure from the West. As for land, if he borrowed a neighboring field, he would have no trouble about that. Moreover, even St. Francis gave his hearty approval. Of course he supposed that one of the Brothers [Pg 6]in his company was going to introduce western medicinal herbs or some such plants into Japan. The Devil immediately borrowed a spade and a hoe and began energetically to till a roadside field. It was just at the vapor-laden beginning of spring, and the bell of a far-off temple sent its sleepy boom through the floating mist. The sound was ever so tranquil and did not strike him on the crown of the head with the disagreeable sharp clang of the church bells of the West to which he was accustomed. But if you suppose that the Devil felt calm in these peaceful surroundings, you are quite wrong. When he once heard the sound of this temple bell, he scowled more unhappily than he had when he heard the bell of St. Paul’s and began to dig furiously in the field. For when, bathed in the warm sunshine, he heard this calm bell, his heart was strangely relaxed. He had no more mind to work evil than to do good. At this rate, his crossing the sea on purpose to tempt the Japanese would be all in vain. The only reason the Devil, who hated work so much that he was once scolded by the sister of Ivan for having no blisters on his palms, was willing to toil away with a hoe like this was simply that he was madly determined to drive away the moral sleepiness that threatened to overcome him. After some days the Devil at last finished his work and sowed in furrows the seeds he had in his ear. [Pg 7] During the following months, the seeds the Devil had sown sprouted and grew into high plants and, at the end of the summer, broad green leaves completely hid all the earth of the field. But there was no one who knew the name of the plants. Even when St. Francis asked him, the Devil only grinned and held his tongue, vouchsafing no reply. Meanwhile the plants put out clusters of flowers on the ends of their stems. They were funnel-shaped and light purple. The Devil seemed to be delighted with the flowering of the plants in proportion to the trouble he had taken with them. So every day, after the morning and evening services, he always came out into the field and cultivated them devotedly. Then one day (St. Francis had gone off on a preaching tour for several days and was absent) a cattle dealer passed by the field leading a yellow cow. There across the fence in the field full of purple flowers stood a southern barbarian Brother in his black priest’s robe and broad-brimmed hat busily picking worms off the leaves. The flowers were so curious that the cattle dealer involuntarily stopped, took off his mushroom hat and called to the Brother politely, “I say, holy one, what are those flowers?” The Brother looked round. He had a flat nose and small eyes and was an altogether good-natured looking “red-head.” “These?” “Yes.” The “red-head,” leaning on the fence, shook his [Pg 8]head. Then he said in awkward Japanese, “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell that one thing to anybody.” “Oh, then did Francis Sama say that you shouldn’t tell?” “No, not that.” “Then won’t you just tell me once, for I’ve recently been instructed by Francis Sama and become a believer in your religion, as you see.” The cattle dealer pointed proudly to his breast. The Devil looked, and sure enough, there was a little brass cross hanging from his neck and shining in the sun. Then, perhaps dazzled by it, the Brother screwed up his face a little and dropped his eyes to the ground, but quickly in a more familiar tone than before and so that you could not tell whether he was joking or not, he said, “Still I can’t. For by the law of our country, it’s forbidden to tell. Better still, you make a guess at it yourself. The Japanese are clever, so you’re sure to hit it. If you do, I’ll give you all the plants in this field.” The cattle dealer probably thought the Brother was making fun of him. With a smile on his sun-burnt face, he gave his head an exaggerated tilt. “What can it be, I wonder. To save me, I can’t guess it right off.” “Oh, you needn’t do it to-day. Think it over for three days. I don’t care if you consult others about it. If you guess it, I’ll give you all these. Besides, I’ll give you some rare wine. Or shall I give you a picture of the Heavenly Paradise.” [Pg 9] The cattle dealer seemed to be surprised at his earnestness. “Then if I don’t guess it, what’ll I have to do?” Pushing his hat back on his head, the Brother waved his hand and laughed. He laughed in a sharp voice like a crow’s, that took the cattle dealer a little by surprise. “If you fail to guess it, I’ll take something of yours. It’s a gamble. It’s a gamble whether you can guess it or not. If you guess it, I give you all these plants.” As he talked, the red-head’s voice again took on a friendly tone. “All right. Then I’ll do my best, too, and give you anything you say.” “Will you give me anything? Even that cow?” “If she’ll do, I’ll give her to you right now.” Smiling, the cattle dealer patted the yellow cow on the forehead. He seemed to be taking everything the good-natured Brother said for a joke. “And in exchange, if I win, I’ll thank you for those flowering plants.” “Good. Good. Then it’s a real bargain, isn’t it?” “It’s a real bargain. I swear in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” When he heard this, the Brother flashed his little eyes and snorted twice or thrice as if with satisfaction. Then putting his left hand on his hip and leaning a little back, he put his right hand out and touched the purple flowers. “Well then, if you don’t guess it—I’ll take you, body and soul.” [Pg 10] With this, the red-head made a large circle with his right hand and took off his hat. There were two horns like a goat’s in his shaggy hair. The cattle dealer, changing color, dropped his hat from his hand. Perhaps because the sun was obscured, the brightness of the flowers and leaves in the field all at once vanished. Even the cow, as if in fear of something, lowered her horns and gave a bellow like the rumbling of the earth. “Even a promise made to me is a promise. You’ve sworn in the name of one to me unmentionable. Don’t forget. You have three days. Good-bye.” Speaking thus in the courteous tone of one who has made a fool of somebody, the Devil deliberately made the cattle dealer a very polite bow. The cattle dealer regretted that he had fallen into the Devil’s trap so carelessly. If he left things as they were, he would finally be seized by that “shag-pate” and have to burn body and soul in the everlasting fires of hell. Then his having forsaken his former religion and having been baptized would be of no avail. Since, however, he had sworn in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, he could not break the promise he had made. Of course if St. Francis had only been there, something might have been done yet, but unfortunately he was away. Then for three days, during which he could not sleep a wink, he tried to think how to outwit the Devil. To do so, there was absolutely no way but to learn the name of the plant. But where could there be [Pg 11]anybody who knew a name unknown even to St. Francis? Finally, on the last night, the cattle dealer, again leading his yellow cow, stole up to the house in which the Brother lived. It stood beside the field facing the road. When he got there, it seemed that the Brother had already gone to bed, and no light shone from the windows. There was a moon, but it was a hazy night, and here and there in the lonely field the purple flowers showed faintly and lonesomely in the gloom. Of course the cattle dealer had finally crept up here because he had thought of a sort of doubtful plan, but as soon as he saw this quiet scene, he was somehow afraid and felt that it might be best to go back home as he was. Especially when he thought of that demon in the house with horns like a goat’s, perhaps dreaming of the Inferno, all the courage he had worked up melted weakly away. But when he thought of handing himself over, body and soul, to that shag-pate, of course it was no time to squeal and give up. So the cattle dealer, beseeching the help of the Virgin Mary, boldly carried out the plan he had formed. It was no very great plan. It was only to take off the halter of the yellow cow he was leading and, beating her roundly behind, drive her madly into the field. The cow, jumping with the pain, broke down the fence and trampled the field. She ran against the weather-boarding of the house with her horns many times. And the noise of her hoofs and her bellowing, stirred the light mist of the night and echoed fearfully through the neighborhood. Then somebody opened a window shutter and stuck out his head. Because of the darkness the face [Pg 12]was not recognizable, but it was surely that of the Devil in the form of the Brother. It may have been nerves, but the horns on his head were distinctly visible even in the night. “You dirty cur, you, what do you mean by tearing up my tobacco field?” yelled the Devil in a sleepy voice, shaking his fist. He seemed extremely angry at being disturbed just after falling asleep. But to the cattle dealer, who was hiding and watching on the other side of the field, these words of the Devil sounded like the voice of his God. “You dirty cur, you, what do you mean by tearing up my tobacco field?” After that everything ended most harmoniously, as always in stories of this kind. The cattle dealer guessed the name “tobacco” successfully and got the best of the Devil. And he took all the tobacco growing in the field. Thus ends the story. But I have always wondered whether this tradition may not have in it a deeper meaning. For though the Devil was not able to make the cattle dealer’s body and soul his own, he managed instead to disseminate tobacco throughout all Japan. Wherefore, as the escape of the cattle dealer was coupled with his fall, was not the failure of the Devil accompanied by success? Though the Devil falls, he does not simply rise again. May it not be true that when a man thinks he has won out against temptation he finds to his surprise that he has met defeat? [Pg 13] And here let me add a brief account of what became of the Devil after that. When St. Francis came back, he was finally driven off of the land by the virtue of the holy pentagram. But he seems to have wandered about here and there after that still disguised as a Brother. In a certain record, he is said to have appeared occasionally in Kyōto at about the time of the erection of the temple Nambanji. There is also a theory that Kashin Koji, the notorious fellow who made sport of Matsunaga Danjo, was the Devil, but since this has already been written about by Lafcadio Hearn, I shall not repeat it here. And then when the foreign religion was prohibited by Toyotomi and Tokugawa, he still showed himself at first, but finally in the end he left Japan altogether. The records give practically no further information on the Devil. Only it is exceedingly regrettable that we are unable to learn of his movements since he came back to Japan a second time after the Restoration of Meiji.
TALES GROTESQUE AND CURIOUS Akutagawa Ryūnosuke
utorak, 3. ožujka 2026.
"And now, if you have all seen the coin and sufficiently admired it, you may pass it back. I make a point of never leaving it off the shelf for more than fifteen minutes." The half dozen or more guests seated about the hoard of the genial speaker, glanced casually at each other as though expecting to see the object mentioned immediately produced. But no coin appeared. "I have other amusements waiting," suggested their host, with a smile in which even his wife could detect no signs of impatience. "Now let Robert put it back into the cabinet." Robert was the butler. Blank looks, negative gestures, but still no coin. "Perhaps it is in somebody's lap," timidly ventured one of the younger women. "It doesn't seem to be on the table." Immediately all the ladies began lifting their napkins and shaking out the gloves which lay under them, in an effort to relieve their own embarrassment and that of the gentlemen who had not even so simple a resource as this at their command. "It can't be lost," protested Mr. Sedgwick, with an air of perfect confidence. "I saw it but a minute ago in somebody's hand. Darrow, you had it; what did you do with it?" "Passed it along." "Well, well, it must be under somebody's plate or doily." And he began to move about his own and such dishes as were within reach of his hand. Each guest imitated him, lifting glasses and turning over spoons till Mr. Sedgwick himself bade them desist. "It's slipped to the floor," he nonchalantly concluded. "A toast to the ladies, and we will give Robert the chance of looking for it." As they drank this toast, his apparently careless, but quietly astute, glance took in each countenance about him. The coin was very valuable and its loss would be keenly felt by him. Had it slipped from the table some one's eye would have perceived it, some hand would have followed it. Only a minute or two before, the attention of the whole party had been concentrated upon it. Darrow had held it up for all to see, while he discoursed upon its history. He would take Darrow aside at the first opportunity and ask him— But—it! how could he do that? These were his intimate friends. He knew them well, more than well, with one exception, and he— Well, he was the handsomest of the lot and the most debonair and agreeable. A little more gay than usual to-night, possibly a trifle too gay, considering that a man of Mr. Blake's social weight and business standing sat at the board; but not to be suspected, no, not to be suspected, even if he was the next man after Darrow and had betrayed something like confusion when the eyes of the whole table turned his way at the former's simple statement of "I passed it on." Robert would find the coin; he was a fool to doubt it; and if Robert did not, why, he would simply have to pocket his chagrin, and not let a triviality like this throw a shadow over his hospitality. All this, while he genially lifted his glass and proposed the health of the ladies. The constraint of the preceding moment was removed by his manner, and a dozen jests caused as many merry laughs. Then he pushed back his chair. "And now, some music!" he cheerfully cried, as with lingering glances and some further pokings about of the table furniture, the various guests left their places and followed him into the adjoining room. But the ladies were too nervous and the gentlemen not sufficiently sure of their voices to undertake the entertainment of the rest at a moment of such acknowledged suspense; and notwithstanding the exertions of their host and his quiet but much discomfited wife, it soon became apparent that but one thought engrossed them all, and that any attempt at conversation must prove futile so long as the curtains between the two rooms remained open and they could see Robert on his hands and knees searching the floor and shoving aside the rugs. Darrow, who was Mr. Sedgwick's brother-in-law and almost as much at home in the house as Sedgwick himself, made a move to draw these curtains, but something in his relative's face stopped him and he desisted with some laughing remark which did not attract enough attention, even, to elicit any response. "I hope his eyesight is good," murmured one of the young girls, edging a trifle forward. "Mayn't I help him look? They say at home that I am the only one in the house who can find anything." Mr. Sedgwick smiled indulgently at the speaker (a round-faced, round-eyed, merry-hearted girl whom in days gone by he had dandled on his knees), but answered quite quickly for him: "Robert will find it if it is there." Then, distressed at this involuntary disclosure of his thought, added in his whole-hearted way: "It's such a little thing, and the room is so big and a round object rolls unexpectedly far, you know. Well, have you got it?" he eagerly demanded, as the butler finally showed himself in the door. "No, sir; and it's not in the dining-room. I have cleared the table and thoroughly searched the floor." Mr. Sedgwick knew that he had. He had no doubts about Robert. Robert had been in his employ for years and had often handled his coins and, at his order, sometimes shown them. "Very well," said he, "we'll not bother about it any more to-night; you may draw the curtains." But here the clear, almost strident voice of the youngest man of the party interposed. "Wait a minute," said he. "This especial coin is the great treasure of Mr. Sedgwick's valuable collection. It is unique in this country, and not only worth a great deal of money, but cannot be duplicated at any cost. There are only three of its stamp in the world. Shall we let the matter pass, then, as though it were of small importance? I feel that we cannot; that we are, in a measure, responsible for its disappearance. Mr. Sedgwick handed it to us to look at, and while it was going through our hands it vanished. What must he think? What has he every right to think? I need not put it into words; you know what you would think, what you could not help but think, if the object were yours and it was lost in this way. Gentlemen—I leave the ladies entirely out of this—I do not propose that he shall have further opportunity to associate me with this very natural doubt. I demand the privilege of emptying my pockets here and now, before any of us have left his presence. I am a connoisseur in coins myself and consequently find it imperative to take the initiative in this matter. As I propose to spare the ladies, let us step back into the dining-room. Mr. Sedgwick, pray don't deny me; I'm thoroughly in earnest, I assure you." The astonishment created by this audacious proposition was so great, and the feeling it occasioned so intense, that for an instant all stood speechless. Young Hammersley was a millionaire himself, and generous to a fault, as all knew. Under no circumstances would any one even suspect him of appropriating anything, great or small, to which he had not a perfect right. Nor was he likely to imagine for a moment that any one would. That he could make such a proposition then, based upon any such plea, argued a definite suspicion in some other quarter, which could not pass unrecognized. In vain Mr. Sedgwick raised his voice in frank and decided protest, two of the gentlemen had already made a quick move toward Robert, who still stood, stupefied by the situation, with his hand on the cord which controlled the curtains. "He is quite right," remarked one of these, as he passed into the dining-room. "I shouldn't sleep a wink to-night if this question remained unsettled." The other, the oldest man present, the financier of whose standing and highly esteemed character I have already spoken, said nothing, but followed in a way to show that his mind was equally made up. The position in which Mr. Sedgwick found himself placed was far from enviable. With a glance at the two remaining gentlemen, he turned towards the ladies now standing in a close group at the other end of the room. One of them was his wife, and he quivered internally as he noted the deep red of her distressed countenance. But it was the others he addressed, singling out, with the rare courtesy which was his by nature, the one comparative stranger, Barrow's niece, a Rochester girl, who could not be finding this, her first party in Boston, very amusing. "I hope you will appreciate the dilemma in which I have been placed by these gentlemen," he began, "and will pardon—" But here he noticed that she was not in the least attending; her eyes were on the handsome figure of Hugh Clifford, her uncle's neighbor at table, who in company with Mr. Hammersley was still hesitating in the doorway. As Mr. Sedgwick stopped his useless talk, the two passed in and the sound of her fluttering breath as she finally turned a listening ear his way, caused him to falter as he repeated his assurances and begged her indulgence. She answered with some conventional phrase which he forgot while crossing the room. But the remembrance of her slight satin-robed figure, drawn up in an attitude whose carelessness was totally belied by the anxiety of her half-averted glance, followed him into the presence of the four men awaiting him. Four? I should say five, for Robert was still there, though in a corner by himself, ready, no doubt, to share any attempt which the others might make to prove their innocence. "The ladies will await us in the music-room," announced the host on entering; and then paused, disconcerted by the picture suddenly disclosed to his eye. On one side stood the two who had entered first, with their eyes fixed in open sternness on young Clifford, who, quite alone on the rug, faced them with a countenance of such pronounced pallor that there seemed to be nothing else in the room. As his features were singularly regular and his almost perfect mouth accentuated by a smile as set as his figure was immobile, the effect was so startling that not only Mr. Sedgwick, but every other person present, no doubt, wished that the plow had never turned the furrow which had brought this wretched coin to light. However, the affair had gone too far now for retreat, as was shown by Mr. Blake, the elderly financier whom all were ready to recognize as the chief guest there. With an apologetic glance at Mr. Hammersley, the impetuous young millionaire who had first proposed this embarrassing procedure, he advanced to an empty side-table and began, in a quiet, business-like way, to lay on it the contents of his various pockets. As the pile rose, the silence grew, the act in itself was so simple, the motive actuating it so serious and out of accord with the standing of the company and the nature of the occasion. When all was done, he stepped up to Mr. Sedgwick, with his arms raised and held out from his body. "Now accommodate me," said he, "by running your hands up and down my chest. I have a secret pocket there which should be empty at this time." Mr. Sedgwick, fascinated by his look, did as he was bid, reporting shortly: "You are quite correct. I find nothing there." Mr. Blake stepped back. As he did so, every eye, suddenly released from his imposing figure, flashed towards the immovable Clifford, to find him still absorbed by the action and attitude of the man who had just undergone what to him doubtless appeared a degrading ordeal. Pale before, he was absolutely livid now, though otherwise unchanged. To break the force of what appeared to be an open, if involuntary, self-betrayal, another guest stepped forward; but no sooner had he raised his hand to his vest-pocket than Clifford moved, and in a high, strident voice totally unlike his usual tones remarked: "This is all—all—very interesting and commendable, no doubt. But for such a procedure to be of any real value it should be entered into by all. Gentlemen"—his rigidity was all gone now and so was his pallor—"I am unwilling to submit myself to what, in my eyes, is an act of unnecessary humiliation. Our word should be enough. I have not the coin——" Stopped by the absolute silence, he cast a distressed look into the faces about him, till it reached that of Mr. Sedgwick, where it lingered, in an appeal to which that gentleman, out of his great heart, instantly responded. "One should take the word of the gentleman he invites to his house. We will excuse you, and excuse all the others from the unnecessary ceremony which Mr. Blake has been good enough to initiate." But this show of favor was not to the mind of the last-mentioned gentleman, and met with instant reproof. "Not so fast, Sedgwick. I am the oldest man here and I did not feel it was enough simply to state that this coin was not on my person. As to the question of humiliation, it strikes me that humiliation would lie, in this instance, in a refusal for which no better excuse can be given than the purely egotistical one of personal pride." At this attack, the fine head of Clifford rose, and Darrow, remembering the girl within, felt instinctively grateful that she was not here to note the effect it gave to his person. "I regret to differ," said he. "To me no humiliation could equal that of demonstrating in this open manner the fact of one's not being a thief." Mr. Blake gravely surveyed him. Tor some reason the issue seemed no longer to lie between Clifford and the actual loser of the coin, but between him and his fellow guest, this uncompromising banker. "A thief!" repeated the young man, in an indescribable tone full of bitterness and scorn. Mr. Blake remained unmoved; he was a just man but strict, hard to himself, hard to others. But he was not entirely without heart. Suddenly his expression lightened. A certain possible explanation of the other's attitude had entered his mind. "Young men sometimes have reasons for their susceptibilities which the old forget. If you have such—if you carry a photograph, believe that we have no interest in pictures of any sort to-night and certainly would fail to recognize them." A smile of disdain flickered across the young man's lip. Evidently it was no discovery of this kind that he feared. "I carry no photographs," said he; and, bowing low to his host, he added in a measured tone which but poorly hid his profound agitation, "I regret to have interfered in the slightest way with the pleasure of the evening. If you will be so good as to make my excuses to the ladies, I will withdraw from a presence upon which I have made so poor an impression." Mr. Sedgwick prized his coin and despised deceit, but he could not let a guest leave him in this manner. Instinctively he held out his hand. Proudly young Clifford dropped his own into it; but the lack of mutual confidence was felt and the contact was a cold one. Half regretting his impulsive attempt at courtesy, Mr. Sedgwick drew back, and Clifford was already at the door leading into the hall, when Hammersley, who by his indiscreet proposition had made all this trouble for him, sprang forward and caught him by the arm. "Don't go," he whispered. "You're done for if you leave like this. I—I was a brute to propose such an asinine thing, but having done so I am bound to see you out of the difficulty. Come into the adjoining room—there is nobody there at present—and we will empty our pockets together and find this lost article if we can. I may have pocketed it myself, in a fit of abstraction." Did the other hesitate? Some thought so; but, if he did, it was but momentarily. "I cannot," he muttered; "think what you will of me, but let me go." And dashing open the door he disappeared from their sight just as light steps and the rustle of skirts were heard again in the adjoining room. "There are the ladies. What shall we say to them?" queried Sedgwick, stepping slowly towards the intervening curtains. "Tell them the truth," enjoined Mr. Blake, as he hastily repocketed his own belongings. "Why should a handsome devil like that be treated with any more consideration than another? He has a secret if he hasn't a coin. Let them know this. It may save some one a future heartache." The last sentence was muttered, but Mr. Sedgwick heard it. Perhaps that was why his first movement on entering the adjoining room was to cross over to the cabinet and shut and lock the heavily paneled door which had been left standing open. At all events, the action drew general attention and caused an instant silence, broken the next minute by an ardent cry: "So your search was futile?" It came from the lady least known, the interesting young stranger whose personality had made so vivid an impression upon him. "Quite so," he answered, hastily facing her with an attempted smile. "The gentlemen decided not to carry matters to the length first proposed. The object was not worth it. I approved their decision. This was meant for a joyous occasion. Why mar it by unnecessary unpleasantness?" She had given him her full attention while he was speaking, but her eye wandered away the moment he had finished and rested searchingly on the other gentlemen. Evidently she missed a face she had expected to find there, for her color changed and she drew back behind the other ladies with the light, unmusical laugh women, sometimes use to hide a secret emotion. It brought Mr. Darrow forward. "Some were not willing to subject themselves to what they considered an unnecessary humiliation," he curtly remarked. "Mr. Clifford—" "There! let us drop it," put in his brother-in-law. "I've lost my coin and that's the end of it. I don't intend to have the evening spoiled for a thing like that. Music! ladies, music and a jolly air! No more dumps." And with as hearty a laugh as he could command in face of the somber looks he encountered on every side, he led the way back into the music-room. Once there the women seemed to recover their spirits; that is, such as remained. One had disappeared. A door opened from this room into the main hall and through this a certain young lady had vanished before the others had had time to group themselves about the piano. We know who this lady was; possibly, we know, too, why her hostess did not follow her. Meanwhile, Mr. Clifford had gone upstairs for his coat and was lingering there, the prey of some very bitter reflections. Though he had encountered nobody on the stairs, and neither heard nor saw any one in the halls, he felt confident that he was not unwatched. He remembered the look on the butler's face as he tore himself away from Hammersley's restraining hand, and he knew what that fellow thought and also was quite able to guess what that fellow would do, if his suspicions were farther awakened. This conviction brought an odd and not very open smile to his face, as he finally turned to descend the one flight which separated him from the front door he was so ardently desirous of closing behind him for ever. A moment and he would be down; but the steps were many and seemed to multiply indefinitely as he sped below. Should his departure be noted, and some one advance to detain him! He fancied he heard a rustle in the open space under the stairs. Were any one to step forth, Robert or— With a start, he paused and clutched the banister. Some one had stepped forth; a woman! The swish of her skirts was unmistakable. He felt the chill of a new dread. Never in his short but triumphant career had he met coldness or disapproval in the eye of a woman. Was he to encounter it now? If so, it would go hard with him. He trembled as he turned his head to see which of the four it was. If it should prove to be his hostess— But it was not she; it was Darrow's young friend, the pretty inconsequent girl he had chatted with at the dinner-table, and afterwards completely forgotten in the events which had centered all his thoughts upon himself. And she was standing there, waiting for him! He would have to pass her,—notice her,—speak. But when the encounter occurred and their eyes met, he failed to find in hers any sign of the disapproval he feared, but instead a gentlewomanly interest which he might interpret deeply, or otherwise, according to the measure of his need. That need seemed to be a deep one at this instant, for his countenance softened perceptibly as he took her quietly extended hand. "Good-night," she said; "I am just going myself," and with an entrancing smile of perfect friendliness, she fluttered past him up the stairs. It was the one and only greeting which his sick heart could have sustained without flinching. Just this friendly farewell of one acquaintance to another, as though no change had taken place in his relations to society and the world. And she was a woman and not a thoughtless girl! Staring after her slight, elegant figure, slowly ascending the stair, he forgot to return her cordial greeting. What delicacy, and yet what character there was in the poise of her spirited head! He felt his breath fail him, in his anxiety for another glance from her eye, for some sign, however small, that she had carried the thought of him up those few, quickly mounted steps. Would he get it? She is at the bend of the stair; she pauses—turns, a nod—and she is gone. With an impetuous gesture, he dashed from the house. In the drawing-room the noise of the closing door was heard, and a change at once took place in the attitude and expression of all present. The young millionaire approached Mr. Sedgwick and confidentially remarked: "There goes your precious coin. I'm sure of it. I even think I can tell the exact place in which it is hidden. His hand went to his left coat-pocket once too often." "That's right. I noticed the action also," chimed in Mr. Darrow, who had stepped up, unobserved. "And I noticed something else. His whole appearance altered from the moment this coin came on the scene. An indefinable half-eager, half-furtive look crept into his eye as he saw it passed from hand to hand. I remember it now, though it didn't make much impression upon me at the time." "And I remember another thing," supplemented Hammersley in his anxiety to set himself straight with these men of whose entire approval he was not quite sure. "He raised his napkin to his mouth very frequently during the meal and held it there longer than is usual, too. Once he caught me looking at him, and for a moment he flushed scarlet, then he broke out with one of his witty remarks and I had to laugh like everybody else. If I am not mistaken, his napkin was up and his right hand working behind it, about the time Mr. Sedgwick requested the return of his coin." "The idiot! Hadn't he sense enough to know that such a loss wouldn't pass unquestioned? The gem of the collection; known all over the country, and he's not even a connoisseur." "No; I've never even heard him mention numismatics." "Mr. Darrow spoke of its value. Perhaps that was what tempted him. I know that Clifford's been rather down on his luck lately." "He? Well, he don't look it. There isn't one of us so well set up. Pardon me, Mr. Hammersley, you understand what I mean. He perhaps relies a little bit too much on his fine clothes." "He needn't. His face is his fortune—all the one he's got, I hear it said. He had a pretty income from Consolidated Silver, but that's gone up and left him in what you call difficulties. If he has debts besides—" But here Mr. Darrow was called off. His niece wanted to see him for one minute in the hall. When he came back it was to make his adieu and hers. She had been taken suddenly indisposed and his duty was to see her immediately home. This broke up the party, and amid general protestations the various guests were taking their leave when the whole action was stopped by a smothered cry from the dining-room, and the precipitate entrance of Robert, asking for Mr. Sedgwick. "What's up? What's happened?" demanded that gentleman, hurriedly advancing towards the agitated butler. "Found!" he exclaimed, holding up the coin between his thumb and forefinger. "It was standing straight up between two leaves of the table. It tumbled and fell to the floor as Luke and I were taking them out." Silence which could be felt for a moment. Then each man turned and surveyed his neighbor, while the women's voices rose in little cries that were almost hysterical. "I knew that it would be found, and found here," came from the hallway in rich, resonant tones. "Uncle, do not hurry; I am feeling better," followed in unconscious naïveté, as the young girl stepped in, showing a countenance in which were small signs of indisposition or even of depressed spirits. Mr. Darrow, with a smile of sympathetic understanding, joined the others now crowding about the butler. "I noticed the crack between these two leaves when I pushed about the plates and dishes," he was saying. "But I never thought of looking in it for the missing coin. I'm sure I'm very sorry that I didn't." Mr. Darrow, to whom these words had recalled a circumstance he had otherwise, completely forgotten, anxiously remarked: "That must have happened shortly after it left my hand. I recall now that the lady sitting between me and Clifford gave it a twirl which sent it spinning over the bare table-top. I don't think she realized the notion. She was listening—we all were—to a flow of bright repartee, going on below us, and failed to follow the movements of the coin. Otherwise, she would have spoken. But what a marvel that it should have reached that crack in just the position to fall in!" "It wouldn't happen again, not if we spun it there for a month of Sundays." "But Mr. Clifford!" put in an agitated voice. "Yes, it has been rather hard on him. But he shouldn't have such keen sensibilities. If he had emptied out his pockets cheerfully and at the first intimation, none of this unpleasantness would have happened. Mr. Sedgwick, I congratulate you upon the recovery of this valuable coin, and am quite ready to offer my services if you wish to make Mr. Clifford immediately acquainted with Robert's discovery." "Thank you, but I will perform that duty myself," was Mr. Sedgwick's quiet rejoinder, as he unlocked the door of his cabinet and carefully restored the coin to its proper place. When he faced back, he found his guests on the point of leaving. Only one gave of any intention of lingering. This was the elderly financier who had shown such stern resolve in the treatment of Mr. Clifford's so-called sensibilities. He had confided his wife to the care of Mr. Darrow, and now met Mr. Sedgwick with this remark: "I'm going to ask a favor of you. If, as you have intimated, it is your intention to visit Mr. Clifford to-night, I should like to go with you. I don't understand this young man and his unaccountable attitude in this matter, and it is very important that I should. Have you any objection to my company? My motor is at the door, and we can settle the affair in twenty minutes." "None," returned his host, a little surprised, however, at the request. "His pride does seem a little out of place, but he was among comparative strangers, and seemed to feel his honor greatly impugned by Hammersley's unfortunate proposition. I'm sorry way down to the ground for what has occurred, and cannot carry him our apologies too soon." "No, you cannot," retorted the other shortly. And so seriously did he utter this that no time was lost by Mr. Sedgwick, and as soon as they could get into their coats, they were in the motor and on their way to the young man's apartment. Their experience began at the door. A man was lolling there who told them that Mr. Clifford had changed his quarters; where he did not know. But upon the production of a five-dollar bill, he remembered enough about it to give them a number and street where possibly they might find him. In a rush, they hastened there; only to hear the same story from the sleepy elevator boy anticipating his last trip up for the night. "Mr. Clifford left a week ago; he didn't tell me where he was going." Nevertheless the boy knew; that they saw, and another but smaller bill came into requisition and awoke his sleepy memory. The street and number which he gave made the two well-to-do men stare. But they said nothing, though the looks they cast back at the second-rate quarters they were leaving, so far below the elegant apartment house they had visited first, were sufficiently expressive. The scale of descent from luxury to positive discomfort was proving a rapid one and prepared them for the dismal, ill-cared-for, altogether repulsive doorway before which they halted next. No attendant waited here; not even an elevator boy; the latter for the good reason that there was no elevator. An uninviting flight of stairs was before them; and on the few doors within sight a simple card showed the name of the occupant. Mr. Sedgwick glanced at his companion. "Shall we go up?" he asked. Mr. Blake nodded. "We'll find him," said he, "if it takes all night." "Surely he cannot have sunk lower than this." "Remembering his get-up, I do not think so. Yet who knows? Some mystery lies back of his whole conduct. Dining in your home, with this to come back to! I don't wonder—" But here a thought struck him. Pausing with his foot on the stair, he turned a flushed countenance towards Mr. Sedgwick. "I've an idea," said he. "Perhaps—" He whispered the rest. Mr. Sedgwick stared and shook his shoulders. "Possibly," said he, flushing slightly in his turn. Then, as they proceeded up, "I feel like a brute, anyway. A sorry night's business all through, unless the end proves better than the beginning." "We'll start from the top. Something tells me that we shall find him close under the roof. Can you read the names by such a light?" "Barely; but I have matches." And now there might have been witnessed by any chance home-comer the curious sight of two extremely well-dressed men pottering through the attic hall of this decaying old domicile, reading the cards on the doors by means of a lighted match. And vainly. On none of the cards could be seen the name they sought. "We're on the wrong track," protested Mr. Blake. "No use keeping this up," but found himself stopped, when about to turn away, by a gesture of Sedgwick's. "There's a light under the door you see there untagged," said he. "I'm going to knock." He did so. There was a sound within and then utter silence. He knocked again. A man's step was heard approaching the door, then again the silence. Mr. Sedgwick made a third essay, and then the door was suddenly pulled inward and in the gap they saw the handsome face and graceful figure of the young man they had so lately encountered amid palatial surroundings. But how changed! how openly miserable! and when he saw who his guests were, how proudly defiant of their opinion and presence. "You have found the coin," he quietly remarked. "I appreciate your courtesy in coming here to inform me of it. Will not that answer, without further conversation? I am on the point of retiring and—and—" Even the hardihood of a very visible despair gave way for an instant as he met Mr. Sedgwick's eye. In the break which followed, the older man spoke. "Pardon us, but we have come thus far with a double purpose. First, to tender our apologies, which you have been good enough to accept; secondly, to ask, in no spirit of curiosity, I assure you, a question that I seem to see answered, but which I should be glad to hear confirmed by your lips. May we not come in?" The question was put with a rare smile such as sometimes was seen on this hard-grained handler of millions, and the young man, seeing it, faltered back, leaving the way open for them to enter. The next minute he seemed to regret the impulse, for backing against a miserable table they saw there, he drew himself up with an air as nearly hostile as one of his nature could assume. "I know of no question," said he, "which I feel at this very late hour inclined to answer. A man who has been tracked as I must have been for you to find me here, is hardly in a mood to explain his poverty or the mad desire for former luxuries which took him to the house of one friendly enough, he thought, to accept his presence without inquiry as to the place he lived in or the nature or number of the reverses which had brought him to such a place as this." "I do not—believe me—" faltered Mr. Sedgwick, greatly embarrassed and distressed. In spite of the young man's attempt to hide the contents of the table, he had seen the two objects lying there—a piece of bread or roll, and a half-cocked revolver. Mr. Blake had seen them, too, and at once took the word out of his companion's mouth. "You mistake us," he said coldly, "as well as the nature of our errand. We are here from no motive of curiosity, as I have before said, nor from any other which might offend or distress you. We—or rather I am here on business. I have a position to offer to an intelligent, upright, enterprising young man. Your name has been given me. It was given me before this dinner, to which I went—if Mr. Sedgwick will pardon my plain speaking—chiefly for the purpose of making your acquaintance. The result was what you know, and possibly now you can understand my anxiety to see you exonerate yourself from the doubts you yourself raised by your attitude of resistance to the proposition made by that headlong, but well-meaning, young man of many millions, Mr. Hammersley. I wanted to find in you the honorable characteristics necessary to the man who is to draw an eight thousand dollars a year salary under my eye. I still want to do this. If then you are willing to make this whole thing plain to me—for it is not plain—not wholly plain, Mr. Clifford—then you will find in me a friend such as few young fellows can boast of, for I like you—I will say that—and where I like—" The gesture with which he ended the sentence was almost superfluous, in face of the change which had taken place in the aspect of the man he addressed. Wonder, doubt, hope, and again incredulity were lost at last in a recognition of the other's kindly intentions toward himself, and the prospects which they opened out before him. With a shame-faced look, and yet with a manly acceptance of his own humiliation that was not displeasing to his visitors, he turned about and pointing to the morsel of bread lying on the table before them, he said to Mr. Sedgwick: "Do you recognize that? It is from your table, and—and—it is not the only piece I had hidden in my pockets. I had not eaten in twenty-four hours when I sat down to dinner this evening. I had no prospect of another morsel for to-morrow and—and—I was afraid of eating my fill—there were ladies—and so—and so—" They did not let him finish. In a flash they had both taken in the room. Not an article which could be spared was anywhere visible. His dress-suit was all that remained to him of former ease and luxury. That he had retained, possibly for just such opportunities as had given him a dinner to-night. Mr. Blake understood at last, and his iron lip trembled. "Have you no friends?" he asked. "Was it necessary to go hungry?" "Could I ask alms or borrow what I could not pay? It was a position I was after, and positions do not come at call. Sometimes they come without it," he smiled with the dawning of his old-time grace on his handsome face, "but I find that one can see his resources go, dollar by dollar, and finally, cent by cent, in the search for employment no one considers necessary to a man like me. Perhaps if I had had less pride, had been willing to take you or any one else into my confidence, I might not have sunk to these depths of humiliation; but I had not the confidence in men which this last half hour has given me, and I went blundering on, hiding my needs and hoping against hope for some sort of result to my efforts. This pistol is not mine. I did borrow this, but I did not mean to use it, unless nature reached the point where it could stand no more. I thought the time had come to-night when I left your house, Mr. Sedgwick, suspected of theft. It seemed the last straw; but—but—a woman's look has held me back. I hesitated and—now you know the whole," said he; "that is, if you can understand why it was more possible for me to brave the contumely of such a suspicion than to open my pockets and disclose the crusts I had hidden there." "I can understand," said Mr. Sedgwick; "but the opportunity you have given us for doing so must not be shared by others. We will undertake your justification, but it must be made in our own way and after the most careful consideration; eh, Mr. Blake?" "Most assuredly; and if Mr. Clifford will present himself at my office early in the morning, we will first breakfast and then talk business." Young Clifford could only hold out his hand, but when, his two friends gone, he sat in contemplation of his changed prospects, one word and one only left his lips, uttered in every inflection of tenderness, hope, and joy. "Edith! Edith! Edith!" It was the name of the sweet young girl who had shown her faith in him at the moment when his heart was lowest and despair at its culmination.
ponedjeljak, 2. ožujka 2026.
When Day is Done By ARNOLD CASTLE - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/60849/pg60849-images.html
We were stationed at the little village of Z. The life of an officer in the army is well known. Drill and the riding school in the morning; dinner with the colonel or at the Jewish restaurant; and in the evening punch and cards. At Z. nobody kept open house, and there was no girl that anyone could think of marrying. We used to meet at each other's rooms, where we never saw anything but one another's uniforms. There was only one man among us who did not belong to the regiment. He was about thirty-five, and, of course, we looked upon him as an old fellow. He had the advantage of experience, and his habitual gloom, stern features, and his sharp tongue gave him great influence over his juniors. He was surrounded by a certain mystery. His looks were Russian, but his name was foreign. He had served in the Hussars, and with credit.[Pg 71] No one knew what had induced him to retire and settle in this out of the way little village, where he lived in mingled poverty and extravagance. He always went on foot, and wore a shabby black coat. But he was always ready to receive any of our officers; and though his dinners, cooked by a retired soldier, never consisted of more than two or three dishes, champagne flowed at them like water. His income, or how he got it, no one knew, and no one ventured to ask. He had a few books on military subjects and a few novels, which he willingly lent and never asked to have returned. But, on the other hand, he never returned the books he himself borrowed. His principal recreation was pistol-shooting. The walls of his room were riddled with bullets-a perfect honeycomb. A rich collection of pistols was the only thing luxurious in his modestly furnished villa. His skill as a shot was quite prodigious. If he had undertaken to shoot a pear off some one's cap not a man in our regiment would have hesitated to act as target. Our conversation often turned on duelling; Silvio, so I will call him, never joined in it. When asked if he had ever fought, he answered curtly, "Yes." But he gave no particulars, and it was evident that he disliked such questions. We concluded that the memory of some unhappy victim of his terrible skill preyed heavily upon his conscience.[Pg 72] None of us could ever have suspected him of cowardice. There are men whose look alone is enough to repel such a suspicion. An unexpected incident fairly astonished us. One afternoon about ten officers were dining with Silvio. They drank as usual, that is to say, a great deal. After dinner we asked our host to make a pool. For a long time he refused on the ground that he seldom played. At last he ordered cards to be brought in. With half a hundred gold pieces on the table we sat round him, and the game began. It was Silvio's habit not to speak when playing. He never disputed or explained. If an adversary made a mistake Silvio without a word chalked it down against him. Knowing his way we always let him have it. But among us on this occasion was an officer who had but lately joined. While playing he absent-mindedly scored a point too much. Silvio took the chalk and corrected the score in his own fashion. The officer, supposing him to have made a mistake, began to explain. Silvio went on dealing in silence. The officer, losing patience, took the brush and rubbed out what he thought was wrong. Silvio took the chalk and recorrected it. The officer, heated with wine and play, and irritated by the laughter of the company, thought himself aggrieved, and, in a fit of passion, seized[Pg 73] a brass candlestick and threw it at Silvio, who only just managed to avoid the missile. Great was our confusion. Silvio got up, white with rage, and said, with sparkling eyes— "Sir! have the goodness to withdraw, and you[Pg 74] may thank God that this has happened in my own house." "THE OFFICER SEIZED A BRASS CANDLESTICK." We could have no doubt as to the consequences, and we already looked upon our new comrade as a dead man. He withdrew saying that he was ready to give satisfaction for his offence in any way desired. The game went on for a few minutes; but feeling that our host was upset we gradually left off playing and dispersed, each to his own quarters. At the riding school next day we were already asking one another whether the young lieutenant was still alive, when he appeared among us. We asked him the same question, and were told that he had not yet heard from Silvio. We were astonished. We went to Silvio's and found him in the court-yard popping bullet after bullet into an ace which he had gummed to the gate. He received us as usual, but made no allusion to what had happened on the previous evening. Three days passed and the lieutenant was still alive. "Can it be possible," we asked one another in astonishment, "that Silvio will not fight?" Silvio did not fight. He accepted a flimsy apology, and became reconciled to the man who had insulted him. This lowered him greatly in the opinion of the young men, who, placing[Pg 75] bravery above all the other human virtues and regarding it as an excuse for every imaginable vice, were ready to overlook anything sooner than a lack of courage. However, little by little, all was forgotten, and Silvio regained his former influence. I alone could not renew my friendship with him. Being naturally romantic I had surpassed the rest in my attachment to the man whose life was an enigma, and who seemed to me a hero of some mysterious story. He liked me, and with me alone did he drop his sarcastic tone and converse simply and most agreeably on many subjects. But after this unlucky evening the thought that his honour was tarnished, and that it remained so by his own choice, never left me; and this prevented any renewal of our former intimacy. I was ashamed to look at him. Silvio was too sharp and experienced not to notice this and guess the reason. It seemed to vex him, for I observed that once or twice he hinted at an explanation; but I wanted none, and Silvio gave me up. Thenceforth I only met him in the presence of other friends, and our confidential talks were at an end. The busy occupants of the capital have no idea of the emotions so frequently experienced by residents in the country and in country towns; as, for instance, in awaiting the arrival of the post. On Tuesdays and Fridays the bureau of the[Pg 76] regimental staff was crammed with officers. Some were expecting money, others letters or newspapers. The letters were mostly opened on the spot, and the news freely interchanged, the office meanwhile presenting a most lively appearance. Silvio's letters used to be addressed to our regiment, and he usually called for them himself. On one occasion, a letter having been handed to him, I saw him break the seal and, with a look of great impatience, read the contents. His eyes sparkled. The other officers, each engaged with his own letters, did not notice anything. "Gentlemen," said Silvio, "circumstances demand my immediate departure. I leave tonight, and I hope you will not refuse to dine with me for the last time. I shall expect you, too," he added, "turning towards me, without fail." With these words he hurriedly left, and we agreed to meet at Silvio's. I went to Silvio's at the appointed time and found nearly the whole regiment with him. His things were already packed. Nothing remained but the bare shot-marked walls. We sat down to table. The host was in excellent spirits, and his liveliness communicated itself to the rest of the company. Corks popped every moment. Bottles fizzed and tumblers foamed incessantly, and we, with much warmth, wished our departing friend a pleasant journey and every happiness. The[Pg 77] evening was far advanced when we rose from table. During the search for hats, Silvio wished everybody goodbye. Then, taking me by the hand, as I was on the point of leaving, he said in a low voice: "I want to speak to you." I stopped behind. The guests had gone and we were left alone. Sitting down opposite one another we lighted our pipes. Silvio was much agitated, no traces of his former gaiety remained. Deadly pale, with sparkling eyes, and a thick smoke issuing from his mouth, he looked like a demon. Several minutes passed before he broke silence. "Perhaps we shall never meet again," he said. "Before saying goodbye I want to have a few words with you. You may have remarked that I care little for the opinion of others. But I like you, and should be sorry to leave you under a wrong impression." He paused, and began refilling his pipe. I looked down and was silent. "You thought it odd," he continued, "that I did not require satisfaction from that drunken maniac. You will grant, however, that being entitled to the choice of weapons I had his life more or less in my hands. I might attribute my tolerance to generosity, but I will not deceive you; if I could have chastised him without the[Pg 78] least risk to myself, without the slightest danger to my own life, then I would on no account have forgiven him." "HERE IS A MEMENTO OF OUR DUEL." I looked at Silvio with surprise. Such a confession completely upset me. Silvio continued: [Pg 79] "Precisely so, I had no right to endanger my life. Six years ago I received a slap in the face and my enemy still lives." My curiosity was greatly excited. "Did you not fight him?" I inquired. "Circumstances probably separated you?" "I did fight him," replied Silvio, "and here is a memento of our duel." He rose and took from a cardboard box a red cap with a gold tassel and gold braid. "My disposition is well known to you. I have been accustomed to be first in everything. Prom my youth this has been my passion. In my time dissipation was the fashion, and I was the most dissipated man in the army. We used to boast of our drunkenness. I beat at drinking the celebrated Burtsoff, of whom Davidoff has sung in his poems. Duels in our regiment were of daily occurrence. I took part in all of them, either as second or as principal. My comrades adored me, while the commanders of the regiment, who were constantly being changed, looked upon me as an incurable evil. "I was calmly, or rather boisterously, enjoying my reputation when a certain young man joined our regiment. He was rich, and came of a distinguished family—I will not name him. Never in my life did I meet with so brilliant, so fortunate a fellow!—young, clever, handsome, with the wildest spirits, the most reckless bravery, bearing a celebrated name, possessing funds of which he[Pg 80] [Pg 81] did not know the amount, but which were inexhaustible. You may imagine the effect he was sure to produce among us. My leadership was shaken. Dazzled by my reputation he began by seeking my friendship. But I received him coldly; at which, without the least sign of regret, he kept aloof from me. "WE CLUTCHED OUR SWORDS." "I took a dislike to him. His success in the regiment and in the society of women brought me to despair. I tried to pick a quarrel with him. To my epigrams he replied with epigrams which always seemed to me more pointed and more piercing than my own, and which were certainly much livelier; for while he joked I was raving. "Finally, at a ball at the house of a Polish landed proprietor, seeing him receive marked attention from all the ladies, and especially from the lady of the house, who had formerly been on very friendly terms with me, I whispered some low insult in his ear. He flew into a passion and gave me a slap on the cheek. We clutched our swords, the ladies fainted, we were separated, and the same night we drove out to fight. "It was nearly daybreak. I was standing at the appointed spot with my three seconds. How impatiently I awaited my opponent! The spring sun had risen and it was growing hot. At last I saw him in the distance. He was on foot, accompanied by only one second. We advanced[Pg 82] to meet him. He approached, holding in his hand his regimental cap filled full of black cherries. "The seconds measured twelve paces. It was for me to fire first. But my excitement was so great that I could not depend upon the certainty of my hand, and, in order to give myself time to get calm, I ceded the first shot to my adversary. He would not accept it, and we decided to cast lots. "The number fell to him; constant favourite of fortune that he was! He aimed and put a bullet through my cap. "It was now my turn. His life at last was in my hands. I looked at him eagerly, trying to detect if only some faint shadow of uneasiness. But he stood beneath my pistol picking out ripe cherries from his cap and spitting out the stones, some of which fell near me. His indifference enraged me. 'What is the use,' thought I, 'of depriving him of life, when he sets no value upon it.' As this savage thought flitted through my brain I lowered the pistol. "'You don't seem to be ready for death,' I said, 'you are eating your breakfast, and I don't want to interfere with you.' "'You don't interfere with me in the least,' he replied. 'Be good enough to fire; or don't fire if you prefer it; the shot remains with you, and I shall be at your service at any moment.' [Pg 83] "I turned to the seconds, informing them that I had no intention of firing that day, and with this the duel ended. I resigned my commission and retired to this little place. Since then not a[Pg 84] single day has passed that I have not thought of my revenge; and now the hour has arrived." "HIS LIFE AT LAST WAS IN MY HANDS." Silvio took from his pocket the letter he had received that morning, and handed it to me to read. Someone (it seemed to be his business agent) wrote to him from Moscow, that a certain individual was soon to be married to a young and beautiful girl. "You guess," said Silvio, "who the certain individual is. I am starting for Moscow. Me shall see whether he will be as indifferent now as he was some time ago, when in presence of death he ate cherries!" With these words Silvio rose, threw his cap upon the floor, and began pacing up and down the room like a tiger in his cage. I remained silent. Strange contending feelings agitated me. The servant entered and announced that the horses were ready. Silvio grasped my hand tightly. He got into the telega, in which lay two trunks—one containing his pistols, the other some personal effects. We wished good-bye a second time, and the horses galloped off. [Pg 85] CHAPTER II. Many years passed, and family circumstances obliged me to settle in the poor little village of H. Engaged in farming, I sighed in secret for my former merry, careless existence. Most difficult of all I found it to pass in solitude the spring and winter evenings. Until the dinner hour I somehow occupied the time, talking to the starosta, driving round to see how the work went on, or visiting the new buildings. But as soon as evening began to draw in, I was at a loss what to do with myself. My books in various bookcases, cupboards, and storerooms I knew by heart. The housekeeper, Kurilovna, related to me all the stories she could remember. The songs of the peasant women made me melancholy. I tried cherry brandy, but that gave me the headache. I must confess, however, that I had some fear of becoming a drunkard from ennui, the saddest kind of drunkenness imaginable, of which I had seen many examples in our district. I had no near neighbours with the exception of two or three melancholy ones, whose conversation consisted mostly of hiccups and sighs. Solitude was preferable to that. Finally I decided to go to bed as early as possible, and to dine as late as possible, thus shortening the evening and[Pg 86] lengthening the day; and I found this plan a good one. Pour versts from my place was a large estate belonging to Count B.; but the steward alone lived there. The Countess had visited her domain once only, just after her marriage, and she then only lived there about a month. However, in the second spring of my retirement, there was a report that the Countess, with her husband, would come to spend the summer on her estate; and they arrived at the beginning of June. The advent of a rich neighbour is an important event for residents in the country. The landowners and the people of their household talk of it for a couple of months beforehand, and for three years afterwards. As far as I was concerned, I must confess, the expected arrival of a young and beautiful neighbour affected me strongly. I burned with impatience to see her; and the first Sunday after her arrival I started for the village, in order to present myself to the Count and Countess as their near neighbour and humble servant. The footman showed me into the Count's study, while he went to inform him of my arrival. The spacious room was furnished in a most luxurious manner. Against the walls stood enclosed bookshelves well furnished with books, and surmounted by bronze busts. Over the marble mantelpiece[Pg 87] was a large mirror. The floor was covered with green cloth, over which were spread rugs and carpets. Having got unaccustomed to luxury in my own poor little corner, and not having beheld the wealth of other people for a long while, I was awed; and I awaited the Count with a sort of fear, just as a petitioner from the provinces awaits in an ante-room the arrival of the minister. The doors opened, and a man about thirty-two, and very handsome, entered the apartment. The Count approached me with a frank and friendly look. I tried to be self-possessed, and began to introduce myself, but he forestalled me. We sat down. His easy and agreeable, conversation soon dissipated my nervous timidity. I was already passing into my usual manner, when suddenly the Countess entered, and I became more confused than ever. She was, indeed, beautiful. The Count presented me. I was anxious to appear at ease, but the more I tried to assume an air of unrestraint, the more awkward I felt myself becoming. They, in order to give me time to recover myself and get accustomed to my new acquaintances, conversed with one another, treating me in good neighbourly fashion without ceremony. Meanwhile, I walked about the room, examining the books and pictures. In pictures I am no connoisseur; but one of the[Pg 88] Count's attracted my particular notice. It represented a view in Switzerland was not, however, struck by the painting, but by the fact that it was shot through by two bullets, one planted just on the top of the other. "A good shot," I remarked, turning to the Count. "Yes," he replied, "a very remarkable shot." "Do you shoot well?" he added. "Tolerably," I answered, rejoicing that the conversation had turned at last on a subject which interested me.' "At a distance of thirty paces I do not miss a card; I mean, of course, with a pistol that I am accustomed to." "Really?" said the Countess, with a look of great interest. "'And you, my dear, could you hit a card at thirty paces?" "Some day," replied the Count, "we will try. In my own time I did not shoot badly. But it is four years now since I held a pistol in my hand." "Oh," I replied, "in that case, I bet, Count, that you will not hit a card even at twenty paces. The pistol demands daily practice. I know that from experience. In our regiment I was reckoned one of the bests shots. Once I happened not to take a pistol in hand for a whole month; I had sent my own to the gunsmith's. Well, what do you think, Count? The first time I began again[Pg 89] [Pg 90] to shoot I four times running missed a bottle at twenty paces. The captain of our company, who was a wit, happened to be present, and he said to me: 'Your hand, my friend, refuses to raise itself against the bottle! No, Count, you must not neglect to practise, or you will soon lose all skill. The best shot I ever knew used to shoot every day, and at least three times every day, before dinner. This was as much his habit as the preliminary glass of vodka." "SILVIO! YOU KNEW SILVIO?" The Count and Countess seemed pleased that I had begun to talk. "And what sort of a shot was he?" asked the Count. "This sort, Count. If he saw a fly settle on the wall—you smile, Countess, but I assure you it is a fact. When he saw the fly, he would call out, 'Kuska, my pistol!' Kuska brought him the loaded pistol. A crack, and the fly was crushed into the wall!" "That is astonishing!" said the Count. "And what was his name?" "Silvio was his name." "Silvio!" exclaimed the Count, starting from his seat. "You knew Silvio?" "How could I fail to know him? We were comrades; he was received at our mess like a brother officer. It is now about five years since I last had tidings of him. Then you, Count, also knew him?" [Pg 91] "I knew him very well. Did he never tell you of one very extraordinary incident in his life?" "Do you mean the slap in the face, Count, that he received from a blackguard at a ball?" "He did not tell you the name of this blackguard?" "No, Count, he did not. Forgive me," I added, guessing the truth, "forgive me—I did not—could it really have been you?" "It was myself," replied the Count, greatly agitated. "And the shots in the picture are a memento of our last meeting." "Oh, my dear," said the Countess, "for God's sake do not relate it! It frightens me to think of it." "No," replied the Count; "I must tell him all. He knows how I insulted his friend. He shall also know how Silvio revenged himself." The Count pushed a chair towards me, and with the liveliest interest I listened to the following story:— "Five years ago," began the Count, "I got married. The honeymoon I spent here, in this village. To this house I am indebted for the happiest moments of my life, and for one of its saddest remembrances. "One afternoon we went out riding together. My wife's horse became restive. She was frightened, got off the horse, handed the reins over to[Pg 92] me; and walked home. I rode on before her. In the yard I saw a travelling carriage, and I was told that in my study sat a man who would not give his name, but simply said that he wanted to see me on business. I entered the study, and saw in the darkness a man, dusty and unshaven. He stood there, by the fireplace. I approached him, trying to recollect his face. "'You don't remember me, Count?' he said, in a tremulous voice. "'Silvio!' I cried, and I confess I felt that my hair was standing on end. "'Exactly so,' he added. 'You owe me a shot; I have come to claim it. Are you ready?' "A pistol protruded from his side pocket. "I measured twelve paces, and stood there in that corner, begging him to fire quickly, before my wife came in. "He hesitated, and asked for a light. Candles were brought in. I locked the doors, gave orders that no one should enter, and again called upon him to fire. He took out his pistol and aimed. "I counted the seconds.... I thought of her ... A terrible moment passed! Then Silvio lowered his hand. "'I only regret,' he said, that the pistol is not loaded with cherry-stones. My bullet is heavy; and it always seems to me that an affair of this kind is net a duel, but a murder. I am not accustomed[Pg 93] to aim at unarmed men. Let us begin again from the beginning. Let us cast lots as to who shall fire first.' "My head went round. I think I objected. Finally, however, we loaded another pistol and rolled up two pieces of paper. These he placed inside his cap; the one through which, at our first meeting, I had put the bullet. I again drew the lucky number. "'Count, you have the devil's luck,' he said, with a smile which I shall never forget. "I don't know what I was about, or how it happened that he succeeded in inducing me. But I fired and hit that picture." The Count pointed with his finger to the picture with the shot-marks His face had become red with agitation. The Countess was whiter than her own handkerchief; and I could not restrain an exclamation. "I fired," continued the Count, "and, thank Heaven, missed. Then Silvio—at this moment he was really terrible—then Silvio raised his pistol to take aim at me. "Suddenly the door flew open, Masha rushed into the room. She threw herself upon my neck with a loud shriek. Her presence restored to me-all my courage. "'My dear,' I said to her, 'don't you see that we are only joking? How frightened you look![Pg 94] Go and drink a glass of water and then come back; I will introduce you to an old friend and comrade.' Masha was still in doubt. "MASHA THREW HERSELF AT HIS FEET" [Pg 95] "'Tell me; is my husband speaking the truth?' she asked, turning to the terrible Silvio. 'Is it true that you are only joking?' "'He is always joking. Countess,' Silvio replied. 'He once in a joke gave me a slap in the face; in joke he put a bullet through this cap while I was wearing it; and in joke, too, he missed me when he fired just now. And now I have a fancy for a joke.' "With these words he raised his pistol as if to shoot me down before her eyes." Masha threw herself at his feet. 'Rise, Masha! For shame!' I cried, in my passion. 'And you, sir, cease to amuse yourself at the expense of an unhappy woman. Will you fire or not?' "'I will not,' replied Silvio. 'I am satisfied. I have witnessed your agitation—your terror. I forced you to fire at me. That is enough; you will remember me. I leave you to your conscience.' "He was now about to go; but he stopped at the door, looked round at the picture which my shot had passed through, fired at it almost without taking aim, and disappeared. "My wife had sunk down fainting. The servants had not ventured to stop Silvio, whom they looked upon with terror. He passed out to the steps, called his coachman, and before I could collect myself drove off." [Pg 96] The Count was silent. I had now heard the end of the story of which the beginning had long before surprised me. The hero of it I never saw again. I heard, however, that Silvio, during the rising of Alexander Ipsilanti, commanded a detach of insurgents and was killed in action.
nedjelja, 1. ožujka 2026.
The great Pullman was whirling onward with such dignity of motion that a glance from the window seemed simply to prove that the plains of Texas were pouring eastward. Vast flats of green grass, dull-hued spaces of mesquit and cactus, little groups of frame houses, woods of light and tender trees, all were sweeping into the east, sweeping over the horizon, a precipice. A newly-married pair had boarded this train at San Antonio. The man's face was reddened from many days in the wind and sun, and a direct result of his new black clothes was that his brick-coloured hands were constantly performing in a most conscious fashion. From time to time he looked down respectfully at his attire. He sat with a hand on each knee, like a man waiting in a barber's shop. The glances he devoted to other passengers were furtive and shy. The bride was not pretty, nor was she very young. She wore a dress of blue cashmere, with small reservations of velvet here and there, and with steel buttons abounding. She continually twisted her head to regard her puff-sleeves, very stiff, straight, and high. They embarrassed her. It was quite apparent that she had cooked, and that she expected to cook, dutifully. The blushes caused by the careless scrutiny of some passengers as she had entered the car were strange to see upon this plain, under-class countenance, which was drawn in placid, almost emotionless lines. They were evidently very happy. "Ever been in a parlour-car before?" he asked, smiling with delight. "No," she answered; "I never was. It's fine, ain't it?" "Great. And then, after a while, we'll go forward to the diner, and get a big lay-out. Finest meal in the world. Charge, a dollar." "Oh, do they?" cried the bride. "Charge a dollar? Why, that's too much—for us—ain't it, Jack?" "Not this trip, anyhow," he answered bravely. "We're going to go the whole thing." Later, he explained to her about the train. "You see, it's a thousand miles from one end of Texas to the other, and this train runs right across it, and never stops but four times." He had the pride of an owner. He pointed out to her the dazzling fittings of the coach, and, in truth, her eyes opened wider as she contemplated the sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface of a pool of oil. At one end a bronze figure sturdily held a support for a separated chamber, and at convenient places on the ceiling were frescoes in olive and silver. To the minds of the pair, their surroundings reflected the glory of their marriage that morning in San Antonio. This was the environment of their new estate, and the man's face, in particular, beamed with an elation that made him appear ridiculous to the negro porter. This individual at times surveyed them from afar with an amused and superior grin. On other occasions he bullied them with skill in ways that did not make it exactly plain to them that they were being bullied. He subtly used all the manners of the most unconquerable kind of snobbery. He oppressed them, but of this oppression they had small knowledge, and they speedily forgot that unfrequently a number of travellers covered them with stares of derisive enjoyment. Historically there was supposed to be something infinitely humorous in their situation. "We are due in Yellow Sky at 3.42," he said, looking tenderly into her eyes. "Oh, are we?" she said, as if she had not been aware of it. To evince surprise at her husband's statement was part of her wifely amiability. She took from a pocket a little silver watch, and as she held it before her, and stared at it with a frown of attention, the new husband's face shone. "I bought it in San Anton' from a friend of mine," he told her gleefully. "It's seventeen minutes past twelve," she said, looking up at him with a kind of shy and clumsy coquetry. A passenger, noting this play, grew excessively sardonic, and winked at himself in one of the numerous mirrors. At last they went to the dining-car. Two rows of negro waiters in dazzling white suits surveyed their entrance with the interest, and also the equanimity, of men who had been forewarned. The pair fell to the lot of a waiter who happened to feel pleasure in steering them through their meal. He viewed them with the manner of a fatherly pilot, his countenance radiant with benevolence. The patronage entwined with the ordinary deference was not palpable to them. And yet as they returned to their coach they showed in their faces a sense of escape. To the left, miles down a long purple slope, was a little ribbon of mist, where moved the keening Rio Grande. The train was approaching it at an angle, and the apex was Yellow Sky. Presently it was apparent that as the distance from Yellow Sky grew shorter, the husband became commensurately restless. His brick-red hands were more insistent in their prominence. Occasionally he was even rather absent-minded and far away when the bride leaned forward and addressed him. As a matter of truth, Jack Potter was beginning to find the shadow of a deed weigh upon him like a leaden slab. He, the town-marshal of Yellow Sky, a man known, liked, and feared in his corner, a prominent person, had gone to San Antonio to meet a girl he believed he loved, and there, after the usual prayers, had actually induced her to marry him without consulting Yellow Sky for any part of the transaction. He was now bringing his bride before an innocent and unsuspecting community. Of course, people in Yellow Sky married as it pleased them in accordance with a general custom, but such was Potter's thought of his duty to his friends, or of their idea of his duty, or of an unspoken form which does not control men in these matters, that he felt he was heinous. He had committed an extraordinary crime. Face to face with this girl in San Antonio, and spurred by his sharp impulse, he had gone headlong over all the social hedges. At San Antonio he was like a man hidden in the dark. A knife to sever any friendly duty, any form, was easy to his hand in that remote city. But the hour of Yellow Sky, the hour of daylight, was approaching. He knew full well that his marriage was an important thing to his town. It could only be exceeded by the burning of the new hotel. His friends would not forgive him. Frequently he had reflected upon the advisability of telling them by telegraph, but a new cowardice had been upon him. He feared to do it. And now the train was hurrying him toward a scene of amazement, glee, reproach. He glanced out of the window at the line of haze swinging slowly in toward the train. Yellow Sky had a kind of brass band which played painfully to the delight of the populace. He laughed without heart as he thought of it. If the citizens could dream of his prospective arrival with his bride, they would parade the band at the station, and escort them, amid cheers and laughing congratulations, to his adobe home. He resolved that he would use all the devices of speed and plainscraft in making the journey from the station to his house. Once within that safe citadel, he could issue some sort of a vocal bulletin, and then not go among the citizens until they had time to wear off a little of their enthusiasm. The bride looked anxiously at him. "What's worrying you, Jack?" He laughed again. "I'm not worrying, girl. I'm only thinking of Yellow Sky." She flushed in comprehension. A sense of mutual guilt invaded their minds, and developed a finer tenderness. They looked at each other with eyes softly aglow. But Potter often laughed the same nervous laugh. The flush upon the bride's face seemed quite permanent. The traitor to the feelings of Yellow Sky narrowly watched the speeding landscape. "We're nearly there," he said. Presently the porter came and announced the proximity of Potter's home. He held a brush in his hand, and, with all his airy superiority gone, he brushed Potter's new clothes, as the latter slowly turned this way and that way. Potter fumbled out a coin, and gave it to the porter as he had seen others do. It was a heavy and muscle-bound business, as that of a man shoeing his first horse. The porter took their bag, and, as the train began to slow, they moved forward to the hooded platform of the car. Presently the two engines and their long string of coaches rushed into the station of Yellow Sky. "They have to take water here," said Potter, from a constricted throat, and in mournful cadence as one announcing death. Before the train stopped his eye had swept the length of the platform, and he was glad and astonished to see there was no one upon it but the station-agent, who, with a slightly hurried and anxious air, was walking toward the water-tanks. When the train had halted, the porter alighted first and placed in position a little temporary step. "Come on, girl," said Potter, hoarsely. As he helped her down, they each laughed on a false note. He took the bag from the negro, and bade his wife cling to his arm. As they slunk rapidly away, his hang-dog glance perceived that they were unloading the two trunks, and also that the station-agent, far ahead, near the baggage-car, had turned, and was running toward him, making gestures. He laughed, and groaned as he laughed, when he noted the first effect of his marital bliss upon Yellow Sky. He gripped his wife's arm firmly to his side, and they fled. Behind them the porter stood chuckling fatuously. II The California Express on the Southron Railway was due at Yellow Sky in twenty-one minutes. There were six men at the bar of the Weary Gentleman saloon. One was a drummer, who talked a great deal and rapidly; three were Texans, who did not care to talk at that time; and two were Mexican sheep-herders, who did not talk as a general practice in the Weary Gentleman saloon. The bar-keeper's dog lay on the board-walk that crossed in front of the door. His head was on his paws, and he glanced drowsily here and there with the constant vigilance of a dog that is kicked on occasion. Across the sandy street were some vivid green grass plots, so wonderful in appearance amid the sands that burned near them in a blazing sun, that they caused a doubt in the mind. They exactly resembled the grass-mats used to represent lawns on the stage. At the cooler end of the railway-station a man without a coat sat in a tilted chair and smoked his pipe. The fresh-cut bank of the Rio Grande circled near the town, and there could be seen beyond it a great plum-coloured plain of mesquit. Save for the busy drummer and his companions in the saloon, Yellow Sky was dozing. The new-comer leaned gracefully upon the bar, and recited many tales with the confidence of a bard who has come upon a new field. "And at the moment that the old man fell down-stairs, with the bureau in his arms, the old woman was coming up with two scuttles of coal, and, of course——" The drummer's tale was interrupted by a young man who suddenly appeared in the open door. He cried— "Scratchy Wilson's drunk, and has turned loose with both hands." The two Mexicans at once set down their glasses, and faded out of the rear entrance of the saloon. The drummer, innocent and jocular, answered— "All right, old man. S'pose he has. Come and have a drink, anyhow." But the information had made such an obvious cleft in every skull in the room, that the drummer was obliged to see its importance. All had become instantly morose. "Say," said he, mystified, "what is this?" His three companions made the introductory gesture of eloquent speech, but the young man at the door forestalled them. "It means, my friend," he answered, as he came into the saloon, "that for the next two hours this town won't be a health resort." The bar-keeper went to the door, and locked and barred it. Reaching out of the window, he pulled in heavy wooden shutters and barred them. Immediately a solemn, chapel-like gloom was upon the place. The drummer was looking from one to another. "But say," he cried, "what is this, anyhow? You don't mean there is going to be a gun-fight?" "Don't know whether there'll be a fight or not," answered one man grimly. "But there'll be some shootin'—some good shootin'." The young man who had warned them waved his hand. "Oh, there'll be a fight, fast enough, if any one wants it. Anybody can get a fight out there in the street. There's a fight just waiting." The drummer seemed to be swayed between the interest of a foreigner, and a perception of personal danger. "What did you say his name was?" he asked. "Scratchy Wilson," they answered in chorus. "And will he kill anybody? What are you going to do? Does this happen often? Does he rampage round like this once a week or so? Can he break in that door?" "No, he can't break down that door," replied the bar-keeper. "He's tried it three times. But when he comes you'd better lay down on the floor, stranger. He's dead sure to shoot at it, and a bullet may come through." Thereafter the drummer kept a strict eye on the door. The time had not yet been called for him to hug the floor, but as a minor precaution he sidled near to the wall. "Will he kill anybody?" he said again. The men laughed low and scornfully at the question. "He's out to shoot, and he's out for trouble. Don't see any good in experimentin' with him." "But what do you do in a case like this? What do you do?" A man responded—"Why, he and Jack Potter——" But, in chorus, the other men interrupted—"Jack Potter's in San Anton'." "Well, who is he? What's he got to do with it?" "Oh, he's the town-marshal. He goes out and fights Scratchy when he gets on one of these tears." "Whow!" said the drummer, mopping his brow. "Nice job he's got." The voices had toned away to mere whisperings. The drummer wished to ask further questions, which were born of an increasing anxiety and bewilderment, but when he attempted them, the men merely looked at him in irritation, and motioned him to remain silent. A tense waiting hush was upon them. In the deep shadows of the room their eyes shone as they listened for sounds from the street. One man made three gestures at the bar-keeper, and the latter, moving like a ghost, handed him a glass and a bottle. The man poured a full glass of whisky, and set down the bottle noiselessly. He gulped the whisky in a swallow, and turned again toward the door in immovable silence. The drummer saw that the bar-keeper, without a sound, had taken a Winchester from beneath the bar. Later, he saw this individual beckoning to him, so he tip-toed across the room. "You better come with me back of the bar." "No, thanks," said the drummer, perspiring. "I'd rather be where I can make a break for the back-door." Whereupon the man of bottles made a kindly but peremptory gesture. The drummer obeyed it, and finding himself seated on a box, with his head below the level of the bar, balm was laid upon his soul at sight of various zinc and copper fittings that bore a resemblance to plate armour. The bar-keeper took a seat comfortably upon an adjacent box. "You see," he whispered, "this here Scratchy Wilson is a wonder with a gun—a perfect wonder—and when he goes on the war-trail, we hunt our holes—naturally. He's about the last one of the old gang that used to hang out along the river here. He's a terror when he's drunk. When he's sober he's all right—kind of simple—wouldn't hurt a fly—nicest fellow in town. But when he's drunk—whoo!" There were periods of stillness. "I wish Jack Potter was back from San Anton'," said the bar-keeper. "He shot Wilson up once—in the leg—and he would sail in and pull out the kinks in this thing." Presently they heard from a distance the sound of a shot, followed by three wild yells. It instantly removed a bond from the men in the darkened saloon. There was a shuffling of feet. They looked at each other. "Here he comes," they said. III A man in a maroon-coloured flannel shirt, which had been purchased for purposes of decoration, and made, principally, by some Jewish women on the east side of New York, rounded a corner and walked into the middle of the main street of Yellow Sky. In either hand the man held a long, heavy blue-black revolver. Often he yelled, and these cries rang through a semblance of a deserted village, shrilly flying over the roofs in a volume that seemed to have no relation to the ordinary vocal strength of a man. It was as if the surrounding stillness formed the arch of a tomb over him. These cries of ferocious challenge rang against walls of silence. And his boots had red tops with gilded imprints, of the kind beloved in winter by little sledging boys on the hillsides of New England. The man's face flamed in a rage begot of whisky. His eyes, rolling and yet keen for ambush, hunted the still door-ways and windows. He walked with the creeping movement of the midnight cat. As it occurred to him, he roared menacing information. The long revolvers in his hands were as easy as straws; they were moved with an electric swiftness. The little fingers of each hand played sometimes in a musician's way. Plain from the low collar of the shirt, the cords of his neck straightened and sank as passion moved him. The only sounds were his terrible invitations. The calm adobes preserved their demeanour at the passing of this small thing in the middle of the street. There was no offer of fight—no offer of fight. The man called to the sky. There were no attractions. He bellowed and fumed and swayed his revolver here and everywhere. The dog of the bar-keeper of the Weary Gentleman saloon had not appreciated the advance of events. He yet lay dozing in front of his master's door. At sight of the dog, the man paused and raised his revolver humorously. At sight of the man, the dog sprang up and walked diagonally away, with a sullen head and growling. The man yelled, and the dog broke into a gallop. As it was about to enter an alley, there was a loud noise, a whistling, and something spat the ground directly before it. The dog screamed, and, wheeling in terror, galloped headlong in a new direction. Again there was a noise, a whistling, and sand was kicked viciously before it. Fear-stricken, the dog turned and flurried like an animal in a pen. The man stood laughing, his weapons at his hips. Ultimately the man was attracted by the closed door of the Weary Gentleman saloon. He went to it, and, hammering with a revolver, demanded drink. The door remaining imperturbable, he picked a bit of paper from the walk, and nailed it to the framework with a knife. He then turned his back contemptuously upon this popular resort, and, walking to the opposite side of the street and spinning there on his heel quickly and lithely, fired at the bit of paper. He missed it by a half-inch. He swore at himself, and went away. Later, he comfortably fusilladed the windows of his most intimate friend. The man was playing with this town. It was a toy for him. But still there was no offer of fight. The name of Jack Potter, his ancient antagonist, entered his mind, and he concluded that it would be a glad thing if he should go to Potter's house, and, by bombardment, induce him to come out and fight. He moved in the direction of his desire, chanting Apache scalp music. When he arrived at it, Potter's house presented the same still, calm front as had the other adobes. Taking up a strategic position, the man howled a challenge. But this house regarded him as might a great stone god. It gave no sign. After a decent wait, the man howled further challenges, mingling with them wonderful epithets. Presently there came the spectacle of a man churn ing himself into deepest rage over the immobility of a house. He fumed at it as the winter wind attacks a prairie cabin in the north. To the distance there should have gone the sound of a tumult like the fighting of two hundred Mexicans. As necessity bade him, he paused for breath or to reload his revolvers. IV Potter and his bride walked sheepishly and with speed. Sometimes they laughed together shamefacedly and low. "Next corner, dear," he said finally. They put forth the efforts of a pair walking bowed against a strong wind. Potter was about to raise a finger to point the first appearance of the new home, when, as they circled the corner, they came face to face with a man in a maroon-coloured shirt, who was feverishly pushing cartridges into a large revolver. Upon the instant the man dropped this revolver to the ground, and, like lightning, whipped another from its holster. The second weapon was aimed at the bridegroom's chest. There was a silence. Potter's mouth seemed to be merely a grave for his tongue. He exhibited an instinct to at once loosen his arm from the woman's grip, and he dropped the bag to the sand. As for the bride, her face had gone as yellow as old cloth. She was a slave to hideous rites, gazing at the apparitional snake. The two men faced each other at a distance of three paces. He of the revolver smiled with a new and quiet ferocity. "Tried to sneak up on me!" he said. "Tried to sneak up on me!" His eyes grew more baleful. As Potter made a slight movement, the man thrust his revolver venomously forward. "No; don't you do it, Jack Potter. Don't you move a finger towards a gun just yet. Don't you move an eyelash. The time has come for me to settle with you, and I'm going to do it my own way, and loaf along with no interferin'. So if you don't want a gun bent on you, just mind what I tell you." Potter looked at his enemy. "I ain't got a gun on me, Scratchy," he said. "Honest, I ain't." He was stiffening and steadying, but yet somewhere at the back of his mind a vision of the Pullman floated—the sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface of a pool of oil—all the glory of their marriage, the environment of the new estate. "You know I fight when it comes to fighting, Scratchy Wilson, but I ain't got a gun on me. You'll have to do all the shootin' yourself." His enemy's face went livid. He stepped forward, and lashed his weapon to and fro before Potter's chest. "Don't you tell me you ain't got no gun on you, you whelp. Don't tell me no lie like that. There ain't a man in Texas ever seen you without no gun. Don't take me for no kid." His eyes blazed with light and his throat worked like a pump. "I ain't takin' you for no kid," answered Potter. His heels had not moved an inch backward. "I'm takin' you for a —— fool. I tell you I ain't got a gun, and I ain't. If you're goin' to shoot me up, you'd better begin now. You'll never get a chance like this again." So much enforced reasoning had told on Wilson's rage. He was calmer. "If you ain't got a gun, why ain't you got a gun?" he sneered. "Been to Sunday school?" "I ain't got a gun because I've just come from San Anton' with my wife. I'm married," said Potter. "And if I'd thought there was going to be any galoots like you prowling around when I brought my wife home, I'd had a gun, and don't you forget it." "Married!" said Scratchy, not at all comprehending. "Yes, married! I'm married," said Potter, distinctly. "Married!" said Scratchy; seeming for the first time he saw the drooping drowning woman at the other man's side. "No!" he said. He was like a creature allowed a glimpse of another world. He moved a pace backward, and his arm with the revolver dropped to his side. "Is this—is this the lady?" he asked. "Yes, this is the lady," answered Potter. There was another period of silence. "Well," said Wilson at last, slowly, "I s'pose it's all off now?" "It's all off if you say so, Scratchy. You know I didn't make the trouble." Potter lifted his valise. "Well, I 'low it's off, Jack," said Wilson. He was looking at the ground. "Married!" He was not a student of chivalry; it was merely that in the presence of this foreign condition he was a simple child of the earlier plains. He picked up his starboard revolver, and placing both weapons in their holsters, he went away. His feet made funnel-shaped tracks in the heavy sand.
subota, 28. veljače 2026.
Patsy Tulligan was not as wise as seven owls, but his courage could throw a shadow as long as the steeple of a cathedral. There were men on Cherry Street who had whipped him five times, but they all knew that Patsy would be as ready for the sixth time as if nothing had happened. Once he and two friends had been away up on Eighth Avenue, far out of their country, and upon their return journey that evening they stopped frequently in saloons until they were as independent of their surroundings as eagles, and cared much less about thirty days on Blackwell's. On Lower Sixth Avenue they paused in a saloon where there was a good deal of lamp-glare and polished wood to be seen from the outside, and within, the mellow light shone on much furbished brass and more polished wood. It was a better saloon than they were in the habit of seeing, but they did not mind it. They sat down at one of the little tables that were in a row parallel to the bar and ordered beer. They blinked stolidly at the decorations, the bar-tender, and the other customers. When anything transpired they discussed it with dazzling frankness, and what they said of it was as free as air to the other people in the place. At midnight there were few people in the saloon. Patsy and his friends still sat drinking. Two well-dressed men were at another table, smoking cigars slowly and swinging back in their chairs. They occupied themselves with themselves in the usual manner, never betraying by a wink of an eyelid that they knew that other folk existed. At another table directly behind Patsy and his companions was a slim little Cuban, with miraculously small feet and hands, and with a youthful touch of down upon his lip. As he lifted his cigarette from time to time his little finger was bended in dainty fashion, and there was a green flash when a huge emerald ring caught the light. The bar-tender came often with his little brass tray. Occasionally Patsy and his two friends quarrelled. Once this little Cuban happened to make some slight noise and Patsy turned his head to observe him. Then Patsy made a careless and rather loud comment to his two friends. He used a word which is no more than passing the time of day down in Cherry Street, but to the Cuban it was a dagger-point. There was a harsh scraping sound as a chair was pushed swiftly back. The little Cuban was upon his feet. His eyes were shining with a rage that flashed there like sparks as he glared at Patsy. His olive face had turned a shade of grey from his anger. Withal his chest was thrust out in portentous dignity, and his hand, still grasping his wine-glass, was cool and steady, the little finger still bended, the great emerald gleaming upon it. The others, motionless, stared at him. "Sir," he began ceremoniously. He spoke gravely and in a slow way, his tone coming in a marvel of self-possessed cadences from between those lips which quivered with wrath. "You have insult me. You are a dog, a hound, a cur. I spit upon you. I must have some of your blood." Patsy looked at him over his shoulder. "What's th' matter wi' che?" he demanded. He did not quite understand the words of this little man who glared at him steadily, but he knew that it was something about fighting. He snarled with the readiness of his class and heaved his shoulders contemptuously. "Ah, what's eatin' yeh? Take a walk! You h'ain't got nothin' t' do with me, have yeh? Well, den, go sit on yerself." And his companions leaned back valorously in their chairs, and scrutinized this slim young fellow who was addressing Patsy. "What's de little Dago chewin' about?" "He wants t' scrap!" "What!" The Cuban listened with apparent composure. It was only when they laughed that his body cringed as if he was receiving lashes. Presently he put down his glass and walked over to their table. He proceeded always with the most impressive deliberation. "Sir," he began again. "You have insult me. I must have s-s-satisfac-shone. I must have your body upon the point of my sword. In my country you would already be dead. I must have s-s-satisfac-shone." Patsy had looked at the Cuban with a trifle of bewilderment. But at last his face began to grow dark with belligerency, his mouth curve in that wide sneer with which he would confront an angel of darkness. He arose suddenly in his seat and came towards the little Cuban. He was going to be impressive too. "Say, young feller, if yeh go shootin' off fer face at me, I'll wipe d' joint wid yeh. What'cher gaffin' about, hey? Are yeh givin' me er jolly? Say, if yeh pick me up fer a cinch, I'll fool yeh. Dat's what! Don't take me fer no dead easy mug." And as he glowered at the little Cuban, he ended his oration with one eloquent word, "Nit!" The bar-tender nervously polished his bar with a towel, and kept his eyes fastened upon the men. Occasionally he became transfixed with interest, leaning forward with one hand upon the edge of the bar and the other holding the towel grabbed in a lump, as if he had been turned into bronze when in the very act of polishing. The Cuban did not move when Patsy came toward him and delivered his oration. At its conclusion he turned his livid face toward where, above him, Patsy was swaggering and heaving his shoulders in a consummate display of bravery and readiness. The Cuban, in his clear, tense tones, spoke one word. It was the bitter insult. It seemed to fairly spin from his lips and crackle in the air like breaking glass. Every man save the little Cuban made an electric movement. Patsy roared a black oath and thrust himself forward until he towered almost directly above the other man. His fists were doubled into knots of bone and hard flesh. The Cuban had raised a steady finger. "If you touch me wis your hand, I will keel you." The two well-dressed men had come swiftly, uttering protesting cries. They suddenly intervened in this second of time in which Patsy had sprung forward and the Cuban had uttered his threat. The four men were now a tossing, arguing, violent group, one well-dressed man lecturing the Cuban, and the other holding off Patsy, who was now wild with rage, loudly repeating the Cuban's threat, and manoeuvring and struggling to get at him for revenge's sake. The bar-tender, feverishly scouring away with his towel, and at times pacing to and fro with nervous and excited tread, shouted out— "Say, for heaven's sake, don't fight in here. If yeh wanta fight, go out in the street and fight all yeh please. But don't fight in here." Patsy knew only one thing, and this he kept repeating— "Well, he wants t' scrap! I didn't begin dis! He wants t' scrap." The well-dressed man confronting him continually replied— "Oh, well, now, look here, he's only a lad. He don't know what he's doing. He's crazy mad. You wouldn't slug a kid like that." Patsy and his aroused companions, who cursed and growled, were persistent with their argument. "Well, he wants t' scrap!" The whole affair was as plain as daylight when one saw this great fact. The interference and intolerable discussion brought the three of them forward, battleful and fierce. "What's eatin' you, anyhow?" they demanded. "Dis ain't your business, is it? What business you got shootin' off your face?" The other peacemaker was trying to restrain the little Cuban, who had grown shrill and violent. "If he touch me wis his hand I will keel him. We must fight like gentlemen or else I keel him when he touch me wis his hand." The man who was fending off Patsy comprehended these sentences that were screamed behind his back, and he explained to Patsy— "But he wants to fight you with swords. With swords, you know." The Cuban, dodging around the peacemakers, yelled in Patsy's face— "Ah, if I could get you before me wis my sword! Ah! Ah! A-a-ah!" Patsy made a furious blow with a swift fist, but the peacemakers bucked against his body suddenly like football players. Patsy was greatly puzzled. He continued doggedly to try to get near enough to the Cuban to punch him. To these attempts the Cuban replied savagely— "If you touch me wis your hand, I will cut your heart in two piece." At last Patsy said—"Well, if he's so dead stuck on fightin' wid swords, I'll fight 'im. Soitenly! I'll fight 'im." All this palaver had evidently tired him, and he now puffed out his lips with the air of a man who is willing to submit to any conditions if he can only bring on the row soon enough. He swaggered, "I'll fight 'im wid swords. Let 'im bring on his swords, an' I'll fight 'im 'til he's ready t' quit." The two well-dressed men grinned. "Why, look here," they said to Patsy, "he'd punch you full of holes. Why, he's a fencer. You can't fight him with swords. He'd kill you in 'bout a minute." "Well, I'll giv' 'im a go at it, anyhow," said Patsy, stout-hearted and resolute. "I'll giv' 'im a go at it, anyhow, an' I'll stay wid 'im long as I kin." As for the Cuban, his lithe little body was quivering in an ecstasy of the muscles. His face radiant with a savage joy, he fastened his glance upon Patsy, his eyes gleaming with a gloating, murderous light. A most unspeakable, animal-like rage was in his expression. "Ah! ah! He will fight me! Ah!" He bended unconsciously in the posture of a fencer. He had all the quick, springy movements of a skilful swordsman. "Ah, the b-r-r-rute! The b-r-r-rute! I will stick him like a pig!" The two peacemakers, still grinning broadly, were having a great time with Patsy. "Why, you infernal idiot, this man would slice you all up. You better jump off the bridge if you want to commit suicide. You wouldn't stand a ghost of a chance to live ten seconds." Patsy was as unshaken as granite. "Well, if he wants t' fight wid swords, he'll get it. I'll giv' 'im a go at it, anyhow." One man said—"Well, have you got a sword? Do you know what a sword is? Have you got a sword?" "No, I ain't got none," said Patsy honestly, "but I kin git one." Then he added valiantly—"An' quick too." The two men laughed. "Why, can't you understand it would be sure death to fight a sword duel with this fellow?" "Dat's all right! See? I know me own business. If he wants t' fight one of dees d—n duels, I'm in it, understan'?" "Have you ever fought one, you fool?" "No, I ain't. But I will fight one, dough! I ain't no muff. If he want t' fight a duel, by Gawd, I'm wid 'im! D'yeh understan' dat!" Patsy cocked his hat and swaggered. He was getting very serious. The little Cuban burst out—"Ah, come on, sirs: come on! We can take cab. Ah, you big cow, I will stick you, I will stick you. Ah, you will look very beautiful, very beautiful. Ah, come on, sirs. We will stop at hotel—my hotel. I there have weapons." "Yeh will, will yeh? Yeh bloomin' little black Dago," cried Patsy in hoarse and maddened reply to the personal part of the Cuban's speech. He stepped forward. "Git yer d—n swords," he commanded. "Git yer swords. Git 'em quick! I'll fight wi' che! I'll fight wid anyting, too! See? I'll fight yeh wid a knife an' fork if yeh say so! I'll fight yer standin' up er sittin' down!" Patsy delivered this intense oration with sweeping, intensely emphatic gestures, his hands stretched out eloquently, his jaw thrust forward, his eyes glaring. "Ah," cried the little Cuban joyously. "Ah, you are in very pretty temper. Ah, how I will cut your heart in two piece, my dear, d-e-a-r friend." His eyes, too, shone like carbuncles, with a swift, changing glitter, always fastened upon Patsy's face. The two peacemakers were perspiring and in despair. One of them blurted out— "Well, I'll be blamed if this ain't the most ridiculous thing I ever saw." The other said—"For ten dollars I'd be tempted to let these two infernal blockheads have their duel." Patsy was strutting to and fro, and conferring grandly with his friends. "He took me for a muff. He tought he was goin' t' bluff me out, talkin' 'bout swords. He'll get fooled." He addressed the Cuban—"You're a fine little dirty picter of a scrapper, ain't che? I'll chew yez up, dat's what I will." There began then some rapid action. The patience of well-dressed men is not an eternal thing. It began to look as if it would at last be a fight with six corners to it. The faces of the men were shining red with anger. They jostled each other defiantly, and almost every one blazed out at three or four of the others. The bar-tender had given up protesting. He swore for a time, and banged his glasses. Then he jumped the bar and ran out of the saloon, cursing sullenly. When he came back with a policeman, Patsy and the Cuban were preparing to depart together. Patsy was delivering his last oration— "I'll fight yer wid swords! Sure I will! Come ahead, Dago! I'll fight yeh anywheres wid anyting! We'll have a large, juicy scrap, an' don't yeh forgit dat! I'm right wid yez. I ain't no muff! I scrap wid a man jest as soon as he ses scrap, an' if yeh wanta scrap, I'm yer kitten. Understan' dat?" The policeman said sharply—"Come, now; what's all this?" He had a distinctly business air. The little Cuban stepped forward calmly. "It is none of your business." The policeman flushed to his ears. "What?" One well-dressed man touched the other on the sleeve. "Here's the time to skip," he whispered. They halted a block away from the saloon and watched the policeman pull the Cuban through the door. There was a minute of scuffle on the sidewalk, and into this deserted street at midnight fifty people appeared at once as if from the sky to watch it. At last the three Cherry Hill men came from the saloon, and swaggered with all their old valour toward the peacemakers. "Ah," said Patsy to them, "he was so hot talkin' about this duel business, but I would a-given 'im a great scrap, an' don't yeh forgit it." For Patsy was not as wise as seven owls, but his courage could throw a shadow as long as the steeple of a cathedral.
petak, 27. veljače 2026.
SHEPHERD OF THE PLANETS By ALAN MATTOX - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/28048/pg28048-images.html
Renner had a purpose in life. And the Purpose in Life had Renner.
Competent fingers touched controls here and there, seeking a response that he knew would not come. He had known this for long enough so that there was no longer any emotional impact in it for him. He shut off the control panel, and stood up.
Farrow glared at him. His narrow cheekbones and shallow eyes were shadowed by the control room lights. He was good with the engines which were his special charge, but beyond that, he was limited in both sympathy and imagination.
A baby was wandering in a strange country. He was a tattered child with a frowsled wealth of yellow hair. His dress, of a checked stuff, was soiled, and showed the marks of many conflicts, like the chain-shirt of a warrior. His sun-tanned knees shone above wrinkled stockings, which he pulled up occasionally with an impatient movement when they entangled his feet. From a gaping shoe there appeared an array of tiny toes. He was toddling along an avenue between rows of stolid brown houses. He went slowly, with a look of absorbed interest on his small flushed face. His blue eyes stared curiously. Carriages went with a musical rumble over the smooth asphalt. A man with a chrysanthemum was going up steps. Two nursery maids chatted as they walked slowly, while their charges hobnobbed amiably between perambulators. A truck wagon roared thunderously in the distance. The child from the poor district made his way along the brown street filled with dull grey shadows. High up, near the roofs, glancing sun-rays changed cornices to blazing gold and silvered the fronts of windows. The wandering baby stopped and stared at the two children laughing and playing in their carriages among the heaps of rugs and cushions. He braced his legs apart in an attitude of earnest attention. His lower jaw fell, and disclosed his small, even teeth. As they moved on, he followed the carriages with awe in his face as if contemplating a pageant. Once one of the babies, with twittering laughter, shook a gorgeous rattle at him. He smiled jovially in return. Finally a nursery maid ceased conversation and, turning, made a gesture of annoyance. "Go 'way, little boy," she said to him. "Go 'way. You're all dirty." He gazed at her with infant tranquillity for a moment, and then went slowly off dragging behind him a bit of rope he had acquired in another street. He continued to investigate the new scenes. The people and houses struck him with interest as would flowers and trees. Passengers had to avoid the small, absorbed figure in the middle of the sidewalk. They glanced at the intent baby face covered with scratches and dust as with scars and with powder smoke. After a time, the wanderer discovered upon the pavement a pretty child in fine clothes playing with a toy. It was a tiny fire-engine, painted brilliantly in crimson and gold. The wheels rattled as its small owner dragged it uproariously about by means of a string. The babe with his bit of rope trailing behind him paused and regarded the child and the toy. For a long while he remained motionless, save for his eyes, which followed all movements of the glittering thing. The owner paid no attention to the spectator, but continued his joyous imitations of phases of the career of a fire-engine. His gleeful baby laugh rang against the calm fronts of the houses. After a little the wandering baby began quietly to sidle nearer. His bit of rope, now forgotten, dropped at his feet. He removed his eyes from the toy and glanced expectantly at the other child. "Say," he breathed softly. The owner of the toy was running down the walk at top speed. His tongue was clanging like a bell and his legs were galloping. He did not look around at the coaxing call from the small tattered figure on the curb. The wandering baby approached still nearer, and presently spoke again. "Say," he murmured, "le' me play wif it?" The other child interrupted some shrill tootings. He bended his head and spoke disdainfully over his shoulder. "No," he said. The wanderer retreated to the curb. He failed to notice the bit of rope, once treasured. His eyes followed as before the winding course of the engine, and his tender mouth twitched. "Say," he ventured at last, "is dat yours?" "Yes," said the other, tilting his round chin. He drew his property suddenly behind him as if it were menaced. "Yes," he repeated, "it's mine." "Well, le' me play wif it?" said the wandering baby, with a trembling note of desire in his voice. "No," cried the pretty child with determined lips. "It's mine. My ma-ma buyed it." "Well, tan't I play wif it?" His voice was a sob. He stretched forth little covetous hands. "No," the pretty child continued to repeat. "No, it's mine." "Well, I want to play wif it," wailed the other. A sudden fierce frown mantled his baby face. He clenched his fat hands and advanced with a formidable gesture. He looked some wee battler in a war. "It's mine! It's mine," cried the pretty child, his voice in the treble of outraged rights. "I want it," roared the wanderer. "It's mine! It's mine!" "I want it!" "It's mine!" The pretty child retreated to the fence, and there paused at bay. He protected his property with outstretched arms. The small vandal made a charge. There was a short scuffle at the fence. Each grasped the string to the toy and tugged. Their faces were wrinkled with baby rage, the verge of tears. Finally, the child in tatters gave a supreme tug and wrenched the string from the other's hands. He set off rapidly down the street, bearing the toy in his arms. He was weeping with the air of a wronged one who has at last succeeded in achieving his rights. The other baby was squalling lustily. He seemed quite helpless. He rung his chubby hands and railed. After the small barbarian had got some distance away, he paused and regarded his booty. His little form curved with pride. A soft, gleeful smile loomed through the storm of tears. With great care he prepared the toy for travelling. He stopped a moment on a corner and gazed at the pretty child, whose small figure was quivering with sobs. As the latter began to show signs of beginning pursuit, the little vandal turned and vanished down a dark side street as into a cavern.
četvrtak, 26. veljače 2026.
And the first grey of morning fill'd the east,° °2And the fog rose out of the Oxus° stream. °3But all the Tartar camp° along the stream Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep; 5Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed; But when the grey dawn stole into his tent, He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword, And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent, And went abroad into the cold wet fog, °Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's° tent.
Through the black Tartar tents he pass'd, which stood
Clustering like bee-hives on the low flat strand
Of Oxus, where the summer-floods o'erflow
°15When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere°
Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low strand,
And to a hillock came, a little back
From the stream's brink—the spot where first a boat,
Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land.
20The men of former times had crown'd the top
With a clay fort; but that was fall'n, and now
[p.2]
The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent,
A dome of laths, and o'er it felts were spread.
And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood
25Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent,
And found the old man sleeping on his bed
Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms.
And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step
Was dull'd; for he slept light, an old man's sleep;
30And he rose quickly on one arm, and said:—
"Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn.
Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?"
But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said:—
"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I.
35The sun is not yet risen, and the foe
Sleep; but I sleep not; all night long I lie
Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee.
°38For so did King Afrasiab° bid me seek
Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son,
°40In Samarcand,° before the army march'd;
And I will tell thee what my heart desires.
°42Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan° first
I came among the Tartars and bore arms,
I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown,
°45At my boy's years,° the courage of a man.
This too thou know'st, that while I still bear on
The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world,
And beat the Persians back on every field,
I seek one man, one man, and one alone—
50Rustum, my father; who I hoped should greet,
Should one day greet, upon some well-fought field,
His not unworthy, not inglorious son.
So I long hoped, but him I never find.
Come then, hear now, and grant me what I ask.
[p.3]
55Let the two armies rest to-day; but I
Will challenge forth the bravest Persian lords
To meet me, man to man; if I prevail,
Rustum will surely hear it; if I fall—
Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin.
°60Dim is the rumour of a common fight,°
°61Where host meets host, and many names are sunk°;
But of a single combat fame speaks clear."
He spoke; and Peran-Wisa took the hand
Of the young man in his, and sigh'd, and said:—
65"O Sohrab, an unquiet heart is thine!
Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs,
°67And share the battle's common chance° with us
Who love thee, but must press for ever first,
In single fight incurring single risk,
°70To find a father thou hast never seen°?
That were far best, my son, to stay with us
Unmurmuring; in our tents, while it is war,
And when 'tis truce, then in Afrasiab's towns.
But, if this one desire indeed rules all,
75To seek out Rustum—seek him not through fight!
Seek him in peace, and carry to his arms,
O Sohrab, carry an unwounded son!
But far hence seek him, for he is not here.
For now it is not as when I was young,
80When Rustum was in front of every fray;
But now he keeps apart, and sits at home,
°82In Seistan,° with Zal, his father old.
Whether that his own mighty strength at last
Feels the abhorr'd approaches of old age,
°85Or in some quarrel° with the Persian King.°
°86There go°!—Thou wilt not? Yet my heart forebodes
Danger or death awaits thee on this field.
[p.4]
Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost
To us; fain therefore send thee hence, in peace
90To seek thy father, not seek single fights
In vain;—but who can keep the lion's cub
From ravening, and who govern Rustum's son?
Go, I will grant thee what thy heart desires."
So said he, and dropp'd Sohrab's hand, and left
95His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay;
And o'er his chilly limbs his woollen coat
He pass'd, and tied his sandals on his feet,
And threw a white cloak round him, and he took
°99In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword°;
100And on his head he set his sheep-skin cap,
°101Black, glossy, curl'd, the fleece of Kara-Kul°;
And raised the curtain of his tent, and call'd
His herald to his side, and went abroad.
The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog
105From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands.
And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed
°107Into the open plain; so Haman° bade—
Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled
The host, and still was in his lusty prime.
110From their black tents, long files of horse, they stream'd;
As when some grey November morn the files,
In marching order spread, of long-neck'd cranes
°113Stream over Casbin° and the southern slopes
°114Of Elburz,° from the Aralian estuaries,
°115Or some frore° Caspian reed-bed, southward bound
For the warm Persian sea-board—so they stream'd.
The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard,
First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears;
°119Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara° come
°120And Khiva,° and ferment the milk of mares.°
[p.5]
°121Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns° of the south,
°122The Tukas,° and the lances of Salore,
°123And those from Attruck° and the Caspian sands;
Light men and on light steeds, who only drink
125The acrid milk of camels, and their wells.
And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came
From far, and a more doubtful service own'd;
°128The Tartars of Ferghana,° from the banks
°129Of the Jaxartes,° men with scanty beards
130And close-set skull-caps; and those wilder hordes
°131Who roam o'er Kipchak° and the northern waste,
°132Kalmucks° and unkempt Kuzzaks,° tribes who stray
°133Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes,°
Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere;
135These all filed out from camp into the plain.
And on the other side the Persians form'd;—
First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seem'd.
°138The Ilyats of Khorassan°; and behind,
The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot,
140Marshall'd battalions bright in burnish'd steel.
But Peran-Wisa with his herald came,
Threading the Tartar squadrons to the front,
And with his staff kept back the foremost ranks.
And when Ferood, who led the Persians, saw
145That Peran-Wisa kept the Tartars back,
He took his spear, and to the front he came,
°147And check'd his ranks, and fix'd° them where they stood.
And the old Tartar came upon the sand
Betwixt the silent hosts, and spake, and said:—
150"Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars, hear!
Let there be truce between the hosts to-day.
But choose a champion from the Persian lords
To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man."
The Invisible Enemy By Arnold Castle - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/65980/pg65980-images.html
At fifteen he was sent to war to fight an
enemy he couldn't understand. But more puzzling
was the victory to be won—after he met defeat!
DEPARTMENT OF PEACE
"THAT THE AGE OF
VIOLENCE MAY FOREVER
REMAIN HISTORY"
If only he could remember what the enemy looked like, it would not be so bad.
He forgot so much. Sometimes it seemed like he had been in combat just a few days. But other times it felt like he had been up there forever, waiting, moving forward, moving backward, thinking that at last he was beginning to get the picture, but not sure, never sure, never sure of anything. If only he could recall something beside the immediate present. Then maybe the situation would start to make a little sense.
He knew why he was fighting, vaguely. It was to safeguard certain inalienable rights, which ones he could not exactly remember. The odd thing was that the enemy was fighting for the same goal—he sensed that intuitively. But who was the enemy? He thought he had known once, but that had been quite a while ago. What did they look like? He would have to ask someone.
The tiny old lady in the black dress and curious little black bonnet had at first seemed alarmed at the sound made by her feet upon the stone pavements. But later she forgot about it, for she suddenly came into the tempest of the Sixth Avenue shopping district, where from the streams of people and vehicles went up a roar like that from headlong mountain torrents. She seemed then like a chip that catches, recoils, turns and wheels, a reluctant thing in the clutch of the impetuous river. She hesitated, faltered, debated with herself. Frequently she seemed about to address people; then of a sudden she would evidently lose her courage. Meanwhile the torrent jostled her, swung her this and that way. At last, however, she saw two young women gazing in at a shop-window. They were well-dressed girls; they wore gowns with enormous sleeves that made them look like full-rigged ships with all sails set. They seemed to have plenty of time; they leisurely scanned the goods in the window. Other people had made the tiny old woman much afraid because obviously they were speeding to keep such tremendously important engagements. She went close to the girls and peered in at the same window. She watched them furtively for a time. Then finally she said— "Excuse me!" The girls looked down at this old face with its two large eyes turned towards them. "Excuse me, can you tell me where I can get any work?" For an instant the two girls stared. Then they seemed about to exchange a smile, but, at the last moment, they checked it. The tiny old lady's eyes were upon them. She was quaintly serious, silently expectant. She made one marvel that in that face the wrinkles showed no trace of experience, knowledge; they were simply little, soft, innocent creases. As for her glance, it had the trustfulness of ignorance and the candour of babyhood. "I want to get something to do, because I need the money," she continued since, in their astonishment, they had not replied to her first question. "Of course I'm not strong and I couldn't do very much, but I can sew well; and in a house where there was a good many men folks, I could do all the mending. Do you know any place where they would like me to come?" The young women did then exchange a smile, but it was a subtle tender smile, the edge of personal grief. "Well, no, madame," hesitatingly said one of them at last; "I don't think I know any one." A shade passed over the tiny old lady's face, a shadow of the wing of disappointment. "Don't you?" she said, with a little struggle to be brave, in her voice. Then the girl hastily continued—"But if you will give me your address, I may find some one, and if I do, I will surely let you know of it." The tiny old lady dictated her address, bending over to watch the girl write on a visiting card with a little silver pencil. Then she said— "I thank you very much." She bowed to them, smiling, and went on down the avenue. As for the two girls, they walked to the curb and watched this aged figure, small and frail, in its black gown and curious black bonnet. At last, the crowd, the innumerable wagons, intermingling and changing with uproar and riot, suddenly engulfed it.
srijeda, 25. veljače 2026.
A WORLD BY THE TALE BY SEATON McKETTRIG - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/30816/pg30816-images.html
This is about the best-hated author on Earth. Who was necessarily pampered and petted because of his crime against humanity....
Stimson stood in a corner and glowered. He was a fierce man and had indomitable whiskers, albeit he was very small. "That young tarrier," he whispered to himself. "He wants to quit makin' eyes at Lizzie. This is too much of a good thing. First thing you know, he'll get fired." His brow creased in a frown, he strode over to the huge open doors and looked at a sign. "Stimson's Mammoth Merry-Go-Round," it read, and the glory of it was great. Stimson stood and contemplated the sign. It was an enormous affair; the letters were as large as men. The glow of it, the grandeur of it was very apparent to Stimson. At the end of his contemplation, he shook his head thoughtfully, determinedly. "No, no," he muttered. "This is too much of a good thing. First thing you know, he'll get fired." A soft booming sound of surf, mingled with the cries of bathers, came from the beach. There was a vista of sand and sky and sea that drew to a mystic point far away in the northward. In the mighty angle, a girl in a red dress was crawling slowly like some kind of a spider on the fabric of nature. A few flags hung lazily above where the bath-houses were marshalled in compact squares. Upon the edge of the sea stood a ship with its shadowy sails painted dimly upon the sky, and high overhead in the still, sun-shot air a great hawk swung and drifted slowly. Within the Merry-Go-Round there was a whirling circle of ornamental lions, giraffes, camels, ponies, goats, glittering with varnish and metal that caught swift reflections from windows high above them. With stiff wooden legs, they swept on in a never-ending race, while a great orchestrion clamoured in wild speed. The summer sunlight sprinkled its gold upon the garnet canopies carried by the tireless racers and upon all the devices of decoration that made Stimson's machine magnificent and famous. A host of laughing children bestrode the animals, bending forward like charging cavalrymen, and shaking reins and whooping in glee. At intervals they leaned out perilously to clutch at iron rings that were tendered to them by a long wooden arm. At the intense moment before the swift grab for the rings one could see their little nervous bodies quiver with eagerness; the laughter rang shrill and excited. Down in the long rows of benches, crowds of people sat watching the game, while occasionally a father might arise and go near to shout encouragement, cautionary commands, or applause at his flying offspring. Frequently mothers called out: "Be careful, Georgie!" The orchestrion bellowed and thundered on its platform, filling the ears with its long monotonous song. Over in a corner, a man in a white apron and behind a counter roared above the tumult: "Pop corn! Pop corn!" A young man stood upon a small, raised platform, erected in a manner of a pulpit, and just without the line of the circling figures. It was his duty to manipulate the wooden arm and affix the rings. When all were gone into the hands of the triumphant children, he held forth a basket, into which they returned all save the coveted brass one, which meant another ride free and made the holder very illustrious. The young man stood all day upon his narrow platform, affixing rings or holding forth the basket. He was a sort of general squire in these lists of childhood. He was very busy. And yet Stimson, the astute, had noticed that the young man frequently found time to twist about on his platform and smile at a girl who shyly sold tickets behind a silvered netting. This, indeed, was the great reason of Stimson's glowering. The young man upon the raised platform had no manner of licence to smile at the girl behind the silvered netting. It was a most gigantic insolence. Stimson was amazed at it. "By Jiminy," he said to himself again, "that fellow is smiling at my daughter." Even in this tone of great wrath it could be discerned that Stimson was filled with wonder that any youth should dare smile at the daughter in the presence of the august father. Often the dark-eyed girl peered between the shining wires, and, upon being detected by the young man, she usually turned her head away quickly to prove to him that she was not interested. At other times, however, her eyes seemed filled with a tender fear lest he should fall from that exceedingly dangerous platform. As for the young man, it was plain that these glances filled him with valour, and he stood carelessly upon his perch, as if he deemed it of no consequence that he might fall from it. In all the complexities of his daily life and duties he found opportunity to gaze ardently at the vision behind the netting. This silent courtship was conducted over the heads of the crowd who thronged about the bright machine. The swift eloquent glances of the young man went noiselessly and unseen with their message. There had finally become established between the two in this manner a subtle understanding and companionship. They communicated accurately all that they felt. The boy told his love, his reverence, his hope in the changes of the future. The girl told him that she loved him, that she did not love him, that she did not know if she loved him, that she loved him. Sometimes a little sign saying "cashier" in gold letters, and hanging upon the silvered netting, got directly in range and interfered with the tender message. The love affair had not continued without anger, unhappiness, despair. The girl had once smiled brightly upon a youth who came to buy some tickets for his little sister, and the young man upon the platform observing this smile had been filled with gloomy rage. He stood like a dark statue of vengeance upon his pedestal and thrust out the basket to the children with a gesture that was full of scorn for their hollow happiness, for their insecure and temporary joy. For five hours he did not once look at the girl when she was looking at him. He was going to crush her with his indifference; he was going to demonstrate that he had never been serious. However, when he narrowly observed her in secret he discovered that she seemed more blythe than was usual with her. When he found that his apparent indifference had not crushed her he suffered greatly. She did not love him, he concluded. If she had loved him she would have been crushed. For two days he lived a miserable existence upon his high perch. He consoled himself by thinking of how unhappy he was, and by swift, furtive glances at the loved face. At any rate he was in her presence, and he could get a good view from his perch when there was no interference by the little sign: "Cashier." But suddenly, swiftly, these clouds vanished, and under the imperial blue sky of the restored confidence they dwelt in peace, a peace that was satisfaction, a peace that, like a babe, put its trust in the treachery of the future. This confidence endured until the next day, when she, for an unknown cause, suddenly refused to look at him. Mechanically he continued his task, his brain dazed, a tortured victim of doubt, fear, suspicion. With his eyes he supplicated her to telegraph an explanation. She replied with a stony glance that froze his blood. There was a great difference in their respective reasons for becoming angry. His were always foolish, but apparent, plain as the moon. Hers were subtle, feminine, as incomprehensible as the stars, as mysterious as the shadows at night. They fell and soared, and soared and fell in this manner until they knew that to live without each other would be a wandering in deserts. They had grown so intent upon the uncertainties, the variations, the guessings of their affair that the world had become but a huge immaterial background. In time of peace their smiles were soft and prayerful, caresses confided to the air. In time of war, their youthful hearts, capable of profound agony, were wrung by the intricate emotions of doubt. They were the victims of the dread angel of affectionate speculation that forces the brain endlessly on roads that lead nowhere. At night, the problem of whether she loved him confronted the young man like a spectre, looming as high as a hill and telling him not to delude himself. Upon the following day, this battle of the night displayed itself in the renewed fervour of his glances and in their increased number. Whenever he thought he could detect that she too was suffering, he felt a thrill of joy. But there came a time when the young man looked back upon these contortions with contempt. He believed then that he had imagined his pain. This came about when the redoubtable Stimson marched forward to participate. "This has got to stop," Stimson had said to himself, as he stood and watched them. They had grown careless of the light world that clattered about them; they were become so engrossed in their personal drama that the language of their eyes was almost as obvious as gestures. And Stimson, through his keenness, his wonderful, infallible penetration, suddenly came into possession of these obvious facts. "Well, of all the nerves," he said, regarding with a new interest the young man upon the perch. He was a resolute man. He never hesitated to grapple with a crisis. He decided to overturn everything at once, for, although small, he was very fierce and impetuous. He resolved to crush this dreaming. He strode over to the silvered netting. "Say, you want to quit your everlasting grinning at that idiot," he said, grimly. The girl cast down her eyes and made a little heap of quarters into a stack. She was unable to withstand the terrible scrutiny of her small and fierce father. Stimson turned from his daughter and went to a spot beneath the platform. He fixed his eyes upon the young man and said— "I've been speakin' to Lizzie. You better attend strictly to your own business or there'll be a new man here next week." It was as if he had blazed away with a shot-gun. The young man reeled upon his perch. At last he in a measure regained his composure and managed to stammer: "A—all right, sir." He knew that denials would be futile with the terrible Stimson. He agitatedly began to rattle the rings in the basket, and pretend that he was obliged to count them or inspect them in some way. He, too, was unable to face the great Stimson. For a moment, Stimson stood in fine satisfaction and gloated over the effect of his threat. "I've fixed them," he said complacently, and went out to smoke a cigar and revel in himself. Through his mind went the proud reflection that people who came in contact with his granite will usually ended in quick and abject submission. II One evening, a week after Stimson had indulged in the proud reflection that people who came in contact with his granite will usually ended in quick and abject submission, a young feminine friend of the girl behind the silvered netting came to her there and asked her to walk on the beach after "Stimson's Mammoth Merry-Go-Round" was closed for the night. The girl assented with a nod. The young man upon the perch holding the rings saw this nod and judged its meaning. Into his mind came an idea of defeating the watchfulness of the redoubtable Stimson. When the Merry-Go-Round was closed and the two girls started for the beach, he wandered off aimlessly in another direction, but he kept them in view, and as soon as he was assured that he had escaped the vigilance of Stimson, he followed them. The electric lights on the beach made a broad band of tremoring light, extending parallel to the sea, and upon the wide walk there slowly paraded a great crowd, intermingling, intertwining, sometimes colliding. In the darkness stretched the vast purple expanse of the ocean, and the deep indigo sky above was peopled with yellow stars. Occasionally out upon the water a whirling mass of froth suddenly flashed into view, like a great ghostly robe appearing, and then vanished, leaving the sea in its darkness, from whence came those bass tones of the water's unknown emotion. A wind, cool, reminiscent of the wave wastes, made the women hold their wraps about their throats, and caused the men to grip the rims of their straw hats. It carried the noise of the band in the pavilion in gusts. Sometimes people unable to hear the music, glanced up at the pavilion and were reassured upon beholding the distant leader still gesticulating and bobbing, and the other members of the band with their lips glued to their instruments. High in the sky soared an unassuming moon, faintly silver. For a time the young man was afraid to approach the two girls; he followed them at a distance and called himself a coward. At last, however, he saw them stop on the outer edge of the crowd and stand silently listening to the voices of the sea. When he came to where they stood, he was trembling in his agitation. They had not seen him. "Lizzie," he began. "I——" The girl wheeled instantly and put her hand to her throat. "Oh, Frank, how you frightened me," she said—inevitably. "Well, you know I—I——" he stuttered. But the other girl was one of those beings who are born to attend at tragedies. She had for love a reverence, an admiration that was greater the more that she contemplated the fact that she knew nothing of it. This couple, with their emotions, awed her and made her humbly wish that she might be destined to be of some service to them. She was very homely. When the young man faltered before them, she, in her sympathy, actually over-estimated the crisis, and felt that he might fall dying at their feet. Shyly, but with courage, she marched to the rescue. "Won't you come and walk on the beach with us?" she said. The young woman gave her a glance of deep gratitude which was not without the patronage which a man in his condition naturally feels for one who pities it. The three walked on. Finally, the being who was born to attend at this tragedy, said that she wished to sit down and gaze at the sea, alone. They politely urged her to walk on with them, but she was obstinate. She wished to gaze at the sea, alone. The young man swore to himself that he would be her friend until he died. And so the two young lovers went on without her. They turned once to look at her. "Jennie's awful nice," said the girl. "You bet she is," replied the young man, ardently. They were silent for a little time. At last the girl said— "You were angry at me yesterday." "No, I wasn't." "Yes, you were, too. You wouldn't look at me once all day." "No, I wasn't angry. I was only putting on." Though she had, of course, known it, this confession seemed to make her very indignant. She flashed a resentful glance at him. "Oh, were you, indeed?" she said with a great air. For a few minutes she was so haughty with him that he loved her to madness. And directly this poem, which stuck at his lips, came forth lamely in fragments. When they walked back toward the other girl and saw the patience of her attitude, their hearts swelled in a patronizing and secondary tenderness for her. They were very happy. If they had been miserable they would have charged this fairy scene of the night with a criminal heartlessness; but as they were joyous, they vaguely wondered how the purple sea, the yellow stars, the changing crowds under the electric lights could be so phlegmatic and stolid. They walked home by the lake-side way, and out upon the water those gay paper lanterns, flashing, fleeting, and careering, sang to them, sang a chorus of red and violet, and green and gold; a song of mystic bands of the future. One day, when business paused during a dull sultry afternoon, Stimson went up town. Upon his return, he found that the popcorn man, from his stand over in a corner, was keeping an eye upon the cashier's cage, and that nobody at all was attending to the wooden arm and the iron rings. He strode forward like a sergeant of grenadiers. "Where in thunder is Lizzie?" he demanded, a cloud of rage in his eyes. The popcorn man, although associated long with Stimson, had never got over being dazed. "They've—they've—gone round to th'—th'—house," he said with difficulty, as if he had just been stunned. "Whose house?" snapped Stimson. "Your—your house, I 'spose," said the popcorn man. Stimson marched round to his home. Kingly denunciations surged, already formulated, to the tip of his tongue, and he bided the moment when his anger could fall upon the heads of that pair of children. He found his wife convulsive and in tears. "Where's Lizzie?" And then she burst forth—"Oh—John—John-they've run away, I know they have. They drove by here not three minutes ago. They must have done it on purpose to bid me good-bye, for Lizzie waved her hand sad-like; and then, before I could get out to ask where they were going or what, Frank whipped up the horse." Stimson gave vent to a dreadful roar. "Get my revolver—get a hack—get my revolver, do you hear—what the devil——" His voice became incoherent. He had always ordered his wife about as if she were a battalion of infantry, and despite her misery, the training of years forced her to spring mechanically to obey; but suddenly she turned to him with a shrill appeal. "Oh, John—not—the—revolver." "Confound it, let go of me," he roared again, and shook her from him. He ran hatless upon the street. There were a mul titude of hacks at the summer resort, but it was ages to him before he could find one. Then he charged it like a bull. "Uptown," he yelled, as he tumbled into the rear seat. The hackman thought of severed arteries. His galloping horse distanced a large number of citizens who had been running to find what caused such contortions by the little hatless man. It chanced as the bouncing hack went along near the lake, Stimson gazed across the calm grey expanse and recognized a colour in a bonnet and a pose of a head. A buggy was travelling along a highway that led to Sorington. Stimson bellowed—"There—there—there they are—in that buggy." The hackman became inspired with the full knowledge of the situation. He struck a delirious blow with the whip. His mouth expanded in a grin of excitement and joy. It came to pass that this old vehicle, with its drowsy horse and its dusty-eyed and tranquil driver, seemed suddenly to awaken, to become animated and fleet. The horse ceased to ruminate on his state, his air of reflection vanished. He became intent upon his aged legs and spread them in quaint and ridiculous devices for speed. The driver, his eyes shining, sat critically in his seat. He watched each motion of this rattling machine down before him. He resembled an engineer. He used the whip with judgment and deliberation as the engineer would have used coal or oil. The horse clacked swiftly upon the macadam, the wheels hummed, the body of the vehicle wheezed and groaned. Stimson, in the rear seat, was erect in that impassive attitude that comes sometimes to the furious man when he is obliged to leave the battle to others. Frequently, however, the tempest in his breast came to his face and he howled— "Go it—go it—you're gaining; pound 'im! Thump the life out of 'im; hit 'im hard, you fool." His hand grasped the rod that supported the carriage top, and it was clenched so that the nails were faintly blue. Ahead, that other carriage had been flying with speed, as from realization of the menace in the rear. It bowled away rapidly, drawn by the eager spirit of a young and modern horse. Stimson could see the buggy-top bobbing, bobbing. That little pane, like an eye, was a derision to him. Once he leaned forward and bawled angry sentences. He began to feel impotent; his whole expedition was a tottering of an old man upon a trail of birds. A sense of age made him choke again with wrath. That other vehicle, that was youth, with youth's pace; it was swift-flying with the hope of dreams. He began to comprehend those two children ahead of him, and he knew a sudden and strange awe, because he understood the power of their young blood, the power to fly strongly into the future and feel and hope again, even at that time when his bones must be laid in the earth. The dust rose easily from the hot road and stifled the nostrils of Stimson. The highway vanished far away in a point with a suggestion of intolerable length. The other vehicle was becoming so small that Stimson could no longer see the derisive eye. At last the hackman drew rein to his horse and turned to look at Stimson. "No use, I guess," he said. Stimson made a gesture of acquiescence, rage, despair. As the hackman turned his dripping horse about, Stimson sank back with the astonishment and grief of a man who has been defied by the universe. He had been in a great perspiration, and now his bald head felt cool and uncomfortable. He put up his hand with a sudden recollection that he had forgotten his hat. At last he made a gesture. It meant that at any rate he was not responsible.
utorak, 24. veljače 2026.
Never was anything so joyous as the spring of 1814 Louis XVIII. was king, and the war was over. All except the old soldiers were content; and only when the nobles, who had fled at the Revolution, returned, and it was said that they were going to bring back all their old ideas, did M. Goulden express any dissatisfaction. There were great religious processions everywhere and expiatory services, and talk of rebuilding all the convents, and setting up the nobles again in their castles. But these things did not trouble me, because I was married to Catherine, and knew nothing about politics. The treatment of the old soldiers enraged me. On the day of the religious procession at Phalsbourg, half a dozen old veterans, restored prisoners, were set upon in our town by that rascal Pinacle and the people of Baraques, and knocked about. Pinacle did this to curry favour with Louis XVIII., and M. Goulden warned us that if ruffians like Pinacle got the upper hand it would open people's eyes. Sure enough, Pinacle received the cross of honour in the autumn when the Duc de Berry came to review the troops at Phalsbourg, and even Aunt Grédel, who was fond of abusing Napoleon and the Jacobins, and applauding the king and the clergy, thought this a shameful thing. It really was scandalous the way titles and honours were given to worthless people who shouted for the king. Worse than this was the way Napoleon's old officers were treated. Men who had fought and bled for France for twenty years were now well-nigh starving, driven out of the army to make room for the king's favourites. We read all this in the "Gazette," and Zébédé, who had come back alive and in time for my wedding, and was still in the army, would often come in and tell us of the growing indignation of the soldiers. The whole of that winter the indignation was spreading in the town at the sight of so many brave officers, the heroes of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Wagram, wandering forlornly about, starving on half-pay, and deprived of their posts. How well I remember one day in January, 1815, two of these officers, pale and gaunt, coming into the workshop to sell a watch. M. Goulden examined the watch with great care and said, "Do not be offended, gentlemen; I, too, served France under the Republic, and I know it must cut to the heart to be forced to sell something which recalls sacred memories." "It was given me by Prince Eugène," said one of the officers, Commandant Margarot, a hussar. "It is worth more than 1,000 francs," said M. Goulden, "and I cannot afford to buy it. But I will advance you 200 francs, and the watch shall remain here if you like, and shall be yours whenever you come to reclaim it." The old hussar broke down at this, and though his comrade, Colonel Falconette, tried to restrain him, he poured forth thanks and bitter words against the government. From that time it always seemed to me that things would end badly, and that the nobles had gone too far. The old commandant had said that the government behaved like Cossacks to the army, and this was horrible. M. Goulden read the "Gazette" aloud to us every day, and both Catherine and I were pleased to find there were men in Paris maintaining the very things we thought ourselves. All this time the clergy were going on with their processions, and sermons were being preached about the rebellion of 1790, the restitution of property to the landowners, and the re-establishment of convents, and the need for missionaries for the conversion of France. From such ideas what good could come? It is no wonder that when a report came early in March that Napoleon had landed at Cannes and was marching on Paris we were all very agitated at Phalsbourg. "It is plain," said M. Goulden, "that the emperor will reach Paris. The soldiers are for him; so are the peasantry, whose property is threatened; and so are the middle classes, provided he will make treaties of peace." II.--"Vive l'Empereur!" For some days, though all knew Napoleon had set foot in France, no one dared talk of it aloud. Only the looks of the half-pay officers betrayed their anxiety. If they had possessed horses and arms I am sure they would have set out to meet their emperor. On March 8, Zébédé entered our house and said abruptly, "The two first batallions are starting." "They are going to stop him?" said M. Goulden. "Yes, they'll stop him, that is very likely," Zébédé answered, winking. At the foot of the stairs he drew me aside and whispered, "Look inside my cap, Joseph; all the soldiers have got it, too." Sure enough it was the old tricolour cockade, which had been removed on the return of Louis XVIII. At last the papers had to admit that Buonaparte had escaped from Elba. What a scene it was in the café the night the papers arrived! M. Goulden and I were hardly seated before the place was filled with people, and it was so close the windows had to be opened. Commandant Margarot mounted on a table with other officers all around him, and began to read the "Gazette" aloud. It took a long time, the reading, and the people laughed and jeered at the passages that said the troops were faithful to the king, that Buonaparte was surrounded and would soon be taken, and that the illustrious Ney and the other marshals had hastened to place their swords at the service of the king. The commandant read on firmly in that distinct voice of his until he came to the order calling upon the French to seize Buonaparte and give him up dead or alive. Then his whole face changed and his eyes glittered. He took the "Gazette" up and tore it into little pieces, and, drawing himself up, his long arms stretched out, cried, "Vive l'Empereur!" with all his might. Immediately all the half-pay officers took up the cry, and "Vive l'Empereur!" was repeated again by the very soldiers posted outside the town hall when they heard the shout. The commandant was carried shoulder high round the café, and everyone was now calling out, "Vive l'Empereur!" I saw the tears in the eyes of the commandant, tears at hearing the name he loved best acclaimed once more. As for me, I felt as if cold water was being forced down my back. "It's all over," I said to myself. "It's no good talking about peace." But M. Goulden was more hopeful, and after we got home spoke cheerfully of the blessings of liberty and a good constitution. Aunt Grédel did not take this view. She came to see us the morning after the scene in the café, when all the town was discussing the great news, and began at once, "So it seems the villain has run away from his island?" Both M. Goulden and I were anxious to avoid a dispute, for Aunt Grédel was really angry, and she couldn't leave the subject. M. Goulden admitted that he preferred Napoleon to the Bourbons, with their nobles and missionary priests, because the emperor was bound to respect the national property, whereas the later would have destroyed all that the Revolution had accomplished. "Still, I am now, and always shall be till death, for the Republic and the rights of man," M. Goulden concluded. The old gentleman took his hat and went out to escape further argument, and Aunt Grédel turned to me and told me that M. Goulden was an old fool and always had been, and that I should have to go to Switzerland now, unless Buonaparte was taken before he reached Paris. In the evening, however, when Aunt Grédel had gone, and we three were together, Catherine said quietly, "M. Goulden is right; he knows more about these things than my mother does, and we will always listen to his advice." I thought to myself, "Yes, that's all very well; but it will be a horrible thing to have to put on one's knapsack again and be off. I would rather be in Switzerland than in Leipzig." Each day now brought news of Napoleon's advance, from Grenoble to Lyons, from Lyons to Macon and Auxerre. There was no opposition anywhere to his progress, and the only question that troubled M. Goulden's mind was the attitude of Ney to the emperor. Could Ney, an old soldier of the Revolution, though he had kissed the hand of Louis XVIII., betray the country to please the king? The uneasiness disappeared when we learnt that Ney had followed the example of the army, the citizens, and of all who did not wish to go back to the customs and laws of twenty-five years earlier. On March 21, just as it was getting dark, we knew that something decisive must have happened at Paris. The drums were calling to arms in the market-place, and a great crowd soon assembled. The soldiers fell into their ranks, Commandant Gémeau, who had only just recovered from his wounds, drew his sword, and gave the order to form square. M. Goulden and I got on a bench to listen; we knew that the fate of France depended on the message we were to hear. "Present arms!" called out the commandant in the same clear voice which had bidden us at Lützen and Leipzig, "Close up your ranks!" Then came the news we had been waiting for. "Soldiers, his Majesty Louis XVIII. left Paris on March 20, and the Emperor Napoleon entered the capital the same day." For a second there was a dead silence, and then the commandant spoke of the banner of France, the banner of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena, stained with our blood; and the old sergeant drew out the tattered tricolour flag from its case. "I know no other flag!" cried the commandant, raising his sword. "Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur!" What a shout there was of "Vive l'Empereur! Vive la France!" at this. The people and the soldiers embraced one another, and that night and for the next five or six days there was, if anything, even more rejoicing than there had been on the return of Louis XVIII. We still hoped for the continuance of peace, but who could say how long the peace would last? Phalsbourg was ordered to put itself into a state of defence, a large workshop was set up at the arsenal for the repairing of arms, and engineers and artillerymen came over from Metz to make earthworks in the fortifications. It seemed to me that a large number of men would be required for all the guns and forts, and that my watchmaking days would soon be exchanged for active service. I began to think that, after all, religious processions were better than being sent to fight against people one knew nothing about. III.--On the Road to Waterloo Aunt Grédel had not been to see us for a month, and it was a great comfort to Catherine and me when one Sunday M. Goulden proposed that we should all three pay her a visit at Quatre Vents. As soon as she saw us, Aunt Grédel rushed to kiss her daughter, and called out, "You are a good man, M. Goulden, better a thousand times than I am. How glad I am to see you! It doesn't matter about being a Jacobin or anything else; the main thing is to have a good heart." It was not until the afternoon that M. Goulden explained that he had known for some days that I should be called up to rejoin my old regiment, and that he had arranged with the commandant of artillery that I should be received at the arsenal as a workman. What relief this was to us, for I could not bear the thought of separation from Catherine. So from that day I went to work at the arsenal, and Aunt Grédel came to see us again as she had been accustomed to do. It can be guessed with what spirit I worked at the arsenal, and how pleased I was when the commandant expressed satisfaction at my work. But I was not allowed to stop at Phalsbourg. On May 23 the commandant told me that I must go to Metz with the 3rd battalion, to which I belonged. He assured me, however, that I should be kept at Metz in the workshops, and we all did our best to believe that I was fortunate in my destination. M. Goulden, however, warned me before I left that France was threatened by her enemies, that the allies would make no peace with the emperor, but were determined to set Louis XVIII. once more on the throne, and that now the question was not of invading other countries, but of defending our own. Catherine was asleep when the morning came for my departure, and I was glad to escape the pain of saying "good-bye." At the barracks, Zébédé, who was now a sergeant, led me into the soldiers' room, and I put on my uniform. Then the battalion defiled through the gates, the soldiers at the outworks presented arms, and we were on the way to Waterloo. It was useless to think of stopping in Metz. We arrived in that city of Jews and soldiers after five days' march, and were at once, after our night's rest, supplied with ammunition. I saw that my only chance of staying at the workshops of Metz would be after the campaign was over, for we were on the march the very next morning. Zébédé was not always with me now, and my closest comrade was Jean Buche, the son of a sledge-maker at Harberg, who had never eaten anything better than potatoes before he became a conscript. Buche turned in his feet in walking, but he never seemed to know the meaning of being tired, and in his own fashion was a wonderful pedestrian. From Metz we marched through Thionville, Châtelet, Etain, Dannevoux, Yong, Vivier, and Cul-de-Sard. All our troops were pouring into Belgium--cavalry, infantry, and artillery--and though there were no signs of the enemy, it was reported that we were to attack the English. I thought as well English as Prussians, Austrians, or Russians, since we were to kill each other. On the night of June 14 we bivouacked outside the village of Roly, and General Pécheux read a proclamation by the emperor, reminding us that this was the anniversary of Marengo, that the powers were in coalition against France, and that the hour had come for France to conquer or perish. It is impossible to describe the enthusiasm at this message from the emperor; our courage was stronger, and the conscripts were even more anxious than the veterans for the fighting to begin. We were up at daybreak next day and on the march, eager to get a sight of the Prussians, who had been repulsed from Charleroi by the emperor, we were told. At the village of Châtelet we halted, and heard the noise of firing away across the River Sambre, in the direction of Gilly. An old bald peasant told us that evening that the Prussians had men in the villages of Fleurus and Lambusart, that the English and Belgians were on the great Brussels road, and that the causeway through Quatre Bras and Ligny enabled the Prussians and English to communicate freely with each other. He also told us that the Prussians said insulting things of the French army, and were generally hated by the people. When I heard of the way the Prussians boasted, my blood boiled, and I said to myself, "There shall be no more compassion. Either they or we must be utterly destroyed." I can recall with what splendour the sun rose next morning above a cornfield--it was the morning of the battle of Ligny. Zébédé and one or two comrades whom I had known in 1813 came and chattered while we lit our fires. We could see the Prussians before us, posting themselves behind hedges and walls, and preparing to defend the villages, and all the time we were kept roasting in the corn, waiting for the signal to attack. The emperor arrived, and held a short conference with the superior officers, and I saw him at close quarters before he rode off again to the village of Fleurus, already vacated by the Prussians. And still we waited, though we knew the attack on St. Amand had begun. At last came our turn to advance on Ligny. "Forward! Forward!" cried the officers. "Vive l'Empereur!" we shouted. The Prussian bullets whizzed like hail upon us, and then we could see or hear nothing till we were in the village. No quarter was given that day; we fought in houses and gardens, in barns and lanes, with muskets and bayonets. Those who fell were lost. At one time fifteen of us were in possession of a barn, and the Prussians, for a time outnumbering us, drove us up a ladder. They fired up at our floor, and finally, when it seemed we were lost, and were all to be massacred we heard the shout of "Vive l'Empereur!" and the Prussians fled. Out of that fifteen only six were left alive, but Zébédé and Buche were among the survivors. The battle still raged in the village streets, dead and dying were everywhere. Towards nightfall it was plain we were the victors; Ligny and St. Amand were in our hands, and the Prussians had moved away. On the plateau behind Ligny, where our cavalry had been at work, the slaughter had been terrible. The dozen or so remaining of our company rested for a few hours that night in the ruins of a farmhouse, and next day came the roll-call of our battalion, and the sending off of the wounded. More than 360 of our men, including Commandant Gémeau and Captain Vidal, were disabled, and we were busy all day over the wounded. It was wet and muddy that evening, and we were hungry and dispirited when we reached Quatre Bras, about eight o'clock. We were not allowed to halt here, but marched on to a village called Jemappes, and at midnight we settled down in a furrow to wait for morning. The red coats of the English were visible before us when we awoke next morning; behind their lines was the village of Mont St. Jean, and they had also the farmhouses of La Haie-Sainte and Hougomont. At six o'clock I looked at their position, with Zébédé, Captain Florentin, and Buche, and it seemed to me it was a difficult task before us. It was Sunday, and I could hear the bells of villages, recalling Phalsbourg. But in a very little while we heard no more bells, for at half-past eight our battalion was on its way to the high road in front, and the battle of Waterloo had begun. IV.--The Hour of Disaster I have often heard veterans describe the order of battle given by the emperor. But all I remember of that terrible day is that we marched out with the bands playing, that we got to close quarters with the English, were repulsed, and were assisted by regiments of cuirassiers, that we carried La Haie-Sainte with terrible slaughter at Ney's command. Hougomont we could not carry. When we thought we were winning, the news was spread that Blücher, with 60,000 men, was advancing on our flank, and that unless Grouchy, with his 30,000, arrived in time to reinforce us the day might be lost. All the world knows now that Grouchy did not arrive, that we threw ourselves again and again upon the English squares, and that at last, when regiment after regiment had tried in vain to break the enemy's line, the Old Guard were called up by the emperor. It was the last chance of retrieving the day, the grand stroke--and it failed. The four battalions of the Guards, reduced from 3,000 to 1,200 men, were assailed by so fierce a fire that they were compelled to retire. They retired slowly, defending themselves with muskets and bayonets, but with their retirement, and the approach of night, the battle ended for us in the confusion of a rout. It was like a flood. We were surrounded on all sides when Blücher arrived. The Old Guard formed a square for the emperor and his officers, and the rest of us simply straggled away, back to France. The most awful thing of all was the beating of the drum of the Old Guard in that hour of disaster. It was like a fire-bell, the last appeal of a burning nation. Buche was by my side in the retreat. Several times the Prussians attacked us. We heard that the emperor had departed for Paris, and we struggled on, only hoping to escape with our lives. At Charleroi the inhabitants shut the city gates in our face, and Buche shared in the general rage, and proposed to destroy the town. But I thought we had had enough massacres, and that it was not right we should be killing our own countrymen, and I persuaded Buche to come on with me. In a few days we felt ourselves safe from pursuing Prussians, and at the village of Bouvigny I wrote a letter to Catherine, telling her I was safe. In this village some officers of our regiment, the 6th of the Line, found us, and we had to rejoin. Presently we saw all that was left of Grouchy's army corps in retreat, and a day or two later we heard of the emperor's abdication. On July 1, we reached Paris, and outside the city, near the village of Issy, we once more fell in with the Prussians; for two days we fought them with fury, and then some generals announced that peace had been made. We believed that this truce was to give the enemy time to leave the country, and that otherwise France would rise, as it rose in '92, and drive them out. Unhappily, we soon learnt that the Prussians and English were to occupy Paris, and that the remains of the French army were to be kept beyond the Loire. We all felt that we had been betrayed, and the old officers, pale with anger, wept in their misery. Paris in the hands of the Prussians! Besides, were we to go to the other side of the Loire at the command of Blücher? Desertions began that very day, and I said to Buche, "Let us return to Phalsbourg and Harberg, and take up our work, and live like honest men." About fifty of us from Alsace-Lorraine were in the battalion, and we set off together on the road to Strasbourg. On July 8 we heard that Louis XVIII. was to come back, and already the white banner of the Bourbons was being displayed in the villages. In some places there were rascals who called us Buonapartists, and gendarmes who took us to the town hall and made us shout "Vive le Roi!" Buche and some of the old soldiers hated this; but what did it matter who was king, and what these fools wanted us to shout? Our little company got smaller and smaller as men halted in their own villages, and when, on July 16, we reached Phalsbourg, Buche and I were alone. Buche went on to break the news of my return, but I could not wait, and ran after him. I heard people saying, "There's Joseph, Bertha," and in a moment I was in the house, and in Catherine's arms. Then I embraced M. Goulden, and an hour later Aunt Grédel arrived. Jean Buche would not stay and dine with us, but hurried home to Harberg. I have often seen him since; and Zébédé, too, who remained in the army. Many insulting things were said about us by the Pinacles, but I had happiness in my family circle, especially when Catherine presented me with a little Joseph. I am an old man now, but M. Goulden always said the principles of freedom and liberty would triumph, and I have lived long enough to see his words come true.
The windows were high and saintly, of the shape that is found in churches. From time to time a policeman at the door spoke sharply to some incoming person. "Take your hat off!" He displayed in his voice the horror of a priest when the sanctity of a chapel is defied or forgotten. The court-room was crowded with people who sloped back comfortably in their chairs, regarding with undeviating glances the procession and its attendant and guardian policemen that moved slowly inside the spear-topped railing. All persons connected with a case went close to the magistrate's desk before a word was spoken in the matter, and then their voices were toned to the ordinary talking strength. The crowd in the court-room could not hear a sentence; they could merely see shifting figures, men that gestured quietly, women that sometimes raised an eager eloquent arm. They could not always see the judge, although they were able to estimate his location by the tall stands surmounted by white globes that were at either hand of him. And so those who had come for curiosity's sweet sake wore an air of being in wait for a cry of anguish, some loud painful protestation that would bring the proper thrill to their jaded, world-weary nerves—wires that refused to vibrate for ordinary affairs. Inside the railing the court officers shuffled the various groups with speed and skill; and behind the desk the magistrate patiently toiled his way through mazes of wonderful testimony. In a corner of this space, devoted to those who had business before the judge, an officer in plain clothes stood with a girl that wept constantly. None seemed to notice the girl, and there was no reason why she should be noticed, if the curious in the body of the court-room were not interested in the devastation which tears bring upon some complexions. Her tears seemed to burn like acid, and they left fierce pink marks on her face. Occasionally the girl looked across the room, where two well-dressed young women and a man stood waiting with the serenity of people who are not concerned as to the interior fittings of a jail. The business of the court progressed, and presently the girl, the officer, and the well-dressed contingent stood before the judge. Thereupon two lawyers engaged in some preliminary fire-wheels, which were endured generally in silence. The girl, it appeared, was accused of stealing fifty dollars' worth of silk clothing from the room of one of the well-dressed women. She had been a servant in the house. In a clear way, and with none of the ferocity that an accuser often exhibits in a police-court, calmly and moderately, the two young women gave their testimony. Behind them stood their escort, always mute. His part, evidently, was to furnish the dignity, and he furnished it heavily, almost massively. When they had finished, the girl told her part. She had full, almost Afric, lips, and they had turned quite white. The lawyer for the others asked some questions, which he did—be it said, in passing—with the air of a man throwing flower-pots at a stone house. It was a short case and soon finished. At the end of it the judge said that, considering the evidence, he would have to commit the girl for trial. Instantly the quick-eyed court officer began to clear the way for the next case. The well-dressed women and their escort turned one way and the girl turned another, toward a door with an austere arch leading into a stone-paved passage. Then it was that a great cry rang through the court-room, the cry of this girl who believed that she was lost. The loungers, many of them, underwent a spasmodic movement as if they had been knived. The court officers rallied quickly. The girl fell back opportunely for the arms of one of them, and her wild heels clicked twice on the floor. "I am innocent! Oh, I am innocent!" People pity those who need none, and the guilty sob alone; but innocent or guilty, this girl's scream described such a profound depth of woe—it was so graphic of grief, that it slit with a dagger's sweep the curtain of common-place, and disclosed the gloom-shrouded spectre that sat in the young girl's heart so plainly, in so universal a tone of the mind, that a man heard expressed some far-off midnight terror of his own thought. The cries died away down the stone-paved passage. A patrol-man leaned one arm composedly on the railing, and down below him stood an aged, almost toothless wanderer, tottering and grinning. "Plase, yer honer," said the old man as the time arrived for him to speak, "if ye'll lave me go this time, I've niver been dhrunk befoor, sir." A court officer lifted his hand to hide a smile.
ponedjeljak, 23. veljače 2026.
It was late at night, and a fine rain was swirling softly down, causing the pavements to glisten with hue of steel and blue and yellow in the rays of the innumerable lights. A youth was trudging slowly, without enthusiasm, with his hands buried deep in his trouser's pockets, towards the down-town places where beds can be hired for coppers. He was clothed in an aged and tattered suit, and his derby was a marvel of dust-covered crown and torn rim. He was going forth to eat as the wanderer may eat, and sleep as the homeless sleep. By the time he had reached City Hall Park he was so completely plastered with yells of "bum" and "hobo," and with various unholy epithets that small boys had applied to him at intervals, that he was in a state of the most profound dejection. The sifting rain saturated the old velvet collar of his overcoat, and as the wet cloth pressed against his neck, he felt that there no longer could be pleasure in life. He looked about him searching for an outcast of highest degree that they too might share miseries, but the lights threw a quivering glare over rows and circles of deserted benches that glistened damply, showing patches of wet sod behind them. It seemed that their usual freights had fled on this night to better things. There were only squads of well-dressed Brooklyn people who swarmed towards the bridge. The young man loitered about for a time and then went shuffling off down Park Row. In the sudden descent in style of the dress of the crowd he felt relief, and as if he were at last in his own country. He began to see tatters that matched his tatters. In Chatham Square there were aimless men strewn in front of saloons and lodging-houses, standing sadly, patiently, reminding one vaguely of the attitudes of chickens in a storm. He aligned himself with these men, and turned slowly to occupy himself with the flowing life of the great street. Through the mists of the cold and storming night, the cable cars went in silent procession, great affairs shining with red and brass, moving with formidable power, calm and irresistible, dangerful and gloomy, breaking silence only by the loud fierce cry of the gong. Two rivers of people swarmed along the side walks, spattered with black mud, which made each shoe leave a scar-like impression. Overhead elevated trains with a shrill grinding of the wheels stopped at the station, which upon its leg-like pillars seemed to resemble some monstrous kind of crab squatting over the street. The quick fat puffings of the engines could be heard. Down an alley there were sombre curtains of purple and black, on which street lamps dully glittered like embroidered flowers. A saloon stood with a voracious air on a corner. A sign leaning against the front of the door-post announced "Free hot soup to-night!" The swing doors, snapping to and fro like ravenous lips, made gratified smacks as the saloon gorged itself with plump men, eating with astounding and endless appetite, smiling in some indescribable manner as the men came from all directions like sacrifices to a heathenish superstition. Caught by the delectable sign the young man allowed himself to be swallowed. A bar-tender placed a schooner of dark and portentous beer on the bar. Its monumental form up-reared until the froth a-top was above the crown of the young man's brown derby. "Soup over there, gents," said the bar-tender affably. A little yellow man in rags and the youth grasped their schooners and went with speed toward a lunch counter, where a man with oily but imposing whiskers ladled genially from a kettle until he had furnished his two mendicants with a soup that was steaming hot, and in which there were little floating suggestions of chicken. The young man, sipping his broth, felt the cordiality expressed by the warmth of the mixture, and he beamed at the man with oily but imposing whiskers, who was presiding like a priest behind an altar. "Have some more, gents?" he inquired of the two sorry figures before him. The little yellow man accepted with a swift gesture, but the youth shook his head and went out, following a man whose wondrous seediness promised that he would have a knowledge of cheap lodging-houses. On the side-walk he accosted the seedy man. "Say, do you know a cheap place to sleep?" The other hesitated for a time gazing sideways. Finally he nodded in the direction of the street, "I sleep up there," he said, "when I've got the price." "How much?" "Ten cents." The young man shook his head dolefully. "That's too rich for me." At that moment there approached the two a reeling man in strange garments. His head was a fuddle of bushy hair and whiskers, from which his eyes peered with a guilty slant. In a close scrutiny it was possible to distinguish the cruel lines of a mouth which looked as if its lips had just closed with satisfaction over some tender and piteous morsel. He appeared like an assassin steeped in crimes performed awkwardly. But at this time his voice was tuned to the coaxing key of an affectionate puppy. He looked at the men with wheedling eyes, and began to sing a little melody for charity. "Say, gents, can't yeh give a poor feller a couple of cents t' git a bed. I got five, and I gits anudder two I gits me a bed. Now, on th' square, gents, can't yeh jest gimme two cents t' git a bed? Now, yeh know how a respecter'ble gentlem'n feels when he's down on his luck, an' I——" The seedy man, staring with imperturbable countenance at a train which clattered overhead, interrupted in an expressionless voice—"Ah, go t' h—!" But the youth spoke to the prayerful assassin in tones of astonishment and inquiry. "Say, you must be crazy! Why don't yeh strike somebody that looks as if they had money?" The assassin, tottering about on his uncertain legs, and at intervals brushing imaginary obstacles from before his nose, entered into a long explanation of the psychology of the situation. It was so profound that it was unintelligible. When he had exhausted the subject, the young man said to him— "Let's see th' five cents." The assassin wore an expression of drunken woe at this sentence, filled with suspicion of him. With a deeply pained air he began to fumble in his clothing, his red hands trembling. Presently he announced in a voice of bitter grief, as if he had been betrayed—"There's on'y four." "Four," said the young man thoughtfully. "Well, look-a-here, I'm a stranger here, an' if ye'll steer me to your cheap joint I'll find the other three." The assassin's countenance became instantly radiant with joy. His whiskers quivered with the wealth of his alleged emotions. He seized the young man's hand in a transport of delight and friendliness. "B' Gawd," he cried, "if ye'll do that, b' Gawd, I'd say yeh was a damned good fellow, I would, an' I'd remember yeh all m' life, I would, b' Gawd, an' if I ever got a chance I'd return the compliment"—he spoke with drunken dignity,—"b' Gawd, I'd treat yeh white, I would, an' I'd allus remember yeh." The young man drew back, looking at the assassin coldly. "Oh, that's all right," he said. "You show me th' joint—that's all you've got t' do." The assassin, gesticulating gratitude, led the young man along a dark street. Finally he stopped before a little dusty door. He raised his hand impressively. "Look-a-here," he said, and there was a thrill of deep and ancient wisdom upon his face, "I've brought yeh here, an' that's my part, ain't it? If th' place don't suit yeh, yeh needn't git mad at me, need yeh? There won't be no bad feelin', will there?" "No," said the young man. The assassin waved his arm tragically, and led the march up the steep stairway. On the way the young man furnished the assassin with three pennies. At the top a man with benevolent spectacles looked at them through a hole in a board. He collected their money, wrote some names on a register, and speedily was leading the two men along a gloom-shrouded corridor. Shortly after the beginning of this journey the young man felt his liver turn white, for from the dark and secret places of the building there suddenly came to his nostrils strange and unspeakable odours, that assailed him like malignant diseases with wings. They seemed to be from human bodies closely packed in dens; the exhalations from a hundred pairs of reeking lips; the fumes from a thousand bygone debauches; the expression of a thousand present miseries. A man, naked save for a little snuff-coloured undershirt, was parading sleepily along the corridor. He rubbed his eyes, and, giving vent to a prodigious yawn, demanded to be told the time. "Half-past one." The man yawned again. He opened a door, and for a moment his form was outlined against a black, opaque interior. To this door came the three men, and as it was again opened the unholy odours rushed out like fiends, so that the young man was obliged to struggle as against an overpowering wind. It was some time before the youth's eyes were good in the intense gloom within, but the man with benevolent spectacles led him skilfully, pausing but a moment to deposit the limp assassin upon a cot. He took the youth to a cot that lay tranquilly by the window, and showing him a tall locker for clothes that stood near the head with the ominous air of a tombstone, left him. The youth sat on his cot and peered about him. There was a gas-jet in a distant part of the room, that burned a small flickering orange-hued flame. It caused vast masses of tumbled shadows in all parts of the place, save where, immediately about it, there was a little grey haze. As the young man's eyes became used to the darkness, he could see upon the cots that thickly littered the floor the forms of men sprawled out, lying in death-like silence, or heaving and snoring with tremendous effort, like stabbed fish. The youth locked his derby and his shoes in the mummy case near him, and then lay down with an old and familiar coat around his shoulders. A blanket he handed gingerly, drawing it over part of the coat. The cot was covered with leather, and as cold as melting snow. The youth was obliged to shiver for some time on this affair, which was like a slab. Presently, however, his chill gave him peace, and during this period of leisure from it he turned his head to stare at his friend the assassin, whom he could dimly discern where he lay sprawled on a cot in the abandon of a man filled with drink. He was snoring with incredible vigour. His wet hair and beard dimly glistened, and his inflamed nose shone with subdued lustre like a red light in a fog. Within reach of the youth's hand was one who lay with yellow breast and shoulders bare to the cold drafts. One arm hung over the side of the cot, and the fingers lay full length upon the wet cement floor of the room. Beneath the inky brows could be seen the eyes of the man exposed by the partly opened lids. To the youth it seemed that he and this corpse-like being were exchanging a prolonged stare, and that the other threatened with his eyes. He drew back watching his neighbour from the shadows of his blanket edge. The man did not move once through the night, but lay in this stillness as of death like a body stretched out expectant of the surgeon's knife. And all through the room could be seen the tawny hues of naked flesh, limbs thrust into the darkness, projecting beyond the cots; upreared knees, arms hanging long and thin over the cot edges. For the most part they were statuesque, carven, dead. With the curious lockers standing all about like tombstones, there was a strange effect of a graveyard where bodies were merely flung. Yet occasionally could be seen limbs wildly toss ing in fantastic nightmare gestures, accompanied by guttural cries, grunts, oaths. And there was one fellow off in a gloomy corner, who in his dreams was oppressed by some frightful calamity, for of a sudden he began to utter long wails that went almost like yells from a hound, echoing wailfully and weird through this chill place of tombstones where men lay like the dead. The sound in its high piercing beginnings, that dwindled to final melancholy moans, expressed a red and grim tragedy of the unfathomable possibilities of the man's dreams. But to the youth these were not merely the shrieks of a vision-pierced man: they were an utterance of the meaning of the room and its occupants. It was to him the protest of the wretch who feels the touch of the imperturbable granite wheels, and who then cries with an impersonal eloquence, with a strength not from him, giving voice to the wail of a whole section, a class, a people. This, weaving into the young man's brain, and mingling with his views of the vast and sombre shadows that, like mighty black fingers, curled around the naked bodies, made the young man so that he did not sleep, but lay carving the biographies for these men from his meagre experience. At times the fellow in the corner howled in a writhing agony of his imaginations. Finally a long lance-point of grey light shot through the dusty panes of the window. Without, the young man could see roofs drearily white in the dawning. The point of light yellowed and grew brighter, until the golden rays of the morning sun came in bravely and strong. They touched with radiant colour the form of a small fat man, who snored in stuttering fashion. His round and shiny bald head glowed suddenly with the valour of a decoration. He sat up, blinked at the sun, swore fretfully, and pulled his blanket over the ornamental splendours of his head. The youth contentedly watched this rout of the shadows before the bright spears of the sun, and presently he slumbered. When he awoke he heard the voice of the assassin raised in valiant curses. Putting up his head, he perceived his comrade seated on the side of the cot engaged in scratching his neck with long finger-nails that rasped like files. "Hully Jee, dis is a new breed. They've got can-openers on their feet." He continued in a violent tirade. The young man hastily unlocked his closet and took out his shoes and hat. As he sat on the side of the cot lacing his shoes, he glanced about and saw that daylight had made the room comparatively common-place and uninteresting. The men, whose faces seemed stolid, serene or absent, were engaged in dressing, while a great crackle of bantering conversation arose. A few were parading in unconcerned nakedness. Here and there were men of brawn, whose skins shone clear and ruddy. They took splendid poses, standing massively like chiefs. When they had dressed in their ungainly garments there was an extraordinary change. They then showed bumps and deficiencies of all kinds. There were others who exhibited many deformities. Shoulders were slanting, humped, pulled this way and pulled that way. And notable among these latter men was the little fat man, who had refused to allow his head to be glorified. His pudgy form, builded like a pear, bustled to and fro, while he swore in fish-wife fashion. It appeared that some article of his apparel had vanished. The young man attired speedily, and went to his friend the assassin. At first the latter looked dazed at the sight of the youth. This face seemed to be appealing to him through the cloud wastes of his memory. He scratched his neck and reflected. At last he grinned, a broad smile gradually spreading until his countenance was a round illumination. "Hello, Willie," he cried cheerily. "Hello," said the young man. "Are yeh ready t' fly?" "Sure." The assassin tied his shoe carefully with some twine and came ambling. When he reached the street the young man experienced no sudden relief from unholy atmospheres. He had forgotten all about them, and had been breathing naturally, and with no sensation of discomfort or distress. He was thinking of these things as he walked along the street, when he was suddenly startled by feeling the assassin's hand, trembling with excitement, clutching his arm, and when the assassin spoke, his voice went into quavers from a supreme agitation. "I'll be hully, bloomin' blowed if there wasn't a feller with a nightshirt on up there in that joint." The youth was bewildered for a moment, but presently he turned to smile indulgently at the assassin's humour. "Oh, you're a d——d liar," he merely said. Whereupon the assassin began to gesture extravagantly, and take oath by strange gods. He frantically placed himself at the mercy of remarkable fates if his tale were not true. "Yes, he did! I cross m'heart thousan' times!" he protested, and at the moment his eyes were large with amazement, his mouth wrinkled in unnatural glee. "Yessir! A nightshirt! A hully white nightshirt!" "You lie!" "No, sir! I hope ter die b'fore I kin git anudder ball if there wasn't a jay wid a hully, bloomin' white nightshirt!" His face was filled with the infinite wonder of it. "A hully white nightshirt," he continually repeated. The young man saw the dark entrance to a basement restaurant. There was a sign which read "No mystery about our hash!" and there were other age-stained and world-battered legends which told him that the place was within his means. He stopped before it and spoke to the assassin. "I guess I'll git somethin' t' eat." At this the assassin, for some reason, appeared to be quite embarrassed. He gazed at the seductive front of the eating place for a moment. Then he started slowly up the street. "Well, good-bye, Willie," he said bravely. For an instant the youth studied the departing figure. Then he called out, "Hol' on a minnet." As they came together he spoke in a certain fierce way, as if he feared that the other would think him to be charitable. "Look-a-here, if yeh wanta git some breakfas' I'll lend yeh three cents t' do it with. But say, look-a-here, you've gota git out an' hustle. I ain't goin' t' support yeh, or I'll go broke b'fore night. I ain't no millionaire." "I take me oath, Willie," said the assassin earnestly, "th' on'y thing I really needs is a ball. Me t'roat feels like a fryin'-pan. But as I can't get a ball, why, th' next bes' thing is breakfast, an' if yeh do that for me, b' Gawd, I say yeh was th' whitest lad I ever see." They spent a few moments in dexterous exchanges of phrases, in which they each protested that the other was, as the assassin had originally said, "a respecter'ble gentlem'n." And they concluded with mutual assurances that they were the souls of intelligence and virtue. Then they went into the restaurant. There was a long counter, dimly lighted from hidden sources. Two or three men in soiled white aprons rushed here and there. The youth bought a bowl of coffee for two cents and a roll for one cent. The assassin purchased the same. The bowls were webbed with brown seams, and the tin spoons wore an air of having emerged from the first pyramid. Upon them were black moss-like encrustations of age, and they were bent and scarred from the attacks of long-forgotten teeth. But over their repast the wanderers waxed warm and mellow. The assassin grew affable as the hot mixture went soothingly down his parched throat, and the young man felt courage flow in his veins. Memories began to throng in on the assassin, and he brought forth long tales, intricate, incoherent, delivered with a chattering swiftness as from an old woman. "—— great job out'n Orange. Boss keep yeh hustlin' though all time. I was there three days, and then I went an' ask 'im t' lend me a dollar. 'G-g-go ter the devil,' he ses, an' I lose me job." "South no good. Damn niggers work for twenty-five an' thirty cents a day. Run white man out. Good grub though. Easy livin'." "Yas; useter work little in Toledo, raftin' logs. Make two or three dollars er day in the spring. Lived high. Cold as ice though in the winter." "I was raised in northern N'York. O-o-oh, yeh jest oughto live there. No beer ner whisky though, way off in the woods. But all th' good hot grub yeh can eat. B' Gawd, I hung around there long as I could till th' ol' man fired me. 'Git t' hell outa here, yeh wuthless skunk, git t' hell outa here, an' go die,' he ses. 'You're a hell of a father,' I ses, 'you are,' an' I quit 'im." As they were passing from the dim eating place, they encountered an old man who was trying to steal forth with a tiny package of food, but a tall man with an indomitable moustache stood dragon fashion, barring the way of escape. They heard the old man raise a plaintive protest. "Ah, you always want to know what I take out, and you never see that I usually bring a package in here from my place of business." As the wanderers trudged slowly along Park Row, the assassin began to expand and grow blithe. "B' Gawd, we've been livin' like kings," he said, smacking appreciative lips. "Look out, or we'll have t' pay fer it t'night," said the youth with gloomy warning. But the assassin refused to turn his gaze toward the future. He went with a limping step, into which he injected a suggestion of lamblike gambols. His mouth was wreathed in a red grin. In the City Hall Park the two wanderers sat down in the little circle of benches sanctified by traditions of their class. They huddled in their old garments, slumbrously conscious of the march of the hours which for them had no meaning. The people of the street hurrying hither and thither made a blend of black figures changing yet frieze-like. They walked in their good clothes as upon important missions, giving no gaze to the two wanderers seated upon the benches. They expressed to the young man his infinite distance from all that he valued. Social position, comfort, the pleasures of living, were unconquerable kingdoms. He felt a sudden awe. And in the background a multitude of buildings, of pitiless hues and sternly high, were to him emblematic of a nation forcing its regal head into the clouds, throwing no downward glances; in the sublimity of its aspirations ignoring the wretches who may flounder at its feet. The roar of the city in his ear was to him the confusion of strange tongues, babbling heedlessly; it was the clink of coin, the voice of the city's hopes which were to him no hopes. He confessed himself an outcast, and his eyes from under the lowered rim of his hat began to glance guiltily, wearing the criminal expression that comes with certain convictions.
nedjelja, 22. veljače 2026.
‘Simple as striking matches,’ said Dave Regan, Bushman; ‘but it gave me the biggest scare I ever had—except, perhaps, the time I stumbled in the dark into a six-feet digger’s hole, which might have been eighty feet deep for all I knew when I was falling. (There was an eighty-feet shaft left open close by.) ‘It was the night of the day after the Queen’s birthday. I was sinking a shaft with Jim Bently and Andy Page on the old Redclay goldfield, and we camped in a tent on the creek. Jim and me went to some races that was held at Peter Anderson’s pub., about four miles across the ridges, on Queen’s birthday. Andy was a quiet sort of chap, a teetotaller, and we’d disgusted him the last time he was out for a holiday with us, so he stayed at home and washed and mended his clothes, and read an arithmetic book. (He used to keep the accounts, and it took him most of his spare time.) ‘Jim and me had a pretty high time. We all got pretty tight after the races, and I wanted to fight Jim, or Jim wanted to fight me—I don’t remember which. We were old chums, and we nearly always wanted to fight each other when we got a bit on, and we’d fight if we weren’t stopped. I remember once Jim got maudlin drunk and begged and prayed of me to fight him, as if he was praying for his life. Tom Tarrant, the coach-driver, used to say that Jim and me must be related, else we wouldn’t hate each other so much when we were tight and truthful. ‘Anyway, this day, Jim got the sulks, and caught his horse and went home early in the evening. My dog went home with him too; I must have been carrying on pretty bad to disgust the dog. ‘Next evening I got disgusted with myself, and started to walk home. I’d lost my hat, so Peter Anderson lent me an old one of his, that he’d worn on Ballarat he said: it was a hard, straw, flat, broad-brimmed affair, and fitted my headache pretty tight. Peter gave me a small flask of whisky to help me home. I had to go across some flats and up a long dark gully called Murderer’s Gully, and over a gap called Dead Man’s Gap, and down the ridge and gullies to Redclay Creek. The lonely flats were covered with blue-grey gum bush, and looked ghostly enough in the moonlight, and I was pretty shaky, but I had a pull at the flask and a mouthful of water at a creek and felt right enough. I began to whistle, and then to sing: I never used to sing unless I thought I was a couple of miles out of earshot of any one. ‘Murderer’s Gully was deep and pretty dark most times, and of course it was haunted. Women and children wouldn’t go through it after dark; and even me, when I’d grown up, I’d hold my back pretty holler, and whistle, and walk quick going along there at night-time. We’re all afraid of ghosts, but we won’t let on. ‘Some one had skinned a dead calf during the day and left it on the track, and it gave me a jump, I promise you. It looked like two corpses laid out naked. I finished the whisky and started up over the gap. All of a sudden a great ‘old man’ kangaroo went across the track with a thud-thud, and up the siding, and that startled me. Then the naked, white glistening trunk of a stringy-bark tree, where some one had stripped off a sheet of bark, started out from a bend in the track in a shaft of moonlight, and that gave me a jerk. I was pretty shaky before I started. There was a Chinaman’s grave close by the track on the top of the gap. An old chow had lived in a hut there for many years, and fossicked on the old diggings, and one day he was found dead in the hut, and the Government gave some one a pound to bury him. When I was a nipper we reckoned that his ghost haunted the gap, and cursed in Chinese because the bones hadn’t been sent home to China. It was a lonely, ghostly place enough. ‘It had been a smotheringly hot day and very close coming across the flats and up the gully—not a breath of air; but now as I got higher I saw signs of the thunderstorm we’d expected all day, and felt the breath of a warm breeze on my face. When I got into the top of the gap the first thing I saw was something white amongst the dark bushes over the spot where the Chinaman’s grave was, and I stood staring at it with both eyes. It moved out of the shadow presently, and I saw that it was a white bullock, and I felt relieved. I’d hardly felt relieved when, all at once, there came a “pat-pat-pat” of running feet close behind me! I jumped round quick, but there was nothing there, and while I stood staring all ways for Sunday, there came a “pat-pat”, then a pause, and then “pat-pat-pat-pat” behind me again: it was like some one dodging and running off that time. I started to walk down the track pretty fast, but hadn’t gone a dozen yards when “pat-pat-pat”, it was close behind me again. I jerked my eyes over my shoulder but kept my legs going. There was nothing behind, but I fancied I saw something slip into the Bush to the right. It must have been the moonlight on the moving boughs; there was a good breeze blowing now. I got down to a more level track, and was making across a spur to the main road, when “pat-pat!” “pat-pat-pat, pat-pat-pat!” it was after me again. Then I began to run—and it began to run too! “pat-pat-pat” after me all the time. I hadn’t time to look round. Over the spur and down the siding and across the flat to the road I went as fast as I could split my legs apart. I had a scared idea that I was getting a touch of the “jim-jams”, and that frightened me more than any outside ghost could have done. I stumbled a few times, and saved myself, but, just before I reached the road, I fell slithering on to my hands on the grass and gravel. I thought I’d broken both my wrists. I stayed for a moment on my hands and knees, quaking and listening, squinting round like a great gohana; I couldn’t hear nor see anything. I picked myself up, and had hardly got on one end, when “pat-pat!” it was after me again. I must have run a mile and a half altogether that night. It was still about three-quarters of a mile to the camp, and I ran till my heart beat in my head and my lungs choked up in my throat. I saw our tent-fire and took off my hat to run faster. The footsteps stopped, then something about the hat touched my fingers, and I stared at it—and the thing dawned on me. I hadn’t noticed at Peter Anderson’s—my head was too swimmy to notice anything. It was an old hat of the style that the first diggers used to wear, with a couple of loose ribbon ends, three or four inches long, from the band behind. As long as I walked quietly through the gully, and there was no wind, the tails didn’t flap, but when I got up into the breeze, they flapped or were still according to how the wind lifted them or pressed them down flat on the brim. And when I ran they tapped all the time; and the hat being tight on my head, the tapping of the ribbon ends against the straw sounded loud of course. ‘I sat down on a log for a while to get some of my wind back and cool down, and then I went to the camp as quietly as I could, and had a long drink of water. ‘“You seem to be a bit winded, Dave,” said Jim Bently, “and mighty thirsty. Did the Chinaman’s ghost chase you?” ‘I told him not to talk rot, and went into the tent, and lay down on my bunk, and had a good rest.’
The Metal Horde By John W. Campbell, Jr. - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/73679/pg73679-images.html
And they ask, what would a machine want to exist for? It would have no aim, nothing to perform. Why should it want to live, or exist?
Richardson pulled up his horse, and looked back over the trail where the crimson serape of his servant flamed amid the dusk of the mesquit. The hills in the west were carved into peaks, and were painted the most profound blue. Above them the sky was of that marvellous tone of green—like still, sun-shot water—which people denounce in pictures. José was muffled deep in his blanket, and his great toppling sombrero was drawn low over his brow. He shadowed his master along the dimming trail in the fashion of an assassin. A cold wind of the impending night swept over the wilderness of mesquit. "Man," said Richardson in lame Mexican as the servant drew near, "I want eat! I want sleep! Understand—no? Quickly! Understand?" "Si, señor," said José, nodding. He stretched one arm out of his blanket and pointed a yellow finger into the gloom. "Over there, small village. Si, señor." They rode forward again. Once the American's horse shied and breathed quiveringly at something which he saw or imagined in the darkness, and the rider drew a steady, patient rein, and leaned over to speak tenderly as if he were addressing a frightened woman. The sky had faded to white over the mountains, and the plain was a vast, pointless ocean of black. Suddenly some low houses appeared squatting amid the bushes. The horsemen rode into a hollow until the houses rose against the sombre sundown sky, and then up a small hillock, causing these habitations to sink like boats in the sea of shadow. A beam of red firelight fell across the trail. Richardson sat sleepily on his horse while his servant quarrelled with somebody—a mere voice in the gloom—over the price of bed and board. The houses about him were for the most part like tombs in their whiteness and silence, but there were scudding black figures that seemed interested in his arrival. José came at last to the horses' heads, and the American slid stiffly from his seat. He muttered a greeting, as with his spurred feet he clicked into the adobe house that confronted him. The brown stolid face of a woman shone in the light of the fire. He seated himself on the earthen floor and blinked drowsily at the blaze. He was aware that the woman was clinking earthenware, and hieing here and everywhere in the manoeuvres of the housewife. From a dark corner there came the sound of two or three snores twining together. The woman handed him a bowl of tortillas. She was a submissive creature, timid and large-eyed. She gazed at his enormous silver spurs, his large and impressive revolver, with the interest and admiration of the highly-privileged cat of the adage. When he ate, she seemed transfixed off there in the gloom, her white teeth shining. José entered, staggering under two Mexican saddles, large enough for building-sites. Richardson decided to smoke a cigarette, and then changed his mind. It would be much finer to go to sleep. His blanket hung over his left shoulder, furled into a long pipe of cloth, according to the Mexican fashion. By doffing his sombrero, unfastening his spurs and his revolver belt, he made himself ready for the slow, blissful twist into the blanket. Like a cautious man he lay close to the wall, and all his property was very near his hand. The mesquit brush burned long. José threw two gigantic wings of shadow as he flapped his blanket about him—first across his chest under his arms, and then around his neck and across his chest again—this time over his arms, with the end tossed on his right shoulder. A Mexican thus snugly enveloped can nevertheless free his fighting arm in a beautifully brisk way, merely shrugging his shoulder as he grabs for the weapon at his belt. (They always wear their serapes in this manner.) The firelight smothered the rays which, streaming from a moon as large as a drum-head, were struggling at the open door. Richardson heard from the plain the fine, rhythmical trample of the hoofs of hurried horses. He went to sleep wondering who rode so fast and so late. And in the deep silence the pale rays of the moon must have prevailed against the red spears of the fire until the room was slowly flooded to its middle with a rectangle of silver light. Richardson was awakened by the sound of a guitar. It was badly played—in this land of Mexico, from which the romance of the instrument ascends to us like a perfume. The guitar was groaning and whining like a badgered soul. A noise of scuffling feet accompanied the music. Sometimes laughter arose, and often the voices of men saying bitter things to each other, but always the guitar cried on, the treble sounding as if some one were beating iron, and the bass humming like bees. "Damn it—they're having a dance," he muttered, fretfully. He heard two men quarrelling in short, sharp words, like pistol shots; they were calling each other worse names than common people know in other countries. He wondered why the noise was so loud. Raising his head from his saddle pillow, he saw, with the help of the valiant moonbeams, a blanket hanging flat against the wall at the further end of the room. Being of opinion that it concealed a door, and remembering that Mexican drink made men very drunk, he pulled his revolver closer to him and prepared for sudden disaster. Richardson was dreaming of his far and beloved north. "Well, I would kill him, then!" "No, you must not!" "Yes, I will kill him! Listen! I will ask this American beast for his beautiful pistol and spurs and money and saddle, and if he will not give them—you will see!" "But these Americans—they are a strange people. Look out, señor." Then twenty voices took part in the discussion. They rose in quavering shrillness, as from men badly drunk. Richardson felt the skin draw tight around his mouth, and his knee-joints turned to bread. He slowly came to a sitting posture, glaring at the motionless blanket at the far end of the room. This stiff and mechanical movement, accomplished entirely by the muscles of the waist, must have looked like the rising of a corpse in the wan moonlight, which gave everything a hue of the grave. My friend, take my advice and never be executed by a hangman who doesn't talk the English language. It, or anything that resembles it, is the most difficult of deaths. The tumultuous emotions of Richardson's terror destroyed that slow and careful process of thought by means of which he understood Mexican. Then he used his instinctive comprehension of the first and universal language, which is tone. Still, it is disheartening not to be able to understand the detail of threats against the blood of your body. Suddenly, the clamour of voices ceased. There was a silence—a silence of decision. The blanket was flung aside, and the red light of a torch flared into the room. It was held high by a fat, round-faced Mexican, whose little snake-like moustache was as black as his eyes, and whose eyes were black as jet. He was insane with the wild rage of a man whose liquor is dully burning at his brain. Five or six of his fellows crowded after him. The guitar, which had been thrummed doggedly during the time of the high words, now suddenly stopped. They contemplated each other. Richardson sat very straight and still, his right hand lost in his blanket. The Mexicans jostled in the light of the torch, their eyes blinking and glittering. The fat one posed in the manner of a grandee. Presently his hand dropped to his belt, and from his lips there spun an epithet—a hideous word which often foreshadows knife-blows, a word peculiarly of Mexico, where people have to dig deep to find an insult that has not lost its savour. The American did not move. He was staring at the fat Mexican with a strange fixedness of gaze, not fearful, not dauntless, not anything that could be interpreted. He simply stared. The fat Mexican must have been disconcerted, for he continued to pose as a grandee, with more and more sublimity, until it would have been easy for him to have fallen over backward. His companions were swaying very drunkenly. They still blinked their little beady eyes at Richardson. Ah, well, sirs, here was a mystery! At the approach of their menacing company, why did not this American cry out and turn pale, or run, or pray them mercy? The animal merely sat still, and stared, and waited for them to begin. Well, evidently he was a great fighter! Or perhaps he was an idiot? Indeed, this was an embarrassing situation, for who was going forward to discover whether he was a great fighter or an idiot? To Richardson, whose nerves were tingling and twitching like live wires, and whose heart jolted inside him, this pause was a long horror; and for these men, who could so frighten him, there began to swell in him a fierce hatred—a hatred that made him long to be capable of fighting all of them, a hatred that made him capable of fighting all of them. A 44-calibre revolver can make a hole large enough for little boys to shoot marbles through; and there was a certain fat Mexican with a moustache like a snake who came extremely near to have eaten his last tomale merely because he frightened a man too much. José had slept the first part of the night in his fashion, his body hunched into a heap, his legs crooked, his head touching his knees. Shadows had obscured him from the sight of the invaders. At this point he arose, and began to prowl quakingly over toward Richardson, as if he meant to hide behind him. Of a sudden the fat Mexican gave a howl of glee. José had come within the torch's circle of light. With roars of ferocity the whole group of Mexicans pounced on the American's servant. He shrank shuddering away from them, beseeching by every device of word and gesture. They pushed him this way and that. They beat him with their fists. They stung him with their curses. As he grovelled on his knees, the fat Mexican took him by the throat and said—"I am going to kill you!" And continually they turned their eyes to see if they were to succeed in causing the initial demonstration by the American. But he looked on impassively. Under the blanket his fingers were clenched, as iron, upon the handle of his revolver. Here suddenly two brilliant clashing chords from the guitar were heard, and a woman's voice, full of laughter and confidence, cried from without—"Hello! hello! Where are you?" The lurching company of Mexicans instantly paused and looked at the ground. One said, as he stood with his legs wide apart in order to balance himself—"It is the girls. They have come!" He screamed in answer to the question of the woman—"Here!" And without waiting he started on a pilgrimage toward the blanket-covered door. One could now hear a number of female voices giggling and chattering. Two other Mexicans said—"Yes, it is the girls! Yes!" They also started quietly away. Even the fat Mexican's ferocity seemed to be affected. He looked uncertainly at the still immovable American. Two of his friends grasped him gaily—"Come, the girls are here! Come!" He cast another glower at Richardson. "But this——," he began. Laughing, his comrades hustled him toward the door. On its threshold, and holding back the blanket, with one hand, he turned his yellow face with a last challenging glare toward the American. José, bewailing his state in little sobs of utter despair and woe, crept to Richardson and huddled near his knee. Then the cries of the Mexicans meeting the girls were heard, and the guitar burst out in joyous humming. The moon clouded, and but a faint square of light fell through the open main door of the house. The coals of the fire were silent, save for occasional sputters. Richardson did not change his position. He remained staring at the blanket which hid the strategic door in the far end. At his knees José was arguing, in a low, aggrieved tone, with the saints. Without, the Mexicans laughed and danced, and—it would appear from the sound—drank more. In the stillness and the night Richardson sat wondering if some serpent-like Mexican were sliding towards him in the darkness, and if the first thing he knew of it would be the deadly sting of a knife. "Sssh," he whispered, to José. He drew his revolver from under the blanket, and held it on his leg. The blanket over the door fascinated him. It was a vague form, black and unmoving. Through the opening it shielded were to come, probably, threats, death. Sometimes he thought he saw it move. As grim white sheets, the black and silver of coffins, all the panoply of death, affect us, because of that which they hide, so this blanket, dangling before a hole in an adobe wall, was to Richardson a horrible emblem, and a horrible thing in itself. In his present mood he could not have been brought to touch it with his finger. The celebrating Mexicans occasionally howled in song. The guitarist played with speed and enthusiasm. Richardson longed to run. But in this vibrating and threatening gloom his terror convinced him that a move on his part would be a signal for the pounce of death. José, crouching abjectly, mumbled now and again. Slowly, and ponderous as stars, the minutes went. Suddenly Richardson thrilled and started. His breath for a moment left him. In sleep his nerveless fingers had allowed his revolver to fall and clang upon the hard floor. He grabbed it up hastily, and his glance swept apprehensively over the room. A chill blue light of dawn was in the place. Every outline was slowly growing; detail was following detail. The dread blanket did not move. The riotous company had gone or fallen silent. He felt the effect of this cold dawn in his blood. The candour of breaking day brought his nerve. He touched José. "Come," he said. His servant lifted his lined yellow face, and comprehended. Richardson buckled on his spurs and strode up; José obediently lifted the two great saddles. Richardson held two bridles and a blanket on his left arm; in his right hand he had his revolver. They sneaked toward the door. The man who said that spurs jingled was insane. Spurs have a mellow clash—clash—clash. Walking in spurs—notably Mexican spurs—you remind yourself vaguely of a telegraphic linesman. Richardson was inexpressibly shocked when he came to walk. He sounded to himself like a pair of cymbals. He would have known of this if he had reflected; but then, he was escaping, not reflecting. He made a gesture of despair, and from under the two saddles José tried to make one of hopeless horror. Richardson stooped, and with shaking fingers unfastened the spurs. Taking them in his left hand, he picked up his revolver, and they slunk on toward the door. On the threshold he looked back. In a corner he saw, watching him with large eyes, the Indian man and woman who had been his hosts. Throughout the night they had made no sign, and now they neither spoke nor moved. Yet Richardson thought he detected meek satisfaction at his departure. The street was still and deserted. In the eastern sky there was a lemon-coloured patch. José had picketed the horses at the side of the house. As the two men came round the corner Richardson's beast set up a whinny of welcome. The little horse had heard them coming. He stood facing them, his ears cocked forward, his eyes bright with welcome. Richardson made a frantic gesture, but the horse, in his happiness at the appearance of his friends, whinnied with enthusiasm. The American felt that he could have strangled his well-beloved steed. Upon the threshold of safety, he was being betrayed by his horse, his friend! He felt the same hate that he would have felt for a dragon. And yet, as he glanced wildly about him, he could see nothing stirring in the street, nothing at the doors of the tomb-like houses. José had his own saddle-girth and both bridles buckled in a moment. He curled the picket-ropes with a few sweeps of his arm. The American's fingers, however, were shaking so that he could hardly buckle the girth. His hands were in invisible mittens. He was wondering, calculating, hoping about his horse. He knew the little animal's willingness and courage under all circumstances up to this time; but then—here it was different. Who could tell if some wretched instance of equine perversity was not about to develop? Maybe the little fellow would not feel like smoking over the plain at express speed this morning, and so he would rebel, and kick, and be wicked. Maybe he would be without feeling of interest, and run listlessly. All riders who have had to hurry in the saddle know what it is to be on a horse who does not understand the dramatic situation. Riding a lame sheep is bliss to it. Richardson, fumbling furiously at the girth, thought of these things. Presently he had it fastened. He swung into the saddle, and as he did so his horse made a mad jump forward. The spurs of José scratched and tore the flanks of his great black beast, and side by side the two horses raced down the village street. The American heard his horse breathe a quivering sigh of excitement. Those four feet skimmed. They were as light as fairy puff balls. The houses glided past in a moment, and the great, clear, silent plain appeared like a pale blue sea of mist and wet bushes. Above the mountains the colours of the sunlight were like the first tones, the opening chords of the mighty hymn of the morning. The American looked down at his horse. He felt in his heart the first thrill of confidence. The little animal, unurged and quite tranquil, moving his ears this way and that way with an air of interest in the scenery, was nevertheless bounding into the eye of the breaking day with the speed of a frightened antelope. Richardson, looking down, saw the long, fine reach of forelimb as steady as steel machinery. As the ground reeled past, the long, dried grasses hissed, and cactus plants were dull blurs. A wind whirled the horse's mane over his rider's bridle hand. José's profile was lined against the pale sky. It was as that of a man who swims alone in an ocean. His eyes glinted like metal, fastened on some unknown point ahead of him, some fabulous place of safety. Occasionally his mouth puckered in a little unheard cry; and his legs, bended back, worked spasmodically as his spurred heels sliced his charger's sides. Richardson consulted the gloom in the west for signs of a hard-riding, yelling cavalcade. He knew that, whereas his friends the enemy had not attacked him when he had sat still and with apparent calmness confronted them, they would take furiously after him now that he had run from them—now that he had confessed himself the weaker. Their valour would grow like weeds in the spring, and upon discovering his escape they would ride forth dauntless warriors. Sometimes he was sure he saw them. Sometimes he was sure he heard them. Continually looking backward over his shoulder, he studied the purple expanses where the night was marching away. José rolled and shuddered in his saddle, persistently disturbing the stride of the black horse, fretting and worrying him until the white foam flew, and the great shoulders shone like satin from the sweat. At last, Richardson drew his horse carefully down to a walk. José wished to rush insanely on, but the American spoke to him sternly. As the two paced forward side by side, Richardson's little horse thrust over his soft nose and inquired into the black's condition. Riding with José was like riding with a corpse. His face resembled a cast in lead. Sometimes he swung forward and almost pitched from his seat. Richardson was too frightened himself to do anything but hate this man for his fear. Finally, he issued a mandate which nearly caused José's eyes to slide out of his head and fall to the ground, like two coins:—"Ride behind me—about fifty paces." "Señor——" stuttered the servant. "Go," cried the American furiously. He glared at the other and laid his hand on his revolver. José looked at his master wildly. He made a piteous gesture. Then slowly he fell back, watching the hard face of the American for a sign of mercy. But Richardson had resolved in his rage that at any rate he was going to use the eyes and ears of extreme fear to detect the approach of danger; so he established his panic-stricken servant as a sort of outpost. As they proceeded, he was obliged to watch sharply to see that the servant did not slink forward and join him. When José made beseeching circles in the air with his arm, he replied by menacingly gripping his revolver. José had a revolver too; nevertheless it was very clear in his mind that the revolver was distinctly an American weapon. He had been educated in the Rio Grande country. Richardson lost the trail once. He was recalled to it by the loud sobs of his servant. Then at last José came clattering forward, gesticulating and wailing. The little horse sprang to the shoulder of the black. They were off. Richardson, again looking backward, could see a slanting flare of dust on the whitening plain. He thought that he could detect small moving figures in it. José's moans and cries amounted to a university course in theology. They broke continually from his quivering lips. His spurs were as motors. They forced the black horse over the plain in great headlong leaps. But under Richardson there was a little insignificant rat-coloured beast who was running apparently with almost as much effort as it takes a bronze statue to stand still. The ground seemed merely something to be touched from time to time with hoofs that were as light as blown leaves. Occasionally Richardson lay back and pulled stoutly at the bridle to keep from abandoning his servant. José harried at his horse's mouth, flopped about in the saddle, and made his two heels beat like flails. The black ran like a horse in despair. Crimson serapes in the distance resemble drops of blood on the great cloth of plain. Richardson began to dream of all possible chances. Although quite a humane man, he did not once think of his servant. José being a Mexican, it was natural that he should be killed in Mexico; but for himself, a New Yorker——! He remembered all the tales of such races for life, and he thought them badly written. The great black horse was growing indifferent. The jabs of José's spurs no longer caused him to bound forward in wild leaps of pain. José had at last succeeded in teaching him that spurring was to be expected, speed or no speed, and now he took the pain of it dully and stolidly, as an animal who finds that doing his best gains him no respite. José was turned into a raving maniac. He bellowed and screamed, working his arms and his heels like one in a fit. He resembled a man on a sinking ship, who appeals to the ship. Richardson, too, cried madly to the black horse. The spirit of the horse responded to these calls, and quivering and breathing heavily he made a great effort, a sort of a final rush, not for himself apparently, but because he understood that his life's sacrifice, perhaps, had been invoked by these two men who cried to him in the universal tongue. Richardson had no sense of appreciation at this time—he was too frightened; but often now he remembers a certain black horse. From the rear could be heard a yelling, and once a shot was fired—in the air, evidently. Richardson moaned as he looked back. He kept his hand on his revolver. He tried to imagine the brief tumult of his capture—the flurry of dust from the hoofs of horses pulled suddenly to their haunches, the shrill, biting curses of the men, the ring of the shots, his own last contortion. He wondered, too, if he could not somehow manage to pelt that fat Mexican, just to cure his abominable egotism. It was José, the terror-stricken, who at last discovered safety. Suddenly he gave a howl of delight and astonished his horse into a new burst of speed. They were on a little ridge at the time, and the American at the top of it saw his servant gallop down the slope and into the arms, so to speak, of a small column of horsemen in grey and silver clothes. In the dim light of the early morning they were as vague as shadows, but Richardson knew them at once for a detachment of Rurales, that crack cavalry corps of the Mexican army which polices the plain so zealously, being of themselves the law and the arm of it—a fierce and swift-moving body that knows little of prevention but much of vengeance. They drew up suddenly, and the rows of great silver-trimmed sombreros bobbed in surprise. Richardson saw José throw himself from his horse and begin to jabber at the leader. When he arrived he found that his servant had already outlined the entire situation, and was then engaged in describing him, Richardson, as an American señor of vast wealth, who was the friend of almost every governmental potentate within two hundred miles. This seemed profoundly to impress the officer. He bowed gravely to Richardson and smiled significantly at his men, who unslung their carbines. The little ridge hid the pursuers from view, but the rapid thud of their horses' feet could be heard. Occasionally they yelled and called to each other. Then at last they swept over the brow of the hill, a wild mob of almost fifty drunken horsemen. When they discerned the pale-uniformed Rurales, they were sailing down the slope at top speed. If toboggans half-way down a hill should suddenly make up their minds to turn round and go back, there would be an effect something like that produced by the drunken horsemen. Richardson saw the Rurales serenely swing their carbines forward, and, peculiar-minded person that he was, felt his heart leap into his throat at the prospective volley. But the officer rode forward alone. It appeared that the man who owned the best horse in this astonished company was the fat Mexican with the snaky moustache, and, in consequence, this gentleman was quite a distance in the van. He tried to pull up, wheel his horse, and scuttle back over the hill as some of his companions had done, but the officer called to him in a voice harsh with rage. "——!" howled the officer. "This señor is my friend, the friend of my friends. Do you dare pursue him, ——?——!——!——!——!" These dashes represent terrible names, all different, used by the officer. The fat Mexican simply grovelled on his horse's neck. His face was green: it could be seen that he expected death. The officer stormed with magnificent intensity: "——!——!——!" Finally he sprang from his saddle, and, running to the fat Mexican's side, yelled—"Go!" and kicked the horse in the belly with all his might. The animal gave a mighty leap into the air, and the fat Mexican, with one wretched glance at the contemplative Rurales, aimed his steed for the top of the ridge. Richardson gulped again in expectation of a volley, for—it is said—this is a favourite method for disposing of objectionable people. The fat, green Mexican also thought that he was to be killed on the run, from the miserable look he cast at the troops. Nevertheless, he was allowed to vanish in a cloud of yellow dust at the ridge-top. José was exultant, defiant, and, oh! bristling with courage. The black horse was drooping sadly, his nose to the ground. Richardson's little animal, with his ears bent forward, was staring at the horses of the Rurales as if in an intense study. Richardson longed for speech, but he could only bend forward and pat the shining, silken shoulders. The little horse turned his head and looked back gravely.
subota, 21. veljače 2026.
Freddie was mixing a cock-tail. His hand with the long spoon was whirling swiftly, and the ice in the glass hummed and rattled like a cheap watch. Over by the window, a gambler, a millionaire, a railway conductor, and the agent of a vast American syndicate were playing seven-up. Freddie surveyed them with the ironical glance of a man who is mixing a cock-tail. From time to time a swarthy Mexican waiter came with his tray from the rooms at the rear, and called his orders across the bar. The sounds of the indolent stir of the city, awakening from its siesta, floated over the screens which barred the sun and the inquisitive eye. From the far-away kitchen could be heard the roar of the old French chef, driving, herding, and abusing his Mexican helpers. A string of men came suddenly in from the street. They stormed up to the bar. There were impatient shouts. "Come now, Freddie, don't stand there like a portrait of yourself. Wiggle!" Drinks of many kinds and colours, amber, green, mahogany, strong and mild, began to swarm upon the bar with all the attendants of lemon, sugar, mint and ice. Freddie, with Mexican support, worked like a sailor in the provision of them, sometimes talking with that scorn for drink and admiration for those who drink which is the attribute of a good bar-keeper. At last a man was afflicted with a stroke of dice-shaking. A herculean discussion was waging, and he was deeply engaged in it, but at the same time he lazily flirted the dice. Occasionally he made great combinations. "Look at that, would you?" he cried proudly. The others paid little heed. Then violently the craving took them. It went along the line like an epidemic, and involved them all. In a moment they had arranged a carnival of dice-shaking with money penalties and liquid prizes. They clamorously made it a point of honour with Freddie that he should play and take his chance of sometimes providing this large group with free refreshment. With bended heads like football players, they surged over the tinkling dice, jostling, cheering, and bitterly arguing. One of the quiet company playing seven-up at the corner table said profanely that the row reminded him of a bowling contest at a picnic. After the regular shower, many carriages rolled over the smooth calle, and sent a musical thunder through the Casa Verde. The shop-windows became aglow with light, and the walks were crowded with youths, callow and ogling, dressed vainly according to superstitious fashions. The policemen had muffled themselves in their gnome-like cloaks, and placed their lanterns as obstacles for the carriages in the middle of the street. The city of Mexico gave forth the deep organ-mellow tones of its evening resurrection. But still the group at the bar of the Casa Verde were shaking dice. They had passed beyond shaking for drinks for the crowd, for Mexican dollars, for dinners, for the wine at dinner. They had even gone to the trouble of separating the cigars and cigarettes from the dinner's bill, and causing a distinct man to be responsible for them. Finally they were aghast. Nothing remained in sight of their minds which even remotely suggested further gambling. There was a pause for deep consideration. "Well——" "Well——" A man called out in the exuberance of creation. "I know! Let's shake for a box to-night at the circus! A box at the circus!" The group was profoundly edified. "That's it! That's it! Come on now! Box at the circus!" A dominating voice cried—"Three dashes—high man out!" An American, tall, and with a face of copper red from the rays that flash among the Sierra Madres and burn on the cactus deserts, took the little leathern cup and spun the dice out upon the polished wood. A fascinated assemblage hung upon the bar-rail. Three kings turned their pink faces upward. The tall man flourished the cup, burlesquing, and flung the two other dice. From them he ultimately extracted one more pink king. "There," he said. "Now, let's see! Four kings!" He began to swagger in a sort of provisional way. The next man took the cup, and blew softly in the top of it. Poising it in his hand, he then surveyed the company with a stony eye and paused. They knew perfectly well that he was applying the magic of deliberation and ostentatious indifference, but they could not wait in tranquillity during the performance of all these rites. They began to call out impatiently. "Come now—hurry up." At last the man, with a gesture that was singularly impressive, threw the dice. The others set up a howl of joy. "Not a pair!" There was another solemn pause. The men moved restlessly. "Come, now, go ahead!" In the end, the man, induced and abused, achieved something that was nothing in the presence of four kings. The tall man climbed on the foot-rail and leaned hazardously forward. "Four kings! My four kings are good to go out," he bellowed into the middle of the mob, and although in a moment he did pass into the radiant region of exemption, he continued to bawl advice and scorn. The mirrors and oiled woods of the Casa Verde were now dancing with blue flashes from a great buzzing electric lamp. A host of quiet members of the Anglo-Saxon colony had come in for their pre-dinner cock-tails. An amiable person was exhibiting to some tourists this popular American saloon. It was a very sober and respectable time of day. Freddie reproved courageously the dice-shaking brawlers, and, in return, he received the choicest advice in a tumult of seven combined vocabularies. He laughed; he had been compelled to retire from the game, but he was keeping an interested, if furtive, eye upon it. Down at the end of the line there was a youth at whom everybody railed for his flaming ill-luck. At each disaster, Freddie swore from behind the bar in a sort of affectionate contempt. "Why, this kid has had no luck for two days. Did you ever see such throwin'?" The contest narrowed eventually to the New York kid and an individual who swung about placidly on legs that moved in nefarious circles. He had a grin that resembled a bit of carving. He was obliged to lean down and blink rapidly to ascertain the facts of his venture, but fate presented him with five queens. His smile did not change, but he puffed gently like a man who has been running. The others, having emerged unscathed from this part of the conflict, waxed hilarious with the kid. They smote him on either shoulders. "We've got you stuck for it, kid! You can't beat that game! Five queens!" Up to this time the kid had displayed only the temper of the gambler, but the cheerful hoots of the players, supplemented now by a ring of guying non-combatants, caused him to feel profoundly that it would be fine to beat the five queens. He addressed a gambler's slogan to the interior of the cup. "Oh, five white mice of chance, Shirts of wool and corduroy pants, Gold and wine, women and sin, All for you if you let me come in— Into the house of chance." Flashing the dice sardonically out upon the bar, he displayed three aces. From two dice in the next throw he achieved one more ace. For his last throw, he rattled the single dice for a long time. He already had four aces; if he accomplished another one, the five queens were vanquished and the box at the circus came from the drunken man's pocket. All the kid's movements were slow and elaborate. For the last throw he planted the cup bottom-down on the bar with the one dice hidden under it. Then he turned and faced the crowd with the air of a conjuror or a cheat. "Oh, maybe it's an ace," he said in boastful calm. "Maybe it's an ace." Instantly he was presiding over a little drama in which every man was absorbed. The kid leaned with his back against the bar-rail and with his elbows upon it. "Maybe it's an ace," he repeated. A jeering voice in the background said—"Yes, maybe it is, kid!" The kid's eyes searched for a moment among the men. "I'll bet fifty dollars it is an ace," he said. Another voice asked—"American money?" "Yes," answered the kid. "Oh!" There was a genial laugh at this discomfiture. However, no one came forward at the kid's challenge, and presently he turned to the cup. "Now, I'll show you." With the manner of a mayor unveiling a statue, he lifted the cup. There was revealed naught but a ten-spot. In the roar which arose could be heard each man ridiculing the cowardice of his neighbour, and above all the din rang the voice of Freddie be-rating every one. "Why, there isn't one liver to every five men in the outfit. That was the greatest cold bluff I ever saw worked. He wouldn't know how to cheat with dice if he wanted to. Don't know the first thing about it. I could hardly keep from laughin' when I seen him drillin' you around. Why, I tell you, I had that fifty dollars right in my pocket if I wanted to be a chump. You're an easy lot——" Nevertheless the group who had won in the theatre-box game did not relinquish their triumph. They burst like a storm about the head of the kid, swinging at him with their fists. "'Five white mice'!" they quoted, choking. "'Five white mice'!" "Oh, they are not so bad," said the kid. Afterward it often occurred that a man would jeer a finger at the kid and derisively say—"'Five white mice.'" On the route from the dinner to the circus, others of the party often asked the kid if he had really intended to make his appeal to mice. They suggested other animals—rabbits, dogs, hedgehogs, snakes, opossums. To this banter the kid replied with a serious expression of his belief in the fidelity and wisdom of the five white mice. He presented a most eloquent case, decorated with fine language and insults, in which he proved that if one was going to believe in anything at all, one might as well choose the five white mice. His companions, however, at once and unanimously pointed out to him that his recent exploit did not place him in the light of a convincing advocate. The kid discerned two figures in the street. They were making imperious signs at him. He waited for them to approach, for he recognized one as the other kid—the Frisco kid: there were two kids. With the Frisco kid was Benson. They arrived almost breathless. "Where you been?" cried the Frisco kid. It was an arrangement that upon a meeting the one that could first ask this question was entitled to use a tone of limitless injury. "What you been doing? Where you going? Come on with us. Benson and I have got a little scheme." The New York kid pulled his arm from the grapple of the other. "I can't. I've got to take these sutlers to the circus. They stuck me for it shaking dice at Freddie's. I can't, I tell you." The two did not at first attend to his remarks. "Come on! We've got a little scheme." "I can't. They stuck me. I've got to take'm to the circus." At this time it did not suit the men with the scheme to recognize these objections as important. "Oh, take'm some other time. Well, can't you take'm some other time? Let 'em go. Damn the circus. Get cold feet. What did you get stuck for? Get cold feet." But despite their fighting, the New York kid broke away from them. "I can't, I tell you. They stuck me." As he left them, they yelled with rage. "Well, meet us, now, do you hear? In the Casa Verde as soon as the circus quits! Hear?" They threw maledictions after him. In the city of Mexico, a man goes to the circus without descending in any way to infant amusements, because the Circo Teatro Orrin is one of the best in the world, and too easily surpasses anything of the kind in the United States, where it is merely a matter of a number of rings, if possible, and a great professional agreement to lie to the public. Moreover, the American clown, who in the Mexican arena prances and gabbles, is the clown to whom writers refer as the delight of their childhood, and lament that he is dead. At this circus the kid was not debased by the sight of mournful prisoner elephants and caged animals forlorn and sickly. He sat in his box until late, and laughed and swore when past laughing at the comic foolish-wise clown. When he returned to the Casa Verde there was no display of the Frisco kid and Benson. Freddie was leaning on the bar listening to four men terribly discuss a question that was not plain. There was a card-game in the corner, of course. Sounds of revelry pealed from the rear rooms. When the kid asked Freddie if he had seen his friend and Benson, Freddie looked bored. "Oh, yes, they were in here just a minute ago, but I don't know where they went. They've got their skates on. Where've they been? Came in here rolling across the floor like two little gilt gods. They wobbled around for a time, and then Frisco wanted me to send six bottles of wine around to Benson's rooms, but I didn't have anybody to send this time of night, and so they got mad and went out. Where did they get their loads?" In the first deep gloom of the street the kid paused a moment debating. But presently he heard quavering voices. "Oh, kid! kid! Com'ere!" Peering, he recognized two vague figures against the opposite wall. He crossed the street, and they said—"Hello-kid." "Say, where did you get it?" he demanded sternly. "You Indians better go home. What did you want to get scragged for?" His face was luminous with virtue. As they swung to and fro, they made angry denials. "We ain' load'! We ain' load'. Big chump. Comonangetadrink." The sober youth turned then to his friend. "Hadn't you better go home, kid? Come on, it's late. You'd better break away." The Frisco kid wagged his head decisively. "Got take Benson home first. He'll be wallowing around in a minute. Don't mind me. I'm all right." "Cerly, he's all right," said Benson, arousing from deep thought. "He's all right. But better take'm home, though. That's ri—right. He's load'. But he's all right. No need go home any more'n you. But better take'm home. He's load'." He looked at his companion with compassion. "Kid, you're load'." The sober kid spoke abruptly to his friend from San Francisco. "Kid, pull yourself together, now. Don't fool. We've got to brace this ass of a Benson all the way home. Get hold of his other arm." The Frisco kid immediately obeyed his comrade without a word or a glower. He seized Benson and came to attention like a soldier. Later, indeed, he meekly ventured—"Can't we take cab?" But when the New York kid snapped out that there were no convenient cabs he subsided to an impassive silence. He seemed to be reflecting upon his state, without astonishment, dismay, or any particular emotion. He submitted himself woodenly to the direction of his friend. Benson had protested when they had grasped his arms. "Washa doing?" he said in a new and guttural voice. "Washa doing? I ain' load'. Comonangetadrink. I——" "Oh, come along, you idiot," said the New York kid. The Frisco kid merely presented the mien of a stoic to the appeal of Benson, and in silence dragged away at one of his arms. Benson's feet came from that particular spot on the pavement with the reluctance of roots and also with the ultimate suddenness of roots. The three of them lurched out into the street in the abandon of tumbling chimneys. Benson was meanwhile noisily challenging the others to produce any reasons for his being taken home. His toes clashed into the kerb when they reached the other side of the calle, and for a moment the kids hauled him along with the points of his shoes scraping musically on the pavement. He balked formidably as they were about to pass the Casa Verde. "No! No! Leshavanothdrink! Anothdrink! Onemore!" But the Frisco kid obeyed the voice of his partner in a manner that was blind but absolute, and they scummed Benson on past the door. Locked together the three swung into a dark street. The sober kid's flank was continually careering ahead of the other wing. He harshly admonished the Frisco child, and the latter promptly improved in the same manner of unthinking complete obedience. Benson began to recite the tale of a love affair, a tale that didn't even have a middle. Occasionally the New York kid swore. They toppled on their way like three comedians playing at it on the stage. At midnight a little Mexican street burrowing among the walls of the city is as dark as a whale's throat at deep sea. Upon this occasion heavy clouds hung over the capital and the sky was a pall. The projecting balconies could make no shadows. "Shay," said Benson, breaking away from his escort suddenly, "what want gome for? I ain't load'. You got reg'lar spool-fact'ry in your head—you N' York kid there. Thish oth' kid, he's mos' proper shober, mos' proper shober. He's drunk, but—but he's shober." "Ah, shup up, Benson," said the New York kid. "Come along now. We can't stay here all night." Benson refused to be corralled, but spread his legs and twirled like a dervish, meanwhile under the evident impression that he was conducting himself most handsomely. It was not long before he gained the opinion that he was laughing at the others. "Eight purple dogsh—dogs! Eight purple dogs. Thas what kid'll see in the morn'. Look ou' for 'em. They—" As Benson, describing the canine phenomena, swung wildly across the sidewalk, it chanced that three other pedestrians were passing in shadowy rank. Benson's shoulder jostled one of them. A Mexican wheeled upon the instant. His hand flashed to his hip. There was a moment of silence, during which Benson's voice was not heard raised in apology. Then an indescribable comment, one burning word, came from between the Mexican's teeth. Benson, rolling about in a semi-detached manner, stared vacantly at the Mexican, who thrust his lean face forward while his fingers played nervously at his hip. The New York kid could not follow Spanish well, but he understood when the Mexican breathed softly: "Does the señor want to fight?" Benson simply gazed in gentle surprise. The woman next to him at dinner had said something inventive. His tailor had presented his bill. Something had occurred which was mildly out of the ordinary, and his surcharged brain refused to cope with it. He displayed only the agitation of a smoker temporarily without a light. The New York kid had almost instantly grasped Benson's arm, and was about to jerk him away, when the other kid, who up to this time had been an automaton, suddenly projected himself forward, thrust the rubber Benson aside, and said—"Yes." There was no sound nor light in the world. The wall at the left happened to be of the common prison-like construction—no door, no window, no opening at all. Humanity was enclosed and asleep. Into the mouth of the sober kid came a wretched bitter taste as if it had filled with blood. He was transfixed as if he was already seeing the lightning ripples on the knife-blade. But the Mexican's hand did not move at that time. His face went still further forward and he whispered—"So?" The sober kid saw this face as if he and it were alone in space—a yellow mask smiling in eager cruelty, in satisfaction, and above all it was lit with sinister decision. As for the features, they were reminiscent of an unplaced, a forgotten type, which really resembled with precision those of a man who had shaved him three times in Boston in 1888. But the expression burned his mind as sealing-wax burns the palm, and fascinated, stupefied, he actually watched the progress of the man's thought toward the point where a knife would be wrenched from its sheath. The emotion, a sort of mechanical fury, a breeze made by electric fans, a rage made by vanity, smote the dark countenance in wave after wave. Then the New York kid took a sudden step forward. His hand was at his hip. He was gripping there a revolver of robust size. He recalled that upon its black handle was stamped a hunting scene in which a sportsman in fine leggings and a peaked cap was taking aim at a stag less than one-eighth of an inch away. His pace forward caused instant movement of the Mexicans. One immediately took two steps to face him squarely. There was a general adjustment, pair and pair. This opponent of the New York kid was a tall man and quite stout. His sombrero was drawn low over his eyes. His serape was flung on his left shoulder. His back was bended in the supposed manner of a Spanish grandee. This concave gentleman cut a fine and terrible figure. The lad, moved by the spirits of his modest and perpendicular ancestors, had time to feel his blood roar at sight of the pose. He was aware that the third Mexican was over on the left fronting Benson, and he was aware that Benson was leaning against the wall sleepily and peacefully eying the convention. So it happened that these six men stood, side fronting side, five of them with their right hands at their hips and with their bodies lifted nervously, while the central pair exchanged a crescendo of provocations. The meaning of their words rose and rose. They were travelling in a straight line toward collision. The New York kid contemplated his Spanish grandee. He drew his revolver upward until the hammer was surely free of the holster. He waited immovable and watchful while the garrulous Frisco kid expended two and a half lexicons on the middle Mexican. The eastern lad suddenly decided that he was going to be killed. His mind leaped forward and studied the aftermath. The story would be a marvel of brevity when first it reached the far New York home, written in a careful hand on a bit of cheap paper, topped and footed and backed by the printed fortifications of the cable company. But they are often as stones flung into mirrors, these bits of paper upon which are laconically written all the most terrible chronicles of the times. He witnessed the uprising of his mother and sister, and the invincible calm of his hard-mouthed old father, who would probably shut himself in his library and smoke alone. Then his father would come, and they would bring him here and say—"This is the place." Then, very likely, each would remove his hat. They would stand quietly with their hats in their hands for a decent minute. He pitied his old financing father, unyielding and millioned, a man who commonly spoke twenty-two words a year to his beloved son. The kid under stood it at this time. If his fate was not impregnable, he might have turned out to be a man and have been liked by his father. The other kid would mourn his death. He would be preternaturally correct for some weeks, and recite the tale without swearing. But it would not bore him. For the sake of his dead comrade he would be glad to be preternaturally correct, and to recite the tale without swearing. These views were perfectly stereopticon, flashing in and away from his thought with an inconceivable rapidity until after all they were simply one quick dismal impression. And now here is the unreal real: into this kid's nostrils, at the expectant moment of slaughter, had come the scent of new-mown hay, a fragrance from a field of prostrate grass, a fragrance which contained the sunshine, the bees, the peace of meadows, and the wonder of a distant crooning stream. It had no right to be supreme, but it was supreme, and he breathed it as he waited for pain and a sight of the unknown. But in the same instant, it may be, his thought flew to the Frisco kid, and it came upon him like a flicker of lightning that the Frisco kid was not going to be there to perform, for instance, the extraordinary office of respectable mourner. The other kid's head was muddled, his hand was unsteady, his agility was gone. This other kid was facing the determined and most ferocious gentleman of the enemy. The New York kid became convinced that his friend was lost. There was going to be a screaming murder. He was so certain of it that he wanted to shield his eyes from sight of the leaping arm and the knife. It was sickening, utterly sickening. The New York kid might have been taking his first sea-voyage. A combination of honourable manhood and inability prevented him from running away. He suddenly knew that it was possible to draw his own revolver, and by a swift manoeuvre face down all three Mexicans. If he was quick enough he would probably be victor. If any hitch occurred in the draw he would undoubtedly be dead with his friends. It was a new game; he had never been obliged to face a situation of this kind in the Beacon Club in New York. In this test, the lungs of the kid still continued to perform their duty. "Oh, five white mice of chance, Shirts of wool and corduroy pants, Gold and wine, women and sin, All for you if you let me come in— Into the house of chance." He thought of the weight and size of his revolver, and dismay pierced him. He feared that in his hands it would be as unwieldy as a sewing-machine for this quick work. He imagined, too, that some singular providence might cause him to lose his grip as he raised his weapon. Or it might get fatally entangled in the tails of his coat. Some of the eels of despair lay wet and cold against his back. But at the supreme moment the revolver came forth as if it were greased and it arose like a feather. This somnolent machine, after months of repose, was finally looking at the breasts of men. Perhaps in this one series of movements, the kid had unconsciously used nervous force sufficient to raise a bale of hay. Before he comprehended it he was standing behind his revolver glaring over the barrel at the Mexicans, menacing first one and then another. His finger was tremoring on the trigger. The revolver gleamed in the darkness with a fine silver light. The fulsome grandee sprang backward with a low cry. The man who had been facing the Frisco kid took a quick step away. The beautiful array of Mexicans was suddenly disorganized. The cry and the backward steps revealed something of great importance to the New York kid. He had never dreamed that he did not have a complete monopoly of all possible trepidations. The cry of the grandee was that of a man who suddenly sees a poisonous snake. Thus the kid was able to understand swiftly that they were all human beings. They were unanimous in not wishing for too bloody combat. There was a sudden expression of the equality. He had vaguely believed that they were not going to evince much consideration for his dramatic development as an active factor. They even might be exasperated into an onslaught by it. Instead, they had respected his movement with a respect as great even as an ejaculation of fear and backward steps. Upon the instant he pounced forward and began to swear, unreeling great English oaths as thick as ropes, and lashing the faces of the Mexicans with them. He was bursting with rage, because these men had not previously confided to him that they were vulnerable. The whole thing had been an absurd imposition. He had been seduced into respectful alarm by the concave attitude of the grandee. And after all there had been an equality of emotion, an equality: he was furious. He wanted to take the serape of the grandee and swaddle him in it. The Mexicans slunk back, their eyes burning wistfully. The kid took aim first at one and then at another. After they had achieved a certain distance they paused and drew up in a rank. They then resumed some of their old splendour of manner. A voice hailed him in a tone of cynical bravado as if it had come from between lips of smiling mockery. "Well, señor, it is finished?" The kid scowled into the darkness, his revolver drooping at his side. After a moment he answered—"I am willing." He found it strange that he should be able to speak after this silence of years. "Good-night, señor." "Good-night." When he turned to look at the Frisco kid he found him in his original position, his hand upon his hip. He was blinking in perplexity at the point from whence the Mexicans had vanished. "Well," said the sober kid crossly, "are you ready to go home now?" The Frisco kid said—"Where they gone?" His voice was undisturbed but inquisitive. Benson suddenly propelled himself from his dreamful position against the wall. "Frishco kid's all right. He's drunk's fool and he's all right. But you New York kid, you're shober." He passed into a state of profound investigation. "Kid shober 'cause didn't go with us. Didn't go with us 'cause went to damn circus. Went to damn circus 'cause lose shakin' dice. Lose shakin' dice 'cause—what make lose shakin' dice, kid?" The New York kid eyed the senile youth. "I don't know. The five white mice, maybe." Benson puzzled so over this reply that he had to be held erect by his friends. Finally the Frisco kid said—"Let's go home." Nothing had happened.
petak, 20. veljače 2026.
I killed a man at Graspan, I killed him fair in fight; And the Empire's poets and the Empire's priests Swear blind I acted right. The Empire's poets and Empire's priests Make out my deed was fine, But they can't stop the eyes of the man I killed From starin' into mine.
I killed a man at Graspan,
Maybe I killed a score;
But this one wasn't a chance-shot home,
From a thousand yards or more.
I fired at him when he'd got no show;
We were only a pace apart,
With the cordite scorchin' his old worn coat
As the bullet drilled his heart.
Maybe I killed a score;
But this one wasn't a chance-shot home,
From a thousand yards or more.
I fired at him when he'd got no show;
We were only a pace apart,
With the cordite scorchin' his old worn coat
As the bullet drilled his heart.
I killed a man at Graspan,
I killed him fightin' fair;
We came on each other face to face,
An' we went at it then and there
I killed him fightin' fair;
We came on each other face to face,
An' we went at it then and there
Mine was the trigger that shifted first,
His was the life that sped.
An' a man I'd never a quarrel with
Was spread on the boulders dead.
His was the life that sped.
An' a man I'd never a quarrel with
Was spread on the boulders dead.
I killed a man at Graspan;
I watched him squirmin' till
He raised his eyes, an' they met with mine;
An' there they're starin' still.
Cut of my brother Tom, he looked,
Hardly more'n a kid;
An', Christ! he was stiffenin' at my feet
Because of the thing I did.
I watched him squirmin' till
He raised his eyes, an' they met with mine;
An' there they're starin' still.
Cut of my brother Tom, he looked,
Hardly more'n a kid;
An', Christ! he was stiffenin' at my feet
Because of the thing I did.
I killed a man at Graspan;
I told the camp that night;
An' of all the lies that ever I told
That was the poorest skite.
I swore I was proud of my hand-to-hand,
An' the Boer I'd chanced to pot,
An' all the time I'd ha' gave my eyes
To never ha' fired that shot.
I told the camp that night;
An' of all the lies that ever I told
That was the poorest skite.
I swore I was proud of my hand-to-hand,
An' the Boer I'd chanced to pot,
An' all the time I'd ha' gave my eyes
To never ha' fired that shot.
I killed a man at Graspan;
An hour ago about,
For there he lies with his starin' eyes,
An' his blood still tricklin' out.
I know it was either him or me,
I know that I killed him fair,
But, all the same, wherever I look,
The man that I killed is there.
An hour ago about,
For there he lies with his starin' eyes,
An' his blood still tricklin' out.
I know it was either him or me,
I know that I killed him fair,
But, all the same, wherever I look,
The man that I killed is there.
I killed a man at Graspan;
My first and, God! my last;
Harder to dodge than my bullet is
The look that his dead eyes cast.
If the Empire asks for me later on
It'll ask for me in vain,
Before I reach to my bandolier
To fire on a man again.
My first and, God! my last;
Harder to dodge than my bullet is
The look that his dead eyes cast.
If the Empire asks for me later on
It'll ask for me in vain,
Before I reach to my bandolier
To fire on a man again.
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